THE DESPATCH
Micheline was happy once more. For a little while—oh! a very little
while—this afternoon her idol had tottered on the pedestal upon which
she had placed him. The brother whom she worshipped, admired, looked up
to, with all the ardour and enthusiasm of her reserved nature, was
perhaps not quite so perfect as her affection had painted him. He seemed
almost as if he were proud and ungrateful, too proud to renew those
delicious ties of childish friendship which she, Micheline, looked on as
almost sacred.
But Bertrand did not know that it was in truth Jaume Deydier who, during
those trying years at St. Cyr, had generously paid the debts which the
young cadet had thoughtlessly contracted—dragged as he had been into a
vortex of fashionable life where every one of his comrades was richer
than he. Bertrand, driven to distraction by the pressure of monetary
difficulties, had confessed to Micheline, and Micheline had quite
naturally gone with the sad story to her bosom friend, Nicolette. She
had wept, and Nicolette had wept, and the two girls fell into one
another’s arms and then thought and planned how best Bertrand could be
got out of his difficulties without reference to grandmama. And lo! and
behold, Bertrand presently received five thousand francs from his dear
sister Micheline. They were, she darkly hinted, the proceeds of certain
rigid economies which she had effected in the management of her pin
money. Bertrand accepted both money and explanation without much
compunction, but unfortunately through his own indiscretion, grandmama
got to hear of his debts and of the five thousand francs. It was, of
course, impossible to deceive grandmama for long. Within half an hour
the true secret of Bertrand’s benefactor was wrung out of the unwilling
Micheline.
That a young Comte de Ventadour should make debts whilst he was at St.
Cyr was a perfectly proper and natural state of things; avarice or
thrift would have been a far greater crime in the eyes of the old
Comtesse, than the borrowing of a few thousands from bourgeois tradesmen
who could well afford it, without much knowledge as to how those
thousands would be repaid. Therefore she never thought of blaming
Bertrand. On the other hand, she was very severe with Micheline, not so
much for having aroused Nicolette’s sympathy on behalf of Bertrand, as
for continuing this friendship with the people at the mas, which
she—grandmama—thought degrading. And there the matter ended.
Jaume Deydier was passing rich—was the old Comtesse’s argument—he and
his forbears had enriched themselves at the expense of their feudal
lords, grabbing their lands whenever opportunity arose. No doubt the
present owner of those splendid estates which once had belonged to the
Comtes de Ventadour, felt some compunction in knowing that the present
scion of that ancient race was in financial difficulties, and no doubt,
too, that his compunction led to a tardy liberality. It all was
perfectly right and just. Margarita de Ventadour’s own arguments
completely eased her conscience. But she did not enlighten Bertrand. The
boy was hot-headed, he might do something foolish and humiliating. The
money must be accepted as a matter of course: grandmama outwardly must
know nothing about it. Nor Bertrand.
And so Bertrand was kept in the dark as to this and other matters which
were far more important.
Even to-day he had been told nothing: he had only guessed. A word from
Micheline about St. Cyr, one from his mother about the kind friend who
had saved the old château from the hands of the creditors had set his
young mind speculating, but that was all.
There was much of his grandmother’s temperament in Bertrand; much of
that racial pride of family and arrogance of caste, which not even the
horrors of the Revolution had wholly eradicated. But underlying that
pride and arrogance there were in Bertrand de Ventadour some fine
aspirations and impulses of manhood and chivalry, such as the one which
caused him to declare his intention of visiting Jaume Deydier
immediately.
Micheline was now quite happy: for a little while she had almost thought
the beloved brother vain and ungrateful. Now her heart was already full
of excuses for him. He was coming on the morrow with her to see
Nicolette. It was perhaps a little late to-day. They had their dinner
early at the mas, and it would not do to interrupt them all at their
meal. But to-morrow she and Bertrand would go over in the morning, and
spend a long, happy day in the dear old house, or in the garden under
the shade of the wild vine just as they used to do in the past.
The evening was a glorious one. It seemed as if summer, in these her
declining days, was donning her most gorgeous garb to dazzle the eyes of
mortals, ere she sank, dying into the arms of autumn. One or two early
frosts had touched the leaves of the mountain ash with gold and the hips
and haws on the wild rose-bushes were of a dazzling crimson. And so good
to eat!
Micheline who was quite happy now, was picking them in big baskets full
to take over to Margaï, who made such delicious preserves from them.
Overhead the starlings were making a deafening noise; the olives were
plentiful this year and very nearly ripe, and a flock of these
chattering birds had descended upon the woods around the château and
were eating their fill. The evening was drawing in rapidly, in this land
where twilight is always short. Luberon frowning and majestic had long
since hidden the glory of the setting sun, and way out to the east the
moon, looking no more substantial than a small round fluffy cloud, gave
promise of a wonderful night. Looking straight across the valley
Micheline could glimpse the whitewashed walls of the old mas gleaming,
rose-tinted by the afterglow, above the terraced gradients, and through
the curtains of dwarf olive trees. She knew that at a certain window
into which a climbing crimson rose peeped in, blossom-laden, Nicolette
would be sitting at this hour, gazing across the valley to the towers of
the old château where she had spent so many happy days in the past. It
almost seemed to Micheline that despite the distance she could see, in a
framework of tangled roses, Nicolette’s brown curls turned to gold by
the last kiss of the setting sun, and down in the garden the arbour
draped in a mantle of disorderly vine, which flaunted its riotous
colours, its purples and chromes and crimsons, in the midst of the cool
grey-greens of stately pine and feathery mimosa. Anon, scared by the
sudden sharp report of a distant gun, the host of starlings rose with
strident cries and like a thin black cloud spread itself over the
mountain-side, united and disintegrated and united again, then vanished
up the valley. After which all was still.
Micheline put down her basket and throwing out her frail, flat chest she
breathed into her lungs the perfumed evening air, fragrant with the
scent of lavender and wild thyme: and with a gesture of tenderness and
longing, she spread out her arms, as if she would enfold in a huge
embrace all that was beautiful and loving, and tender in this world
that, hitherto, had held so few joys for her. And while she stood, thus
silent and entranced, there descended upon the wide solitude around the
perfect mysterious hush of evening, that hush which seems most absolute
at this hour when the crackling, tiny twigs on dead branches shiver at
touch of the breeze, and the hum of cockchafers fills the air with its
drowsy buzz.
Suddenly Micheline’s attention was arrested by strange happenings on the
road, way down below. A horseman had come in sight. When Micheline first
caught sight of him, he was riding at full speed, but presently he
checked his horse and looked about him, after which he deliberately
turned up the rough road which led, winding up the mountain-side, to the
gate of the château.
The man was dressed in a bottle-green coat which had some gold lace
about it; he wore drab breeches and his boots and coat were powdered
with dust as if he had come a long way. Micheline also noted that he had
a leather wallet slung by a strap around his shoulders. Anon a sharp
turn in the road hid the horseman from view.
The young girl was conscious of a pleasant thrill of expectation.
Visitors at the old château were a rare occurrence, and the lonely rider
was obviously coming here, as the rough road led nowhere else. Though
she could no longer see him, she could hear the thud of the horse’s
hoofs drawing nearer every moment.
The main entrance of the château was through a monumental door in the
square tower, contiguous to the wing that held the habitable rooms. This
tower and door being on the other side of the building from where
Micheline was standing, she could not possibly hope to see what would
happen, when presently the visitor would request admittance. This being
a quite unendurable proposition, Micheline, forgetting the hips and
haws, as well as her own dignity, hurried round the château and was just
in time to see Jasmin shuffling across the court-yard and the rider
drawing rein, and turning in the saddle in order to ask him a question
with the air of a man who had never been accustomed to wait.
Micheline caught the sound of her brother’s name.
“M. le Comte de Ventadour,” the visitor was saying to Jasmin,
“lieutenant in the first company of His Majesty’s bodyguard.”
“It is here, monsieur,” Jasmin replied, “but M. le Comte——”
“M. le Comte de Ventadour,” Micheline broke in eagerly, as the new-comer
himself rapidly jumped out of the saddle, “is within. Would you wish,
monsieur, to speak with him?”
The man saluted in correct military style.
“I am,” he said, “the bearer of an urgent despatch to M. le Comte.”
“Ah?”
All at once Micheline felt her excitement give way to prosaic anxiety.
An urgent despatch? What could it mean?
“Give yourself the trouble to enter, monsieur,” she said.
The big front door was always on the latch (there was nothing to tempt
the foot-pad or the housebreaker in the château de Ventadour) and
Micheline herself pushed it open. The mysterious visitor having
carefully fastened his horse to the iron ring in the outside wall,
followed the young girl into the vast, bare hall. She was beginning to
feel a little frightened.
“Will you be pleased to walk up, monsieur?” she asked. “Jasmin will go
and call M. le Comte.”
“By your leave, Mademoiselle,” the messenger replied, “I will wait here
for M. le Comte’s pleasure.”
There was nothing for it but to send Jasmin upstairs to go and tell
Bertrand; and alas! there was no excuse for Micheline to wait and hear
what the urgent despatch might be about. She certainly felt anxious, as
such a thing had never occurred before. No one at the old owl’s nest
ever received urgent despatches from anywhere. Dragging her lame leg
slowly across the hall, Micheline went, hoping against hope that
Bertrand would be down soon before she had reached the top of the
stairs, so that she could hear the visitor deliver his message. But
Jasmin was slow, or Bertrand difficult to find. However slowly Micheline
moved along, she was across the hall and up the stairs at one end of the
gallery before Bertrand appeared at the other. Jasmin preceded him,
carrying a candle. It was now quite dark, only through the tall oriel
window at the top of the stairs the moon sent a pale, wan ray of light.
Micheline could no longer see the mysterious messenger: the gloom had
swallowed him up completely, but she could hear Bertrand’s footsteps
descending the stone stairs and Jasmin shuffling along in front of him.
She could see the flicker of candlelight on the great bare walls, the
forged iron banister, the tattered matting on the floor, which had long
since replaced the magnificent Aubusson carpet of the past.
The whole scene had become like a dream. Micheline leaning against the
balustrade of the gallery, strained her ears to listen. She only caught
snatches of what the man was saying because he spoke in whispers. Jasmin
had put the candle down upon the table, and then had shuffled quietly
away. At one time Micheline heard the rustle of paper, at another an
exclamation from Bertrand. In the end Bertrand said formally:
“And where do you go after this?”
“Straight back to Avignon, mon lieutenant,” the man replied, “to
report.”
“You can say I will start in the morning.”
“At your service, mon lieutenant.”
A moment or two later Micheline heard the click of the man’s spurs as he
saluted and turned to go, then the ring of his footsteps upon the
flagged floor: finally the opening and closing of the great entrance
door, Bertrand calling to Jasmin, the clink of metal and creaking of
leather, the champing of bit and clang of iron hoofs. The messenger had
gone, and Bertrand was still lingering in the hall. Micheline craned her
neck and saw him standing beside the heavy oak table. The light of the
candle flickered about him, throwing a warm fantastic glow and weird
distorting shadows upon his face, his hands, the paper which he held
between his fingers, and in which he seemed wholly absorbed. After a few
moments which appeared like an eternity to the watching girl, he folded
the paper and slipped it into his pocket. Then he turned to cross the
hall. Micheline met him at the top of the stairs.
“What is it, Bertrand?” she asked breathlessly. “I am so anxious.”
He did not know she was there, and started when he heard her voice. But
at once he took hold of her hand and patted it reassuringly.
“There is nothing to be anxious about, little sister,” he said, “but I
shall have to leave here to-morrow.”
“Yes,” she said, “but why?”
“A message came through by the new aerial telegraph to Avignon. More
troops have left for Spain. All leaves are cancelled. I have to rejoin
my regiment at once.”
“But,” she exclaimed, “you are not going to the war?”
“I am afraid not,” he replied with a touch of bitterness. “If the King’s
bodyguard was to be sent to the front it would mean that France was once
more at her last gasp.”
“There is no fear of that?”
“None whatever.”
“Then why should you say that you are afraid that you are not going to
the war?” Micheline asked, and her eyes, the great pathetic eyes of a
hopeless cripple, fastened on the brother’s face a look of yearning
anxiety. The ghostly light of the moon came shyly peeping in through the
tall, open window: it fell full upon his handsome young face, which wore
a perturbed, spiritless look.
“Well, little sister,” he said dejectedly, “life does not hold such
allurements for me, does it, that I should cling desperately to it?”
“How can you say that, Bertrand?” the girl retorted. “You love Rixende,
do you not?”
“With all my soul,” he replied fervently.
“And she loves you?”
“I believe so,” he said with a strange unaccountable sigh; “I do firmly
believe,” he added slowly, “that Rixende loves me.”
“Well then?”
To this he made no reply, and anon passed his hand across his forehead.
“You are right, Micheline, I have no right to talk as I do—to feel as I
feel to-night—dispirited and discouraged. All the world smiles to me,”
he added with a sudden outburst of liveliness, which may perhaps not
have rung quite true in the anxious sister’s ears. “I love Rixende,
Rixende loves me; I am going to inherit tante Sybille’s millions, and
dejection is a crime. So now let us go to mother and break the news of
my departure to her. I shall have to leave early in the morning, little
sister. We’ll have to say good-bye to-night.”
“And not say good-bye to Nicolette after all,” Micheline murmured under
her breath.
But this Bertrand did not hear.