To promise rashly, particularly where a woman is the suppliant, and
afterwards, if not positively to repent the promise, at least to regret
that one did not hedge it with a few conditions, is a proceeding
not uncommon to youth. In a man of advanced age, such as Monsieur de
Tressan, it never should have place; and, indeed, it seldom has, unless
that man has come again under the sway of the influences by which youth,
for good or ill, is governed.
Whilst the flush of his adoration was upon him, hot from the contact
of her presence, he knew no repentance, found room in his mind for no
regrets. He crossed to the window, and pressed his huge round face to
the pane, in a futile effort to watch her mount and ride out of the
courtyard with her little troop of attendants. Finding that he might
not--the window being placed too high--gratify his wishes in that
connection, he dropped into his chair, and sat in the fast-deepening
gloom, reviewing, fondly here, hurriedly there, the interview that had
but ended.
Thus night fell, and darkness settled down about him, relieved only
by the red glow of the logs smouldering on the hearth. In the gloom
inspiration visited him. He called for lights and Babylas. Both came,
and he dispatched the lackey that lighted the tapers to summon Monsieur
d’Aubran, the commander of the garrison of Grenoble.
In the interval before the soldier’s coming he conferred with Babylas
concerning what he had in mind, but he found his secretary singularly
dull and unimaginative. So that, perforce, he must fall back upon
himself. He sat glum and thoughtful, his mind in unproductive travail,
until the captain was announced.
Still without any definite plan, he blundered headlong, nevertheless,
into the necessary first step towards the fulfilment of his purpose.
“Captain,” said he, looking mighty grave, “I have cause to believe that
all is not as it should be in the hills in the district of Montelimar.”
“Is there trouble, monsieur?” inquired the captain, startled.
“Maybe there is, maybe there is not,” returned the Seneschal
mysteriously. “You shall have your full orders in the morning.
Meanwhile, make ready to repair to the neighbourhood of Montelimar
to-morrow with a couple of hundred men.”
“A couple of hundred, monsieur!” exclaimed d’Aubran. “But that will be
to empty Grenoble of soldiers.”
“What of it? We are not likely to require them here. Let your orders for
preparation go round tonight, so that your knaves may be ready to set
out betimes to-morrow. If you will be so good as to wait upon me early
you shall have your instructions.”
Mystified, Monsieur d’Aubran departed on his errand, and my Lord
Seneschal went down to supper well pleased with the cunning device by
which he was to leave Grenoble without a garrison. It was an astute way
of escape from the awkward situation into which his attachment to the
interests of the dowager of Condillac was likely to place him.
But when the morning came he was less pleased with the idea, chiefly
because he had been unable to invent any details that should lend it the
necessary colour, and d’Aubran--worse luck--was an intelligent officer
who might evince a pardonable but embarrassing curiosity. A leader of
soldiers has a right to know something at least of the enterprise upon
which he leads them. By morning, too, Tressan found that the intervening
space of the night, since he had seen Madame de Condillac, had cooled
his ardour very considerably.
He had reached the incipient stages of regret of his rash promise.
When Captain d’Aubran was announced to him, he bade them ask him to come
again in an hour’s time. From mere regrets he was passing now, through
dismay, into utter repentance of his promise. He sat in his study,
at his littered writing-table, his head in his hands, a confusion of
thoughts, a wild, frenzied striving after invention in his brain.
Thus Anselme found him when he thrust aside the portiere to announce
that a Monsieur de Garnache, from Paris, was below, demanding to see the
Lord Seneschal at once upon an affair of State.
Tressan’s flesh trembled and his heart fainted. Then, suddenly,
desperately, he took his courage in both hands. He remembered who he was
and what he was the King’s Lord Seneschal of the Province of Dauphiny.
Throughout that province, from the Rhone to the Alps, his word was law,
his name a terror to evildoers--and to some others besides. Was he to
blench and tremble at the mention of the name of a Court lackey out of
Paris, who brought him a message from the Queen-Regent? Body of God! not
he.
He heaved himself to his feet, warmed and heartened by the thought; his
eye sparkled, and there was a deeper flush than usual upon his cheek.
“Admit this Monsieur de Garnache,” said he with a fine loftiness, and in
his heart he pondered what he would say and how he should say it; how he
should stand, how move, and how look. His roving eye caught sight of his
secretary. He remembered something--the cherished pose of being a man
plunged fathoms-deep in business. Sharply he uttered his secretary’s
name.
Babylas raised his pale face; he knew what was coming; it had come so
many times before. But there was no vestige of a smile on his drooping
lips, no gleam of amusement in his patient eye. He thrust aside the
papers on which he was at work, and drew towards him a fresh sheet on
which to pen the letter which, he knew by experience, Tressan was
about to indite to the Queen-mother. For these purposes Her Majesty was
Tressan’s only correspondent.
Then the door opened, the portiere was swept aside, and Anselme
announced “Monsieur de Garnache.”
Tressan turned as the newcomer stepped briskly into the room, and
bowed, hat in hand, its long crimson feather sweeping the ground, then
straightened himself and permitted the Seneschal to take his measure.
Tressan beheld a man of a good height, broad to the waist and spare
thence to the ground, who at first glance appeared to be mainly clad in
leather. A buff jerkin fitted his body; below it there was a glimpse of
wine-coloured trunks, and hose of a slightly deeper hue, which vanished
immediately into a pair of huge thighboots of untanned leather. A
leather swordbelt, gold-embroidered at the edges, carried a long
steel-halted rapier in a leather scabbard chaped with steel. The sleeves
of his doublet which protruded from his leather casing were of the same
colour and material as his trunks. In one hand he carried his broad
black hat with its crimson feather, in the other a little roll of
parchment; and when he moved the creak of leather and jingle of his
spurs made pleasant music for a martial spirit.
Above all, this man’s head, well set upon his shoulders, claimed some
attention. His nose was hooked and rather large, his eyes were blue,
bright as steel, and set a trifle wide. Above a thin-lapped, delicate
mouth his reddish mustachios, slightly streaked with grey, stood out,
bristling like a cat’s. His hair was darker--almost brown save at the
temples, where age had faded it to an ashen colour. In general his
aspect was one of rugged strength.
The Seneschal, measuring him with an adversary’s eye, misliked his
looks. But he bowed urbanely, washing his hands in the air, and
murmuring:
“Your servant, Monsieur de--?”
“Garnache,” came the other’s crisp, metallic voice, and the name had a
sound as of an oath on his lips. “Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache.
I come to you on an errand of Her Majesty’s, as this my warrant will
apprise you.” And he proffered the paper he held, which Tressan accepted
from his hand.
A change was visible in the wily Seneschal’s fat countenance. Its round
expanse had expressed interrogation until now; but at the Parisian’s
announcement that he was an emissary of the Queen’s, Tressan insinuated
into it just that look of surprise and of increased deference which
would have been natural had he not already been forewarned of Monsieur
de Garnache’s mission and identity.
He placed a chair at his visitor’s disposal, himself resuming his seat
at his writing-table, and unfolding the paper Garnache had given him.
The newcomer seated himself, hitched his sword-belt round so that he
could lean both hands upon the hilt, and sat, stiff and immovable,
awaiting the Lord Seneschal’s pleasure. From his desk across the room
the secretary, idly chewing the feathered end of his goose-quill, took
silent stock of the man from Paris, and wondered.
Tressan folded the paper carefully, and returned it to its owner. It
was no more than a formal credential, setting forth that Garnache was
travelling into Dauphiny on a State affair, and commanding Monsieur de
Tressan to give him every assistance he might require in the performance
of his errand.
“Parfaitement,” purred the Lord Seneschal. “And now, monsieur, if you
will communicate to me the nature of your affair, you shall find me
entirely at your service.”
“It goes without saying that you are acquainted with the Chateau de
Condillac?” began Garnache, plunging straight into business.
“Perfectly.” The Seneschal leaned back, and was concerned to feel his
pulses throbbing a shade too quickly. But he controlled his features,
and maintained a placid, bland expression.
“You are perhaps acquainted with its inhabitants?”
“Yes.”
“Intimate with them?”
The Seneschal pursed his lips, arched his brows, and slowly waved his
podgy hands, a combination of grimace and gesture that said much or
nothing. But reflecting that Monsieur de Tressan had a tongue, Garnache
apparently did not opine it worth his while to set a strain upon his own
imagination, for--
“Intimate with them?” he repeated, and this time there was a sharper
note in his voice.
Tressan leaned forward and brought his finger-tips together. His voice
was as urbane as it lay within its power to be.
“I understood that monsieur was proposing to state his business, not to
question mine.”
Garnache sat back in his chair, and his eyes narrowed. He scented
opposition, and the greatest stumbling-block in Garnache’s career had
been that he could never learn to brook opposition from any man. That
characteristic, evinced early in life, had all but been the ruin of him.
He was a man of high intellectual gifts, of military skill and great
resource; out of consideration for which had he been chosen by Marie de
Medicis to come upon this errand. But he marred it all by a temper so
ungovernable that in Paris there was current a byword, “Explosive as
Garnache.”
Little did Tressan dream to what a cask of gunpowder he was applying the
match of his smug pertness. Nor did Garnache let him dream it just yet.
He controlled himself betimes, bethinking him that, after all, there
might be some reason in what this fat fellow said.
“You misapprehend my purpose, sir,” said he, his lean brown hand
stroking his long chin. “I but sought to learn how far already you may
be informed of what is taking place up there, to the end that I may
spare myself the pains of citing facts with which already you are
acquainted. Still, monsieur, I am willing to proceed upon the lines
which would appear to be more agreeable to yourself.
“This, then, is the sum of the affair that brings me: The late Marquis
de Condillac left two sons. The elder, Florimond--who is the present
marquis, and who has been and still continues absent, warring in Italy,
since before his father’s death--is the stepson of the present Dowager,
she being the mother of the younger son, Marius de Condillac.
“Should you observe me to be anywhere at error, I beg, monsieur, that
you will have the complaisance to correct me.”
The Seneschal bowed gravely, and Monsieur de Garnache continued:
“Now this younger son--I believe that he is in his twenty-first year at
present--has been something of a scapegrace.”
“A scapegrace? Bon Dieu, no. That is a harsh name to give him. A little
indiscreet at times, a little rash, as is the way of youth.”
He would have said more, but the man from Paris was of no mind to waste
time on quibbles.
“Very well,” he snapped, cutting in. “We will say, a little indiscreet.
My errand is not concerned with Monsieur Marius’s morals or with his
lack of them. These indiscretions which you belittle appear to have been
enough to have estranged him from his father, a circumstance which but
served the more to endear him to his mother. I am told that she is a
very handsome woman, and that the boy favours her surprisingly.”
“Ah!” sighed the Seneschal in a rapture. “A beautiful woman--a noble,
splendid woman.’
“Hum!” Garnache observed the ecstatic simper with a grim eye. Then he
proceeded with his story.
“The late marquis possessed in his neighbour, the also deceased Monsieur
de La Vauvraye, a very dear and valued friend. Monsieur de La Vauvraye
had an only child, a daughter, to inherit his very considerable estates
probably the wealthiest in all Dauphiny, so I am informed. It was
the dearest wish of his heart to transform what had been a lifelong
friendship in his own generation into a closer relationship in the
next--a wish that found a very ready echo in the heart of Monsieur de
Condillac. Florimond de Condillac was sixteen years of age at the time,
and Valerie de La Vauvraye fourteen. For all their tender years, they
were betrothed, and they grew up to love each other and to look forward
to the consummation of the plans their fathers had laid for them.”
“Monsieur, monsieur,” the Seneschal protested, “how can you possibly
infer so much? How can you say that they loved each other? What
authority can you have for pretending to know what was in their inmost
hearts?”
“The authority of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye,” was the unanswerable
rejoinder. “I am telling you, more or less, what she herself wrote to
the Queen.”
“Ah! Well, well--proceed, monsieur.”
“This marriage should render Florimond de Condillac the wealthiest and
most powerful gentleman in Dauphiny--one of the wealthiest in France;
and the idea of it pleased the old marquis, inasmuch as the disparity
there would be between the worldly possessions of his two sons would
serve to mark his disapproval of the younger. But before settling down,
Florimond signified a desire to see the world, as was fit and proper
and becoming in a young man who was later to assume such wide
responsibilities. His father, realizing the wisdom of such a step, made
but slight objection, and at the age of twenty Florimond set out for the
Italian wars. Two years afterwards, a little over six months ago, his
father died, and was followed to the grave some weeks later by Monsieur
de La Vauvraye. The latter, with a want of foresight which has given
rise to the present trouble, misjudging the character of the Dowager
of Condillac, entrusted to her care his daughter Valerie pending
Florimond’s return, when the nuptials would naturally be immediately
celebrated. I am probably telling you no more than you already know.
But you owe the infliction to your own unwillingness to answer my
questions.”
“No, no, monsieur; I assure you that in what you say there is much that
is entirely new to me.”
“I rejoice to hear it, Monsieur de Tressan,” said Garnache very
seriously, “for had you been in possession of all these facts, Her
Majesty might have a right to learn how it chanced that you had nowise
interfered in what is toward at Condillac.
“But to proceed: Madame de Condillac and her precious Benjamin--this
Marius--finding themselves, in Florimond’s absence, masters of the
situation, have set about turning it to their own best advantage.
Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye, whilst being nominally under their
guardianship, finds herself practically gaoled by them, and odious plans
are set before her to marry Marius. Could the Dowager but accomplish
this, it would seem that she would not only be assuring a future of
ease and dignity for her son, but also be giving vent to all her pent-up
hatred of her stepson.
“Mademoiselle, however, withstands them, and in this she is aided by
a fortuitous circumstance which has arisen out of the overbearing
arrogance that appears to be madame’s chief characteristic. Condillac
after the marquis’s death had refused to pay tithes to Mother Church
and has flouted and insulted the Bishop. This prelate, after finding
remonstrance vain, has retorted by placing Condillac under an Interdict,
depriving all within it of the benefit of clergy. Thus, they have been
unable to find a priest to venture thither, so that even had they willed
to marry mademoiselle by force to Marius, they lacked the actual means
of doing so.
“Florimond continues absent. We have every reason to believe that he has
been left in ignorance of his father’s death. Letters coming from him
from time to time prove that he was alive and well at least until three
months ago. A messenger has been dispatched to find him and urge him to
return home at once. But pending his arrival the Queen has determined
to take the necessary steps to ensure that Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye
shall be released from her captivity, that she shall suffer no further
molestation at the hands of Madame de Condillac and her son--enfin, that
she shall run no further risks.
“My errand, monsieur, is to acquaint you with these facts, and to
request you to proceed to Condillac and deliver thence Mademoiselle de
La Vauvraye, whom I am subsequently to escort to Paris and place under
Her Majesty’s protection until such time as the new marquis shall return
to claim her.”
Having concluded, Monsieur de Garnache sat back in his chair, and threw
one leg over the other, fixing his eyes upon the Seneschal’s face and
awaiting his reply.
On that gross countenance before him he saw fall the shadow of
perplexity. Tressan was monstrous ill-at-ease, and his face lost a good
deal of its habitual plethora of colour. He sought to temporize.
“Does it not occur to you, monsieur, that perhaps too much importance
may have been attached to the word of this child--this Mademoiselle de
La Vauvraye?”
“Does it occur to you that such has been the case, that she has
overstated it?” counter-questioned Monsieur de Garnache.
“No, no. I do not say that. But--but--would it not be
better--more--ah--satisfactory to all concerned, if you yourself were
to go to Condillac, and deliver your message in person, demanding
mademoiselle?”
The man from Paris looked at him a moment, then stood up suddenly, and
shifted the carriages of his sword back to their normal position. His
brows came together in a frown, from which the Seneschal argued that his
suggestion was not well received.
“Monsieur,” said the Parisian very coldly, like a man who contains a
rising anger, “let me tell you that this is the first time in my life
that I have been concerned in anything that had to do with women and I
am close upon forty years of age. The task, I can assure you, was little
to my taste. I embarked upon it because, being a soldier and having
received my orders, I was in the unfortunate position of being unable to
help myself. But I intend, monsieur, to adhere rigidly to the letter of
these commands. Already I have endured more than enough in the interests
of this damsel. I have ridden from Paris, and that means close upon a
week in the saddle--no little thing to a man who has acquired certain
habits of life and developed a taste for certain minor comforts which he
is very reluctant to forgo. I have fed and slept at inns, living on the
worst of fares and sleeping on the hardest, and hardly the cleanest, of
beds. Ventregris! Figure to yourself that last night we lay at Luzan,
in the only inn the place contained--a hovel, Monsieur le Seneschal, a
hovel in which I would not kennel a dog I loved.”
His face flushed, and his voice rose as he dwelt upon the things he had
undergone.
“My servant and I slept in a dormitory’--a thousand devils! monsieur, in
a dormitory! Do you realize it? We had for company a drunken vintner,
a pedlar, a pilgrim on his way to Rome, and two peasant women; and
they sent us to bed without candles, for modesty’s sake. I ask you to
conceive my feelings in such a case as that. I could tell you more; but
that as a sample of what I have undergone could scarcely be surpassed.”
“Truly-truly outrageous,” sympathized the Seneschal; yet he grinned.
“I ask you--have I not suffered inconvenience enough already in the
service of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye that you can blame me if I refuse
to go a single step further than my orders bid me?”
The Seneschal stared at him now in increasing dismay. Had his own
interests been less at issue he could have indulged his mirth at the
other’s fiery indignation at the inconveniences he recited. As it was,
he had nothing to say; no thought or feeling other than what concerned
finding a way of escape from the net that seemed to be closing in about
him--how to seem to serve the Queen without turning against the Dowager
of Condillac; how to seem to serve the Dowager without opposing the
wishes of the Queen.
“A plague on the girl!” he growled, unconsciously uttering his thoughts
aloud. “The devil take her!”
Garnache smiled grimly. “That is a bond of sympathy between us,” said
he. “I have said those very words a hundred times--a thousand times,
indeed--between Paris and Grenoble. Yet I scarcely see that you can damn
her with as much justice as can I.
“But there, monsieur; all this is unprofitable. You have my message. I
shall spend the day at Grenoble, and take a well-earned rest. By this
time to-morrow I shall be ready to start upon my return journey. I
shall have then the honour to wait upon you again, to the end that I
may receive from you the charge of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. I shall
count upon your having her here, in readiness to set out with me, by
noon to-morrow.”
He bowed, with a flourish of his plumed hat, and would with that have
taken his departure but that the Seneschal stayed him.
“Monsieur, monsieur,” he cried, in piteous affright, “you do not know
the Dowager of Condillac.”
“Why, no. What of it?”
“What of it? Did you know her, you would understand that she is not the
woman to be driven. I may order her in the Queen’s name to deliver up
Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But she will withstand me.”
“Withstand you?” echoed Garnache, frowning into the face of this fat
man, who had risen also, brought to his feet by excitement. “Withstand
you--you, the Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny? You are amusing yourself at my
expense.”
“But I tell you that she will,” the other insisted in a passion. “You
may look for the girl in vain tomorrow unless you go to Condillac
yourself and take her.”
Garnache drew himself up and delivered his answer in a tone that was
final.
“You are the governor of the province, monsieur, and in this matter you
have in addition the Queen’s particular authority--nay, her commands are
imposed upon you. Those commands, as interpreted by me, you will execute
in the manner I have indicated.”
The Seneschal shrugged his shoulders, and chewed a second at his beard.
“It is an easy thing for you to tell me what to do. Tell me, rather, how
to do it, how to overcome her opposition.”
“You are very sure of opposition--strangely sure, monsieur,” said
Garnache, looking him between the eyes. “In any case, you have
soldiers.”
“And so has she, and the strongest castle in southern France--to say
nothing of the most cursed obstinacy in the world. What she says, she
does.”
“And what the Queen says her loyal servants do,” was Garnache’s
rejoinder, in a withering tone. “I think there is nothing more to be
said, monsieur,” he added. “By this time to-morrow I shall expect to
receive from you, here, the charge of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. A
demain, donc, Monsieur le Seneschal.”
And with another bow the man from Paris drew himself erect, turned on
his heel, and went jingling and creaking from the room.
The Lord Seneschal sank back in his chair, and wondered to himself
whether to die might not prove an easy way out of the horrid situation
into which chance and his ill-starred tenderness for the Dowager of
Condillac had thrust him.
At his desk sat his secretary, who had been a witness of the interview,
lost in wonder almost as great as the Seneschal’s own.
For an hour Tressan remained where he was, deep in thought and gnawing
at his beard. Then with a sudden burst of passion, expressed in a round
oath or two, he rose, and called for his horse that he might ride to
Condillac.