THE AVENGER.
For a month Gilbert wandered round the sick girl’s lodgings, inventing
work in the gardens in their neighborhood so that he could keep his eye
constantly on the windows.
In this time he had grown paler; on his face youth was no more to be
viewed than in the strange fire in his eyes and the dead-white and even
complexion; his mouth curled by dissimulation, his sidelong glance, and
the sensitive quivering of his muscles belonged already to later years.
Looking up, billhook in hand as a horseman struck sparks from the ride
by the walk, he recognized Philip Taverney.
He moved towards the hedgerow. But the cavalier urged his horse towards
him, calling out:
“Hey, Gilbert!”
The young man’s first impulse was for flight, for panic seized him and
he felt like racing over the garden and the ponds themselves.
“Do you not know me, Gilbert?” shouted the captain in a gentle tone
which was understood by the incorrigible youth.
Comprehending his folly, Gilbert stopped. He retraced his steps but
slowly and with distrust.
“Not at first, my lord,” he said trembling: “I took you for one of the
guards, and as I was idling, I feared to be brought to task and booked
for punishment.”
Content with this explanation, Philip dismounted, put the bridle round
his arm and leaning the other hand on Gilbert’s shoulder which visibly
made him shudder, he went on:
“What is the matter, boy? Oh, I can guess; my father has been treating
you with harshness and injustice. But I have always liked you.”
“So you have.”
“Then forget the evil others do you. My sister has also been always good
to you.”
“Hardly,” replied Gilbert: with an expression no one could have
understood for it embodied an accusation to Andrea, and an excuse for
himself, bursting like pride while groaning like remorse.
“I understood,” said Philip: “she is a little high-handed at times, but
she is good-hearted. Do you know where our good Andrea is at the
present?”
“In her rooms, I suppose, sir,” gasped Gilbert, struck to the heart.
“How am I to know---- ”
“Alone, as usual, and pining?”
“In all probability, alone, since Nicole has run away.”
“Nicole run away?”
“With her sweetheart--at least it is presumed so,” said Gilbert, seeing
that he had gone too far.
“I do not understand you, Gilbert. One has to wrench every word out of
you. Try to be a little more amiable. You have sense, and learning, so
do not mar your acquirements with an affected roughness unbecoming to
your station in life, and not likely to lift you to a higher.”
“But I do not know anything about what you ask of me; I am a gardener
and am ignorant of what goes on in the palace.”
“But, Gilbert, I believed you had eyes and owed some return in
watchfulness to the house of Taverney, however slight may have been its
hospitality.”
“Master Philip,” returned the other in a high hoarse voice, for Philip’s
kindness and another unspoken feeling had mollified him: “I do like you;
and that is why I tell you that your sister is very ill.”
“Very ill?” ejaculated the gentleman: “why did you not tell me so at the
start?” “What is it?” he asked, walking so quickly.
“Nobody knows. She fainted three times in the grounds yesterday and the
Dauphiness’s doctor has been to see her, as well as my lord the baron.”
Philip was not listening any farther for his presentiments were realized
and his fortitude came to him in face of danger. He left his horse in
Gilbert’s charge, and ran to the chapel.
Gilbert put the horse up in the stable and ran into the woods like one
of those wild or obscene birds which cannot bear the eye of man.
On entering the ante-chamber Philip missed the flowers of which his
sister used to be fond but which irritated her since her indisposition.
As he entered she was musing on a little sofa before mentioned. Her
lovely brow surcharged with clouds drooped lowly, and her fine eyes
vacillated in their orbits. Her hands were hanging and though the
position ought to have filled them with blood they were white as a waxen
statue’s.
Philip caught the strange expression and, alarmed as he was, he thought
that his sister’s ailment had mental affliction in it.
The sight caused so much trembling in his heart that he could not
restrain a start in flight.
Andrea lifted her eyes and rose like a galvanised corpse, with a loud
scream; breathlessly she clung to her brother’s neck.
“Yes, Philip, you!” she panted, and force quitted her before she could
speak more.
“Yes, I who return to find you ill,” he said, embracing and sustaining
her for he felt her yield. “Poor sister, what has happened you?”
Andrea laughed with a nervous tone which hurt him instead of encouraging
as she intended.
“Nothing: the doctor whom the Dauphiness kindly sent me, says it is
nothing he can remedy. I am quite well save for some fainting fits which
came over me.”
“But you are so pale?”
“Did I ever have much color?”
“No, but you were alive at that time, while now---- ”
“It is nothing: the pleasant shock of seeing you again---- ”
“Dear Andrea!”
But as he pressed her to his heart, her strength fled once more and she
fell on the sofa, whiter than the muslin curtains on which her face was
outlined.
She gradually recovered and looked handsomer than ever.
“Your emotion at my return is very sweet and flattering, but I should
like to know about your illness--to what you attribute it?”
“I do not know, dear: the spring, the coming of the flowers: you know I
have always been nervous. Yesterday the perfume of the Persian lilacs
nearly suffocated me--I believe it was then I was taken bad. Strange to
say, I who used to be so fond of the flowers hold them in execration
now. For over two weeks not so much as a daffodil has entered my rooms.
But let us leave them. It is the headache I have, which caused a swoon
and made Mdlle. de Taverney a happy girl, because it has drawn the
notice of the Dauphiness upon her. She has come here to see me. Oh,
Philip, what a delicate friend and charming patroness she is! But since
her doctor says there is nothing to be alarmed at, tell me why you have
been alarmed?”
“It was that little numbskull Gilbert, of course!”
“Gilbert,” repeated the lady testily. “Did you believe that little idiot
who is only able in doing or saying ill? But how is it I see you without
any notice?”
“Answer me why you ceased to write?”
“Only for a few days.”
“For a full fortnight, you negligent girl! Ah, I was utterly forgotten
there even by my sister. They were in a dreadful hurry to pack me off,
yet when I got there I never heard a word about the fabulous regiment of
which I was to take command as promised by the King per the Duke of
Richelieu to our father himself.”
“Oh, do not be astonished at that,” said the girl, “the duke and father
are quite upset about it. They are like two bodies with one soul; but
father sometimes cries out against him, saying he is betrayed. Who
betrays him? I do not know and between us I little want to know. Father
lives like a soul in purgatory, fretting about something which never
comes.”
“But the King, he is not well disposed to us?”
“Speak low. The King,” replied Andrea, looking timidly round. “I am
afraid the King is very fickle. The interest which he professed for our
house, for each of us, cooled off, without my being able to understand
it. He does not look at me and yesterday he turned back on me--which was
when I fainted in the garden.”
“Then little Gilbert was right.”
“To tell everybody that I fainted? what does it matter to the miserable
little rogue? I know, my dear Philip,” added Andrea laughing, “that it
is not the proper thing to faint in a royal residence but it is not one
of those things that one does for the fun of it.”
“Poor dear, I can well believe that it is not your fault: but go on.”
“That is all; and Master Gilbert might have withheld his remarks about
it.”
“There you are abusing the poor boy again.”
“And you taking his defense.”
“For mercy’s sake, do not be so rude to him, so hard, for I have heard
how you treat him. But, goodness, what is the matter now?”
This time she fainted so that it took a long time for her senses to
return.
“Undoubtedly you suffer,” said Philip, “so as to alarm persons more bold
than I am when you are concerned. Say what you like, this is a case that
wants attending to. I will see your doctor myself,” he concluded
tranquilly.