Loth as she was to leave her benefactress in so critical a plight, there was no denying that the Marquise de Gange was an incumbrance in the royal dwelling; yet another helpless female for the men to protect; and that there were duties with regard to others, that demanded the attention of the heiress.
Clovis had valid reason for his impatience to be off. The prisons were opening their maws to swallow the blue-blooded, who tumbled in by shoals on frivolous and ridiculous charges. Paris was becoming so disagreeably warm, that self-preservation bade all and sundry to depart unless tied by special reasons. Now, as the abbé pointed out (who grew almost as impatient as his brother, in his enforced idleness), there was nothing whatever to detain the provincials from returning to their chateau, since the queen had dismissed the marquise.
Gabrielle agreed that the time was come for a journey, and even made an attempt to induce the aged maréchale to join the party. It would be nice to have her mother with her, and perhaps the suburban residence might be fraught with unknown drawbacks. But at the suggestion, the old lady lifted up her voice in such querulous screechings that her daughter was silenced.
"You should know, but for your innate selfishness," complained the old dame, "that I can't bear the place. Its crepuscular corridors and frowning front give me the shivers. I wonder you can endure it yourself, but you always were so peculiar and inconsiderate. I will visit you for a week or so some day, if I pluck up courage; but, live there? The family vault with a pile of coffins for furniture, would be more cheerful as a dwelling-place."
Then Gabrielle's mind went through a curious and unexpected phase. The queen's reference to their horoscopes had set the marquise thinking. The prophecy regarding her majesty was being fulfilled, slowly but surely, to the letter. A friend informed her with grief and lamentations, that Louise de Savoye, Princesse de Lamballe, had been seized and confined at La Force. At this moment, the least secure refuges in France were the prisons, for the blood-drunken populace had a way of making raids upon the jails, and maltreating incarcerated aristos, out of pure devilry. First, Her Majesty; then Madame de Lamballe. Who was she, Marquise de Gange, that she should hope to escape her doom? She was, like the others, predestined to misfortune. True. She had suffered deeply already, and Heaven had relented for awhile; but there was nothing to justify her in face of the prophecy, in supposing that it was more than a respite. Try to grapple with it as she would, Gabrielle, as the time for moving approached, was oppressed by a growing presentiment of ill. From what quarter it was to come she could not guess, but it was her bounden duty to take such precautions as were possible. Were the darlings to be stricken down and die? Or was the impending misfortune to consist in the sacking of the chateau? It was impossible to foresee and avert the trouble. In contrast to the storm that had blown over, the family outlook was fair enough. Though the domestic sky was cloudflecked, there was no specially black bank of vapour striding up the vault. Clovis was bearish and ill-humoured. That was nothing new. The abbé was all smiles and benevolence, his leisure much occupied in a laudable and Christian endeavour to break the chevalier of tippling. Toinon wrote that, summoned to Blois by his party, Jean Boulot was gone for awhile, and for her part she rejoiced at the riddance, for was it not too bad that he should prefer his vulgar noisy Jacobin clubs and fustian nonsense to the charming society of his betrothed?
Strive as she would to argue with and laugh at herself, Gabrielle could not shake off her gloom. The gamekeeper--who had saved her life--was gone away to Blois, and Toinon hoped that he would stop there? Why should she feel as if a staunch and trusty friend had left her side? The chatelaine had every right to feel angry that a paid servant should throw up his place with such scant ceremony, and yet was not the abruptness of the act strictly in tune with the man's independent principles and the spirit of the time?
He was a rough, honest, warm-hearted, wrong-headed fellow, with whom Toinon was justly annoyed in that she had failed to reform his ways. All this was true enough, but Gabrielle could not shake off a sense of loneliness, of vague uneasy dread, a conviction of impending calamity; and suddenly something whispered that before leaving Paris it would be well to execute a testament.
History is full of strange presentiments which come like warnings, but which have the peculiar property of defeating themselves; for they exercise sometimes a fatal fascination akin to that of the snake over the bird, which paralyses the victim's efforts to escape the threatened peril.
Trying to argue down her fears, she made it the more evident to herself that whatever came of it, duty pointed in the direction of Lorge. The grim chateau was her own now; the fields were her own fields; the peasants her own vassals. In the interests of the darlings she would be very energetic, learn to farm, improve the property, and draw the bonds closer than heretofore between mistress and tenants. But what if the clever abbé's prognostications were to be realized, and the flames which she had seen burning so fiercely in Paris, were indeed to spread dismay and ruin even to remote Touraine? Was he right in the advice which she had resented so warmly--the unwelcome advice to be content with the money-bags at Geneva, and abandon the chateau to the wreckers? No. She had always disapproved the craven conduct of the fugitives. It was not in the nature of things for the present cataclysm to go on for ever. Temporary insanity would give way to reason; the mob, glutted by impunity and gorged by excess, would calm down again, and those who had had presence of mind to hold their own while passively bowing before the storm would reap the reward of their bravery.
The chatelaine knew herself to be a favourite with the people and that her presence at the chateau would go far in the event of a revolutionary wave, to save it from destruction. She could not believe that the shadow she felt approaching could come from that quarter. Whence then? It was probably a bugaboo, born of nervousness, resulting from sympathy with the desperate condition of the queen. Dismissed by Marie Antoinette, her place was at Lorge on the estates, and since flesh is grass, it was only right to make a will.
While revolving these things, Gabrielle's attention was naturally turned upon her husband. It was odd that he should resent so deeply her one act of independence. We know that what the constitutionally weak resent the most, is being openly convicted of their weakness. Could that humiliating quarter of an hour with the family solicitor have left so deep an impression on his easy-going soul? and, while her repulsed affection had faded into indifference, was his unconcern growing into positive aversion? It occurred to her now for the first time, as singular that when he wanted money of late the abbé had always been the spokesman. Did he feel his dependent position so acutely that he could not bring himself to mention the sordid subject, or was it that he had come to dislike his wife so much, that he could not bring himself to speak to her at all? She resolved to open her mind to the abbé about it, for Clovis must be infatuated and purblind indeed, not to feel assured that, though she was resolved to carry out her father's wishes and keep a firm hold of the purse strings, they would not be drawn too tight.
The abbé's thin features relaxed into a whimsical smile, and he slyly nodded, as with some stammering and much circumlocution she exposed her suspicions to him. Was it, or not, abominably wicked of her to have such suspicions at all? How girlish and how lovely she looked in her blushing confusion, as she enlarged on the unsavoury topic, excusing herself for harbouring such thoughts.
"You dear guileless dove of a Gabrielle!" he laughed. "Yet not so simple as you seem, for you have guessed aright. Alack, yes! Unpardonably sensitive as he may appear to you, your little escapade--you will allow me to call it an escapade?---cut him so completely to the quick that he has never recovered it, but crouches down and winces still like a well-whipped hound, dreading another scourging. You deem yourself proud? Learn that an honest man's pride is of more delicate texture than a woman's. And itishard, you know, for a proud man to be placed before witnesses in so equivocal a position as that in which you placed your husband."
The position in whichshehad placedhim?What of the intolerable one in whichhehad chosen to placeher?Men always start with the absurd premise that they must be in the right. Gabrielle was deeply offended that one on whom she had vainly squandered all the treasures of her love could think this meanly--read her so amiss!
Tears of mortification due to insulted womanhood were in her eyes, and as he marked the colour, like that of an opening moss rose, that flooded plastic neck and shell-like ear, the blood of Pharamond throbbed so fiercely that he had much ado to maintain his impassible demeanour.
"Since you forgave me, I take Heaven to witness," he purred, bending as near to her as he dared, "that I have striven to heal your differences."
"Differences? There need be none; my love for him is dead," Gabrielle remarked slowly, so absorbed in the contemplation of shattered Penates as to pass unheeded the gleam of triumph on the face that was so near her shoulder. "You may tell him, if you like, that I shall not behave ill to him, because he has outraged me. A fair allowance shall be regularly paid to him, or to you if he prefers it. Monsieur Galland is coming here this afternoon about my testament, and the arrangement shall be carried out at once." Then after a gloomy pause, she added with a sigh, "To think he could ever suppose that I should want him to ask me favours!"
So her unrequited and too persistent love had perished of starvation! It was dead--quite, quite dead, at last! With its last struggle how great a barrier was swept away, and how much better was the chance for one who had obstinately persevered!
Excellent! The empty shell was ready for the hermit crab! Pharamond could see ultimate triumph, within measurable distance, and after that a ripe revenge. A fair allowance regularly paid? Gilded, degrading slavery! Clovis would repudiate the plan; refuse to have anything to do with it.
But what was this about a will?
"M. Galland--about your will, this afternoon?" the abbé echoed with raised brows. "On whose advice are you acting? I declare you are marvellously changed, every inch a woman of business. Pooh, pooh! Is there not ample time? For a beautiful young creature like yourself to prate of such grisly things seems like an untimely invitation to the worms."
"Little I care for life, God knows!" sighed Gabrielle, wearily, "were it not for----"
"Yes, yes, I know--the cherubs. About this will. It takes me by surprise, and you have deigned to trust me. Your pardon if I seem importunate. I scarcely dare to ask, and yet----"
"What its conditions are to be? There need be no secret as to that, since my mind is quite made up. I intend to leave my dear father's fortune to my mother, in trust for Victor and Camille?"
Here was a sledge-hammer blow, full on the skull from behind. For an instant Pharamond was paralysed, then his nimble brain took in at a glance all the facets of this new and unpalatable situation. Who could have put into her shapely head so inconvenient an idea as this? Good heavens! If this project were not nipped in the bud, averted somehow, the future position of the three brothers promised to be a worse one even than in the days of the maréchal! What the abbé had himself looked upon as a scarcely possible contingency, and had held up to the marquis as a mere red rag to inflame his feelings withal against his wife, might at any moment become an actual and horrible fact. At this rate the marquis and his brothers were not to be provided for at all; were in the event of this woman's death to be pitched out like so much lumber! And she had the brazen presumption to expatiate on their lot to their faces. A gush of ungovernable rage, bubbled into the abbé's brain, an unreasoning whirl, which he vainly endeavoured to master, as he strode up and down the room.
"Clovis is to be made a laughing stock to suit your malice!" he exclaimed hotly, as he turned on the astonished marquise. "He counts for nothing, although your lawful husband. No wonder if you have earned his hate as well as mine, since you are resolved to pour insult upon insult."
"Of course, he will have his allowance secured until his death," Gabrielle explained, with a red spot of annoyance on either cheek.
"Pah! Allowance! Allowance! A pittance for a schoolboy, which he will fling back into your face. If he takes my advice, he will toss your paltry allowance in your lap, since you treat him like a baby! A dole of charity to a beggar!"
The marquise sat dumb with hands before her, petrified, for this man would fain persuade her that she was a monster of iniquity, on the threshold of a stupendous crime, and yet she knew that her motives were of the purest.
He continued, biting his nails in his agitation, addressing his words half to himself and half to her.
"Women's horizon is so circumscribed, her stream of thought so narrow, that if left alone she rarely avoids being ungenerous. Engrossed by trivialities how can it be otherwise? Sly, too, and double-faced. So this is your sublime forgiveness, in which I was fool enough to trust! A trap! A trick! You were but biding your time, till you could injure me by maltreatment of my brother. My first duty is to him, and I tell you plainly, that never with my consent will he accept your ignoble terms."
Gabrielle made no answer but sat dumb.
"Eh, bien, madame," he cried, suddenly wheeling round and standing in front of her, his thin lips curled into a snarl. "The result of your insensate acts be on your head. Mark that the fault is yours if, after all my efforts to annihilate the past, you force me to be your enemy. Here below we must be judged by acts, madame, not by sugared words that mean nothing. Why compel me to war when I would fain bring peace? If you execute so iniquitous an instrument as you propose, you will have made thereby three implacable enemies; and a woman without friends should think twice before making one. Your husband never wronged you with that governess, you foolish girl; you were racked by your own silly phantom jealousy. If you must have revenge, wreak it upon me, whose only fault was loving you too much. No need to start. Cards down! Why should I deny that I loved you? The more fool I! But as your love for him has been crushed out, so, too, has mine for you, as to your sorrow you will learn."
His envenomed words snapped out like the clicks of a matchlock, and the old dismay gathered round the heart of the marquise with a chill of exceeding desolation. She had been taken in. His seeming recovery of his better self was but a sham, his fawning courtesy a grimace, his suave kindliness a mockery, his effusive benevolence a snare. To one so simply truthful as Gabrielle, such calculating duplicity was diabolical. He had dropped his vizard and shown his real face, and as she shudderingly surveyed it, she had gauged something of the malice of which this foe was capable. Returned to Lorge, was peace to be denied? Since cajolery and threats had not availed to win her, did he think to bend her to his will by force? Though he declared he hated her, there was that on his white vindictive face that she had learned to read too well. She would go straight to her husband, tell him the whole truth, and claim protection. But what then of the disposal of her property, which she felt it her duty to make? Ought she, taking a high line, to threaten to withdraw the allowance, act for herself as the good father had done on her behalf? But, ah me, how changed things were since then, so brief a while ago! Her husband already hated her--there was a ring of sincerity in the voice of Pharamond as he informed her that it was so, and she knew well, in case of a tussle, into which scale the latter would throw all his weight. Doubtless, Clovis wished her dead; alone at Lorge, might even--yet no, much as he might wish to be quit of her, his courage would surely fail when the pinch came.
In carrying out her project she would be acting rightly, of that she was now more than ever convinced; but locked up with the brethren at Lorge, would not her own courage fail? Perhaps it would be safer to remain in the Paris whirlpool. But what of the children then, and what of the prisons that filled so rapidly? Behind the bars and bolts of La Force or the Abbaye, of what service could she be to them? Leave the country she would not, stay in the capital she dared not. Moreover, in so turbulent a time her place was among her people in her distant citadel of Lorge.
All that was fine in theory, yet her heart whispered grave doubts as to her tenacity of purpose in carrying out to the end the fight so boldly planned. Alas, did she not know too well that standing alone and unsupported, with no succour within hail, she would go down at the shock of the first lance? Should she parley, even surrender now, at once--unveil her feebleness and implore pity? Promise to abandon the project which raised such ire and stirred the lees of the worst passions, trust the future of her children to their father's paternal instincts? No; one of the lessons taught by the abbé was that Clovis was born to be led. Happily that woman had been expelled, but rescued from her baleful control, he would fall under that of somebody else, and circumstanced as they were, who should that other be but the vindictive Pharamond? Of course, at Lorge, the marquis would sink completely under the abbé's sway; and with him for master, much chance would Victor and Camille have of justice in the event of their mother's death. Come what might to her, they should be guarded. Taking her courage in both hands and clinging firmly to it, she must pray for strength to bear all, doing what was best for the little ones. The best security against the greed and malevolence of Pharamond would be to place the fortune out of reach.
As these considerations flitted across the mind of the harassed marquise, she took comfort in the thought that the arch-foe should have exposed himself as he was before the party had started from Paris. Further precautions should be devised by a mother's ingenuity such as should reduce to harmlessness, in the event of disaster to herself, the abbé's strongest batteries.
Meanwhile, Pharamond mopped his face with a laced kerchief, blaming himself for precipitation as he paced nervously up and down. That he, skilful fowler of artless birds, should have been betrayed by sudden passion and disappointment into exhibiting his person to this flutterer! But then the blow had been so swift and heavy that there was some excuse for reeling under the shock. It was vexatious to have been taken off his guard. Further duplicity was useless now, for the present, at least, for she was fully informed as to his sentiments with regard to the obnoxious testament. She had beheld a glimpse of his real countenance, which was a pity, for burrowing underground was the favourite pastime of our abbé. It was a mercy, considering all things, that the obdurate and recalcitrant lady had resolved on returning to Lorge. Beyond the frontier, countenanced by friends and acquaintances, she would doubtless have proved dreadfully obstreperous. Yes, decidedly it was best to depart forthwith for the chateau. It was a fortunate thing, too, that during the lengthy and tedious sojourn in the metropolis, Clovis should have abstained from falling into the clutches of some new and antagonistic affinity.
And this turned the current of his meditations into another channel. It would have to be war now at Lorge, deliberate and serious war for the averting of a threatened calamity; a campaign consisting of feints, and ambuscades, and forced night marches requiring swiftness of resolve and unerring execution. As to submitting to such a testament, it was out of the question. The campaign might prove a desperate and bloody one, for maternity at bay fights hard.
If she signed the proposed document--and just now she looked very resolute--it would have, somehow or another, to be cancelled; a ticklish job even for so astute a diplomatist as our abbé. Would it be prudent to descend alone into the arena, or must an ally be found? But for Clovis's tergiversation, Pharamond felt fully capable of carrying a battle to successful issue, but he knew better than to deceive himself with regard to the shifty marquis, and caution whispered that he dared not work alone. His mere male influence might lead the horse to the water, but could not make him drink. You may bend a bow with impunity to a certain point, beyond which it will snap unless strengthened. Desperate emergencies call for desperate remedies, and Clovis' was one to shrink and run away in the face of anything desperate. How difficult to guide clear of obstacles is a shying horse!
Although a thousand pities, it was plain to Pharamond that what might have to be done could not be accomplished alone; that combined forces would be required to arrive at a given result, to reach a goal which he gropingly saw looming.
What could Gabrielle be pondering over so deeply, as with absent gaze she looked out of the window? Perhaps, alarmed, she was repenting, was preparing at the first glimpse of the enemy's line of battle to withdraw from the conflict. Her attitude was full of hesitation; here was a crumb of comfort. It was wondrous that she should have been able, so far, to subdue her nature as to speak out so boldly as she had dared to do just now. A little solitary reflection might produce a salutary effect. In a duel of wits, when your foe begins to hesitate, leave him to his thoughts, and ten to one he will give way.
The abbé roused himself from reverie; coughed to draw attention, and bowed with a measure of respect, nicely tempered with menace. Then, smilingly remarking that it would be regrettable if his dear sister-in-law did not reconsider her iniquitous plans, he took himself out of the apartment for the purpose of informing Clovis.
Left alone, Gabrielle, as Pharamond had seen, was much perturbed by the difficulties of the task she had set herself, but when she remembered his wicked face, a courage, born of despair, came to her aid, and she resolved to take up the cudgels. As she mechanically arranged, with trembling fingers, her silken hood and mantle, she prayed fervently for strength, and called on heaven for protection.
Without a moment's waiting she would go to M. Galland. The solicitor had arranged to call during the afternoon, but she felt assured that if she were to wait till then, she would think, and think, and think, till courage ebbed away. Swiftly descending the stairs unseen by the abbé, who was busily unfolding his budget for the horrified behoof of his more than ever exasperated brother, she hailed a hackney chair, and had herself carried to the lawyer's.
Being a person of eminent respectability, M. Galland dwelt in a smug street within decorous propinquity of the fashionable Place Royale. His line of business was as humdrum and respectable as himself, and the door-keeper, who kept the stone staircase so scrupulously spotless, was unaccustomed to agitated clients. The beautiful lady who emerged from a hackney sedan, and tremulously paid the men more than a double fare, was extremely agitated, and appeared in a desperate hurry to reach the first-floor landing. Evidently an aristo. Doubtless she had a husband or a brother who had fallen within the meshes of the reigning spiders. Poor dear soul! Such episodes as unexpected arrest were but too common nowadays. Bless me! Her case must be a very urgent one, the concierge muttered, as he scratched his head in sympathy, for after an interval of fifteen minutes, the lady emerged in the company of M. Galland himself, looking graver than was his wont, who, calling a coach, directed the driver to the nearest magistrate's.
"I understand my instructions, madame," the solicitor said, as the pair were driven along. "But, if without breach of respect, I may be permitted to say so, you must be suffering from hallucination. Your will being safely deposited with me, it is manifest that its terms are your safeguard, even if any of them should wish to harm you. We will admit that M. le Marquis got into bad hands, and that your hours were made unpleasant by another of your charming sex. But from that point to personal violence is a great stride, and you must pardon me if I fail to see any justifiable cause for apprehension. It is a morbid fancy, believe me. However, your wishes shall be gratified, and you will be able to retire to the chateau of Lorge with mind relieved. This is the house. I follow you to the first floor. You will make the declaration I suggested, before my friend, M. Sardeigne, who is a magistrate, and proper witnesses."
It was certainly a strange proceeding and the worthy magistrate was justified in his surprise. Here was a celebrated Court beauty of whose fame he had often heard, who pretended to believe that her relatives were hankering after her money to the extent of a deep-laid plot, ending in personal injury. "If you say so, madame," he observed, with a gallant bow, "I am bound to believe you. I should have thought it more likely that someone would take to kidnapping, for the sake of being proud possessor of the fairest woman in France."
Gabrielle sighed. Was not a would-be kidnapper at the bottom of all her fears?
M. Galland produced the last will and testament of Gabrielle, Marquise de Gange, on which the ink was but just dry, and his friend, having summoned his secretary and two male attendants, the lady signed it in their presence.
Then, instructed by M. Galland, she made a solemn declaration that if her life should be cut off before that of the maréchale, her mother, and that if she should have been found in the interim to have executed another will of more recent date, she thereby formally disavowed the latter instrument. If she were destined to outlive the maréchale, which she did not think likely, M. Galland, on the demise of Madame de Brèze would visit Lorge, and another arrangement would be made.
She had a presentiment, she explained, which pointed to a life cut off by violent means before its prime, and expressed in the most distinct and emphatic manner words could express, her desire that the testament just executed should alone be regarded as authentic.
"Dear me! A presentiment?" laughed M. Sardeigne, "as well consult with lawyers about ghosts! To set your mind at rest in this peculiar matter," proceeded the magistrate, perceiving that his mirth was ill-timed, "let it be understood that a cross after the signature on any subsequent testament will be considered to convey that it was signed under coercion."
The business accomplished, Gabrielle breathed more freely, and the abbé, observing at dinner how serene she looked, grew suspicious. Such calm after their recent stormy interview, seemed to suggest that she had been doing something underhand, on which she plumed herself. What could it be? Something that boded him no good. In the imminent war, which was to be declared so soon as the party were back in Touraine, it would clearly be perilous and rash to take the field alone.[1]
The quartet that journeyed back to solitude was not a lively one, for each of the four occupants of the travelling berline was fully engrossed by private speculations. The chevalier was nervous and uneasy, having received severe mental castigations at the hands of brother Pharamond. The marquis avoided his wife's eye, and glanced wistfully now and again at his Mentor, as though to crave support in some matter of which his conscience was afraid. The abbé smiled and nodded encouragement at intervals, and then grew grave again, for he knew that he was on the point of playing a trump card, and players miscalculate sometimes as to what remains in the adversary's hand. Gabrielle, gazing calmly from the windows, seemed scarcely aware of flitting trees and passing villages, or the constantly recurring jerky stoppages for the change of steaming horses. She did not remark the altered attitude of the rustics, who scowled at the emblazoned carriage panels, with hat on head, pipe in mouth, and arms crossed tightly over chest. A party of fugitive aristos, fleeing from the sinking ship like other rodents. Well, let them go. France was well rid of such vermin that were not worth the rope and lantern. As they approached their destination, some recognized the coronet and coat, and made furtive awkward bows. The Gange family were not so bad as others, report said, and as for the lady, sure no wickedness could lurk in her mild angel's face.
She was about to see her darlings, and her spirits rose, for the sojourn in the capital had been a long one. Of course they were safe in Toinon's care, but the mother had been weaving ingenious plans for their advantage, which she longed to execute forthwith. And then she fell a wondering as to how, under fresh auspices, they would all get on at Lorge. So far as the fortune was concerned there was naught to dread. Were her secret fears due, indeed, as had been suggested, to morbid fancy? No. Life would be far from easy; but a sturdy heart armoured in love's panoply can surmount difficulties. She knew too well now that, at best, the brothers looked on her existence as a necessary evil. She could see it in the lack-lustre eyes even of the chevalier, who, doubtless, had been well tutored and taught to believe false tales. The poor drivelling chevalier! What his hazy views might be on any subject was of little consequence. As friend or foe he was equally harmless. It was well to have been undeceived as to the abbé, and to know him for what he was--plausible, cunning, double-faced, vindictive. Why should she, Gabrielle, fear him? Forewarned, forearmed. If she placed no trust in her smooth brother-in-law--held studiously aloof from him--he could not betray or do her injury. Yet was this so? What of the horoscope and her own presentiment? To remain unmolested was overmuch to hope for. And then the marquise found herself marvelling what form his too certain malevolence would take. He would, of course, misconstrue all her acts and read them awry to Clovis. Alas! as things were, even that no longer mattered. For the future, so long as they lived, husband and wife would each go their ways, tacitly agreeing not to annoy each other, and in the ancient chateau there was so much room that the pair need never meet. A sad condition of affairs to have arrived at, and yet--is it not best to save painful fretting of soul and futile nerve friction by boldly confronting and accepting the inevitable in all its ugliness?
When we have given up crying for the moon, we can coldly contemplate the once-desired prize, critically examine each blemish, and shall probably be surprised at ourselves for having yearned after so spotty an object. The Marquis de Gange, deprived of glamour robes, was but a commonplace mortal, after all. Not good; not particularly bad. Unpractical, lazy, given to useless theorizing. Sure, in a previous life, he must have been a comely ox, fond of swishing its tail in the sunshine and blinkingly chewing the cud, with its legs to the knees in a puddle. Reflexion brought conviction that the diabolical woman who, happily, was gone for ever, had, out of sheer spitefulness, smirched her own fair fame without a cause. She had avowed herself the marquis's mistress merely to irritate his wife, just as she had threatened to warp the children's minds to frighten the mother into rashness. Poor distracted wife and mother. What could have possessed her--Gabrielle marvelled--to have gone through that performance in the water? Could she really and seriously have been so acutely affected by the idea that Mademoiselle Brunelle had succeeded in occupying the place within her husband's heart for which she had herself unsuccessfully longed? What a foolish and unnecessary fraying of heart strings! Was she so blinded as to have been unable to realize that the thing he called his heart was so full of selfishness that there lacked room for any other feeling? No. Even though she loved him then, it was not wholly on his account that she had suffered. It was the loss of her children, apparently complete and irrevocable, that had goaded her to mad despair. Well, well, Heaven had been merciful. The woman had been driven forth--her baleful shadow would cross her path no more. The darlings were her own again. The future was not so black after all. She would, on arrival at the chateau, place things on an entirely new footing; would take up her quarters in the wing erst occupied by the objectionable Aglaé, and, by aid from without, continue the education of Victor and Camille, which, during the last year, had been sorely neglected. As for the rest of the chateau, the three brothers might have it to themselves, and what they did and how their time was spent, so long as they did not tease her, should be no concern of hers.
Thus, I daresay, has the ingenuous lamb, clothed in the white wool of its simplicity, thought to cope, with success, against the hovering wolf and snarling panther. There is room enough for all of us, it has bleated. Let me gambol on this square of sward, and do you frolic as you choose beyond. The artless thing cannot discern the smacking chops of wolf or hungry leer of panther, or perceive that it is its own quivering pink limbs that the two are after, and which they are preparing presently to rend. If Gabrielle could have read the thoughts that were working in two busy skulls within that rumbling berline she might have, perhaps, gazed out of the window with less hopeful equanimity.
Clovis, touched on his rawest points, was burning with exasperation. As Pharamond had truly declared it was absolutely monstrous of the old donkey who was dead to have placed a noble of ancient race and lofty lineage in so ridiculous a predicament; and it was just one shade more shocking that his never-sufficiently-to-be-execrated daughter should have so meanly taken advantage of the situation. She had actually dared, with an innocent simper which set all his nerves twanging, to tell him one morning to his face that he was to live on an allowance! He, her lord and master! Whether the allowance was to be large or small was beside the question. He was firmly resolved, and supported therein by Pharamond, utterly to repudiate the allowance. She had humiliated him once, and was bent on doing so again and again--was unwise enough, having planted a dagger, to turn it in the wound, thereby rousing the victim out of sheer pain to make a desperate effort of retaliation. By the terms of a will which she had been sufficiently insolent to make, her fortune was to pass over his head for the behoof of his own children, who would be thus emancipated from any control on his part. If she could act so outrageously and show so clearly how little she respected his feelings, she could not expect him to consider hers. And with it all there was a sham veneer of deference that was but added insult. "Clovis," she had said, when composedly making the announcement, "I have thought it all over carefully, and am acting for the best according to my lights. I should like you to feel assured that the revenues I hand to you for your own use are, indeed, your own; I mean that however ill you may behave to me I will never withdraw them, for I do not wish you to feel, on your good behaviour, at the mercy of your wife."
There was a lofty air of magnanimity about this that was sheer impertinence. It was as though she were to say:--"I know you to be a worm while I am an æglet, and the lower you may elect to grovel, I shall myself, by contrast, appear to soar the higher." Was it a crafty way of putting him on his honour? Was he to understand that, of course, he must respect the wishes in all things of so magnanimous a benefactress? It was treating him like a schoolboy, and, whatever he should elect to do to show his independence would be justifiable, however unpalatable it might prove to the self-elected schoolmistress.
Thus, by the most crystalline of demonstrations was it proved to conscience that reproaches were out of place, and that that importunate monitor would do well to go to bed. But for all that Clovis felt secretly ashamed of himself as well as a little frightened about something he had done, and impelled to look to the abbé for support.
The abbé, happily for himself, had long since smothered his own monitor under the pillows, and had replaced the corpse by a rival, called Expediency. He had made a suggestion to the marquis a few days since, and the latter, shocked and alarmed at first, had permitted himself without much trouble to be argued into its acceptance. So far so good. The suggestion had been quietly carried out, and it remained to be proved how the marquise would take it.
It was in the afterglow of a lovely evening in late summer, that the party arrived within sight of the well-known turrets. There were no servants about. Toinon stood smileless at the gate alone, gazing into vacancy, and seemed to survey her mistress as she descended from the carriage with a serious air of doubtful concern.
"Here we are at last!" said the marquise, with an assumption of gaiety. "Why, how odd you look. This is not a cordial welcome!"
"Madame is welcome," returned Toinon, curtly.
"The children--they are well?"
"Monsieur Victor and Mademoiselle Camille are well," was the brief rejoinder.
"Of course, the little dears are well," cried the abbé, cheerfully, "or we should have heard of it. Poor Mademoiselle Toinon has lost her tongue, being reduced to stone by ennui. How goes my old enemy, Maître Jean Boulot?"
"He is at Blois, busy."
"So much the better, for I don't mind confessing now that I was a wee bit afraid of his rough ways and stalwart bulk. His room is better than his company--a Jacobin!"
"No one who is good need be afraid of Jean," retorted Toinon, who, without another word, led the way across the courtyard.
The chill of presentiment touched Gabrielle like an icy wind as she passed in to the dreary hall, black now in shadowy twilight. The crumbling implements of torture on the walls took fantastic and forbidding shapes. The panoplies of helmets of the Moyen Age seemed to mope, and mow, and wink their eyeless sockets. Somehow, Lorge seemed more grimly forbidding than before, after the long absence; there was a pervading odour of dank decay which was as a breath from out the charnel-house. The chatelaine shuddered, and drawing her cloak closer took her foster-sister by the hand.
"What is it? Toinon, tell me," she whispered. "Has something dreadful happened?"
Toinon glanced round quickly with the same strange expression of doubt mingled with concern, and held her peace.
What could it be? Toinon appeared to consider that her mistress had done something wrong--or was it some act, whose unwisdom she would surely rue, which filled the eyes of the foster-sister with disapproval. In the look there was pained surprise as well as pity. The tightened lips were closed, imprisoning reproach.
Foreboding, she knew not what, the marquise mounted the grand staircase and opened the door of the long saloon, expecting to find the children there.
"Not here? Where are they?" began Gabrielle. Then her voice died away, the words frozen on her lips. The brothers had remained below, ostensibly to superintend the removal of the baggage from the coach. In the dim saloon with its view through the gaunt row of windows of the crocus-coloured Loire, stood Gabrielle aghast, and Toinon, with brows knit anxiously--and against the light at the further end a tall, upright figure like a sable shadow, that was only too familiar.
"She!" murmured the startled chatelaine, clasping her hands upon her breast. "Mademoiselle Aglaé Brunelle!"
"It was a trick, then," Toinon muttered, with a deepening frown. "She knew not of her coming!"
The commanding figure swept swiftly past the tapestries of Odette and the mad old king, and with a glad cry Aglaé seized Gabrielle's cold hands and covered them with kisses.
"The good marquise!" she cooed. "The dear excellent marquise! I am so glad, so glad, to have been summoned! There was a little unpleasantness, was there not? A deplorable misunderstanding, and our dearest lady like the angel that she is, has forgiven and forgotten, and we are better friends than ever."
"I never summoned you," began the marquise, faintly, but her voice was quickly drowned in the torrent of the other's volubility.
"I know--I know," she purred, with kittenish gestures of overweening joy. "It was but a tiny ripple on our ideal life! Madame was sorry to have so misread her Aglaé's devotion, and bade the dear abbé to invite her hither on a visit. Did I delay an instant? Surely not, for I burned to show the good marquise how cruelly she'd wronged me. Oh! What ineffable delight! Is it not well to be divided by a tiff to taste the glad moment of reunion?"
Gabrielle remaining silent, too giddy and too sick to collect her thoughts, the other went on glibly--
"I arrived yesterday, a whole day before you, and have been so good--have I not, Mademoiselle Toinon? You like not poor Aglaé, and frown at her, but must speak honest truth. Knowing to my dismay and grief when I went hence that madame could deign to be jealous of one so insignificant, I refrained from embracing my pets until madame should grant permission. And since I adore them as if they were my own, madame can guess what that has cost me. Yes! I can hardly believe it possible myself, but I've not yet seen either Victor or Camille, the sweet ones!"
With a sigh of admiration and a large gesture of the dusky arms, suggestive of amazement at such self-control, Aglaé ceased, shaking her head archly, and holding the unwilling chatelaine by both hands, gazed long and fondly at her.
It was evident that the woman was playing a part, and was over-acting it. Was this done purposely, that the marquise, who was not clever, might have no doubt about the acting? It seemed so to watchful Toinon. The creature had succeeded somehow in inflicting her baleful presence for a second time upon themènage, and wished it to be understood that the returned Mademoiselle Brunelle was another person, no relation to the one who had been ejected. Why had she come? What did she propose to do? She surely did not expect the hapless marquise to clasp in her arms one who had so injured her--respond in earnest to her blandishments?
The brothers had come up the stairs to reconnoitre, and stood somewhat shyly in the doorway. Was there to be an explosion---a harrowing scene in which passion was to be torn to tatters; or was the artful play of the abbé to win the trick? He took in the situation with an exulting heart-thump. He had judged rightly. Of course he had! The marquise, pale as marble, was struck dumb--discomfited. She neither stormed nor wept. With a movement almost as kittenish as Aglaé's, he joined the group.
"Reconciled? I knew it," he cried, rubbing his white hands with relief. "Clovis, come and witness this delightful spectacle. The past is past and buried. We shall now begin afresh, and, profiting by experience, will be so happy, that madame will forgive our littleruse. The fact is, my sweet Gabrielle, that Clovis intends to devote himself to a yet deeper course of study, which requires a secretary and a partner--one who has an inkling of the secrets which are to be unearthed for the world's benefit. I took on myself, therefore, to risk the vials of a transient annoyance for the ultimate good of all. Mademoiselle will now be so occupied with her new duties that, to her regret, she must renounce all intercourse with the little ones. This, I believe, will meet your wishes? You are not angry? That is well. We are both pardoned, are we not?"
The marquise cast one slow glance of dumb remonstrance at Clovis, who was shifting from one foot to the other, guiltily, and shaking herself free from the exuberant Aglaé, left the room with Toinon.
Her strange reception by the latter was fully explained. Her foster-sister had believed that she was sufficiently unstable of purpose herself to have summoned the evil spirit that had been exorcised; it had not entered the girl's head that the men could have dared secretly to play such a trick upon her patience. What was their motive for the proceeding? Did the woman wield an occult power over the marquis such as forced him to obey her will even from a distance? Did she hold him in such abject thraldom that he really could not get on without her? The abbé had been the acting party in the arrangement. Had he re-introduced the bugbear merely to distress his sister-in-law, and display his malignant spleen? Such speculations as these passed vaguely through Gabrielle's dizzy brain as she stared aimlessly from her bedroom window into the courtyard, mechanically counting the big familiar stones which composed the opposite wall, surveying the iron-bound postern door with its complicated locks and bolts.
Toinon watched her mistress with growing ire as she bustled hither and thither arranging the details of the toilet.
Though scarce conceivable it was true--she could perceive it in every mournful line on the gloomy face of the marquise--that these bad men had deliberately done behind her back that which they knew to be most abhorrent to the gentle chatelaine; and she the one to whom they owed every earthly comfort! By so mad a stroke they had overreached themselves, for, of course, madame would resent the intolerable insolence--order the woman off with contumely--send the men packing. Toinon was aware of the late maréchal's testamentary dispositions; was thankful now to remember that it rested with her mistress alone to turn out the ex-governess as well as the chevalier and the abbé; and it somewhat nettled the faithful abigail that she should not at once have shown a proper spirit, and have abruptly closed the situation. The marquis looked just now so shamefaced that a few indignant words would have brought him to a sense of his wickedness. Whether there were or not guilty relations between the marquis and mademoiselle, was beside the point. The latter had by her fiendish behaviour well-nigh driven the marquise out of the world, and here she was playing the affectionate friend with exaggerated pantomime. It was disgusting. Madame being much too good, would perhaps give her shelter till the morrow, instead of expelling her into the night; but madame must rise in the morning with a firm resolve to make them all understand that she was mistress.
Thus grumbling, Toinon, who was answered only by a sigh. A thrill of doom had passed over Gabrielle. She felt the feeling of helplessness in face of the inevitable which brings with it an abiding sense of calm. She was hedged round by enemies--what mattered one the more? That Clovis should be so unutterably base as he now showed himself to be filled her with a numb surprise, tinged with subdued regret. The world, from the point where she now stood, was of such exceeding hideousness, that it came home with conviction to the spectator that nothing mattered any more. Oh! to be out of it! To be protected by a shield of sod from the tawdry mockeries that make this dwelling-place untenable! Should she, acting on Toinon's counsel, gird up her loins on the morrow, and assert her rights?À quoi bon?Gabrielle felt so shocked, so sore, so weary, and so desolate, that to show energy was not worth while. They had had the tact to let her comprehend at once that there was to be no more interference between herself and the dear ones. That was a prudent move on their part. Were these not now her all? If she and they were permitted to live their quiet life in the secluded wing, what signified the rest? Victor and Camille were out of reach of the greed and malice of the foe, quite secure from harm, for were their mother to be snatched away, they would be removed at once by the maréchale, and watched over by the friendly solicitor.
Toinon surveyed her mistress with amazed disgust when the latter quietly remarked, as she unrobed to go to rest, that for the present she would watch and wait; and act, if need were, by and by.