THE FIRST TRICK
I
It was over a week before Ronnay de Maurel dared venture as far as
Courson in order to sue for pardon; and then mayhap he would not have
gone, only that Madame la Marquise sent over repeatedly to La Vieuville,
complaining of his want of attention to her and desiring his presence as
soon as may be.
"'Tis hard, indeed," she said in one of her letters, "that when I
thought I had found my son again, I should so soon lose him through no
fault of mine own."
And at the end of another epistle she had added:
"I know everything, and pledge you my word that you need have no fear.
Forgiveness is assured you."
It was a strange fact, and one of which de Maurel was in his heart
mightily ashamed, that he did not speak to his uncle Gaston of his
mother's letters, or of his own desire to go to Courson and obtain his
pardon from the girl, the thought of whom now filled his entire soul. Of
course, the invalid knew of Fernande's visit to the foundries; he knew
of the incident that had occurred during the visit, and felt just strong
enough to resent bitterly the fact that his workmen had shown their
disloyalty in the presence of one of these "cursed Royalists."
But after that one serious attempt which he had made to keep Ronnay away
from Courson, old Gaston de Maurel had not said another word on the
subject; nevertheless, the keen insight which his fondness for his
nephew gave him soon showed him the clue of what was in the wind.
"One of those _satané_ de Coursons has got hold of the boy," he muttered
to himself, "and God help him; for she'll make him suffer, as my dead
brother suffered. God grant he does not break his heart over the wench."
He sent for Mathurin and questioned him. But Mathurin was not
reassuring. He thought that the General did not seem to pay much court
to the lady, but, on the other hand, he declared that the lady was very
beautiful, and had tantalizing, blue eyes. Old Gaston was nearer
scenting the trap that was being set for Ronnay than the latter was
himself. But it is passing likely that even if Ronnay had been warned he
would still have deliberately courted his destiny.
II
The last message which his mother sent him set his pulses on fire. He
could not have kept away from Courson after that. Some strange instinct
for which he despised himself, caused him to avoid the invalid's room
after he had donned his uniform and made ready to start for Courson. He
feared his uncle's gibes and his counsels of prudence, even though in
his heart he knew that his uncle was right.
When he reached Courson he found his mother in a soft and tender mood;
she and Fernande were sitting together under the trees in the garden. M.
de Courson and Laurent had gone fishing, he was told, and the ladies
professed themselves delighted at his company. Fernande said little, but
her smile was kind, and she gave de Maurel her hand to kiss. She was
sitting on a low stool beside her aunt, and now and then she shot a
glance from her blue eyes at him--a glance which set him galloping once
more to the land of dreams. But Madame la Marquise talked a great deal
and with marked affection to her son, telling him something of her
troubles, something of her anxieties about Laurent. She had no home, she
said, for, of a truth, she could no longer live on the bounty of her
brother. Laurent chafed at the thought of owing bread and board to his
uncle.
De Maurel listened in silence to everything she said. Indeed, he was
glad that his mother talked at such lengths. He would have sat here and
listened for hours, all the while that he could watch Fernande, as she
put in a word here and there, or made a movement to show her love and
sympathy with her aunt. The sun came slanting in between the branches of
the trees, and there was nothing in the world that Ronnay loved more
than to watch the play of light upon Fernande's fair hair, or to see it
creeping round the contour of her exquisite neck and shoulders,
outlining their pearly hue with gold. When he went, he promised to come
again the next day.
III
For the next fortnight he came nearly every day. Sometimes M. de Courson
would be at home; sometimes--more seldom--Laurent would be there; but
nearly always the two ladies would be alone, and Madame would talk about
her troubles, and Ronnay de Maurel listened with half an ear, while his
eyes followed Fernande's every movement.
Within a week he had offered to his mother and to Laurent his own
Château of La Frontenay as a residence, and Madame la Marquise had
graciously accepted the offer. It had been made because at the precise
moment when de Maurel had his eyes fixed on Fernande, she had looked up
at him, and Madame had said quite casually: "Fernande will make her home
with me for the next few months while my brother and Laurent are away,"
and Fernande had added with a pathetic little sigh: "Is it not pitiable
that _ma tante_ has no home of her own, whilst you are so rich, _mon
cousin_, and your château stands empty?"
By this time every counsel of wisdom and prudence spoken by Gaston de
Maurel had long since been forgotten. Ronnay saw things through a pair
of blue eyes, his thoughts only mirrored those which had their birth
behind a smooth, white forehead and beneath a crown of golden hair.
To Laurent, however, his brother's daily visits at Courson were nothing
short of martyrdom, and it took Madame la Marquise all her time and all
her powers of persuasive eloquence to keep her younger son out of the
way when de Maurel called. If by some mischance the brothers met, a
quarrel was only averted by Madame's untiring tact and--it must be
admitted--by Ronnay's own determination to avoid another scene which
might hopelessly imperil the friendly footing which he had earned for
himself in the house where dwelt his divinity.
That Ronnay de Maurel was by this time deeply in love with Fernande no
one could fail to see. Madame la Marquise chose to pooh-pooh the idea
only because she was afraid of Laurent's outbursts of jealousy, which
would thwart all her carefully laid plans before she had put them into
execution. Laurent, of a truth, was almost beside himself during these
days; even though Fernande soothed his jealous temper with more soft
words and more endearing ways than she had been wont to bestow on him in
the past. Though the young man suffered acutely all the while that he
knew de Maurel to be in Fernande's company, she very quickly sent him
into paradise the moment the ogre was out of the way.
"I am working for King and country," the young girl would say, with a
kind of dreamy exultation, whenever--after the departure of de
Maurel--she had to endure one of Laurent's outbursts of insensate rage.
"Think you that it is a pleasure to me to be in daily contact with such
an odious creature? Bah! meseems when I speak with him that I can see
the spectre of our martyred King and Queen calling to me to avenge them!
Surely," she added reproachfully, "if I can endure the looks, the
touch, the propinquity of the traitor, if I can bear the thought that he
actually dares to sully me with his love, you, Laurent, might for the
sake of our cause try to keep your unwarrantable jealousy in check."
"How can I?" exclaimed Laurent vehemently, "when I know that the man has
dared to make love to you...."
"Nay, he has not yet done that, dear Laurent," broke in Fernande
thoughtfully.
"But you mean to allow him to make love to you when the fancy seizes
him!" he retorted angrily.
"Indeed I do. I have a wager on it with you. Have I not said that the
bear would dance to my piping?"
"He doth that quite enough already. And I'll release you of that wager,
Fernande."
Flushed with wrath, wretched with maddening jealousy, he drew nearer to
the girl, and with a brusque movement seized her in his arms.
"Fernande," he cried, "you torture me...."
She looked up at him--there certainly was a look of acute suffering in
his young face. She disengaged herself from his arms and said gently:
"Poor Laurent! If it were not that we have need of the man and that _ma
tante_ sets such great store by La Frontenay, I would turn my back on
him for ever to-morrow."
But he was not satisfied, even though she had spoken with singular
vehemence, and his misery wrung from him a last passionate appeal:
"You do not love him, Fernande?"
For a moment or two she stood quite still, her eyes fixed on the
distance, far away where lay the woods of La Frontenay--a dark green
patch on the lower slope of the hills; then she turned slowly and looked
calmly into Laurent de Mortain's glowering eyes.
"I hate him," she replied.
IV
Madame la Marquise, on the other hand, encouraged Fernande with all her
might. She was one of those fanatics in the Royalist cause who would
stick at nothing in order to gain influence, men, money that would help
toward ultimate success. In fact, she dreaded that Fernande was really
only playing with de Maurel's love, and that she really meant to throw
him over. In her heart she was hoping that the child could be persuaded
to accept his attentions. As the wife of Ronnay de Maurel, the master of
the foundries of La Frontenay, she could render incalculable services to
the King. What was a girl's happiness worth, when weighed in the balance
with the triumph of a sacred cause? But Madame was too shrewd a
campaigner to show her hand to the enemy--the enemy in this case being
both Laurent and M. de Courson. The latter, of a truth, saw little of
what went on, even though Laurent boldly tackled him one day on the
subject.
"Fernande sees too much of Ronnay de Maurel, _mon oncle_," he said, when
as usual he and M. de Courson were out of the way at the hour when de
Maurel paid his visit to the ladies. "He pesters her with his
attentions...."
M. de Courson shrugged his shoulders at the idea. "You are dreaming, my
good Laurent," he said. "My sister would never allow Fernande to accept
the attentions of one of that pestiferous crowd."
And when Laurent hotly pressed his point, M. de Courson had an indulgent
smile for his vehemence.
"Your jealousy blinds you, my good Laurent," he said. "Fernande loves
you and she is not a girl to change her feelings lightly. Just now she
is coquetting with de Maurel because it is in all our interests to keep
on friendly terms with him. We are beginning to organize our army; we
shall be wanting money, arms, munitions, suitable headquarters. All
these de Maurel can supply us with--if he remain friendly. Fernande has
gained influence over him. Already he is less bitter when he speaks of
the King. Let the child be, my good Laurent. There is no more
enthusiastic patriot than our little Fernande. She vowed that she would
make the Maurel bear dance to her piping. Let us not place any obstacles
in the way of success."
"But, _mon oncle_," protested Laurent hotly, "our future happiness is at
stake ... both Fernande's and mine ... and if my brother...."
"_Ah, çà_," broke in M. le Comte tartly, "are you insinuating, Monsieur
my nephew, that my daughter is like to be untrue to her promise to you?"
"God forbid!"
"Then why all this pother, I pray you? Fernande knows just as well--and
better than both of us--how far she can go with de Maurel. Her
coquetry--I'll stake my oath on it--is harmless enough, nor would my
sister countenance de Maurel's visits here if they erred against the
proprieties."
But though M. de Courson refused to admit before Laurent that there was
anything but the most harmless coquetry between his daughter and de
Maurel, he, nevertheless, made up his mind then and there that he would
talk seriously on the subject with Madame la Marquise.
This he did, and she soon succeeded in reassuring him. A little
patience, she argued, and Ronnay would be definitely pledged to place La
Frontenay at her disposal; after which Fernande need never see him
again.
"I am going over there within the next few days in order to select the
rooms which are to be got ready for me. I shall arrange it so that
Vardenne, the chief bailiff, shall see me there, and hear Ronnay speak
definitely of my future residence in the place. Once he has done that in
front of Vardenne, it will be impossible for him to go back on his word.
Moreover, Fernande will be with me, and Ronnay will say anything,
promise anything, while I let him think that she will take up her abode
at La Frontenay with me."
M. de Courson frowned. There is always a certain esprit de corps in the
male sex, which is up in arms the moment one man sees that a feminine
trap is being set for another.
"You are not playing a very dignified game there, Denise," he said.
"Bah!" she retorted. "Did those infamous revolutionists play a dignified
game, I wonder? Is not everything fair in war--such war as we must
wage--we who are poor and feeble, against the whole might of this
mushroom Empire? Fernande is a true patriot. She is willing to be a pawn
in the great game which we are about to play, and the stakes of which
are the immortal crown and sceptre of St. Louis."
Then as she saw that M. de Courson still remained moody and silent, she
said reassuringly:
"You must not fear for Fernande, my brother. If I have no fear for
Laurent--and, believe me, I have none--then surely you may rest
satisfied that the happiness of our children is not at stake."
V
That same afternoon de Maurel spoke of the woods and of the silent pool
before Fernande. The warm summer mornings were exquisite there just now,
he said; the water-lilies on the pool were in bud, and the sun glittered
with myriads of colours on the iridescent wings of the dragon-flies. The
mountain-ash was in full blossom and the white acacia filled the air
with its fragrance. Fernande seemed to be listening with half an ear,
but anon she said: "I will have to resume my early morning walks again
some day. I have been lazy of late."
He took this to mean that she would come, and seemed quite unconscious
of the fact that while Fernande spoke, Laurent had stood by with an
unusually dark scowl upon his face.
But a whole month went by ere she came--a month during which Ronnay
walked every morning in the woods, going as far as the silent pool, and
there waiting on the chance of seeing her. It was a weary month for him,
because matters at the armament works were going from bad to worse with
the discontented workmen. Leroux, smarting under the punishment imposed
upon him, worked hard to rally his more unruly comrades around him.
Exactly what it was the men wanted, even they would have found it
difficult to say. They had been called to the colours and allowed to
take on work in the powder factories, but they were amenable to military
discipline. The fact that most of them had been let out of prison, in
order to help supply the Emperor and his armies with their needs, should
have made them more contented with their lot, even though that lot was
not an easy one.
'Tis true that the hardest and most dangerous tasks were put upon them;
hours of idleness were few, and they were not free to come and go, as
were the other workmen in the foundry. They dwelt in compounds, always
under supervision; those who had families were not allowed to live with
them--the boys belonged to the State and were drilled for soldiers as
soon as they were old enough; the girls were set to make clothes and
shirts for the army as soon as they could handle a needle.
Leroux took for his main grievance this segregation of the men away from
their families, choosing to remain oblivious of the fact that had he and
his mates been serving their full term of imprisonment or been deported
to New Caledonia, they would have been still more effectually separated
from their wives and children. But he was able to talk impassioned
rhetoric on the subject, and men are easily enough won over by the bait
of a real or supposed grievance.
It took all de Maurel's energy to cope with the trouble, and it was only
in the early morning, before work in the powder factory had properly
begun, that he was able to absent himself from the works. He had to
discontinue his afternoon visits to Courson, and in the hope of seeing
Fernande again he could only rely on the vague words which she spoke the
last time he saw her: "I will have to resume my early morning walks
again some day."
While the trouble with his men filled his thoughts, he did not become a
prey to that melancholy which was gnawing at his heart, when day after
day went by and Fernande did not come. To a man of de Maurel's wilful
and dictatorial temperament, the delay was positive torture, and it is
quite likely that this constant jarring of his nerves, this aching
desire for a sight of the woman whom he loved so passionately, tended to
make him less lenient with Leroux and the malcontents.
He who throughout his administration of the great factory had always
been in complete sympathy with every one of his workmen, found himself
often now in complete disharmony with them--impatient of their
complaints, severe in punishment, bitingly scornful in the face of
threats. These had become more numerous and more violent of late.
Mathurin and the other overseers, who were loyal to a man, went in fear
and trembling for their master's life. And all the while old Gaston de
Maurel was sinking. His life at times seemed literally to be hanging by
a thread; at others he would rally, and with marvellous tenacity would
refuse all medicaments and declare that he had still many years before
him wherein to defeat the machinations of those Coursons whom he
abhorred.
He knew quite well all that was going on; he knew that his nephew had
started on that pilgrimage of suffering, wherein a de Courson led the
way, and which could but end in a broken heart at the journey's end; but
he said nothing more on the subject. He was a de Maurel, too, and knew
well enough that against the wilfulness of one of that race, all the
warnings and all the tears of a faithful mentor would be in vain.
VI
Toward the end of June Ronnay de Maurel sent a courier over to his
mother, asking her to come over to La Frontenay and select the rooms
which she would like to be made habitable for her use.
Madame handed the letter over to her brother with a triumphant smile.
"The first battle has been won," she said firmly. Then she turned to her
niece and placed her hand affectionately on the young girl's shoulder.
"Thanks to Fernande," she added. "And in years to come, my dear, think
how proud you will be that you have rendered such a signal service to
His Majesty--God guard him!"
"It has not been easy, _ma tante_," rejoined Fernande with a whimsical
smile. "Laurent has been a perfect ogre; lately he has taken to dogging
my footsteps. He lies in wait for me at every turn. I dared not meet M.
de Maurel outside the château, lest Laurent pounced upon us and provoked
a scene. I was beginning to fear that my bear would escape me, after
all."
"No fear of that, child. My son Ronnay is deeply enamoured of you. His
absence from you these last few weeks has provoked him into capitulating
sooner than I thought. To-morrow will clinch the pledge which Ronnay has
already given me, and by autumn we shall be settled at La Frontenay."
"And Fernande, I trust," here interposed M. de Courson with stern
decision, "need never meet that abominable democrat again."
As usual, when the subject was alluded to, Madame held her peace. She
was in no hurry to settle anything with regard to Fernande. Everything
would depend on Ronnay's attitude toward herself and toward her
political schemes. If he remained impassive and indifferent, or if he
could be kept in ignorance of the Royalist plans till these were
sufficiently mature to ensure success, things between him and Fernande
might very well be left as they were. He was far too shy and
inexperienced to brusque a crisis with any woman, and Fernande might
easily be trusted to keep him at arm's length, whilst allowing him to
hope, until such time as he was no longer in the way of the Royalist
schemes.
On the other hand, if he proved openly hostile, then Fernande must still
be the bait whereby so dangerous a fish would have to be caught; she
would have to be sacrificed in order to win him over completely. Once
Ronnay de Maurel had a de Courson for wife, it would be her business to
see that he closed his eyes to the Royalist intrigues which had the
armament works of La Frontenay for their chief objective.
Madame la Marquise knew well enough that discontent and disloyalty were
rife in the powder factories of La Frontenay. Her task would be to see
that the disaffection spread to the foundries. The dearness of food, the
oft times irksome military regulations for the defence of the realm,
were always safe cards to play when men were to be won over from
constituted authority to a cause wherein promises were cheap and
plentiful. Rumours of disturbances at the factory had become more
insistent of late, and they were an augury of further disturbances to
come. And, after all, thought Madame, even jail-birds were not to be
disdained as allies in a cause which was both sacred and just.
VII
Laurent, backed by M. de Courson, raised so many objections to Fernande
going over to La Frontenay again, that Madame la Marquise was for once
obliged to yield. Nor did she regret Fernande's absence when she
realized that Ronnay was all the more determined to push her own
installation at the château forward as a means of his seeing the young
girl again.
"Fernande will settle down here with me," Madame said very judicially
at the most critical moment of the interview; "she will help me to put
things in order, and bear me company in my loneliness, as my brother and
Laurent will be going away very soon."
Vardenne, the head-bailiff, had much ado to keep his master's impatience
in check after that. He was to see at once that the rooms which Madame
la Marquise had selected were put ready for her occupation. If men were
not available capable women and girls would have to be brought up from
the village; in any case, Madame la Marquise should be installed here
within the week, and suitable servants engaged for her. He himself was
so absolutely ignorant of what ladies required in order to be
comfortable in a château, that he then and there placed the bailiff
entirely at Madame's disposal for any orders she might deign to give.
Nothing could have pleased Madame better. She was quite ready to take up
her abode at La Frontenay, where already she had arranged to meet M. de
Puisaye and the other Royalist leaders, and where every kind of plan and
scheme could be discussed and prepared at leisure. Madame had plans of
her own to think of as well--plans intimately connected with the
armament works of La Frontenay and its disaffected workmen, and which
she felt sure would commend themselves at once to Joseph de Puisaye. So
she returned to Courson in a high state of exultation. The rapidity
wherewith happy events had moved along surpassed her wildest
expectations. That same evening M. de Courson decided that he and
Laurent had best join de Puisaye, their chief, immediately. The whole
aspect of the proposed rising was wearing a different aspect now that
such perfect headquarters were at the disposal of its leaders.
"Directly you are settled at La Frontenay," M. de Courson said, "I'll
communicate with Prigent and d'Aché, and they can come over with de
Puisaye as soon as you are ready to receive them. The park is so
marvellously secluded and so extensive, that there is practically no
fear of Bonaparte's spies being about, and I feel confident that our
chiefs can come and go when they like, and as often as they like,
without fear of discovery...."
"Till we are ready for our big coup," asserted Madame eagerly.
"Yes," mused M. le Comte; "it begins to look feasible now."
"Feasible?" exclaimed Madame, whose optimism and enthusiasm nothing
would ever damp. "Feasible? I look upon it as done. Give Fernande and me
three months, and we'll have won over two-thirds of the workmen at La
Frontenay. When our recruits march upon the foundry and demand its
surrender in the name of the King, they will be received with
acclamations of loyalty, and within the hour the foundries of La
Frontenay will be manufacturing munitions of war for the triumph of the
King's cause and the overthrow of that execrable Bonaparte."
"God grant that your hopes may be realized, my dear Denise," rejoined M.
de Courson; and Laurent added fervently:
"What a triumph that will be for us! The mouths of fire and engines of
war fashioned by regicides and traitors for the exaltation of the
baseborn Corsican, suddenly turned against that very idol whom they have
dared to set up against their lawful King!"