The Trampling of the Lilies

by Rafael Sabatini

  CHAPTER VII. LA BOULAYE DISCHARGES A DEBT

  Along the northern side of the Chateau ran a terrace bordered by ared sandstone balustrade, and below this the Italian garden, so calledperhaps in consequence of the oddly clipped box-trees, its only featurethat suggested Italy. At the far end of this garden there was a strip ofeven turf that might have been designed for a fencing ground, and whichCaron knew of old. Thither he led Captain Juste, and there in thepale sunshine of that February morning they awaited the arrival of theVicomte and his sponsor.

  But the minutes went by and still they waited-five, ten, fifteen minuteselapsed, yet no one came. Juste was on the point of returning within toseek the reason of this delay when steps sounded on the terrace above.But they were accompanied by the rustle of a gown, and presently itwas Mademoiselle who appeared before them. The two men eyed her withastonishment, which in the case of La Boulaye, was tempered by anotherfeeling.

  "Monsieur la Boulaye," said she, her glance wandering towards theCaptain, "may I speak with you alone?"

  Outwardly impassive the Commissioner bowed.

  "Your servant, Citoyenne," said he, removing his cocked hat. "Juste,will you give us leave?"

  "You will find me on the terrace when you want me, Citizen-deputy,"answered the officer, and saluting, he departed.

  For a moment or two after he was gone Suzanne and Caron stoodconfronting each other in silence. She seemed smitten with a suddenawkwardness, and she looked away from him what time he waited, hat inhand, the chill morning breeze faintly stirring a loose strand of hisblack hair.

  "Monsieur," she faltered at last, "I am come to intercede."

  At that a faint smile hovered a second on the Republican's thin lips.

  "And is the noblesse of France fallen so low that it sends its women tointercede for the lives of its men? But, perhaps," he added cynically,"it had not far to fall."

  Her cheeks reddened. His insult to her class acted upon her as a spurand overcame the irresoluteness that seemed to have beset her.

  "To insult the fallen, sir, is worthy of the new regime, whoserepresentative you are, Enfine! We must take it, I suppose, as we takeeverything else in these disordered times--with a bent head and a meeksubmission."

  "From the little that I have seen, Citoyenne," he answered, very coldly,roused in his turn, "it rather seems that you take things on your kneesand with appeals for mercy."

  "Monsieur," she cried, and her eyes now met his in fearless anger, "ifyou persist in these gratuitous insults I shall leave you."

  He laughed in rude amusement, and put on his hat. The spell that for amoment her beauty had cast over him when first she had appeared had beenattenuating. It now broke suddenly, and as he covered himself his wholemanner changed.

  "Is this interview of my seeking?" he asked. "It is your brother Iam awaiting. Name of a name, Citoyenne, do you think my patienceinexhaustible? The ci-devant Vicomte promised to attend me here. It wasthe boast of your order that whatever sins you might be guilty of younever broke your word. Have you lost even that virtue, which served youas a cloak for untold vices? And is your brother fled into the woodswhilst you, his sister, come here to intercede with me for his wretchedlife? Pah! In the old days you aroused my hatred by your tyranniesand your injustices; to-day you weary and disgust me by your ineffablecowardices, from that gentleman in Paris who now calls himselfOrleans-Egalite downwards."

  "Monsieur," she began But he was not yet done. His cheeks were flushedwith a reflection of the heart within.

  "Citoyenne, I have a debt to discharge, and I will discharge it in full.Intercessions are vain with me. I cannot forget. Send me your brotherwithin ten minutes to meet me here, man to man, and he shall have--allof you shall have--the chance that lies in such an encounter. But woeunto every man at Bellecour if he should fail me. Citoyenne, you know mymind."

  But she overlooked the note of dismissal in his voice.

  "You speak of a debt that you must discharge," said she, with no whitless heat than he had exhibited. "You refer to the debt of vengeancewhich you look to discharge by murdering that boy, my brother. But doyou not owe me a debt also?"

  "You?" he questioned. "My faith! Unless it be a debt of scorn, I know ofnone."

  "Aye," she returned wistfully, "you are like the rest. You have a longmemory for injuries, but a short one for benefits. Had it not been forme, Monsieur, you would not be here now to demand this that you callsatisfaction. Have you forgotten how I--"

  "No," he broke in. "I well remember how you sought to stay them whenthey were flogging me in the yard there. But you came too late. Youmight have come before, for from the balcony above you had been watchingmy torture. But you waited overlong. I was cast out for dead.".

  She flashed him a searching glance, as though she sought to read histhoughts, and to ascertain whether he indeed believed what he wassaying.

  "Cast out for dead?" she echoed. "And by whose contrivance? By mine,M. la Boulaye. When they were cutting you down they discovered that youwere not dead, and but that I bribed the men to keep it secret and carryyou to Duhamel's house, they had certainly informed my father and youwould have been finished off."

  His eyes opened wide now, and into them there came a troubled look--thelook of one who is endeavouring to grasp an elusive recollection.

  "Ma foi," he muttered. "It seems to come to me as if I had heardsomething of the sort in a dream. It was--" He paused, and his browswere knit a moment. Then he looked up suddenly, and gradually his facecleared. "Why, yes--I have it!" he exclaimed. "It was in Duhamel'shouse. While I was lying half unconscious on the couch I heard one ofthe men telling Duhamel that you had paid them to carry me there and tokeep a secret."

  "And you had forgotten that?" she asked, with the faintest note ofcontempt.

  "Not forgotten," he answered, "for it was never really there to beremembered. That I had heard such words had more than once occurred tome, but I have always looked upon it as the recollection of somethingthat I had dreamt. I had never looked upon it as a thing that had had areal happening."

  "How, then, did you explain your escape?"

  "I always imagined that I had been assumed dead."

  There was a brief spell of silence. Then--

  "And now that you know, Monsieur--?"

  She left the question unfinished, and held out her hands to him in agesture of supplication. His face paled slightly and overclouded. Herinfluence, against which so long he had steeled himself, reinforcedby the debt in which she had shown him that he stood towards her,was prevailing with him despite himself. Stirred suddenly out of thecoldness that he had hitherto assumed, he caught the outstretched handsand drew her a step nearer. That was his undoing. Strong man though heunquestionably was, like many another strong man his strength seemed tofall from him at a woman's touch. He had led so austere and stern a lifeduring the past four years; of women he had but had the most passing ofglances, and intercourse with none save an old female who acted as hishousekeeper in Paris. And here was a woman who was not only beautiful,but the woman who years ago had embodied all his notions of what wasmost perfect in womanhood; the woman who ever since, and despite allthat was past, had reigned in his heart and mind almost in spite ofhimself, almost unknown to him.

  The touch of her hand now, the closeness of her presence, the faintperfume that reached him from her, and that was to him as a symbol ofher inherent sweetness, the large blue eyes meeting his in expectation,and the imploring half-pout of her lips, were all seductions againstwhich he had not been human had he prevailed.

  Very white in the intensity of the long-quiescent passion she hadresuscitated, he cried:

  "Mademoiselle, what shall I say to you?"

  The four years that were gone seemed suddenly to have slipped away. Itwas as if they stood again by the brook in the park on that Aprilmorn when first he had dared to word his presumptuous love. Even thevocabulary of the Republic was forgotten, and the interdicted title of"Mademoiselle" fell naturally from his lips.

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sp; "Say that you can be generous," she implored him softly. "Say that youprefer the debt you owe to the injury you received."

  "You do not know the sacrifice you ask," he exclaimed still fightingwith himself. "I have waited four years for this, and now--"

  "He is my brother," she whispered, in so wonderful a tone that wordswhich of themselves may have seemed no argument at all became thecrowning argument of her intercession.

  "Soit!" he consented. "For your sake, Mademoiselle, and in paymentof the debt I owe you, I will go as I came. I shall not see theCitizen-marquis again. But do you tell him from me that if he sets anyvalue on his life, he had best shake the dust of France from his feet.Too long already has he tarried, and at any moment those may arrivewho will make him emigrate not only out of France but out of the worldaltogether. Besides, the peasantry that has risen once may rise again,and I shall not be here to protect him from its violence. Tell him hehad best depart at once."

  "Monsieur, I am grateful--very, very deeply grateful. I can say nomore. May Heaven reward you. I shall pray the good God to watch over youalways. Adieu, Monsieur!"

  He stood looking at her a moment still retaining his hold of her hands.

  "Adieu, Mademoiselle," he said at last. Then, very slowly--as if sothat realising his intent she might frustrate it were she so minded--heraised her right hand. It was not withdrawn, and so he bent low, andpressed his lips upon it.

  "God guard you, Mademoiselle," he said at last, and if they were strangewords for a Republican and a Deputy, it must be remembered that hisbearing during the past few moments had been singularly unlike aRepublican's.

  He released her hand, and stepping back, doffed his hat. With a finalinclination of the head, she turned and walked away in the direction ofthe terrace.

  At a distance La Boulaye followed, so lost in thought that he did notobserve Captain Juste until the fellow's voice broke upon his ear.

  "You have been long enough, Citizen-deputy," was the soldier's greeting."I take it there is to be no duel."

  "I make you my compliments upon the acuteness of your perception,"answered La Boulaye tartly. "You are right. There is to be noencounter."

  Juste's air was slightly mocking, and words of not overdelicate banterrose to his lips, to be instantly quelled by La Boulaye.

  "Let your drums beat a rally, Citizen-captain," he commanded briskly."We leave Bellecour in ten minutes.".

  And indeed, in less than that time the blue-coats were swinging brisklydown the avenue. In the rear rode La Boulaye, his cloak wrapped abouthim, his square chin buried in his neck-cloth, and his mind deep inmeditation.

  From a window of the Chateau the lady who was the cause of the youngRevolutionist's mental absorption watched the departing soldiers. Oneither side of her stood Ombreval and her father.

  "My faith, little one," said Bellecour good-humouredly. "I wonder whatmagic you have exercised to rid us of that infernal company."

  "Women have sometimes a power of which men know nothing," was hercryptic answer.

  Ombreval turned to her with a scowl of sudden suspicion.

  "I trust, Mademoiselle, that you did not--" he stopped short. Histhoughts were of a quality that defied polite utterance.

  "That I did not what, Monsieur?" she asked.

  "I trust you remembered that you are to become the Vicomtessed'Ombreval" he answered, constructing his sentence differently.

  "Monsieur!" exclaimed Bellecour angrily.

  "I was chiefly mindful of the fact that I had my brother's life tosave," said the girl, very coldly, her eye resting upon her betrothed ina glance of so much contempt that it forced him into an abashed silence.

  In her mind she was contrasting this supercilious, vacillating weaklingwith the stern, strong man who lode yonder. A sigh fluttered across herlips. Had things but been different. Had Ombreval been the Revolutionistand La Boulaye the Vicomte, how much better pleased might she not havebeen. But since it was not so, why sigh? It was not as if she had lovedthis La Boulaye. How was that possible? Was he not of the canaille,basely born, and a Revolutionist--the enemy of her order--in addition?It were a madness to even dream of the possibility of such a thing, forSuzanne de Bellecour came of too proud a stock, and knew too well therespect that was due to it.