“It is to Father Benôit and to Buton here, that your thanks are really due, M. le Marquis,” I said. “For without their aid — —”
“That is so, is it?” he said coldly. “I had heard it.”
“But not all?” I exclaimed.
“I think so,” he said. Then, continuing to look at them, though he spoke to me, he continued: “Let me tell you an apologue, M. le Vicomte. Once upon a time there was a man who had a grudge against a neighbour because the good man’s crops were better than his. He went, therefore, secretly and by night, and not all at once — not all at once, Messieurs, but little by little — he let on to his neighbour’s land the stream of a river that flowed by both their farms. He succeeded so well that presently the flood not only covered the crops, but threatened to drown his neighbour, and after that his own crops and himself! Apprised too late of his folly —— But how do you like the apologue, M. le Curé?”
“It does not touch me,” Father Benôit answered with a wan smile.
“I am no man’s servant, as the slave boasted,” St. Alais answered with a polite sneer.
“For shame! for shame, M. le Marquis!” I cried, losing patience. “I have told you that but for M. le Curé and the smith here, Mademoiselle and I — —”
“And I have told you,” he answered, interrupting me with grim good humour, “what I think of it, M. le Vicomte! That is all.”
“But you do not know what happened?” I persisted, stung to wrath by his injustice. “You are not, you cannot be, aware that when Father Benôit and his companions arrived, Mademoiselle de St. Alais and I were in the most desperate plight? that they saved us only at great risk to themselves? and that for our safety at last you have to thank rather the tricolour, which those wretches respected, than any display of force which we were able to make.”
“That, too, is so, is it?” he said, his face grown dark. “I shall have something to say to it presently. But, first, may I ask you a question, M. le Vicomte? Am I right in supposing that these gentlemen are waiting on you from — pardon me if I do not get the title correctly — the Honourable the Committee of Public Safety?”
I nodded.
“And I presume that I may congratulate them on your answer?”
“No, you may not!” I replied, with satisfaction. “This gentleman” — and I pointed to the Capitaine Hugues— “has laid before me certain proposals and certain arguments in favour of them.”
“But he has not laid before you the most potent of all arguments,” the Captain said, interposing, with a dry bow. “I find it, and you, M. le Vicomte, will find it, too, in M. le Marquis de St. Alais!”
The Marquis stared at him coldly. “I am obliged to you,” he said contemptuously. “By-and-by, perhaps, I shall have more to say to you. For the present, however, I am speaking to M. le Vicomte.” And he turned and addressed me again. “These gentlemen have waited on you. Do I understand that you have declined their proposals?”
“Absolutely!” I answered. “But,” I continued warmly, “it does not follow that I am without gratitude or natural feeling.”
“Ah!” he said. Then, turning, with an easy air, “I see your servant there,” he said. “May I summon him one moment?”
“Certainly.”
He raised his hand, and André, who was watching us from the doorway, flew to take his orders.
He turned to me again. “Have I your permission?”
I bowed, wondering.
“Go, my friend, to Mademoiselle de St. Alais,” he said. “She is in the hall. Beg her to be so good as to honour us with her presence.”
André went, with his most pompous air; and we remained, wondering. No one spoke. I longed to consult Father Benôit by a look, but I dared not do so, lest the Marquis, who kept his eyes on my face, his own wearing an enigmatical smile, should take it for a sign of weakness. So we stood until Mademoiselle appeared in the doorway, and, after a momentary pause, came timidly along the terrace towards us.
She wore a frock which I believe had been my mother’s, and was too long for her; but it seemed to my eyes to suit her admirably. A kerchief covered her shoulders, and she had another laid lightly on her unpowdered hair, which, knotted up loosely, strayed in tiny ringlets over her neck and ears. To this charming disarray, her blushes, as she came towards us, shading her eyes from the sun, added the last piquancy. I had not seen her since the women lifted her from my saddle, and, seeing her now, coming along the terrace in the fresh morning light, I thought her divine! I wondered how I could have let her go. An insane desire to defy her brother and whirl her off, out of this horrid imbroglio of parties and politics, seized upon me.
But she did not look towards me, and my heart sank. She had eyes only for M. le Marquis; approaching him as if he had a magnet which drew her to him.
“Mademoiselle,” he said gravely, “I am told that your escape last night was due to your adoption of an emblem, which I see that you are still wearing. It is one which no subject of his Majesty can wear with honour. Will you oblige me by removing it?”
Pale and red by turns, she shot a piteous glance at us. “Monsieur?” she muttered, as if she did not understand.
“I think I have spoken plainly,” he said. “Be good enough to remove it.”
Wincing under the rebuke, she hesitated, looking for a moment as if she would burst into tears. Then, with her lip trembling, and with trembling fingers, she complied, and began to unfasten the tricolour, which the servants — without her knowledge, it may be — had removed from the robe she had worn to that which she now wore. It took her a long time to remove it, under our eyes, and I grew hot with indignation. But I dared not interfere, and the others looked on gravely.
“Thank you,” M. de Alais said, when, at last, she had succeeded in unpinning it. “I know, Mademoiselle, that you are a true St. Alais, and would die rather than owe your life to disloyalty. Be good enough to throw that down, and tread upon it.”
She started violently at the words. I think we all did. I know that I took a step forward, and, but for M. le Marquis’ raised hand, must have intervened. But I had no right; we were spectators, it was for her to act. She stood a moment with all our eyes upon her, stood staring breathless and motionless at her brother; then, still looking at him, with a shivering sigh, she slowly and mechanically lifted her hand, and dropped the ribbon. It fluttered down.
“Tread upon it!” the Marquis said ruthlessly.
She trembled; her face, her child’s face, grown quite white. But she did not move.
“Tread upon it!” he said again.
And then, without looking down, she moved her foot forward, and touched the ribbon.
CHAPTER XI.
THE TWO CAMPS.
“Thank you, Mademoiselle; now you can go,” he said.
But he need not have spoken, for the moment his sister had done his bidding she turned from us; before two words had passed his lips she was hurrying back to the house in a passion of grief, her face covered, and her slight figure shaken by sobs that came back to us on the summer air.
The sight stung me to rage; yet for a moment, and by a tremendous effort I restrained myself. I would hear him out.
But he either did not, or would not see the effect he had produced. “There, Messieurs,” he said, his face somewhat pale. “I am obliged to your patience. Now you know what I think of your tricolour and your services. It shall shelter neither me nor mine! I hold no parley with assassins.”
I sprang forward, I could contain myself no longer. “And I!” I cried, “I, M. le Marquis, have something to say, too! I have something to declare! A moment ago I refused that tricolour! I rejected the overtures of those who brought it to me. I was resolved to stand by you and by my brethren against my better judgment. I was of your party, though I did not believe in it; and you might have tied me to it. But this gentleman is right, you are yourself the strongest argument against yourself. And I do this! I do this!” I repeated passionately. “See, M. le Marquis, and know that i
t is your doing!”
With the word I snatched up the ribbon, on which Mademoiselle had trodden, and with fingers that trembled scarcely less than hers had trembled, when she unfastened it, I pinned it on my breast.
He bowed, with a sardonic smile. “A cockade is easily changed,” he said. But I could see that he was livid with rage; that he could have slain me for the rebuke.
“You mean,” I said hotly, “that I am easily turned.”
“You put on the cap, M. le Vicomte,” he retorted.
The other three had withdrawn a little — not without open signs of disgust — and left us face to face on the spot on which we had stood three weeks before on the eve of his mother’s reception. Still raging with anger on Mademoiselle’s account, and minded to wound him, I recalled that to him, and the prophecies he had then uttered, prophecies which had been so ill-fulfilled.
He took me up at the second word. “Ill-fulfilled?” he said grimly. “Yes, M. le Vicomte, but why? Because those who should support me, those who from one end of France to the other should support the King, are like you — waverers who do not know their own minds! Because the gentlemen of France are proving themselves churls and cravens, unworthy of the names they bear! Yes, ill-fulfilled,” he continued bitterly, “because you, M. de Saux, and men like you, are for this to-day, and for that to-morrow, and cry one hour, ‘Reform,’ and the next, ‘Order!’”
The denial stuck in my throat, and my passion dying down I could only glower at him. He saw this, and taking advantage of my momentary embarrassment, “But enough,” he continued in a tone of dignity very galling to me, since it was he who had behaved ill, not I. “Enough of this. While it was possible I courted your aid, M. de Saux; and I acknowledge, I still acknowledge, and shall be the last to disclaim, the obligation under which you last night placed us. But there can never be true fellowship between those who wear that” — and he pointed to the tricolour I had assumed— “and those who serve the King as we serve him. You will pardon me, therefore, if I take my leave, and without delay withdraw my sister from a house in which her presence may be misunderstood, as mine, after what has passed, must be unwelcome.”
He bowed again with that, and led the way into the house; while I followed, tongue-tied and with a sudden chill at my heart. There was no one in the hall except André, who was hovering about the farther door; but in the avenue beyond were three or four mounted servants waiting for M. de St. Alais, and half-way down the avenue a party of three were riding towards the gates. It needed but a glance to show me that the foremost of these was Mademoiselle, and that she rode low in the saddle, as if she still wept. And I turned in a hot fit to M. de St. Alais.
But I found his eye fixed on me in such a fashion that the words died on my lips. He coughed drily. “Ah!” he said. “So Mademoiselle has herself felt the propriety of leaving. You will permit me, then, to make her acknowledgments, M. de Saux, and to take leave for her.”
He saluted me with the words and turned. He already had his foot raised to the stirrup when I muttered his name.
He looked round. “Pardon!” he said. “Is there anything — —”
I beckoned to the servants to stand back. I was in misery between rage and shame, the hot fit gone. “Monsieur,” I said, “there is one more thing to be said. This does not end all between Mademoiselle and me. For Mademoiselle — —”
“We will not speak of her!” he exclaimed.
But I was not to be put down. “For Mademoiselle, I do not know her sentiments,” I continued, doggedly disregarding his interruption, “nor whether I am agreeable to her. But for myself, M. de St. Alais, I tell you frankly that I love her; nor shall I change because I wear one tricolour or another. Therefore — —”
“I have only one thing to say,” he cried, raising his hand to stay me.
I gave way, breathing hard. “What is it?” I said.
“That you make love like a bourgeois!” he answered, laughing insolently. “Or a mad Englishman! And as Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not a baker’s daughter, to be wooed after that fashion, I find it offensive. Is that enough or shall I say more, M. le Vicomte?”
“That will not be enough to turn me from my path!” I answered. “You forget that I carried Mademoiselle hither in my arms last night. But I do not forget it, and she will not forget it. We cannot be henceforth as we were, M. le Marquis.”
“You saved her life and base a claim upon it?” he said scornfully. “That is generous and like a gentleman!”
“No, I do not!” I answered passionately. “But I have held Mademoiselle in my arms, and she has laid her head on my breast, and you can undo neither the one nor the other. Henceforth I have a right to woo her, and I shall win her.”
“While I live you never shall!” he answered fiercely. “I swear that, as she trod on that ribbon — at my word, at my word, Monsieur! — so she shall tread on your love. From this day seek a wife among your friends. Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not for you.”
I trembled with rage. “You know, Monsieur, that I cannot fight you!” I said.
“Nor I you,” he answered. “I know it. Therefore,” he continued, pausing an instant and reverting with marvellous ease to his former politeness, “I will fly from you. Farewell, Monsieur — I do not say, until we meet again; for I do not think that we shall meet much in future.”
I found nothing wherewith to answer that, and he turned and moved’ away down the avenue. Mademoiselle and her escort had disappeared; his servants, obeying my gesture, were almost at the gates. I watched his figure as he rode under the boughs of the walnuts, that meeting low over his head let the sun fall on him through spare rifts; and, sore and miserable at heart myself, I marvelled at the gallant air he maintained, and the careless grace of his bearing.
Certainly he had force. He had the force his fellows lacked; and he had it so abundantly, that as I gazed after him the words I had used to him seemed weak and foolish, the resolution I had flung in his teeth childish. After all, he was right; this, to which my feelings had impelled me on the spur of anger and love and the moment, was no French or proper way of wooing, nor one which I should have relished in my sister’s case. Why then had I degraded Mademoiselle by it, and exposed myself? Men wooed mistresses that way, not wives!
So that I felt very wretched as I turned to go into the house. But there my eye alighted on the pistols which still lay on the table in the hall, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling I remembered that others’ affairs were out of order too; that the Châteaux of St. Alais and Marignac lay in ashes, that last night I had saved Mademoiselle from death, that beyond the walnut avenue with its cool, long shade and dappled floor, beyond the quiet of this summer day, lay the seething, brawling world of Quercy and of France — the world of maddened peasants and frightened townsfolk, and soldiers who would not fight, and nobles who dared not.
Then, Vive le Tricolor! the die was cast. I went through the house to find Father Benôit and his companions, meaning to throw in my lot and return with them. But the terrace was empty; they were nowhere to be seen. Even of the servants I could only find André, who came pottering to me with his lips pursed up to grumble. I asked him where the Curé was.
“Gone, M. le Vicomte.”
“And Buton?”
“He too. With half the servants, for the matter of that.”
“Gone?” I exclaimed. “Whither?”
“To the village to gossip,” he answered churlishly. “There is not a turnspit now but must hear the news, and take his own leave and time to gather it. The world is turned upside down, I think. It is time his Majesty the King did something.”
“Did not M. le Curé leave a message?”
The old servant hesitated. “Well, he did,” he said grudgingly. “He said that if M. le Vicomte would stay at home until the afternoon, he should hear from him.”
“But he was going to Cahors!” I said. “He is not returning to-day?”
“He went by the little alley to the village,” André an
swered obstinately. “I do not know anything about Cahors.”
“Then go to the village now,” I said, “and learn whether he took the Cahors road.”
The old man went grumbling, and I remained alone on the terrace. An abnormal quietness, as of the afternoon, lay on the house this summer morning. I sat down on a stone seat against the wall, and began to go over the events of the night, recalling with the utmost vividness things to which at the time I had scarcely given a glance, and shuddering at horrors that in the happening had barely moved me. Gradually my thoughts passed from these things which made my pulses beat; and I began to busy myself with Mademoiselle. I saw her again sitting low in the saddle and weeping as she went. The bees hummed in the warm air, the pigeons cooed softly in the dovecot, the trees on the lawn below me shaped themselves into an avenue over her head, and, thinking of her, I fell asleep.
After such a night as I had spent it was not unnatural. But when I awoke, and saw that it was high noon, I was wild with vexation. I sprang up, and darting suspicious glances round me, caught André skulking away under the house wall. I called him back, and asked him why he had let me sleep.
“I thought that you were tired, Monsieur,” he muttered, blinking in the sun. “M. le Vicomte is not a peasant that he may not sleep when he pleases.”
“And M. le Curé? Has he not returned?”
“No, Monsieur.”
“And he went — which way?”
He named a village half a league from us; and then said that my dinner waited.
I was hungry, and for a moment asked no more, but went in and sat down to the meal. When I rose it was nearly two o’clock. Expecting Father Benôit every moment, I bade them saddle the horses that I might be ready to go; and then, too restless to remain still, I went into the village. Here I found all in turmoil. Three-fourths of the inhabitants were away at St. Alais inspecting the ruins, and those who remained thought of nothing so little as doing their ordinary work; but, standing in groups at their doors, or at the cross-roads, or the church gates, were discussing events. One asked me timidly if it was true that the King had given all the land to the peasants; another, if there were to be any more taxes; a third, a question still more simple. Yet with this, I met with no lack of respect; and few failed to express their joy that I had escaped the ruffians là-bas. But as I approached each group a subtle shade of expectation, of shyness and suspicion seemed to flit across faces the most familiar to me. At the moment I did not understand it, and even apprehended it but dimly. Now, after the event, now that it is too late, I know that it was the first symptom of the social poison doing its sure and deadly work.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 218
