“OÙ PEUT-ON ÊTRE MIEUX QU’AU SEIN DE SA FAMILLE ?”
“Où peut-on être mieux qu’au sein de sa famille ?
Tout est content, le cœur, les yeux ;
Vivons, amis, comme nos bons aieux.
Les noms d’époux et de fille sont délicieux.”
—Opera of _Lucile_ (words by Marmontel, music by Grétry).
“No news, and delay again!” exclaimed Madame de Château-Foix, rising
impetuously from her chair as M. des Graves came through the long
window into her boudoir. “Antoine tells me now that the Pouzauges
diligence has been delayed by an accident on the road, so that the
newspaper has not come. It is unbearable!”
“Madame,” said the priest, “I am going this afternoon to see old Mère
Blandin at La Guyonnière, and I will return by the village and see if
the paper has come.”
“Pray, Father, do not do anything so foolish!” exclaimed the Marquise
sharply, for, as had been anticipated, the priest was now an inmate of
the château, and practically in hiding. “I will send Antoine down
again shortly.” She paused, sighed, and said: “It is a terrible pity
that Gilbert has been so punctilious about the date of his marriage
(and that you supported him in it, added her tone). Poor dear Adélaïde
d’Aucourt, she little knew what she was doing when she made that
stipulation. But for her there would not have been all this anxiety
on Lucienne’s behalf—But there,” she added, with a more feeling
resentment, “there is always Louis as well. I feel convinced that he
is at the bottom of this delay. If I had been consulted a little
more——”
“Gilbert did his duty in going to Louis’ assistance, Madame,” said
the priest gently. “It is not for us to lament over the consequences.
Moreover, you have had no bad news.”
“No,” said the Marquise, not noticing that he used the second person
plural where the first would have seemed more natural. “No, there has
been nothing but silence. But that is enough. None, I suppose, but a
mother can understand a mother’s anxieties.” She bit her lip. . . .
“Are you going immediately, Father? Ask Mère Blandin if she would like
me to send her some soup. . . . He is remarkably unconcerned,” thought
the Marquise to herself, as the priest passed out into the sunlight.
“And yet I am sure that, in his own way, he is very fond of Gilbert.”
For more than a fortnight the two had lived together, and it spoke
well for the restraint of Madame de Château-Foix that not until
the last two or three days had she allowed herself to betray how
overwrought she was becoming. The unsettled state of the country was
not in itself sufficient to account for the entire absence of a letter
or message of any kind from Gilbert, and the news of the temporary
popularity of the King since the events of the 20th of June, which had
filtered through to the provinces, was more puzzling than reassuring.
On one count at least—that of Lucienne—the Marquise quite realised the
need of her son’s journey to Paris, but her anxiety caused her to feel
that even for that necessity there must be blame somewhere, and who
was so near at hand to bear this as M. des Graves? There was no fault
to find with him, and sometimes she wished that there had been.
Moreover, his personal safety was beginning to be a care to her. She
watched him now as he went down the steps to the terrace. Supposing
that he met some official from Chantonnay?
There lay open on her table a copy of Saint François de Sales, which
her duty caused her to study. _La Vie Dévote_ was a favorite book with
M. des Graves, and one which he usually carried in his pocket—a fact
well known in the household since the celebrated day, years ago, when
Louis, having obtained possession of his copy, had cut out its
contents and, neatly substituting for them _Manon Lescaut_, had
restored the metamorphosed volume to the priest’s cassock. The
Marquise turned the pages at random and read: “La conduite la plus
parfaite est celle qui est pleine de tranquillité, de quiétude et de
repos.” She did not proceed any further, but glanced at the clock and
shut the book with something like a snap. It was as if M. des Graves
himself had spoken, and there were some things which M. des Graves did
not understand, one of them being, she suspected, the heart of a
mother. Madame de Château-Foix was a good woman and a dutiful daughter
of the Church, but her piety was cast in the mould of action rather
than of contemplation. Some women would have passed the hours of
suspense in prayer, but with her to pray was to work. She spent the
afternoon in a tour of inspection of all the living-rooms in the
château, and it was nearly six o’clock when she returned to her
boudoir, having satisfied herself that Gilbert’s bed was thoroughly
aired. This gave her a feeling of his imminent arrival.
About the same time M. des Graves was walking slowly homewards, his
head and shoulders bent with the weight of care he carried. He was
horribly anxious. Two days ago the newspaper had contained a somewhat
veiled and evidently delayed account of the discovery of a Royalist
conspiracy, followed by a number of arrests. There were no names
given, and the Marquise, if she had even seen the announcement, had
mercifully not connected it with Louis’ political escapade nor,
consequently, with Gilbert’s errand. But the priest had every word of
it by heart. Moreover, he knew what Madame de Château-Foix did not
know—that Gilbert’s name had once figured, by accident or design, on
the list of conspirators. For two days he had kept silence, but he was
beginning to feel that he could bear the suspense no longer, that it
was not right to let slip any more time in waiting for news. But what
could he do? He was himself a proscribed man. “Blessed is the man that
feareth the Lord,” he murmured, “he will not be afraid of any evil
tidings.” No, not for himself, perhaps, but when disaster threatened
another, how hard to say that! . . . And all the way up the avenue,
where the shadow of the elm trunks lay long and barrier-like in the
setting sun, he thought of the two boys who used to run to meet him
there, and to escort him on his way with laughter. Of these he had
perhaps helped to send the better-loved to his death.
The Marquise was not on the terrace, as he had somehow expected. He
went slowly up the steps to the salon window, which was open. The room
was empty, but from behind the folding-doors which led into the hall
came the sound of voices, a laugh which rang impossible in his ears,
and a smothered sob. M. des Graves hurriedly pushed open the doors.
In the hall, with his back to him, stood a dusty and travel-stained
figure on whose breast Madame de Château-Foix was laughing and crying.
Another, not at once recognisable as Louis, in an exceedingly old coat
drawn all awry over an invisible left arm, leant rather wearily
against the tall cabinet which enshrined the penultimate Marquis’
collection of Chinese porcelain. Gilbert turned his head, and the
Vicomte sprang forward.
* * * * * *
The most poignant moments of life are always liable to be impinged
upon by the commonplace. Perhaps if the travellers had not been so
palpably tired and dirty the scene might have prolonged itself, but
the Marquise, drying her eyes, soon disengaged herself from her son’s
arms, and declared that she would ask no questions until the two were
rested and fed. Neither the Marquis nor Louis demurred at this fiat;
only the latter turned for a moment with his foot on the bottom stair.
“You didn’t expect us at all—ever!” he whispered to the priest. “I saw
that you didn’t.”
M. des Graves bowed his head. “God’s mercies are too high for us,” he
answered. “Let us not forget to thank Him for them.” But, indeed, as
he knelt in the chapel five minutes later, it seemed to him that he
could not realise so great a restitution.
The prosaic medium of a meal brought them all together again. At
the bottom of the table sat the Marquise, and M. des Graves, on
Gilbert’s right hand, faced Louis across the plentifully spread board.
Unconsciously the priest found himself studying the face opposite to
him, wondering what change not only a perilous journey, but nine
months of absence and a hazardous existence had written there. The
outline of the Vicomte’s head was dark against the unshuttered window
behind him, but his face was in full candle-light. Yet the priest
could read nothing, while he was penetrated by the conviction that
there was something to be read. The young man looked white and tired,
but that was only natural, and he smiled across at his very good
friend with exactly his old half-mocking gaiety. Was there, or
was there not, some impalpable difference? Perhaps the soft,
half-submerged candle-light was baffling, for Louis’ visage remained
an enigma.
But since the observer is himself in no way exempt from observation,
Louis, too, looked between the pointed candle-flames at M. des Graves.
He saw beneath the priest’s eyes the unmistakable black rings whose
recurrence he remembered well in his boyish days, and he attributed
them without hesitation to one of those daylong fasts of which he used
then to hear rumours in the village. But he was wrong, for it was
anxiety which had set the marks there.
It was obvious that the travellers were hungry, and it was equally
obvious that the Marquise, despite her disclaimer, was hungry also—for
information. As soon as the two were served the servants were
dismissed, and when Madame de Château-Foix, after a struggle of short
duration with her nephew, had succeeded in cutting up his viands for
him, it was plain that she would shortly attempt to satisfy her
curiosity. Seeing this the priest, not without malice, entangled her
in a conversation of some complexity concerning one of her pensioners,
the very old woman whom he had that afternoon been to visit. The
Marquise became restive, but it was some time before she could break
free, and meanwhile Louis at least, a prey to an undutiful amusement,
made the best use of his time. At last the poor lady succeeded in her
efforts, and dismissed the obtrusive topic.
“Well, I will send her some soup to-morrow,” she said. “Gilbert, will
you not have some more meat?”
“No, thank you,” replied her son, filling his glass; “we have not been
actually starving, ma mère.”
“Well, then, I do not wish to hurry you, nor to tire you with talking,
but I cannot help being anxious to hear now what has happened to you.
Why did Louis have to come back in those extraordinary clothes?” It
had already been briefly explained to her why he wore his arm in a
sling.
“Because I am a druggist’s assistant,” murmured the Vicomte to his
plate.
“Did you say that you wanted the bread?” enquired the Curé across the
table. Louis took a piece without explaining, but as he did so he
lifted his eyes to the priest’s. Their meaning—which M. des Graves did
not visibly acknowledge—was “You are beaten!”
Gilbert pushed away his wine glass with a sigh. “It is a long story,”
he said slowly, trying mentally to arrange it under headings.
“Suppose you give us the outlines,” suggested the priest.
“Tell me first,” put in Madame de Château-Foix quickly, “what has
become of dear Lucienne. I am most anxious to know what you finally
arranged about her. I wished so much afterwards that I had insisted
upon accompanying you, for what with not hearing from you, and
fancying that you might have been arrested——”
“We are here at all events now, my dear mother,” said Gilbert,
smiling down the table at her. “And Lucienne is, I hope, long ago in
safety in Suffolk. I saw her leave Paris with that excellent woman,
Madame Gaumont, of whom you may have heard.”
“But when was that?” asked the Marquise, in rising bewilderment. “And
what did you do before that—and why have you been so long in coming
back?”
“We did not have a very peaceable journey down here,” responded the
Marquis in answer to the third and last query.
“My dear Gilbert,” said his mother, with a suspicion of tartness, “I
can see that with my own eyes. Do start at the beginning, and do not
assume that we know everything!”
“Dear aunt,” broke in Louis suddenly, “you are not aware of it, but
you are putting too heavy a strain on Gilbert’s modesty. It is more
fitting that I should relate the story. When he got to Paris Gilbert
found that the suspicions which had brought him there were quite just;
at first I did not think so, and stood out against his arguments, with
the result that I spent a night in La Force.”
“You _were_ arrested!” gasped the Marquise.
“I was,” returned her nephew, “and it is owing to Gilbert that I am
not still in that condition. Some of the other poor devils are. When
I was released——”
“One moment!” interrupted the Curé. “What do you mean by saying that
it was owing to Gilbert?”
Louis seemed, as it were, pulled up. “I mean . . . that he got me
out.”
“But how?” enquired his aunt, now grasping the point of discussion.
The Vicomte was silent for a moment and glanced at his cousin.
“Louis, fortunately, had an influential friend among the Girondins,”
interposed the Marquis shortly. About this point the priest began to
understand that he had better have left his question unasked. “It was
through this person that I was able to procure an order of release.
The difficulty of getting out of the city we solved——”
“But I still can’t understand,” said the Marquise persistently. She
turned to Louis. “This person must have been greatly in your debt to
do you such a service.”
“Not that I am aware of,” returned the young man. “Indeed, the whole
affair is a mystery to me. Gilbert must have been very persuasive.”
Here, looking across the table, Louis found the priest’s eyes fixed
upon him. “Were you aware of his powers in that direction, Father?” he
asked mischievously.
“Perhaps I am, my son. Go on with your story,” said the Curé, with the
suspicion of a smile.
Thus urged, Louis gave a vivid account of their exit from Paris,
the Marquise hanging on his words with evident joy at having secured,
if only for a time, a circumstantial narrative. The recital, full
of colour and vivacity, came down to their arrival at the inn at
Pézé-le-Robert, where it suddenly stopped.
“Yes?” said Madame de Château-Foix, her eyes shining like a girl’s.
“Oh, then,” said Louis carelessly, “we had an unfortunate little
affair, which was the real cause of our delay in getting here. As
usual it began in my carelessness—and ended in a knife. An inquisitive
citizen picked up one of those handkerchiefs which you embroidered for
me on my last birthday, my aunt, and grudged the poor druggist’s
assistant his finery. If Gilbert had not dragged me out and carried me
about forty miles to the nearest habitation——”
“My poor boys!” ejaculated the Marquise, shuddering. “How far did you
say it was?”
“Louis is romancing,” said Château-Foix coldly. “The farm was about
three-quarters of a mile away, and he went most of the way on his own
feet.”
“A farm!” said the priest. “Was it safe?”
“I hope you got into a comfortable bed, my poor Louis,” observed the
Marquise.
“A hay bed, my aunt. No, the place would scarcely have been safe for
suspected aristocrats if Gilbert had not again employed his powers of
persuasion with the fair sex, and won us a shelter in the lady’s
loft.”
“Oh, it was a woman! But you did not tell us about any other woman?”
exclaimed Madame de Château-Foix, with every appearance of a lively
interest groping for light.
The Vicomte’s pause at his slip was only momentary. “Quite true,” he
returned in a tone of cheerful surprise. “I forgot to mention the
chambermaid at Dreux, who was so much impressed by his _bel air_ that
she gave us almost clean sheets.”
The Marquise looked disappointed but satisfied, M. des Graves bit his
lip, and Gilbert was not at all amused.
“And did this woman look after you well, Louis?”
“Almost too well, aunt. She hauled me down from the loft and
imprisoned me in her own fastness, whence Gilbert, who might have
been speeding back to you and safety, had a good deal of trouble in
extricating me.” The momentary smiling glance at Château-Foix came
back to the Marquise. “So you see, my dear aunt, that you owe nearly
all your anxieties to your unworthy nephew.”
Gilbert suddenly sat up in his chair. “Louis has quite omitted to
state that if he had not taken the knife in his shoulder it would have
been in my back. It was like this,” he went on rapidly, while all
three stared at him. “When they fell upon us we had each to fend for
himself, but one cannot see all round one, and if Louis had not thrown
himself in between——”
“Rubbish!” interposed the Vicomte, looking both surprised and
disconcerted. “I never knew that the man had a knife till I felt it.”
“That does not alter the fact that you probably saved my life,” said
the Marquis. “Surely after that one would owe everything——” His voice
and eyes dropped, and his fingers played with the stem of his wine
glass.
“Will you bring me some more wine, my dear Louis?” asked the Marquise
in a low voice; and when the young man, rising, brought it from the
sideboard and filled her glass, she laid her hand on his and kept him
for a moment in converse by her chair. Gilbert too got up, and helped
himself to a plateful of the meat which he had not long ago refused.
M. des Graves sat quite still, and looked out at the tops of the elms,
dead black now against a dying green sky. Was that the voice of
gratitude? Not indeed that there had been the faintest note of
grudging in the tribute, but because, to his fine ear, it was pierced
by the sharp consciousness of a counter-claim which might, in a man of
Gilbert’s temperament, have been the very motive of its payment. He
was troubled.
“Will you hear the rest to-night, ma mère?” asked the Marquis,
sitting down again. After all, he had left the plate on the sideboard.
“I must have a conversation with M. des Graves this evening, and it
grows late.”
The Marquise let her nephew go. “We must hear it to-night,” she
answered. “But I hope that you do not all intend to sit up till
morning.”
“You need not distress yourself about me, my dear aunt,” retorted
Louis, dropping into his chair. He looked indeed extremely fatigued,
and even his gaiety rang to the priest a little forced. “I hope,” he
went on, “to be asleep in another half-hour. There is no need for me
to take part in the council. I have always known that there were
advantages in not living on one’s estate. One pays the penalty of
one’s model dairies—though that English milord, by the way, was not
looking after his tenants in the prescribed British fashion. You might
tell them about him, Gilbert.”
The narrative, losing in the Marquis’ hands the lively humour with
which Louis had previously invested it, was listened to in silence.
Nine o’clock struck as Gilbert finished with almost obvious relief.
Madame de Château-Foix sighed, and rose with more obvious reluctance.
“Louis, I release you. You will find your old room all ready for you,”
she said to him, as he lifted her hand to his lips. “And may God bless
you for what you did,” she added softly, kissing him. “Promise me that
you will not keep Gilbert long, Father. Good-night, my son.”
“Good-night, my dear mother,” said Château-Foix, kissing her tenderly.
As he released her, she caught hold of him again. “Thank God that she
is safe too,” she said, emphasising the pronoun. “I wish that she knew
you were so.”
“She will soon know that we reached Candé at least in safety,”
answered the Marquis unhesitatingly. “You may trust an Englishman to
fulfil a promise. I sent a letter by him.”
“You never told us that!” remarked his mother, a little surprised.
“Dear Lucienne! I fear that, once knowing she was safe, I have been
remiss in my enquiries. How did she bear the parting?”
“I had some difficulty in persuading her to leave Madame Elisabeth,”
replied Gilbert in the same level tones. “As far as safety and comfort
are concerned, I am sure that she is in good hands, and after the
events of the 20th that must be some consideration. But I will tell
you all about her to-morrow,” he said, concluding this answer which
was none at all.
“I must be content with that, then, I suppose,” said Madame de
Château-Foix, kissing him again. “And I am forgetting that I can apply
to Louis too,” she added quickly, turning to the Vicomte where he
stood silent, waiting to lead her out. “After all, you really know
more about the dear child just now than Gilbert. How often have we not
been glad that you were near her!”
“Yes,” put in the Marquis slowly, looking at his cousin, though he
spoke to the Marquise, “you must make him give you a full description
of events before I got to Paris.” His voice grated ever so slightly.
Louis made a supreme effort. For the last few moments, between mental
turmoil, fatigue, and real physical pain, all he could realise was
that he was nearing disaster, and he snatched blindly at the forces
which were slipping from him.
“I shall be happy to tell you everything about her to-morrow,” he
said, with an inclination towards his aunt. Yet the ring in his voice
seemed to the priest, who was watching his white face, to be meant for
some one else. “But to-night. . . .” Unconsciously he caught hold of
the high back of his chair to steady himself.
“To-night, my dear boy,” interposed the Curé, coming round to him, “we
can see that you will be back again in the apothecary’s hands if you
do not go to bed at once. Is it not so, Madame? And I want the
apothecary’s entire attention myself.”
“Yes, indeed; I know that I am being selfish,” rejoined the Marquise,
moving forward. “Come, Louis, I will not keep you a moment longer, and
you shall let me dress your shoulder for you.” She swept past him up
the table, and Louis threw a flickering glance of gratitude at the
priest and followed her without a word.
As he went Gilbert awoke to a half-alarmed realisation of what he had
done. If Louis left the room without speaking to him—and, from
whatever cause, he evidently intended to do so—his mother and the
priest would certainly regard it as an extraordinary lapse, on this,
of all nights. He hastily poured out a glass of wine and intercepted
the Vicomte before he got to the door.
“Had you not better drink this before going up the stairs?” he said,
holding it out to him.
Louis took the glass. His brain was by now too confused to transmit
anything but a vague conception of hostility embodied somehow in
Gilbert, whose figure, in a nightmarish fashion, was tending queerly
to vary in size. Whatever happened he must not seem to notice this. He
drank; and, less by the physical stimulus than by some inner succour
of blood and breeding, was restored to speech.
“Thank you,” he said, carefully putting down the glass. “I am all
right now. Good-night, Gilbert.” He paused a second and then held out
his hand; it scarcely shook.
The Marquis took it unhesitatingly. “Good-night,” he returned. “I hope
you will sleep.”
“I hope so too,” said the Vicomte, and with a little white, half-defiant
smile he gave his arm to the Marquise at his elbow. Gilbert held open
the door and the two passed out.
The observer by the hearth had barely had time to feel puzzled and a
trifle hurt at the absence of any farewell from his former pupil, when
Madame de Château-Foix reappeared alone upon the threshold.
“Louis desires your blessing, Father,” she said. “Will you give it him
out here, for I think the poor boy is really too worn out to move a
step further than he need.”
When the priest came back he found Gilbert standing as he had left
him, staring into the fire, but when he put his hand on his arm the
Marquis turned and followed him without a word.