To draw the sting, withouten fail
Endeth the evil; and this tale.
“Isn’t he a beauty?” the “Gamin” asked, lifting her baby from the
great white blanket upon which he was crawling about, and flourishing
him in her extended arms toward Pavlo, who had arrived an hour before
from Salvières.
“Man or woman?” the young officer demanded, somewhat peremptorily. “I
can never remember the sex of a thing not old enough to wear trousers.”
“Awfully stupid of you!” Marguerite contemptuously commented.
“Especially since he bears your name, and you were his proxy-godfather,
_mon ami_!”
“That’s true, too!” admitted Pavlo, more meekly. “Proxy-godfather--not
godfather by proxy. There’s a difference.”
“A very serious _nuance_,” Marguerite reprehended; “you had the honor of
proxyfying (Lord! I wonder if that’s the right way to put it?) His
Majesty the Autocrat of All the Russias, and came loaded down with
offerings like the Magi. Whew! You mind that golden christening-goblet
studded with clear-set rubies and diamonds as big as haricot beans? It
was a sore temptation not to have them strung into a necklace for
myself.”
“As if your jewel-coffers were not teeming and running over already,”
he scoffed. “Don’t forget your own little _cadeau-de-relevailles_ from
the same Imperial source, Madame la Princesse Palitzin. Pearls the
size of hazelnuts--large hazelnuts at that--are not picked up in the
hoof-prints of a pack-mule.” And he pointed to the strands coiled about
her white neck beneath the sheer ananas-batiste of her corsage. “Why,
they reveal their orient, smoored as they are by this stuff you wear.”
“Smoored,” she shrugged. “Who ever heard of speaking so insolently of
autocratic pearls?”
Marguerite, though transformed by the plenitude of her happiness, was
never more than now deserving of her nickname of “Moonglade.” Standing
there on the broad terrace of _La Tour du Chevalier_, she looked every
bit as young as she had done when Basil had visited her at the Hôtel de
Plenhöel just after his marriage with Laurence Seton. Slender, erect,
ethereal as ever, and dainty with the daintiness of a flower, there was
nothing full-blown as yet about _this_ Marguerite of Marguerites, and
her father, walking up from the plaisance, smiled with pride as he saw
her.
“Oh!” she cried. “Here is Grandpapa--such a venerable Grandpapa! Pull
his mustache, Pavlo, junior--a corn-colored mustache, too, as silky as
your hair, baby mine! Isn’t it a scandal to look so indecently
youthful, my father dear?”
Régis laughed. He certainly did not give a very grandfatherly
impression, for he stubbornly refused to become even middle-aged, and
was still the _beau-sabreur_ and passionate sportsman he had always
been. His daughter’s ideal existence with Basil was an everlasting joy
to him, and now he beamed upon the little group on the terrace. Suddenly
his smile disappeared.
“Look out, _Chevalier_!” he said, precipitately; and to Pavlo’s
immense astonishment Marguerite hastily put his small namesake down on
the blanket, looking almost fearfully over her shoulder.
“Don’t praise the baby before Piotr!” she whispered to him. “I’ll
explain later.”
His mouth wide open with astonishment, the young _Garde-à-Cheval_ saw
Piotr emerge at a lively trot from the long flight of stone steps
leading up from a lower terrace and fly like a dart toward him--Piotr
transformed into a big boy in long sailor-trousers, a nautical blouse,
and a _béret_, with the words _La Mauve_ in gold gleaming on its
ribbon, thrust well to the back of his head.
“Hallo, Cousin Pavlo!” the boy cried. “They told me you had come, so I
ran as fast as I could!” And doffing his _béret_ in right gallant
fashion, he held out his brown hand in greeting.
“_Saperlipopette!_” exclaimed Pavlo. “The heir of the House of Palitzin
leaves nothing to be desired, it seems to me.”
With an amusing tilt of his eminently patrician nose Piotr looked his
cousin up and down, and, preternaturally solemn, declared, “Neither does
the heir of the House of Salvières!”
There was a general burst of merriment.
“This comes,” Régis gravely pronounced, as soon as he could speak, “of
being brought up entirely among grown people. One knows one’s ropes
early.”
“Are you going to stay long with us, Cousin Pavlo?” demanded the
undismayed Piotr.
“Fairly so, if you’ll permit it, my dear cousin.”
“I do! But it’s only because you are too old now to be a playmate that
I like your being here.”
“You surprise me, Monsieur Piotr!” said Pavlo, who was quite genuinely
amazed. “Might I so far venture as to ask what set objection you have
against playmates?”
“It’s little darling Malou’s fault,” imperturbably explained Piotr.
“Fancy, Cousin Pavlo, that some months ago she threatened to give me
one--a playmate who would take her place and Papa’s, and toss the
_paume_ with me.”
“Well?” inquired Pavlo. “Was there anything offensive about that?”
Piotr’s face had turned a little pale, his eyes narrowing almost to
slits.
“No,” he grumbled, “not as it turned out at last. But you see, Cousin
Pavlo, it might have been different.”
“_What_ might have been different?” insisted Pavlo. “Can’t you explain
better than that, Piotr?”
“No!” the boy replied, his frank and open expression suddenly
transformed into sulkiness. “I don’t like to talk about it. Come
and see my soldiers, Cousin Pavlo; it will be much more pleasant.
They are,” he continued, resuming his ordinary tone and mien,
“_Gardes-à-Cheval_ like yourself. And just think, Papa gave me a
real, big, splendid camp, with a mess-tent and little _isbas_
exactly like those at _your_ camp--the soldiers are five inches
tall, and the horses all in proportion.”
“What sort of a playroom have you got, my friend, to hold such an
outfit?” asked Pavlo, smiling.
“Oh, the whole floor of a tower!” cried Piotr, triumphantly. “My
little darling Malou arranged it all for me. She thinks of nobody
but me. Don’t you, little darling Malou?” And with the most tender
and winning smile imaginable, the boy clasped Marguerite’s waist in
both arms and looked adoringly up at her.
“_Voyez vous ça!_ There’s cheek for you!” cried Pavlo. “And what
about your father and little Pavlo here? Doesn’t she think of them
sometimes?”
The smile vanished from Piotr’s face. “Papa knew her long before she
knew me,” he said. “Also he is an old gentleman with gray hair--so
he doesn’t count; and as to that rubber bath-doll there,” and he
contemptuously pointed at his little brother, “how could she love
it? It only says _Youm-youm_ and _Gaga-gaga_. It’s an idiot!”
As ill-luck would have it, the baby, wholly unconscious of the
anathema pronounced against him, selected that risky moment for a
_coup-de-théâtre_ of immense magnitude. Sitting up on his blanket,
he suddenly raised his head, opened his rosebud of a mouth, and in
the rather heart-shaking fashion of the first word ever pronounced,
clearly uttered, “_Mayou!_”
Marguerite, flushing with delight, started forward to catch him in her
arms, but Régis, quicker than she, interposed himself, and, lifting the
little fellow, began tossing him up and down as if nothing out of the
common had taken place.
“What!” Piotr asked in a queer, trembling voice--“what did it say?”
Pavlo was on the point of translating his godson’s loyal effort to say
“Malou” like Piotr himself, but a glance at Marguerite’s distressed
face stopped him, and with a presence of mind quite above praise
explained, instead: “Why, didn’t you hear, Piotr? He said _Gou-gou_ or
_Mou-mou_, or some other ununderstandable thing of the kind. He is too
little to talk yet.”
“That’s good!” came from Piotr. “I thought he had said ‘Malou.’
And no one has a right to say that excepting me. Malou is _my_ little
darling Malou!”
“Oh, come, you’re getting to be a bore with your ridiculous ideas!”
Pavlo interrupted, rather sharply, for, uninitiated into the risks of
the situation, he was amazed at the extraordinary tolerance of
Marguerite and Régis, as well as at the appalled glances exchanged
between the nurse--a superb Bretonne in her gorgeous costume--and
Garrassime, who had been standing behind Piotr, a silent witness of
this curious scene.
Fortunately at that moment Basil came striding along the terrace,
creating a much-needed diversion, and Garrassime, seizing the
occasion, suggested to Piotr to come and arrange his camp for
Lieutenant Pavlo’s inspection.
As soon as they had disappeared Pavlo irritably turned to Marguerite
and asked her, with some military brusqueness, “What the dickens was
up?” at which simple remark Marguerite, to everybody’s distress,
suddenly broke into a passion of tears. Marguerite--the “Gamin,”
Knight of the Golden Spur, weeping, was something unheard, undreamed
of! Basil took her in his arms, looking savagely at poor Pavlo, who,
in utter consternation, was gazing helplessly at Régis.
“Here!” the latter cried. “Take your boy. He deserves a reward, and so
do you.” And he put little Pavlo hastily on his mother’s lap.
“Meanwhile,” he continued, “I’ll go and keep Master Piotr away. Come
with me, Pavlo, and I’ll tell you what’s amiss.”
* * * * *
“Little Pavlo” was undoubtedly breaking from the chrysalis of
babyhood. “_Il gigotte comme un petit diable_,” Divyne, the nurse,
proudly stated to Garrassime, whose proficiency in French, and even
in Breton, was growing daily more remarkable. “_Il va se mettre a
marcher tout à l’heure!_” declared Divyne, and Garrassime’s face was
a study of mingled appreciation for his littlest master’s precocity,
and of terror at the thought of the sole and only Palitzin Tyrant
left--namely, Prince Piotr-the-Jealous--as Pavlo de Salvières had
nicknamed him in an imprudent moment. Nor was Garrassime the only
one at the _Tour du Chevalier_ who entertained that mixture of
feelings, three parts delight and one part anxiety. Basil, since the
day of the baby’s first attempt to talk, was at a loss what to do;
Marguerite, continually pulled between her worship of her own
beautiful son and her love for Piotr, was growing thin; Régis was
continually on the watch; and Pavlo thought within himself that a
sound flogging in the right quarter would avoid many difficulties,
but, being extremely adaptable, he forebore to say so, having
noticed how far more than useless such an observation would be.
One rather rough afternoon, following a storm when the sea was still
heaving from its recent stress, and the sky a mass of glorious
white and pale-gray clouds tossing about against patches of
intermittently revealed azure, Marguerite was changing from her
morning gown into her riding-habit, when Divyne knocked at the door
of her dressing-room and, being bidden to enter, did so, carrying
the baby on her arm. A prettier child it would have been difficult
to find. Dimpled like a cherub, his satiny round face crowned by an
already thick crop of curls--blonde as his mother’s--and lighted by
eyes of blue resembling hers quite startlingly in shape and color,
he was bubbling with happy life.
“Madame la Princesse,” quoth Divyne, smiling from one ear to the
other, “he has just said it again--Malou--and laugh! Oh, _ma doué_,
he laughed so one could have heard him as far as the semaphore!”
Marguerite, turning away from her maid, who was about to unfasten
her lace petticoat, took the boy in her arms and kissed him with the
passion she could only indulge when certain of Piotr’s absence. She
was in a hurry, for she was to meet Basil, Régis, and Pavlo the
Greater, at her old favorite spot, the Carrefour of the Seven Sages,
within the hour, and Ireland was already in the _Cour-d’honneur_
with her horse and his, waiting; but, happy to have her darling all
to herself for once, she began to pace up and down with him, holding
him close and tight and kissing his fat little neck again and again.
Suddenly Pavlo minor, as they passed the open door of the adjoining
bedroom, caught sight of a portrait of Basil in the scarlet of his
_livrée_ as master of the fox-hounds, surrounded by his dogs. The
likeness was vivid, and the baby, with a cry of recognition, said as
plain as plain could be: “Papa! Papa!”
Marguerite, hardly believing her ears, ran into the room and, raising
the baby high up, exclaimed rapturously: “Yes, my own little son,
that’s your Papa! Your dear, dear Papa!”
Pavlo crowed with pleasure, throwing himself back on his mother’s
pretty shoulder; then poking a pudgy finger into her soft cheek,
opened his mouth and again spoke: “_Malou_,” he said, “_Malou-maman_.”
Marguerite sat right down on the carpet and literally rained kisses
upon this prodigy.
“My clever baby,” she crooned over him. “Was there ever in the world
such a wonder, such a treasure? Wait till Papa hears you say that,
you darling, just wait!”
The nurse and the maid, chatting together in whispers by the
dressing-room window, were not attending, Marguerite lost in
admiration did not hear, and yet at this juncture there was a
curious motion of the portières separating Basil’s room from his
wife’s, a smothered sob, and then a light scurry of little feet
running away. Could any of the three women have seen the livid fury
masking the face of Piotr as he fled through corridor after corridor
to a back stairs leading upon the terrace, what might not have been
spared to all?
Almost immediately Marguerite, remembering Basil, and how absurdly
anxious he would be if she was not there on time, reluctantly gave
the baby to his nurse, with the hundred recommendations which
invariably followed such an act, and, relinquishing herself to her
maid’s hands, implored her to hurry, in comic accents of despair.
Divyne, the methodical Bretonne, left the room, slowly descended the
main stairs, and went out by the _perron_. The wind had fallen to a
breeze, singing now over the waves, and murmuring in the thick
mantle of ivy luxuriantly draping the portion of the walls at the
foot of which she generally took her charge for an airing. The baby,
vexed, doubtless, at being removed with so little ceremony from his
mother’s room, was fretful, and Divyne glanced quickly around to see
if the footman specially detailed for that service had disposed the
big white rug and the toys in their accustomed place. But, no, this
had not been done, and she began to call him at the top of her
voice.
There was no answer; the noise of the surf below was too loud to
permit a lesser sound to penetrate into the Castle, so the Bretonne
retraced her steps and went quickly to a side passage leading to the
servants’ hall.
“Louis!” she cried. “Hé! Louis!--Pierre! Jean-Marie!” She tried
again, hoping that another of the footmen on duty would hear her,
but this collective call remained unanswered, too, and, getting
impatient, Divyne placed little Pavlo very carefully on the thick
rug and ran to the farther end of the corridor to bawl out at better
advantage. At last she heard, from the depths of beyond, manly
accents responding, “_Présent, Mam’selle Divyne!_” It was the
recreant Louis coming at full speed, and Divyne went to pick baby up
from the rug. And then the footman heard a shriek that lent wings to
his feet.
The baby was gone.
* * * * *
“Will you never be through?” Marguerite was telling her maid. “Here,
give me my hat and stick! Well! Well! Well! Haven’t I got my boots
on yet?” She rushed to a window and, bending out, shouted to
Ireland: “Leave my horse with the groom, Irry, and gallop on to the
_Carrefour_ to tell monsieur that I am coming. I’ve been delayed,
and he’ll be anxious!”
For a second Ireland looked dubiously at the now empty window, but
his _Chevalier_ “_Gamin’s_” orders must be obeyed, and, leaping into
the saddle, he was off.
“Poor old chap!” laughed Marguerite as, shortly afterward, she
vaulted into her own saddle. “I’m sure he is convinced that I am
unable to reach the _Carrefour_ without him. I’ll take the short cut
and surprise him on the way. He’s gone by the avenue.” With which
charitable resolution she set her horse going at a rapid trot along
the narrow path skirting the old fortifications above the sea.
“Merrythought,” a powerful hunter Basil had given her on her last
birthday, was sagely picking his way, and was both shocked and
amazed when a sudden violent pull at the reins brought him almost
to his haunches just as he was enfilading the broader sandy road
along the beach. Marguerite jumped, and as she jumped she tore at
the fastenings of her skirt, kicking off her boots and leaving
“Merrythought” to shift for himself all at one and the same time.
Then she ran--ran as she had never run before, to meet the incoming
waves.
Already several cable-lengths from shore, her own canoe--a slight
affair of canvas and whalebone--unsinkable, so it was claimed--was
tossing violently up and down in the trough, and in the canoe sat
Piotr, rigid as a statue, holding in front of him little Pavlo.
“God give me strength!” she prayed, as she flung herself into the
water and swam in long, regular strokes, rising to each successive
surge, putting out all the force that was in her. “God grant that
I can be in time!” she implored, feeling how slowly she was
overhauling that fine-weather toy, so buoyant and so light! Piotr,
his back to her, had not seen her yet, and while on the top of a
long wave she shouted to him to row back, for she guessed that the
tiny oars were still fastened inside the little craft, and knew that
he could manage it if he were so minded. But he did not hear, and
she lost sight of him as she slid down a slope of green water, her
hair in her eyes, her arms stiffening in her supreme efforts to be
quick, only quick!
The sun between two clouds was--it seemed to her a minute
later--winking ironically at her plight. She felt dizzy and sick
with the agony she was going through; she, even she, the best
swimmer on the coast! She rose again, sparing her breath, and all of
a sudden she found herself close to the canoe, balanced on the crest
of a wave. With a desperate clutch of her right arm she seized hold
of its flimsy gunwale and hung on. Piotr saw the little hand, gave a
startled yell and let go of the baby, who tumbled to the bottom of
the narrow boat.
How she controlled Piotr at that moment, how she succeeded in
piloting the canoe--into which she could not climb for fear of
upsetting it and its precious cargo--to the shore, Marguerite never
knew. All she remembered was what looked to her like a crowd
waist-deep in the foam, pulling her and her boys to dry land, and
later, much later, the arms of Basil around her as she lay on some
soft couch, trying her best to swallow something strong and hot that
the old doctor was holding to her lips.
* * * * *
“Never! Never again! I know you never will, my poor darling!”
It was Marguerite, four days later, speaking to Piotr--a little pale
shadow of himself, with big hollows under his eyes--kneeling at her
feet.
The lesson had been hard. The reward was great. For now she knew
that, come what might, the boy who could suffer as he had done when
for a few hours her life had been despaired of, was great enough in
heart and mind to be transformed for ever after.
And she was not mistaken; for thenceforth her task was light, her
happiness unclouded.
THE END
Transcriber’s note:
Some irregularly hyphenated words have been regularized. A small number
of typographical errors in the original have been silently corrected.