According to his nature, the Mayor swore or cringed.
“It is impossible.”
Dangeau drew out a list. The principal towns of the South figured on it legibly. Setting a thick mark against one name, he fixed his eyes upon the man before him.
“Have you considered, Citizen,” he said sternly, “that what is grudged to France will be taken by Spain? Also, it were wiser to yield to my demands than to those of such an embassy as the Republic sent to Lyons. My report goes in to-night.”
“Your report?”
“Non-compliance with requisitions is to be reported to the Convention without delay. I have my orders, and you, Citizen Mayor, have yours.”
“But, Citizen, where am I to get the things?”
Dangeau shrugged his shoulders.
“Is it my business? But I see you wear an excellent pair of shoes, I see well-shod citizens in your streets—you neither starve nor lie on the ground. Our soldiers do both. If any must go without, let it be the idle. Twenty-four hours, Citizen Mayor.”
And in twenty-four hours boots, beds, and provisions were forthcoming. Lyons had not been rased for nothing, and with the smell of her burning yet upon the air, the shriek of her victims still in the wintry wind, no town had the courage to refuse what was asked for. Protestingly they gave; the army was provided, and Dangeau, shutting his ears to Paris and her madness, pressed forward with it into Spain.
CHAPTER XXIII
RETURN OF TWO FUGITIVES
“ALINE, DEAR CHILD!”
“Yes, dear aunt.”
“I do not think I will leave Marthe to-day, the pain is so bad; but I do not like to disappoint old Mère Leroux. No one’s hens are laying but mine, and I promised her an egg for her fête day. She is old, and old people are like children, and very little pleases or makes them unhappy.”
Aline folded her work.
“Do you mean you would like me to go? But of course, dear aunt.”
“If you will, my child. Take your warm cloak, and be back before sundown; and—Aline——”
“Yes,” said Aline at the door.
“If you see Mathieu Leroux, stop and bid him ‘Good-day.’ Just say a word or two.”
“I do not like Mathieu Leroux,” observed Aline, with the old lift of the head.
Mlle Ange flushed a little.
“He has a good heart, I’m sure he has a good heart, but he is suspicious by nature. Lately Madelon has let fall a hint or two. It does not do, my child, to let people think one is proud, or—or—in any way different.”
Aline’s eyes were a little startled.
“What, what do you mean?” she asked.
“Child, need you ask me that?”
“Oh!” she said quickly. “What did Madelon say?”
“Very little. You know she is afraid of her father, and so is Jean Jacques. It was to Marthe she spoke, and Marthe says Mathieu Leroux is a dangerous man; but then you know Marthe’s way. Only, if I were you, I should bid him ‘Good-day,’ and say a friendly word or two as you pass.”
As Aline walked down to the village at a pace suited to the sharpness of the February day, Mlle Ange’s words kept ringing in her head. Had Mlle Marthe warned her far more emphatically, it would have made a slighter impression; but when Ange, who saw good in all, was aware of impending trouble, it seemed to Aline that the prospect was threatening indeed. All at once the pleasant monotony of her life at Rancy appeared to be at an end, and she looked into a cloudy and uncertain future, full of the perils from which she had had so short a respite.
When she came to the inn door and found it filled by the stout form of Mathieu Leroux she did her best to smile in neighbourly fashion; but her eyes sank before his, and her voice sounded forced as she murmured, “Bonjour, Citizen.”
Leroux’ black eyes looked over his heavy red cheeks at her. They were full of a desire to discover something discreditable about this stranger who had dropped into their little village, and who, though a patriot’s wife, displayed none of the signs by which he, Leroux, estimated patriotism.
“Bonjour,” he returned, without removing his pipe.
Aline struggled with her annoyance.
“How is your mother to-day?” she inquired. “My aunt has sent her a new-laid egg. May I go in?”
“Eh, she’s well enough,” he grumbled. “There is too much fuss made over her. She’ll live this twenty years, and never do another stroke of work. That’s my luck. A strong, economical, handy wife must needs die, whilst an old woman, who, you’d think, would be glad enough to rest in her grave, hangs on and on. Oh, yes, go in, go in; she’ll be glad enough to have some one to complain to.”
Aline slipped past him, frightened. He had evidently been drinking, and she knew from Madelon that he was liable to sudden outbursts of passion when this was the case.
In a small back room she found old Mère Leroux crouched by the fire, groaning a little as she rocked herself to and fro. When she saw that Aline was alone, she gave a little cry of disappointment.
“And Mlle Ange?” she cried in her cracked old voice.
“My aunt Marthe is bad to-day; she could not leave her,” explained Aline.
“Oh, poor Ma’mselle Marthe—and I remember her straight and strong and handsome; not a beauty like Ma’mselle Ange, but well enough, well enough. Then she falls down a bank with a great stone on top of her, and there she is, no better than an old woman like me, who has had her life, and whom no one cares for any more.”
“Oh, Mère Leroux, you should n’t say that!”
“It’s true, my dear, true enough. Mathieu is a bad son, a bad son. Some day he’ll turn me out, and I shall go to Madelon. She’s a good girl, Madelon; but when a girl has got a husband, what does she care for an old grandmother? Now Charles was a good son. Yes, if Charles had lived—but then it is always the best who go.”
“You had another son, then?” said Aline, bringing a wooden stool to the old woman’s side.
“Yes, my son Charles. Ah, a fine lad that, and handsome. He was M. Réné’s body servant, and you should have seen him in his livery—a fine, straight man, handsomer than M. Réné. Ah, well, he fretted after his master, and then he took a fever and died of it, and Mathieu has never been a good son to me.”
“M. Réné died?” asked Aline quickly, for the old woman had begun to cry.
Mère Leroux dried her eyes.
“Ah, yes; there’s no one who knows more about that than I. He was in Paris, and as he came out of M. le duc de Noailles’s Hôtel, he met M. de Brézé, and M. de Brézé said to him, ‘Well, Réné, we have been hearing of you,’ and M. Réné said, ‘How so?’ ‘Why,’ says M. de Brézé (my son Charles was with M. Réné, and he heard it all), ‘Why,’ says M. de Brézé, ‘I hear you have found a guardian angel of quite surpassing beauty. May I not be presented to her?’ Then, Charles said, M. Réné looked straight at him and answered, ‘When I bring Mme Réné de Montenay to Paris, I will present you.’ M. de Brézé shrugged his shoulders, and slapped M. Réné on the arm. ‘Oho,’ said he, ‘you are very sly, my friend. I was not talking of your marriage, but of your mistress.’
“Then M. Réné put his hand on his sword, and said, still very quietly, ‘You have been misinformed; it is a question of my marriage.’ Charles said that M. de Brézé was flushed with wine, or he would not have laughed as he did then. Well, well, well, it’s a great many years ago, but it was a pity, a sad pity. M. de Brézé was the better swordsman, and he ran M. Réné through the body.”
“And he died?” said Aline.
“Not then; no, not then. It would have been better like that—yes, much better.”
“Oh, what happened?”
“Charles heard it all. The surgeon attended to the wound, and said that with care it would do well, only there must be perfect quiet, perfect rest. With his own ears he heard that said, and the old Marquise went straight from the surgeon to M. Réné’s bedside, and sat down, and took his hand. Charles was in the next room, but the do
or was ajar, and he could hear and see.
“‘Réné, my son,’ she said, ‘I hear your duel was about Ange Desaix.’ M. Réné said, ‘Yes, ma mere.’ Then she said very scornfully, ‘I have undoubtedly been misinformed, for I was told that you fought because—but no, it is too absurd.’
“M. Réné moved his hand. He was all strapped up, but his hand could move, and he jerked it, thus, to stop his mother; and she stopped and looked at him. Then he said, ‘I fought M. de Brézé because he spoke disrespectfully of my future wife.’ Yes, just like that he said it; and what it must have been to Madame to hear it, Lucifer alone knows, for her pride was like his. There was a long silence, and they looked hard at each other, and then Madame said, ‘No!’—only that, but Charles said her face was dreadful, and M. Réné said ‘Yes!’ almost in a whisper, for he was weak, and then again there was silence. After a long time Madame got up and went out of the room, and M. Réné gave a long sigh, and called Charles, and asked for something to drink. Next day Madame came back. She did not sit down this time, but stood and stared at M. Réné. Big black eyes she had then, and her face all white, as white as his. ‘Réné,’ she said, ‘are you still mad?’ and M. Réné smiled and said, ‘I am not mad at all.’ She put her hand on his forehead. ‘You would really do this thing?’ she said. ‘Lower our name, take as wife what you might have for the asking as mistress?’ M. Réné turned in bed at that, and between pain and anger his voice sounded strong and loud. ‘Whilst I am alive, there’s no man living shall say that,’ he cried. ‘On my soul I swear I shall marry her, and on my soul I swear she is fit to be a king’s wife.’
“Madame took her hand away, and looked at it for a moment. Afterwards, when Charles told me, I thought, did she wonder if she should see blood on it? And then without another word she went out of the room, and gave orders that her carriages were to be got ready, for she was taking M. Réné to Rancy.”
“Oh, no!” said Aline.
“Yes, my dear, yes; and she did it too, and he died of the journey—died calling for Mlle Ange.”
“Oh, did she come?”
“Charles fetched her, and for that Madame never forgave him.”
“Oh, how dreadful!”
“Yes, yes, it is sad; but it would have been a terrible mésalliance. A Montenay and his steward’s daughter! No, no, it would not have done; one does not do such things.”
Aline got up abruptly.
“Oh, I must go,” she said. “I promised I would not be long. See, here is the egg.”
“You are in such a hurry,” mumbled the old woman, confused. She was still in the past, and the sudden change of subject bewildered her.
“I will come again,” said Aline gently.
When she was clear of the inn she walked very fast for a few moments, and then stopped. She did not want to go home at once—the story she had just heard had taken possession of her, and she wanted to be alone to adjust her thoughts, to grow accustomed to kind placid Mlle Ange as the central figure of such a tragedy. After a moment’s pause she took the path that led to the château, but stopped short at the high iron gates. Beyond them the avenue looked black and eerie. Her desire to go farther left her, and she leaned against the gates, taking breath after the climb.
The early dusk was settling fast upon the bare woods, and the hollow where the village lay below was already dark and flecked with a light or two. Above, a little yellowish glow lurked behind the low, sullen clouds.
It was very still, and Aline could hear the drip, drip of the moisture which last night had coated all the trees with white, and which to-night would surely freeze again. It was turning very cold; she would not wait. It was foolish to have come, more than foolish to let an old woman’s words sting her so sharply—“One does not do such things.” Was it her fancy that the dim eyes had been turned curiously upon her for a moment just then? Yes, of course, it was only fancy, for what could Mère Leroux know or suspect? She drew her cloak closer, and was about to turn away when a sound startled her. Close by the gate a stick cracked as if it had been trodden on, and there was a faint brushing sound as of a dress trailing against the bark of a tree. Aline peered into the shadows with a beating heart, and thought she saw some one move. Frightened and unnerved, she caught at the scroll-work of the gate and stared open-eyed, unable to stir; and again something rustled and moved within. This time it was plainly a woman’s shape that flitted from one tree to the next—a woman who hid a moment, then leaned and looked, and at last came lightly down the avenue to the gate. Here the last of the light fell on Marguerite de Matigny’s face, showing it very white and hollow-eyed. Aline’s heart stood still. Could this be flesh and blood? Marguerite here? Not in the flesh, then.
“Marguerite,” she breathed.
Marguerite’s hand came through the wrought-work and caught at her. It was cold, but human, and Aline recovered herself with a gasp.
“Marguerite, you?”
“And Aline, you? I looked, and looked, and thought ’t was you, and at last I thought, well, I’ll risk it. Oh, my dear!”
“But I don’t understand. Oh, Marguerite, I thought you were a ghost.”
“And wondered why I should come here? Well, I’ve some right to, for my mother was a Montenay. Did you not know it?”
“No. But what brings you here, since you are not a ghost, but your very own self?”
“Tiens, Aline, I have wished myself any one or anything but myself this last fortnight! You must know that when I was set free—and oh, ma chérie, I heard it was your husband who saved me, and of course that means you——”
“Not me,” said Aline quickly. “He did it. Who told you?”
“The Abbé Loisel. He knows everything—too much, I think! I don’t like him, which is ungrateful, since he got me out of Paris.”
“Did he? Where did you go then?”
“Why, to Switzerland, to Bâle, where I joined my father; and then, then—oh, Aline, do you know I am betrothed?”
“My dear, and you are happy?”
Marguerite screwed up her face in an unavailing attempt to keep grave, but after a moment burst out laughing.
“Why, Aline, he is so droll, and a countryman of your own. Indeed, I believe he is a cousin, for his name is Desmond.”
“And you like him?”
“Oh, I adore him,” said Mlle Marguerite calmly. “Aline, if you could see him! His hair—well, it’s rather red; and he has freckles just like the dear little frogs we used to find by the ponds, Jean and I, when we were children; and his eyes are green and droll—oh, but to make you die of laughing——”
“He is not handsome, then?” said Aline, laughing too.
“Oh no, ugly—but most adorably ugly, and tall, and broad; and oh, Aline, he is nice, and he says that in Ireland I may love him as much as I please, and no one will think it a breach of decorum.”
“Marguerite, you are just the same, you funny child!”
“Well, why not—it’s not so long since we saw each other, is it? Only a few months.”
“I feel as if it were centuries,” said Aline, pressing her hands together.
“Ah, that’s because you are married. Ciel! that was a sensation, your marriage. They talked—yes, they talked to split your ears. The things they said——”
“And you?”
“You are my friend,” said Mlle de Matigny with decision. “But I must go on with my story. Well, I was at Bâle and betrothed, and then my father and Monsieur my fiancé set off to join the Princes, leaving me with Mme de Montenay, my great-aunt, who is ever so old, and quite, quite mad!”
“Oh, Marguerite!”
“Yes, but she is. Imagine being safe in Bâle, and then coming back here, all across France, just because she could not die anywhere but at the Château de Montenay in Rancy-les-Bois.”
“She has come back?”
“Should I be here otherwise?” demanded Marguerite pathetically. “And the journey!—What I endured!—for I saw guillotines round every corner, and s
uspicious patriots on every doorstep. It is a miracle that we are here; and now that we have come, it is all very well for Madame my aunt, who has come here to die, and requires no food to accomplish that end; but for me, I do not fancy starving, and we have nothing to eat in the house.”
“Oh, my poor dear! What made you come?”
“Could I let her come alone? She is too old and too weak; but I ought to have locked the door and kept the key—only, old as she is, she can still make every one do as she wants.”
“You are not alone?”
“Jean and Louise, her old servants, started with us; but Jean got himself arrested. Poor Jean, he could not pretend well enough.”
“And Louise?”
“Oh, Louise is there, but she is nearly as old as Madame.”
“You must have food,” said Aline decidedly. “I will bring you some.”
“Oh, you angel!” exclaimed Marguerite, kissing her through the bars. “When you came I was standing here trying to screw up my courage to go down to the inn and ask for some.”
“Oh, not the inn,” said Aline quickly; “that’s the last place to go. I’m afraid there’s danger everywhere, but I’ll do what I can. Go back to the château, and I’ll come as soon as possible.”
“Yes, as soon as possible, please, for I am hungry enough to eat you, my dear. See, have n’t I got thin—yes, and pale too? I assure you that I have a most interesting air.”
“Does M. my cousin find pallor interesting?” inquired Aline teasingly.
“No, my dear; he has a bourgeois’s taste for colour. He compared me once to a carnation, but I punished him well for that. I stole the vinegar, and drank enough to make me feel shockingly ill. Then I powdered my cheeks, and then—then I talked all the evening to M. de Maillé!”
“And my cousin, M. le Chevalier, what did he do?”
Marguerite gave an irrepressible giggle.
“He went away, and I was just beginning to feel that perhaps he had been punished enough, when back he came, very easy and smiling, with a sweet large and beautiful bouquet of white carnations, and with an elegant bow he begged me to accept them, since white was my preference, though for his part he preferred the beauteous red that blushed like happy love!”
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