Of the week that followed my coming to Lavedan I find some difficulty
in writing. It was for me a time very crowded with events--events that
appeared to be moulding my character anew and making of me a person
different, indeed, from that Marcel de Bardelys whom in Paris they
called the Magnificent. Yet these events, although significant in their
total, were of so vague and slight a nature in their detail, that when I
come to write of them I find really little that I may set down.
Rodenard and his companions remained for two days at the chateau, and to
me his sojourn there was a source of perpetual anxiety, for I knew not
how far the fool might see fit to prolong it. It was well for me that
this anxiety of mine was shared by Monsieur de Lavedan, who disliked at
such a time the presence of men attached to one who was so notoriously
of the King's party. He came at last to consult me as to what measures
might be taken to remove them, and I--nothing loath to conspire with him
to so desirable end--bade him suggest to Rodenard that perhaps evil had
befallen Monsieur de Bardelys, and that, instead of wasting his time
at Lavedan, he were better advised to be searching the province for his
master.
This counsel the Vicomte adopted, and with such excellent results that
that very day--within the hour, in fact--Ganymede, aroused to a sense
of his proper duty, set out in quest of me, not a little disturbed in
mind--for with all his shortcomings the rascal loved me very faithfully.
That was on the third day of my sojourn at Lavedan. On the morrow I
rose, my foot being sufficiently recovered to permit it. I felt a little
weak from loss of blood, but Anatole--who, for all his evil countenance,
was a kindly and gentle--servant was confident that a few days--a week
at most--would see me completely restored.
Of leaving Lavedan I said nothing. But the Vicomte, who was one of
the most generous and noble hearted men that it has ever been my good
fortune to meet, forestalled any mention of my departure by urging that
I should remain at the chateau until my recovery were completed, and,
for that matter, as long thereafter as should suit my inclinations.
“At Lavedan you will be safe, my friend,” he assured me; “for, as I have
told you, we are under no suspicion. Let me urge you to remain until the
King shall have desisted from further persecuting us.”
And when I protested and spoke of trespassing, he waived the point with
a brusqueness that amounted almost to anger.
“Believe, monsieur, that I am pleased and honoured at serving one who
has so stoutly served the Cause and sacrificed so much to it.”
At that, being not altogether dead to shame, I winced, and told myself
that my behaviour was unworthy, and that I was practising a detestable
deception. Yet some indulgence I may justly claim in consideration
of how far I was victim of circumstance. Did I tell him that I was
Bardelys, I was convinced that I should never leave the chateau alive.
Very noble-hearted was the Vicomte, and no man have I known more averse
to bloodthirstiness, but he had told me much during the days that I had
lain abed, and many lives would be jeopardized did I proclaim what I had
learned from him. Hence I argued that any disclosure of my identity must
perforce drive him to extreme measures for the sake of the friends he
had unwittingly betrayed.
On the day after Rodenard's departure I dined with the family, and met
again Mademoiselle de Lavedan, whom I had not seen since the balcony
adventure of some nights ago. The Vicomtesse was also present, a lady
of very austere and noble appearance--lean as a pike and with a most
formidable nose--but, as I was soon to discover, with a mind inclining
overmuch to scandal and the high-seasoned talk of the Courts in which
her girlhood had been spent.
From her lips I heard that day the old, scandalous story of Monseigneur
de Richelieu's early passion for Anne of Austria. With much unction did
she tell us how the Queen had lured His Eminence to dress himself in the
motley of a jester that she might make a mock of him in the eyes of the
courtiers she had concealed behind the arras of her chamber.
This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of discreditable detail and
scant regard for either her daughter's presence or for the blushes that
suffused the poor child's cheeks. In every way she was a pattern of the
class of women amongst whom my youth had been spent, a class which had
done so much towards shattering my faith and lowering my estimate of her
sex. Lavedan had married her and brought her into Languedoc, and here
she spent her years lamenting the scenes of her youth, and prone, it
would seem, to make them matter for conversation whenever a newcomer
chanced to present himself at the chateau.
Looking from her to her daughter, I thanked Heaven that Roxalanne was no
reproduction of the mother. She had inherited as little of her character
as of her appearance. Both in feature and in soul Mademoiselle de
Lavedan was a copy of that noble, gallant gentleman, her father.
One other was present at that meal, of whom I shall have more to say
hereafter. This was a young man of good presence, save, perhaps, a too
obtrusive foppishness, whom Monsieur de Lavedan presented to me as a
distant kinsman of theirs, one Chevalier de Saint-Eustache. He was
very tall--of fully my own height--and of an excellent shape, although
extremely young. But his head if anything was too small for his body,
and his good-natured mouth was of a weakness that was confirmed by the
significance of his chin, whilst his eyes were too closely set to augur
frankness.
He was a pleasant fellow, seemingly of that negative pleasantness
that lies in inoffensiveness, but otherwise dull and of an untutored
mind--rustic, as might be expected in one the greater part of whose life
had been spent in his native province, and of a rusticity rendered all
the more flagrant by the very efforts he exerted to dissemble it.
It was after madame had related that unsavoury anecdote touching the
Cardinal that he turned to ask me whether I was well acquainted with the
Court. I was near to committing the egregious blunder of laughing in his
face, but, recollecting myself betimes, I answered vaguely that I had
some knowledge of it, whereupon he all but caused me to bound from my
chair by asking me had I ever met the Magnificent Bardelys.
“I--I am acquainted with him,” I answered warily. “Why do you ask?”
“I was reminded of him by the fact that his servants have been here for
two days. You were expecting the Marquis himself, were you not, Monsieur
le Vicomte?”
Lavedan raised his head suddenly, after the manner of a man who has
received an affront.
“I was not, Chevalier,” he answered, with emphasis. “His intendant, an
insolent knave of the name of Rodenard, informed me that this Bardelys
projected visiting me. He has not come, and I devoutly hope that he may
not come. Trouble enough had I to rid myself of his servants, and but
for Monsieur de Lesperon's well-conceived suggestion they might still be
here.”
“You have never met him, monsieur?” inquired the Chevalier.
“Never,” replied our host in such a way that any but a fool must have
understood that he desired nothing less than such a meeting.
“A delightful fellow,” murmured Saint-Eustache--“a brilliant, dazzling
personality.”
“You--you are acquainted with him?” I asked.
“Acquainted?” echoed that boastful liar. “We were as brothers.”
“How you interest me! And why have you never told us?” quoth madame, her
eyes turned enviously upon the young man--as enviously as were Lavedan's
turned in disgust. “It is a thousand pities that Monsieur de Bardelys
has altered his plans and is no longer coming to us. To meet such a man
is to breathe again the air of the grand monde. You remember, Monsieur
de Lesperon, that affair with the Duchess de Bourgogne?” And she smiled
wickedly in my direction.
“I have some recollection of it,” I answered coldly. “But I think
that rumour exaggerates. When tongues wag, a little rivulet is often
described as a mountain torrent.”
“You would not say so did you but know what I know,” she informed me
roguishly. “Often, I confess, rumour may swell the importance of such an
affaire, but in this case I do not think that rumour does it justice.”
I made a deprecatory gesture, and I would have had the subject changed,
but ere I could make an effort to that end, the fool Saint-Eustache was
babbling again.
“You remember the duel that was fought in consequence, Monsieur de
Lesperon?”
“Yes,” I assented wearily.
“And in which a poor young fellow lost his life,” growled the Vicomte.
“It was practically a murder.”
“Nay, monsieur,” I cried, with a sudden heat that set them staring at
me; “there you do him wrong. Monsieur de Bardelys was opposed to the
best blade in France. The man's reputation as a swordsman was of such
a quality that for a twelvemonth he had been living upon it, doing all
manner of unseemly things immune from punishment by the fear in which
he was universally held. His behaviour in the unfortunate affair we
are discussing was of a particularly shameful character. Oh, I know the
details, messieurs, I can sure you. He thought to impose his reputation
upon Bardelys as he had imposed it upon a hundred others, but Bardelys
was over-tough for his teeth. He sent that notorious young gentleman
a challenge, and on the following morning he left him dead in the
horsemarket behind the Hotel Vendome. But far from a murder, monsieur,
it was an act of justice, and the most richly earned punishment with
which ever man was visited.”
“Even if so,” cried the Vicomte in some surprise, “why all this heat to
defend a brawler?”
“A brawler?” I repeated after him. “Oh, no. That is a charge his worst
enemies cannot make against Bardelys. He is no brawler. The duel in
question was his first affair of the kind, and it has been his last,
for unto him has clung the reputation that had belonged until then to La
Vertoile, and there is none in France bold enough to send a challenge
to him.” And, seeing what surprise I was provoking, I thought it well to
involve another with me in his defence. So, turning to the Chevalier,
“I am sure,” said I, “that Monsieur de Saint-Eustache will confirm my
words.”
Thereupon, his vanity being all aroused, the Chevalier set himself
to paraphrase all that I had said with a heat that cast mine into a
miserable insignificance.
“At least,” laughed the Vicomte at length, “he lacks not for champions.
For my own part, I am content to pray Heaven that he come not to
Lavedan, as he intended.”
“Mais voyons, Gaston,” the Vicomtesse protested, “why harbour prejudice?
Wait at least until you have seen him, that you may judge him for
yourself.”
“Already have I judged him; I pray that I may never see him.”
“They tell me he is a very handsome man,” said she, appealing to me
for confirmation. Lavedan shot her a sudden glance of alarm, at which I
could have laughed. Hitherto his sole concern had been his daughter, but
it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps not even her years might set
the Vicomtesse in safety from imprudences with this devourer of hearts,
should he still chance to come that way.
“Madame,” I answered, “he is accounted not ill-favored.” And with a
deprecatory smile I added, “I am said somewhat to resemble him.”
“Say you so?” she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows, and looking at me
more closely than hitherto. And then it seemed to me that into her
face crept a shade of disappointment. If this Bardelys were not more
beautiful than I, then he was not nearly so beautiful a man as she had
imagined. She turned to Saint-Eustache.
“It is indeed so, Chevalier?” she inquired. “Do you note the
resemblance?”
“Vanitas, vanitate,” murmured the youth, who had some scraps of Latin
and a taste for airing them. “I can see no likeness--no trace of one.
Monsieur de Lesperon is well enough, I should say. But Bardelys!” He
cast his eyes to the ceiling. “There is but one Bardelys in France.”
“Enfin,” I laughed, “you are no doubt well qualified to judge,
Chevalier. I had flattered myself that some likeness did exist, but
probably you have seen the Marquis more frequently than have I, and
probably you know him better. Nevertheless, should he come his way,
I will ask you to look at us side by side and be the judge of the
resemblance.”
“Should I happen to be here,” he said, with a sudden constraint not
difficult to understand, “I shall be happy to act as arbiter.”
“Should you happen to be here?” I echoed questioningly. “But surely,
should you hear that Monsieur de Bardelys is about to arrive, you will
postpone any departure you may be on the point of making, so that you
may renew this great friendship that you tell us you do the Marquis the
honour of entertaining for him?”
The Chevalier eyed me with the air of a man looking down from a great
height upon another. The Vicomte smiled quietly to himself as he combed
his fair beard with his forefinger in a meditative fashion, whilst even
Roxalanne--who had sat silently listening to a conversation that she
was at times mercifully spared from following too minutely--flashed me a
humorous glance. To the Vicomtesse alone who in common with women of
her type was of a singular obtuseness--was the situation without
significance.
Saint-Eustache, to defend himself against my delicate imputation, and
to show how well acquainted he was with Bardelys, plunged at once into
a thousand details of that gentleman's magnificence. He described his
suppers, his retinue, his equipages, his houses, his chateaux, his
favour with the King, his successes with the fair sex, and I know not
what besides--in all of which I confess that even to me there was a
certain degree of novelty. Roxalanne listened with an air of amusement
that showed how well she read him. Later, when I found myself alone
with her by the river, whither we had gone after the repast and
the Chevalier's reminiscences were at an end, she reverted to that
conversation.
“Is not my cousin a great fanfarron, monsieur,” she asked.
“Surely you know your cousin better than I,” I answered cautiously. “Why
question me upon his character?”
“I was hardly questioning; I was commenting. He spent a fortnight in
Paris once, and he accounts himself, or would have us account him,
intimate with every courtier at the Luxembourg. Oh, he is very amusing,
this good cousin, but tiresome too.” She laughed, and there was the
faintest note of scorn in her amusement. “Now, touching this Marquis de
Bardelys, it is very plain that the Chevalier boasted when he said that
they were as brothers--he and the Marquis--is it not? He grew ill at
ease when you reminded him of the possibility of the Marquis's visit to
Lavedan.” And she laughed quaintly to herself. “Do you think that he so
much as knows Bardelys?” she asked me suddenly.
“Not so much as by sight,” I answered. “He is full of information
concerning that unworthy gentleman, but it is only information that the
meanest scullion in Paris might afford you, and just as inaccurate.”
“Why do you speak of him as unworthy? Are you of the same opinion as my
father?”
“Aye, and with better cause.”
“You know him well?”
“Know him? Pardieu, he is my worst enemy. A worn-out libertine; a
sneering, cynical misogynist; a nauseated reveller; a hateful egotist.
There is no more unworthy person, I'll swear, in all France. Peste! The
very memory of the fellow makes me sick. Let us talk of other things.”
But although I urged it with the best will and the best intentions in
the world, I was not to have my way. The air became suddenly heavy with
the scent of musk, and the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache stood before us,
and forced the conversation once more upon the odious topic of Monsieur
de Bardelys.
The poor fool came with a plan of campaign carefully considered, bent
now upon overthrowing me with the knowledge he would exhibit, and
whereby he looked to encompass my humiliation before his cousin.
“Speaking of Bardelys, Monsieur de Lesperon--”
“My dear Chevalier, we were no longer speaking of him.”
He smiled darkly. “Let us speak of him, then.”
“But are there not a thousand more interesting things that we might
speak of?”
This he took for a fresh sign of fear, and so he pressed what he
accounted his advantage.
“Yet have patience; there is a point on which perhaps you can give me
some information.”
“Impossible,” said I.
“Are you acquainted with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?”
“I was,” I answered casually, and as casually I added, “Are you?”
“Excellently well,” he replied unhesitatingly. “I was in Paris at the
time of the scandal with Bardelys.”
I looked up quickly.
“Was it then that you met her?” I inquired in an idle sort of way.
“Yes. I was in the confidence of Bardelys, and one night after we
had supped at his hotel--one of those suppers graced by every wit in
Paris--he asked me if I were minded to accompany him to the Louvre. We
went. A masque was in progress.”
“Ah,” said I, after the manner of one who suddenly takes in the entire
situation; “and it was at this masque that you met the Duchesse?”
“You have guessed it. Ah, monsieur, if I were to tell you of the things
that I witnessed that night, they would amaze you,” said he, with a
great air and a casual glance at Mademoiselle to see into what depth of
wonder these glimpses into his wicked past were plunging her.
“I doubt it not,” said I, thinking that if his imagination were as
fertile in that connection as it had been in mine he was likely, indeed,
to have some amazing things to tell. “But do I understand you to say
that that was the time of the scandal you have touched upon?”
“The scandal burst three days after that masque. It came as a surprise
to most people. As for me--from what Bardelys had told me--I expected
nothing less.”
“Pardon, Chevalier, but how old do you happen to be?”
“A curious question that,” said he, knitting his brows.
“Perhaps. But will you not answer it?”
“I am twenty-one,” said he. “What of it?”
“You are twenty, mon cousin,” Roxalanne corrected him.
He looked at her a second with an injured air.
“Why, true--twenty! That is so,” he acquiesced; and again, “what of it?”
he demanded.
“What of it, monsieur?” I echoed. “Will you forgive me if I express
amazement at your precocity, and congratulate you upon it?”
His brows went if possible closer together and his face grew very red.
He knew that somewhere a pitfall awaited him, yet hardly where.
“I do not understand you.”
“Bethink you, Chevalier. Ten years have flown since this scandal you
refer to. So that at the time of your supping with Bardelys and the wits
of Paris, at the time of his making a confidant of you and carrying you
off to a masque at the Louvre, at the time of his presenting you to the
Duchesse de Bourgogne, you were just ten years of age. I never had cause
to think over-well of Bardelys, but had you not told me yourself, I
should have hesitated to believe him so vile a despoiler of innocence,
such a perverter of youth.”
He crimsoned to the very roots of his hair.
Roxalanne broke into a laugh. “My cousin, my cousin,” she cried, “they
that would become masters should begin early, is it not so?”
“Monsieur de Lesperon,” said he, in a very formal voice, “do you wish me
to apprehend that you have put me through this catechism for the purpose
of casting a doubt upon what I have said?”
“But have I done that? Have I cast a doubt?” I asked, with the utmost
meekness.
“So I apprehend.”
“Then you apprehend amiss. Your words, I assure you, admit of no doubt
whatever. And now, monsieur, if you will have mercy upon me, we will
talk of other things. I am so weary of this unfortunate Bardelys and his
affairs. He may be the fashion of Paris and at Court, but down here his
very name befouls the air. Mademoiselle,” I said, turning to Roxalanne,
“you promised me a lesson in the lore of flowers.”
“Come, then,” said she, and, being an exceedingly wise child, she
plunged straightway into the history of the shrubs about us.
Thus did we avert a storm that for a moment was very imminent. Yet some
mischief was done, and some good, too, perhaps. For if I made an enemy
of the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache by humbling him in the eyes of the
one woman before whom he sought to shine, I established a bond 'twixt
Roxalanne and myself by that same humiliation of a foolish coxcomb,
whose boastfulness had long wearied her.