THE GENERAL
I
Mme. la Marquise's incredulity with regard to her niece's assertion
lasted well into the afternoon. She could not bring herself to believe
that de Maurel's hostile attitude towards all the inmates of Courson,
which he had so steadily maintained since his first unfortunate visit,
could have undergone such a material change in so short a time.
She had looked on Fernande's childish boasting as mere nonsense, and
during the past week had been eating out her heart in vain regret and
remorse at her own folly, her own insentient pride, which had
undoubtedly precipitated the catastrophe, and turned into an open feud
what had, after all, only been a kind of skulking neutrality before.
Mme. la Marquise was quite sure in her own mind that if she had been
present throughout the interview between the two brothers, she would
have known how to avert the quarrel. Once it had occurred, she felt that
nothing would ever bridge it over. The short glimpse which she had that
day of Ronnay de Maurel had told her plainly that he was, indeed, the
son of his father--endowed with the same passionate and violent
temperament and the same obstinacy. Some latent impulse--or perhaps mere
idle curiosity, she thought--had prompted him to come the once. But
unfortunately he had been made unwelcome, and Madame la Marquise knew
that he would resent this most bitterly, and that he would prove as
irreconcilable as her husband had been, as old Gaston de Maurel still
was.
Was it likely, therefore, that he would surrender at a word from a mere
girl, and come and eat that humble pie at Courson which was bound to be
very distasteful to him? Madame thought not; and in this she proved
herself as ignorant of male temperament as her son was of feminine
wiles. But Fernande was so positive that M. de Maurel would come, that
something of her confidence communicated itself to the others. Her
appearance in a new frock of delicate muslin, with tiny puffed sleeves
and the shortest of waists, the folds of her long skirt clinging very
closely to her girlish figure, finally brought Madame's incredulity to
an end, and though nothing was done this time in preparation of M. de
Maurel's coming, the excitement which pervaded the château was none the
less acute.
The weather continued to smile the whole afternoon. It had been the
warmest day of the young year, and Madame--still pretending that she was
not expecting her son--ordered Annette to bring some semblance of order
in the vast circular veranda that overlooked the park. In olden days
this veranda had been a favourite spot on warm afternoons; the view
between the stone pillars right over the ornamental water and the
English garden beyond was magnificent. In those days the flagged floor
was covered with soft carpets, chairs and lounges stood around, with one
or two card-tables and stands for wines or coffee. Now there were
neither carpets nor lounges; a few garden seats of stout wood had alone
survived the years of disrepair. But after Annette had scrubbed the
floor and the chairs, after Madame had ordered a table or two to be
brought out and light refreshments to be disposed on them, after she had
spread a couple of gaily-coloured Paisley shawls--remnants of her own
depleted wardrobe--over the seats, the place looked inviting enough, and
nothing could spoil the view across the park, right over an apple
orchard aglow with blossom to the distant wooded heights beyond.
Madame took her seat beside the coffee-urn, her knitting in her hand. M.
de Courson, feeling unaccountably restless, joined her after a while,
making pretence to read the _Moniteur_--a week old--which a courier from
Paris had brought that morning. Soon afterwards Laurent and Fernande
were seen coming round the ornamental water. They came up the stone
steps to the veranda, Fernande's unconcerned prattle and her merry laugh
raising the echoes of the old walls.
Laurent was moody, as he always was when his brother's name was so much
as mentioned; but Fernande was in the highest possible spirits, even
though she masked her gaiety behind a look of sober demureness.
Everyone's nerves were on the jar. The paper rattled in M. de Courson's
hands; Madame's knitting needles clicked jerkily.
Laurent sat with his two hands tightly clasped between his knees,
staring down most of the time at Fernande's little feet, which were
stretched out before her. They were encased in a delicious pair of
heelless black alpaca sandals, with satin ribbons criss-crossing over
the instep and tied in a bow just above the ankle. Her fingers were busy
with a delicate piece of embroidery, and she was expounding her views to
Laurent on the subject of the rearing of chickens.
II
At half-past three Annette came rushing from the house on to the
veranda.
"The General!" she cried excitedly. "He is just coming up the avenue.
Matthieu sent me to ask if Mme. la Marquise will receive him."
Madame looked up from her work and turned cold, reproving eyes on
worthy, perspiring Annette.
"The General?" she queried calmly. "I know no General in the King's
army who is like to pay me a visit to-day."
Whereupon Annette, thus rebuked, was covered with confusion, from which
it took her some time to recover.
"I beg a thousand pardons, Mme. la Marquise," she stammered ruefully, as
she wiped her hot, red hands on her apron. "I have known the Gen--I mean
M. de Maurel all these years, and ... I ... I was meaning that...."
"That what, my good woman?" asked Madame tartly.
She appeared very detached and haughty, but Fernande, who shot one of
her keen, mischievous glances at her aunt from beneath her long lashes,
noted with vast amusement that though Madame was not working for the
moment, the knitting needles in her hands were clicking audibly one
against the other.
"I mean, Madame la Marquise, that M. le Comte de Maurel is coming down
the avenue," Annette was at last able to blurt out. "Will Mme. la
Marquise receive him?"
"Of course I will receive M. le Comte," replied Madame with perfect
dignity. "Tell Matthieu to show M. le Comte up here."
"Yes, Madame la Marquise," murmured Annette, who felt a little awed by
the atmosphere of pomp which had so unaccountably descended on the old
veranda and its inmates, and to which she--poor soul!--was wholly
unaccustomed. "And Matthieu says, Madame la Marquise, what is he to do
about the horse?"
"The horse?"
"The Gen ... I ... I mean M. le Comte is on horseback and the stable
roof fell in six years ago."
"My good Annette," here interposed M. de Courson with marked
irritability, "do not worry Madame la Marquise with such trifles. Surely
Matthieu can look after a horse for an hour or so while a visitor pays
his respects up here!"
"Well ... Matthieu says," muttered Annette, whose temper was none too
equable at any time, "that he cannot come up and announce a visitor and
look after a horse at one and the same time."
An exclamation of impatience came from Laurent as he rose from his seat.
"Why all this pother, I wonder?" he said. "I'll go and see after the
man's horse. One of his own vanners, I suppose. He must look funny on
horseback with that linen blouse of his flopping round him in the wind."
He crossed the veranda, ready to follow Annette. The worthy woman,
having shrugged her fat shoulders and thrown up her hands with an
expressive gesture of complete detachment from the doings of her
betters, started to shuffle back the way she came. But before either she
or Laurent had reached the wide glass portières which gave on the
principal State apartments of the château, a firm tread, with a curious
drag in it and accompanied by the click of spurs, was heard to cross the
hall and then to resound on the parquet floor of the vast reception-room
which led directly to the veranda.
"Too late, _mon cousin_," said Fernande in her tantalizingly demure way.
"M. de Maurel has apparently been too impatient to await your welcome.
He...."
She paused--the next words dying upon her lips--her hands poised in
mid-air holding her work and the embroidery thread. Even she could not
repress a slight gasp of astonishment as Ronnay de Maurel's tall figure
appeared under the lintel of the door.
III
He wore the uniform of a General of Division in the army of the
Emperor--the uniform which he had last worn at Austerlitz, and which he
had since laid aside for the blue linen blouse. He carried his
_chapeau-bras_ under his arm, and there was, indeed, nothing visible now
of the slouchy attire which had so offended against Madame la Marquise
de Mortain's ideas of what was picturesque. The gorgeous uniform,
though worn and patched, became the tall, massive figure admirably, and
though the gold of collar and epaulettes was so tarnished that it looked
almost black, and the cloth of tunic and breeches so faded that their
original dark green colour was almost unrecognizable, they lent a
certain barbaric splendour to this last descendant of an ancient lineage
turned democrat from conviction and temperament. From out the tall,
stiff collar, covered with tarnished gold, the neck rose erect and firm,
and the shoulders were squared as on parade. Ronnay de Maurel had halted
on the threshold, and with a rigid military salute had greeted the
assembled company. Instinctively, and on the spur of the moment, M. de
Courson had risen in order to greet the new-comer; he now advanced with
hand extended. Madame la Marquise could scarce believe her eyes; a
change had, indeed, come over the uncouth figure of a week ago. Her cold
and quizzical eyes took in at a glance all that was fine and picturesque
in her eldest son's demeanour. The gold-embroidered tunic pleased her,
despite the stains on it caused by the grime and smoke of powder, and a
quick look of compassion, which was almost furtive, so unwonted was it,
crept into her grey eyes when they caught sight of the large stain and
the obvious patch in the left leg of his breeches--there where the cloth
had been torn away, when a bullet from the Austrian gun had laid this
splendid soldier low.
As Ronnay came forward Madame rose slightly from her seat.
"It is a pleasure to see you, my son," she said graciously.
She gave him her hand, which he did not take. Obviously he did not see
it, nor yet M. de Courson's kindly gesture. But he took Laurent's hand.
The awkwardness which he felt was manifested in all his movements and in
the few vague words of thanks which he uttered. Then suddenly Fernande's
clear, young voice rang out merrily through the constrained atmosphere
which de Maurel's appearance had produced on everyone present.
"Eh, _mon cousin_," she said gaily, "am I then so small or so
insignificant that I alone am not worthy of your regard?"
She did not move from her seat, but this time de Maurel was not slow
either in coming to her side or in taking the tiny hand which she held
out to him. With a clumsy gesture, though without the slightest
hesitation, he raised it to his lips. Laurent smothered an exclamation
of wrath; but into Madame la Marquise's cold, grey eyes there came a
sudden light of satisfaction.
"Will you not sit down, my son?" she said, with a well-bred air of
condescension. "I trust that you have come to pay us a nice long visit.
My brother-in-law is no worse, I hope?"
She pointed to a chair which, though at some distance from Fernande,
would afford the sitter a clear view of the charming picture which the
girl presented. That something more than a mere casual rencontre had
taken place between her eldest son and her niece she no longer doubted;
the child went up in her estimation at once, for obviously she had
played her cards well. Nothing would suit Madame la Marquise's plans
better than that de Maurel should evince an ardent admiration for
Fernande de Courson; and if that admiration warmed into love--well, so
much the better for the cause of the King. The bear was certainly
beginning to dance, thought Madame, whilst the smile of satisfaction
lingered round her lips and her thoughts went off roaming in the realms
of fancy. Laurent would have to console himself with a rich heiress for
the loss of his charming fiancée. At best, Madame herself did not
greatly favour the match. M. de Courson had not a sou wherewith to endow
his daughter, and Madame la Marquise had oft expressed her doubts as to
His Majesty--even when he came to his throne again--being ever rich
enough to compensate all his loyal adherents for the losses which they
had sustained. Laurent was so handsome, that any rich girl would only
be too proud to regild his escutcheon for him in exchange for all the
advantages which his gallant bearing and his sixteen quarterings would
bestow upon her. Indeed, everything was shaping out for the best.
Madame, while talking platitudes to de Maurel to which he only listened
with half an ear, was able to note with practised eye every symptom of
profound attention which he bestowed on the slightest word or movement
from Fernande.
In her mind she had already appraised the enormous advantages that would
accrue to the King's cause if a marriage between a de Courson and this
wealthy adherent of Bonaparte could be effected. Madame la Marquise de
Mortain belonged to a generation which had often seen petticoat
government ruling the destinies of nations. And though--Ronnay being
what he was, the true son of his father, and having perhaps inherited
his father's temperament as well as his democratic ideals--she could not
fail to appreciate the possibility of a de Courson once again reducing a
de Maurel to complete, if short-lived, slavery.
IV
"You have not suffered from the result of your accident, Mademoiselle
Fernande?"
"Not at all, _mon cousin_, I thank you."
A pause. Then a pair of blue eyes were once more raised from what seemed
very absorbing work.
"The woods round La Frontenay are very beautiful, _mon cousin_."
"Very beautiful, Mademoiselle."
"I had never visited the silent pool in the early morning before."
Another pause, necessitated by an intricate stitch in the embroidery.
"The silent pool is a very romantic spot, do you not think so, _mon
cousin_?"
"I know so little about romance, Mademoiselle."
"The woods will teach you, _mon cousin_."
"I would be grateful."
"Laurent and I often wander in the woods--don't we, Laurent?"
Laurent, sitting on the edge of the stone balustrade, with his arms
folded over his chest and a sinister scowl upon his face, did not
vouchsafe an answer to the direct query.
"We have been as far as the silent pool," continued Fernande
unconcernedly.
"It is a short walk from Courson," rejoined de Maurel.
"A very long one, I think ... over six kilomètres."
"Over six kilomètres.... Yes."
"Therefore, we have never been further than the pool."
Yet another pause. Madame la Marquise had resumed her knitting. M. de
Courson tried not to appear ill at ease, and Laurent, whose exasperation
became more and more obvious every moment, jumped down from the
balustrade and began pacing up and down the veranda, hoping thereby to
keep his nerves under control.
"But from the distance I have seen the smoke of your foundries, _mon
cousin_," again resumed Fernande, wholly unperturbed.
"!!"
"I have never seen the interior of a foundry in my life."
"It is not a romantic sight, Mademoiselle."
"_Oh, que si, mon cousin!_" she retorted with sudden seriousness. "There
is nothing more romantic than to see a man toiling with his body and
with his brain, using his intelligence and the power which his mind has
given him, in order to overcome the many difficulties which God has laid
in his path, in face of the great natural advantages which He has
assigned to His brute creation. And then to see hundreds of men all
working together in the same way and for the same end--working in order
to wrest from Nature her manifold secrets and enchain them in the
service of Man. Oh, it must, indeed, be a very inspiring sight, and one
I would dearly love to see!"
She had spoken with an air of quaint earnestness which became the
spiritual aspect of her personality to perfection. De Maurel had
listened to her with grave intentness, his brows knit together as if he
was afraid to miss some hidden meaning in her words. Laurent, on the
other hand, had found it difficult to contain himself while she
delivered herself of her somewhat pompous little speech. Now before his
brother could reply he broke in with a harsh laugh:
"An inspiring sight, mayhap, but also a mightily unpleasant smell.
Smoke, grime, dirt," he added tartly, "mingled with perspiring humanity,
make up a sum total of unpleasant odours which you, Fernande, would be
the first to resent if my brother Ronnay were so foolish as to accede to
your whim."
"You must leave me to judge, my dear Laurent," retorted Fernande, with
one of her demure little pouts, "as to what I would resent and what not.
Well, _mon cousin_," she added once more, turning to de Maurel, "you
hear what Laurent says. Are you going to be sufficiently foolish to
gratify my curiosity?"
"Nay, do not appeal to Ronnay, dear cousin," rejoined the young man
testily. "He hath no liking for women's company. Rumour hath it that the
foundries are encircled by a wall beyond which no feminine foot hath
ever trod, and anxious wives are not even allowed to bring hard-working
husbands their dinner. 'Tis said that all the jail-birds in France are
employed in forging cannon and manufacturing gunpowder, and that the
overseers have to stand over them with flails and loaded muskets, for
fear that the spirit of insubordination which is always rampant should
break into open riot, and the foundries of La Frontenay be blown up
sky-high by rebellious hands."
De Maurel had waited with outward patience and in his own calm somewhat
sullen way until his young brother had come to an end with his tirade;
then he interposed curtly:
"Rumour hath lied as usual."
"You cannot deny, anyhow," retorted Laurent, "that all the deserters out
of the army are made to slave in your factories."
"There are not enough deserters in the armies of France to keep a single
foundry going," rejoined de Maurel simply. "But these days, when foreign
enemies threaten the country on every side, we cannot afford to keep
even jail-birds idle. So we employ them in the powder factory, where the
work is hard and full of danger, and where accidents, alas! are
frequent. But the pay is good, and men who have a crime upon their
conscience can redeem their past by toiling for their country, who hath
need of their brain and of their muscle. Many pass out of the workshops
into the army, and the Emperor had no finer soldiers than a company of
our jail-birds, as you call them, who fought under my command at
Austerlitz."
He paused, for, as usual, every reference to the army and to his
Emperor, whom he worshipped, was apt to stir his blood, so that his
words became less sober and less measured. And he had come here this
afternoon with the firm determination not to lose control over himself
as he had done the other day.
"If Mademoiselle Fernande desires to see the foundry," he said quite
quietly after a while, "I will accompany her and show her all that there
is to see."
"If accidents in your works are frequent, my good Ronnay," rejoined
Laurent, who was vainly trying to conceal the irritability of his
nerves, "'tis obviously not fit that our cousin should visit them."
"I would not take her there where there is any danger," retorted de
Maurel curtly.
"There is always danger for a refined woman in the propinquity of men
who have been nurtured in class-hatred. The sight of a delicate and
aristocratic girl is like to rouse the same resentment in your
jail-birds that led to the atrocities of the Revolution. Fernande would
certainly run the risk of insults, if not worse. I for one marvel at
you, my dear brother, that you should think of exposing our cousin to
the danger of hearing the blasphemous and obscene language which I am
told is the only one spoken inside the foundries of La Frontenay."
"There is neither blasphemous nor obscene language spoken inside my
workshops when I am present. If Mademoiselle Fernande deigns to entrust
herself to my guidance, I'll pledge mine honour that she shall neither
hear nor see a single thing that may offend her eyes or her ears."
"But, indeed, _mon cousin_, I am over-ready ..." began Fernande, when
Madame la Marquise interposed in her wonted decisive way:
"Hoity-toity!" she said. "Here are you young people discussing projects
which obviously cannot be put into execution without the consent of your
elders. 'Tis I and my brother who alone can decide whether Fernande
might go to visit the foundry or not. Nor hath M. le Comte Gaston been
consulted as to his wishes in the matter."
"My uncle would raise no objections," said Ronnay moodily. "The
inspection of the foundry is open to the public...."
"'Tis not a case of objections, my son," rejoined Madame with quiet
condescension; "nor is your cousin Fernande to be classed among the
public to whom casual permission might thus be given."
De Maurel frowned and that old look of churlish obstinacy once more
crept into his face.
"I don't understand what you mean," he said.
"Yet 'tis simple enough, my good de Maurel," interposed M. de Courson in
his turn. "There are certain usages of good society which forbid a young
girl to go about alone in the company of a man other than her father or
her brother."
"Surely you knew that?" queried Laurent ironically.
"No, I did not," replied de Maurel curtly. "Why should not Mademoiselle
Fernande come with me to visit my foundries, if she desires to see
them?"
"Because ... because ..." said Madame somewhat haltingly, obviously at a
loss how to explain to this unsophisticated rustic the manners and
usages of good society.
"I would see that she came to no harm."
"I am sure of that, _mon cousin_," quoth Fernande with a little sigh and
a glance of complete understanding directed at de Maurel. "I should feel
perfectly safe in your company."
"Fernande!" exclaimed Laurent hotly.
"There, you see?" she said, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders. "_La
jeune fille_ is a regular slave to a multiplicity of senseless
conventions. Do not argue about it, _mon cousin_, it is quite useless.
_Ma tante_ will hurl the proprieties at your head till she has made you
feel that you are a dangerous Don Juan, and unfit to be left alone in
the company of an innocent young girl like me."
"Fernande!" This time the exclamation came from Madame la Marquise, and
it was uttered in a tone of stern reproach.
"A thousand pardons, _ma tante_! please call my words unsaid. And you,
_mon cousin_, I entreat take no heed of the sighings of a young captive
chafing against her fetters. Indeed, I am a very happy slave and only
resent my chain on rare occasions, when it is pulled more tightly than
suits my fancy. Otherwise my gaolers are passing lenient, and I am given
plenty of liberty, so long as I indulge in it alone; and when in the
early morning I take my favourite walks in the woods, I am even allowed
to wander as far as the silent pool and listen to the pigeons of St.
Front, unattended by a chaperone."
Fernande, while she spoke, appeared deeply engrossed in disentangling a
knot in her embroidery silk; this, no doubt, accounted for the fact that
her words came somewhat jerkily, and with what seemed like deliberate
slowness and emphasis. Laurent, lost in the whirl of his own jealousy,
watched her less keenly than he was wont to do. Certainly he did not
notice the glance which accompanied those words--a glance which de
Maurel, on the other hand, did not fail to catch. It was directed at
him, and was accompanied by an enigmatical little smile which he was not
slow to interpret--so much guile had a pair of blue eyes already poured
into the soul of this unsophisticated barbarian! Twenty-four hours ago
he would have been intolerant of a young woman's diatribe on the subject
of conventions, with which he had neither sympathy nor patience; to-day
he heard in it certain tones which for him were full of meaning and of a
vague promise.
The feeling, too, that this exquisite creature took him, as it were,
into her confidence, that she implied--by that one glance of her blue
eyes--that a secret understanding existed between her and him, was one
that filled him with an extraordinary sense of happiness--of detachment
from everything else around him--of walking on air, and of seeing the
blue ether above him, open to show him a vision of intoxicating bliss.
V
The minutes after that went by leaden-footed. Ronnay de Maurel was
longing to take his leave, to ride home as fast as he could, and in the
privacy of his bare, uncomfortable room to think over every minute of
this eventful day, and to anticipate as patiently as possible the hour
when it might reasonably be supposed that an angel would take its
morning walk abroad. Madame la Marquise made great efforts to keep the
ball of conversation rolling pleasantly; but she found it difficult
owing to the fact that de Maurel scarcely opened his lips again.
Fernande, too, had become silent and tantalizingly demure. Her aunt
thought that she was sulking owing to the veto put upon the proposed
visit to the foundries. Madame would have wished to reopen that subject,
for, of a truth, she would not have been altogether averse to going
over to La Frontenay or La Vieuville, or even to bearding old Gaston de
Maurel in his own lair; but Ronnay, after his one suggestion that he
would take Fernande over the works, did not again renew his offer.
Laurent, too, had become indescribably morose, and for once in her life
Madame found it in her heart to be actually angry with her beloved son.
Obviously the rapprochement with the de Maurels would be impossible if
Laurent remained so persistently on the brink of a quarrel with his
brother.
Though after a while Annette brought wine and biscuits on a tray, and M.
de Courson and Madame la Marquise performed miracles of patience in
trying to remain genial, the atmosphere became more and more constrained
every moment.
Fortunately, after a while de Maurel appeared quite as eager to go as
was his mother to be rid of him. He rose to take his leave, and beyond
making a clumsy bow in the direction where Fernande was sitting, silent
and industrious, he took no more intimate farewell of her than he did of
the others. This had the effect of allaying in a slight measure
Laurent's irritation. He even unbent to the extent of accompanying his
brother to the gates of the château, an act of courtesy in which M. de
Courson also joined.
But the moment that de Maurel's back was turned, and the steps of the
three men had ceased to echo through the house, Fernande threw down her
work and ran over to her aunt. She stood before the older woman, holding
herself very erect, her little head held up with a remarkable air of
dignity, her hands clasped behind her back.
"_Ma tante_, tell me," she said abruptly, "for, of a truth, I have
become confused--which of the two things in life do you prize the
most--the cause of our King or the fetish of social conventions?"
"Fernande," retorted Madame sternly, "meseems that for the past day or
two you have taken leave of your senses. I will not be questioned in
this fashion by a childlike you...."
"_Ma tante_," broke in the young girl solemnly, "I entreat you to
believe that I am asking no idle question. I beg of you most earnestly
to answer the question which I have put to you."
"The question hath no need of answer. It is answered already. And you,
Fernande, are impertinent to put the question to me."
"Nevertheless, _ma tante_, I ask it in all seriousness, and I beg for an
answer in the name of the cause which we all hold dear."
"If you put it that way, child," rejoined Madame coldly, "I cannot help
but reply: you are foolish and impertinent, and I almost feel bemeaned
by pandering to your foolishness."
"_Ma tante_," pleaded Fernande insistently.
"What is it you want me to say, _enfin_?"
"Tell me plainly and simply, _ma tante_, which you prize most: a few
hollow conventions or the success of our arms in the cause of our King."
"Tush, child! of course you know that I prize the cause of our King
above all else on earth."
"And you are ready to make any sacrifice for its success?"
"Of course I am! What nonsense has got into that childish head of yours,
I wonder?"
"One moment, _ma tante_. Tell me one thing more."
"Well?"
"In your opinion, do you think that every one of us should be ready for
any sacrifice that might help to further the cause of our King?"
"Of course, child. I trust you are prepared to make whatever sacrifice
the cause of the King may demand from you. I know that your father is
more than prepared, and so is Laurent."
"And so am I, _ma tante_," said Fernande firmly. "Therefore, one day
soon I'll go to meet M. de Maurel in the woods of La Frontenay, and
together we'll visit the Maurel foundries--all in the name of the King,
_ma tante_."