CHAPTER XIX
IN THE BREACH
The Marquis de Gemosac was sitting at the open window of the littledrawing-room in the only habitable part of the chateau. From hisposition he looked across the courtyard toward the garden where stiffcypress-trees stood sentry among the mignonette and the roses, now in thefull glory of their autumn bloom.
Beyond the garden, the rough outline of the walls cut a straight lineacross the distant plains, which melted away into the haze of themarsh-lands by the banks of the Gironde far to the westward.
The Marquis had dined. They dined early in those days in France, andcoffee was still served after the evening meal.
The sun was declining toward the sea in a clear copper-coloured sky, buta fresh breeze was blowing in from the estuary to temper the heat of thelater rays.
The Marquis was beating time with one finger, and within the room, to animpromptu accompaniment invented by Juliette, Barebone was singing:
C'est le Hasard,Qui, tot ou tard,Ici-bas nous seconde;Car,D'un bout du mondeA l'autre bout,Le Hasard seul fait tout.
He broke off with a laugh in which Juliette's low voice joined.
"That is splendid, mademoiselle," he cried, and the Marquis clapped histhin hands together.
Un tel qu'on vantaitPar hasard etaitD'origine assez mince;Par hasard il plut,Par hasard il futBaron, ministre et prince:C'est le Hasard,Qui, tot ou tard,Ici bas nous seconde;Car,D'un bout du mondeA l'autre bout,Le Hasard seul fait tout.
"There--that is all I know. It is the only song I sing."
"But there are other verses," said Juliette, resting her hands on thekeys of the wheezy spinet which must have been a hundred years old. "Whatare they about?"
"I do not know, mademoiselle," he answered, looking down at her. "I thinkit is a love-song."
She had pinned some mignonette, strong scented as autumn mignonette is,in the front of her muslin dress, and the heavy heads had dragged thestems to one side. She put the flowers in order, slowly, and then benther head to enjoy the scent of them.
"It scarcely sounds like one," she said, in a low and inquiring voice.The Marquis was a little deaf. "Is it all chance then?"
"Oh yes," he answered, and as he spoke without lowering his voice sheplayed softly on the old piano the simple melody of his song. "It is allchance, mademoiselle. Did they not teach you that at the school atSaintes?"
But she was not in a humour to join in his ready laughter. The room wasrosy with the glow of the setting sun, she breathed the scent of themignonette at every breath, the air which she had picked out on thespinet in unison with his clear and sympathetic voice had those minortones and slow slurring from note to note which are characteristic of thegay and tearful songs of southern France and all Spain. None of whichthings are conducive to gaiety when one is young.
She glanced at him with one quick turn of the head and made no answer.But she played the air over again--the girls sing it to this day overtheir household work at Farlingford to other words--with her foot on thesoft pedal. The Marquis hummed it between his teeth at the other end ofthe room.
"This room is hot," she exclaimed, suddenly, and rose from her seatwithout troubling to finish the melody. "And that window will not open,mademoiselle; for I have tried it," added Barebone, watching herimpatient movements.
"Then I am going into the garden," she said, with a sharp sigh and awilful toss of the head. It was not his fault that the setting sun,against which, as many have discovered, men shut their doors, shouldhappen to be burning hot or that the window would not open. But Julietteseemed to blame him for it or for something else, perhaps. One neverknows. Barebone did not follow her at once, but stood by the windowtalking to the Marquis, who was in a reminiscent humour. The old maninterrupted his own narrative, however.
"There," he cried, "is Juliette on that wall overhanging the river. It iswhere the English effected a breach long ago, my friend--you need notsmile, for you are no Englishman--and the chateau has only been takentwice through all the centuries of fighting. There! She ventures stillfarther. I have told her a hundred times that the wall is unsafe."
"Shall I go and warn her the hundred-and-first time?" asked Loo, willingenough.
"Yes, my friend, do. And speak to her severely. She is only a child,remember."
"Yes--I will remember that."
Juliette did not seem to hear his approach across the turf where thegoats fed now, but stood with her back toward him, a few feet below him,actually in that breach effected long ago by those pestilential English.They must have prized out the great stones with crowbars and torn themdown with their bare hands.
Juliette was looking over the vineyards toward the river, which gleamedacross the horizon. She was humming to herself the last lines of thesong:
D'un bout du mondeA l'autre bout,Le Hasard seul fait tout.
She turned with a pretty swing of her skirts to gather them in her hand.
"You must go no farther, mademoiselle," said Loo.
She stopped, half bending to take her skirt, but did not look back. Thenshe took two steps downward from stone to stone. The blocks were halfembedded in the turf and looked ready to fall under the smallestadditional weight.
"It is not I who say so, but your father who sent me," explained theadmonisher from above.
"Since it is all chance--" she said, looking downward.
She turned suddenly and looked up at him with that impatience which givesway in later life to a philosophy infinitely to be dreaded when it comes;for its real name is Indifference.
Her movements were spasmodic and quick as if something angered her, sheknew not what; as if she wanted something, she knew not what.
"I suppose," she said, "that it was chance that saved our lives thatnight two months ago, out there."
And she stood with one hand stretched out behind her pointing toward theestuary, which was quiet enough now, looking up at him with that strangeanger or new disquietude--it was hard to tell which--glowing in her eyes.The wind fluttered her hair, which was tied low down with a ribbon in themode named "a la diable" by some French wit with a sore heart in an oldman's breast. For none other could have so aptly described it.
"All chance, mademoiselle," he answered, looking over her head toward theriver.
"And it would have been the same had it been only Marie or Marie and Jeanin the boat with you?"
"The boat would have been as solid and the ropes as strong."
"And you?" asked the girl, with a glance from her persistent eyes.
"Oh no!" he answered, with a laugh. "I should not have been the same. Butyou must not continue to stand there, mademoiselle; the wall is unsafe."
She shrugged her shoulders and stood with half-averted face, looking downat the vineyards which stretched away to the dunes by the river. Hercheeks were oddly flushed.
"Your father sent me to say so," continued Loo, "and if he sees that youtake no heed he will come himself to learn why."
Juliette gave a curt laugh and climbed the declivity toward him. Theargument was, it seemed, a sound one. When she reached his level he madea step or two along the path that ran round the enceinte--not toward thehouse, however--but away from it. She accepted the tacit suggestion, nottacitly, however.
"Shall we not go and tell papa we have returned without mishap?" sheamended, with a light laugh.
"No, mademoiselle," he answered. It was his turn to be grave now and sheglanced at him with a gleam of satisfaction beneath her lids. She was notcontent with that, however, but wished to make him angry. So she laughedagain and they would have quarrelled if he had not kept his lips firmlyclosed and looked straight in front of him.
They passed between the unfinished ruin known as the Italian house andthe rampart. The Italian house screened them from the windows of thatportion of the ancient stabling which the Marquis had made habitable whenhe bought back the chateau of Gemosac from the descendant of anadventurous republican to whom the estate had been awarded in the days ofthe Terror. A walk of lime-trees bord
ered that part of the garden whichlies to the west of the Italian house, and no other part was visible fromwhere Juliette paused to watch the sun sink below the distant horizon.Loo was walking a few paces behind her, and when she stopped he stoppedalso. She sat down on the low wall, but he remained standing.
Her profile, clear-cut and delicate with its short chin and beautifullycurved lips, its slightly aquiline nose and crisp hair rising in a boldcurve from her forehead, was outlined against the sky. He could see thegleam of the western light in her eyes, which were half averted. Whileshe watched the sunset, he watched her with a puzzled expression abouthis lips.
He remembered perhaps the Marquis's last words, that Juliette was only achild. He knew that she could in all human calculation know nothing ofthe world; that at least she could have learned nothing of it in theconvent where she had been educated. So, if she knew anything, she musthave known it before she went there, which was impossible. She knewnothing, therefore, and yet she was not a child. As a matter of fact,she was the most beautiful woman Loo Barebone had ever seen. He wasthinking that as she sat on the low wall, swinging one slipper halffalling from her foot, watching the sunset, while he watched her andnoted the anger slowly dying from her eyes as the light faded from thesky. That strange anger went down, it would appear, with the sun. Afterthe long silence--when the low bars of red cloud lying across the westernsky were fading from pink to grey--she spoke at last in a voice which hehad never heard before, gentle and confidential.
"When are you going away?" she asked.
"To-night."
And he knew that the very hour of his departure was known to her already.
"And when will you come back?"
"As soon as I can," he answered, half-involuntarily. There was a turn ofthe head half toward him, something expectant in the tilt at the cornerof her parted lips, which made it practically impossible to make anyother answer.
"Why?" she asked, in little more than a whisper--then she broke into agay laugh and leapt off the wall. She walked quickly past him.
"Why?" she repeated over her shoulder as she passed him. And he was tooquick for her, for he caught her hand and touched it with his lips beforeshe jerked it away from him.
"Because you are here," he answered, with a laugh. But she was graveagain and looked at him with a queer searching glance before she turnedaway and left him standing in the half-light--thinking of Miriam Liston.
The Last Hope Page 19
