The Vicomte paused and took a turn in the apartment, whilst I pondered his words, which were bringing me a curious revelation. Presently he resumed.
“And now, Chatellerault having failed in his purpose, the King chooses a more dangerous person for the gratifying of his desires. He sends the Marquis, Marcel de Bardelys to Lavedan on the same business. No doubt he attributes Chatellerault’s failure to clumsiness, and he has decided this time to choose a man famed for courtly address and gifted with such arts of dalliance that he cannot fail but enmesh my daughter in them. It is a great compliment that he pays us in sending hither the handsomest and most accomplished gentleman of all his Court — so fame has it — yet it is a compliment of whose flattery I am not sensible. Bardelys goes hence as empty-handed as went Chatellerault. Let him but show his face, and my daughter journeys to Auch again. Am I not well advised, Monsieur de Lesperon?”
“Why, yes,” I answered slowly, after the manner of one who deliberates, “if you are persuaded that your conclusions touching Bardelys are correct.”
“I am more than persuaded. What other business could bring him to Lavedan?”
It was a question that I did not attempt to answer. Haply he did not expect me to answer it. He left me free to ponder another issue of this same business of which my mind was become very full. Chatellerault had not dealt fairly with me. Often, since I had left Paris, had I marvelled that he came to be so rash as to risk his fortune upon a matter that turned upon a woman’s whim. That I possessed undeniable advantages of person, of birth, and of wealth, Chatellerault could not have disregarded. Yet these, and the possibility that they might suffice to engage this lady’s affections, he appeared to have set at naught when he plunged into that rash wager.
He must have realized that because he had failed was no reason to presume that I must also fail. There was no consequence in such an argument, and often, as I have said, had I marvelled during the past days at the readiness with which Chatellerault had flung down the gage. Now I held the explanation of it. He counted upon the Vicomte de Lavedan to reason precisely as he was reasoning, and he was confident that no opportunities would be afforded me of so much as seeing this beautiful and cold Roxalanne.
It was a wily trap he had set me, worthy only of a trickster.
Fate, however, had taken a hand in the game, and the cards were redealt since I had left Paris. The terms of the wager permitted me to choose any line of action that I considered desirable; but Destiny, it seemed, had chosen for me, and set me in a line that should at least suffice to overcome the parental resistance — that breastwork upon which Chatellerault had so confidently depended.
As the rebel Rene de Lesperon I was sheltered at Lavedan and made welcome by my fellow-rebel the Vicomte, who already seemed much taken with me, and who had esteemed me before seeing me from the much that Monsieur de Marsac — whoever he might be — had told him of me. As Rene de Lesperon I must remain, and turn to best account my sojourn, praying God meanwhile that this same Monsieur de Marsac might be pleased to refrain from visiting Lavedan whilst I was there.
CHAPTER VI. IN CONVALESCENCE
Of the week that followed my coming to Lavedan I find some difficulty in writing. It was for me a time very crowded with events — events that appeared to be moulding my character anew and making of me a person different, indeed, from that Marcel de Bardelys whom in Paris they called the Magnificent. Yet these events, although significant in their total, were of so vague and slight a nature in their detail, that when I come to write of them I find really little that I may set down.
Rodenard and his companions remained for two days at the chateau, and to me his sojourn there was a source of perpetual anxiety, for I knew not how far the fool might see fit to prolong it. It was well for me that this anxiety of mine was shared by Monsieur de Lavedan, who disliked at such a time the presence of men attached to one who was so notoriously of the King’s party. He came at last to consult me as to what measures might be taken to remove them, and I — nothing loath to conspire with him to so desirable end — bade him suggest to Rodenard that perhaps evil had befallen Monsieur de Bardelys, and that, instead of wasting his time at Lavedan, he were better advised to be searching the province for his master.
This counsel the Vicomte adopted, and with such excellent results that that very day — within the hour, in fact — Ganymede, aroused to a sense of his proper duty, set out in quest of me, not a little disturbed in mind — for with all his shortcomings the rascal loved me very faithfully.
That was on the third day of my sojourn at Lavedan. On the morrow I rose, my foot being sufficiently recovered to permit it. I felt a little weak from loss of blood, but Anatole — who, for all his evil countenance, was a kindly and gentle — servant was confident that a few days — a week at most — would see me completely restored.
Of leaving Lavedan I said nothing. But the Vicomte, who was one of the most generous and noble hearted men that it has ever been my good fortune to meet, forestalled any mention of my departure by urging that I should remain at the chateau until my recovery were completed, and, for that matter, as long thereafter as should suit my inclinations.
“At Lavedan you will be safe, my friend,” he assured me; “for, as I have told you, we are under no suspicion. Let me urge you to remain until the King shall have desisted from further persecuting us.”
And when I protested and spoke of trespassing, he waived the point with a brusqueness that amounted almost to anger.
“Believe, monsieur, that I am pleased and honoured at serving one who has so stoutly served the Cause and sacrificed so much to it.”
At that, being not altogether dead to shame, I winced, and told myself that my behaviour was unworthy, and that I was practising a detestable deception. Yet some indulgence I may justly claim in consideration of how far I was victim of circumstance. Did I tell him that I was Bardelys, I was convinced that I should never leave the chateau alive. Very noble-hearted was the Vicomte, and no man have I known more averse to bloodthirstiness, but he had told me much during the days that I had lain abed, and many lives would be jeopardized did I proclaim what I had learned from him. Hence I argued that any disclosure of my identity must perforce drive him to extreme measures for the sake of the friends he had unwittingly betrayed.
On the day after Rodenard’s departure I dined with the family, and met again Mademoiselle de Lavedan, whom I had not seen since the balcony adventure of some nights ago. The Vicomtesse was also present, a lady of very austere and noble appearance — lean as a pike and with a most formidable nose — but, as I was soon to discover, with a mind inclining overmuch to scandal and the high-seasoned talk of the Courts in which her girlhood had been spent.
From her lips I heard that day the old, scandalous story of Monseigneur de Richelieu’s early passion for Anne of Austria. With much unction did she tell us how the Queen had lured His Eminence to dress himself in the motley of a jester that she might make a mock of him in the eyes of the courtiers she had concealed behind the arras of her chamber.
This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of discreditable detail and scant regard for either her daughter’s presence or for the blushes that suffused the poor child’s cheeks. In every way she was a pattern of the class of women amongst whom my youth had been spent, a class which had done so much towards shattering my faith and lowering my estimate of her sex. Lavedan had married her and brought her into Languedoc, and here she spent her years lamenting the scenes of her youth, and prone, it would seem, to make them matter for conversation whenever a newcomer chanced to present himself at the chateau.
Looking from her to her daughter, I thanked Heaven that Roxalanne was no reproduction of the mother. She had inherited as little of her character as of her appearance. Both in feature and in soul Mademoiselle de Lavedan was a copy of that noble, gallant gentleman, her father.
One other was present at that meal, of whom I shall have more to say hereafter. This was a young man of good presence, save, p
erhaps, a too obtrusive foppishness, whom Monsieur de Lavedan presented to me as a distant kinsman of theirs, one Chevalier de Saint-Eustache. He was very tall — of fully my own height — and of an excellent shape, although extremely young. But his head if anything was too small for his body, and his good-natured mouth was of a weakness that was confirmed by the significance of his chin, whilst his eyes were too closely set to augur frankness.
He was a pleasant fellow, seemingly of that negative pleasantness that lies in inoffensiveness, but otherwise dull and of an untutored mind — rustic, as might be expected in one the greater part of whose life had been spent in his native province, and of a rusticity rendered all the more flagrant by the very efforts he exerted to dissemble it.
It was after madame had related that unsavoury anecdote touching the Cardinal that he turned to ask me whether I was well acquainted with the Court. I was near to committing the egregious blunder of laughing in his face, but, recollecting myself betimes, I answered vaguely that I had some knowledge of it, whereupon he all but caused me to bound from my chair by asking me had I ever met the Magnificent Bardelys.
“I — I am acquainted with him,” I answered warily. “Why do you ask?”
“I was reminded of him by the fact that his servants have been here for two days. You were expecting the Marquis himself, were you not, Monsieur le Vicomte?”
Lavedan raised his head suddenly, after the manner of a man who has received an affront.
“I was not, Chevalier,” he answered, with emphasis. “His intendant, an insolent knave of the name of Rodenard, informed me that this Bardelys projected visiting me. He has not come, and I devoutly hope that he may not come. Trouble enough had I to rid myself of his servants, and but for Monsieur de Lesperon’s well-conceived suggestion they might still be here.”
“You have never met him, monsieur?” inquired the Chevalier.
“Never,” replied our host in such a way that any but a fool must have understood that he desired nothing less than such a meeting.
“A delightful fellow,” murmured Saint-Eustache— “a brilliant, dazzling personality.”
“You — you are acquainted with him?” I asked.
“Acquainted?” echoed that boastful liar. “We were as brothers.”
“How you interest me! And why have you never told us?” quoth madame, her eyes turned enviously upon the young man — as enviously as were Lavedan’s turned in disgust. “It is a thousand pities that Monsieur de Bardelys has altered his plans and is no longer coming to us. To meet such a man is to breathe again the air of the grand monde. You remember, Monsieur de Lesperon, that affair with the Duchess de Bourgogne?” And she smiled wickedly in my direction.
“I have some recollection of it,” I answered coldly. “But I think that rumour exaggerates. When tongues wag, a little rivulet is often described as a mountain torrent.”
“You would not say so did you but know what I know,” she informed me roguishly. “Often, I confess, rumour may swell the importance of such an affaire, but in this case I do not think that rumour does it justice.”
I made a deprecatory gesture, and I would have had the subject changed, but ere I could make an effort to that end, the fool Saint-Eustache was babbling again.
“You remember the duel that was fought in consequence, Monsieur de Lesperon?”
“Yes,” I assented wearily.
“And in which a poor young fellow lost his life,” growled the Vicomte. “It was practically a murder.”
“Nay, monsieur,” I cried, with a sudden heat that set them staring at me; “there you do him wrong. Monsieur de Bardelys was opposed to the best blade in France. The man’s reputation as a swordsman was of such a quality that for a twelvemonth he had been living upon it, doing all manner of unseemly things immune from punishment by the fear in which he was universally held. His behaviour in the unfortunate affair we are discussing was of a particularly shameful character. Oh, I know the details, messieurs, I can sure you. He thought to impose his reputation upon Bardelys as he had imposed it upon a hundred others, but Bardelys was over-tough for his teeth. He sent that notorious young gentleman a challenge, and on the following morning he left him dead in the horsemarket behind the Hotel Vendome. But far from a murder, monsieur, it was an act of justice, and the most richly earned punishment with which ever man was visited.”
“Even if so,” cried the Vicomte in some surprise, “why all this heat to defend a brawler?”
“A brawler?” I repeated after him. “Oh, no. That is a charge his worst enemies cannot make against Bardelys. He is no brawler. The duel in question was his first affair of the kind, and it has been his last, for unto him has clung the reputation that had belonged until then to La Vertoile, and there is none in France bold enough to send a challenge to him.” And, seeing what surprise I was provoking, I thought it well to involve another with me in his defence. So, turning to the Chevalier, “I am sure,” said I, “that Monsieur de Saint-Eustache will confirm my words.”
Thereupon, his vanity being all aroused, the Chevalier set himself to paraphrase all that I had said with a heat that cast mine into a miserable insignificance.
“At least,” laughed the Vicomte at length, “he lacks not for champions. For my own part, I am content to pray Heaven that he come not to Lavedan, as he intended.”
“Mais voyons, Gaston,” the Vicomtesse protested, “why harbour prejudice? Wait at least until you have seen him, that you may judge him for yourself.”
“Already have I judged him; I pray that I may never see him.”
“They tell me he is a very handsome man,” said she, appealing to me for confirmation. Lavedan shot her a sudden glance of alarm, at which I could have laughed. Hitherto his sole concern had been his daughter, but it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps not even her years might set the Vicomtesse in safety from imprudences with this devourer of hearts, should he still chance to come that way.
“Madame,” I answered, “he is accounted not ill-favored.” And with a deprecatory smile I added, “I am said somewhat to resemble him.”
“Say you so?” she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows, and looking at me more closely than hitherto. And then it seemed to me that into her face crept a shade of disappointment. If this Bardelys were not more beautiful than I, then he was not nearly so beautiful a man as she had imagined. She turned to Saint-Eustache.
“It is indeed so, Chevalier?” she inquired. “Do you note the resemblance?”
“Vanitas, vanitate,” murmured the youth, who had some scraps of Latin and a taste for airing them. “I can see no likeness — no trace of one. Monsieur de Lesperon is well enough, I should say. But Bardelys!” He cast his eyes to the ceiling. “There is but one Bardelys in France.”
“Enfin,” I laughed, “you are no doubt well qualified to judge, Chevalier. I had flattered myself that some likeness did exist, but probably you have seen the Marquis more frequently than have I, and probably you know him better. Nevertheless, should he come his way, I will ask you to look at us side by side and be the judge of the resemblance.”
“Should I happen to be here,” he said, with a sudden constraint not difficult to understand, “I shall be happy to act as arbiter.”
“Should you happen to be here?” I echoed questioningly. “But surely, should you hear that Monsieur de Bardelys is about to arrive, you will postpone any departure you may be on the point of making, so that you may renew this great friendship that you tell us you do the Marquis the honour of entertaining for him?”
The Chevalier eyed me with the air of a man looking down from a great height upon another. The Vicomte smiled quietly to himself as he combed his fair beard with his forefinger in a meditative fashion, whilst even Roxalanne — who had sat silently listening to a conversation that she was at times mercifully spared from following too minutely — flashed me a humorous glance. To the Vicomtesse alone who in common with women of her type was of a singular obtuseness — was the situation without significance.
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br /> Saint-Eustache, to defend himself against my delicate imputation, and to show how well acquainted he was with Bardelys, plunged at once into a thousand details of that gentleman’s magnificence. He described his suppers, his retinue, his equipages, his houses, his chateaux, his favour with the King, his successes with the fair sex, and I know not what besides — in all of which I confess that even to me there was a certain degree of novelty. Roxalanne listened with an air of amusement that showed how well she read him. Later, when I found myself alone with her by the river, whither we had gone after the repast and the Chevalier’s reminiscences were at an end, she reverted to that conversation.
“Is not my cousin a great fanfarron, monsieur,” she asked.
“Surely you know your cousin better than I,” I answered cautiously. “Why question me upon his character?”
“I was hardly questioning; I was commenting. He spent a fortnight in Paris once, and he accounts himself, or would have us account him, intimate with every courtier at the Luxembourg. Oh, he is very amusing, this good cousin, but tiresome too.” She laughed, and there was the faintest note of scorn in her amusement. “Now, touching this Marquis de Bardelys, it is very plain that the Chevalier boasted when he said that they were as brothers — he and the Marquis — is it not? He grew ill at ease when you reminded him of the possibility of the Marquis’s visit to Lavedan.” And she laughed quaintly to herself. “Do you think that he so much as knows Bardelys?” she asked me suddenly.
“Not so much as by sight,” I answered. “He is full of information concerning that unworthy gentleman, but it is only information that the meanest scullion in Paris might afford you, and just as inaccurate.”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 45
