“I will accept your invitation, Sir!”
And I advanced upon him.
But he drew back, as though to let me pass in front of him. This I
refused to do. He may have guessed what was in my mind, for he did not
insist. He led the way in front of me, with the words:
“As you will, Monsieur, ... just to show you the way!...”
On reaching the reception hall, I stopped in front of the door where
I had caught the breath of Madeleine’s perfume. But it was not toward
it--not as yet toward it--that I was guided.
In fact, the old man went straight across the anteroom, and, seeing me
motionless in front of the same door, politely called:
“This way, if Monsieur will be so kind!”
Another door, concealed as all the others in the paneling, now opened,
not, however, into a corridor, but directly into a large, in fact, a
very very large room, which was thus cut off from the reception hall by
the thickness of one partition.
My eyes winced before the glare of some fifty or sixty candles
distributed about the room in holders along the walls and of two
massive lamps, one to either side of the fire-place. The latter was a
majestic hearth in ancient style with a huge embossed and sculptured
hood spacious enough, I thought, to accommodate a goodly number of
whole oxen.
Seated in an armchair and facing me as I came in was the old father--so
at least I decided; but next to him, now, was a third aged man whom I
had not seen as yet, and whom I took for a much younger person than
the other two, though he also was far from young. They both bowed in
greeting as I entered.
I stopped near enough to the door to prevent its being closed. The man
to whom I had not been introduced motioned toward an empty chair. I
declined it with a shake of my head; whereupon he rose:
“As you will,” said he, “I understand your feeling!”
His voice was in a very queer falsetto.
I saw him push his chair back and come forward a step in my direction.
His two aged companions took up positions to the right and left of him,
as though he were their chief. Chief indeed he proved to be.
There was a moment’s silence: then this man resumed:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I must offer you my apologies. It may seem
inconsiderate of me to have disturbed you in your slumbers. But it may
be you were not having a very quiet repose. In that case I may count on
your forgiveness!...”
He broke off, and pointed with a gesture first to the one and then to
the other of his two companions.
“And pray forgive them, too,” he added. “They are well-meaning boys, on
the whole, though their manners leave something to be desired. In this
they are entitled to be excused, perhaps, in view of the place and the
times we are living in and our aloofness from most men of the world.
Certainly it would be difficult to explain away all their breaches of
good form to a stickler on the niceties of conduct or to some one of
over-delicate susceptibilities. But such, fortunately, you prove not to
be, and I must congratulate you on your forbearance. Nevertheless, I
cannot overlook the first and grossest of the impertinences inflicted
on you. When you were so kind as to volunteer your name, this young man
here neglected to give his name to you. I have reproved him severely
for this oversight, and I solicit your indulgence in his behalf. He is
the Vicomte Antoine, at your service, Sir; and here is Count François,
his father, if you please. And I--you will pardon me--am the Marquis
Gaspard, father of Count François and grandfather to Vicomte Antoine.
There you have us all; and now, I trust, you will not impose upon me
the hardship of remaining longer standing. Let us be comfortable! Will
you not please take a chair!”
The door behind me was wide open still, as I satisfied myself with a
glance in that direction. Moreover, the strange address I had been
listening to had a curiously persuasive quality. I sat down as had been
suggested, and the three of them did likewise.
“Dear me, dear me,” said the Marquis Gaspard as he eased himself in his
cushions. “You have left the door wide open, and a terrible draught is
coming into the room!”
Hastily the Vicomte Antoine arose; but he was not so quick as I. I was
at the door in a second and closed it with my own hands, making sure,
meanwhile, that a simple latch was all that fastened it.
“Thanks, a thousand thanks!” exclaimed the marquis. “But, Monsieur le
capitaine, why go to such extremes of courtesy? My grandson could have
closed it just as well!”
I was already in my seat again, and the vicomte in his. There was a
period of silence, in which my eyes had time to flit about the room.
A couple of logs were glowing in the ancient fire-place. The candles
about the walls were gleaming brightly. The beams in the ceiling were
darkened from the smoke of the open fire during many years. The easy
chairs I found quite beautiful in their upholstery of old brocade.
And there were my three hosts!
An uncontrollable astonishment now came over me, something far in
excess of any of the surprises I had experienced heretofore. Those
two more than centenarians in their long snow-white beards were
respectively son and grandson of the third, who seemed to be, by far,
the youngest of the three! His face, smooth shaven, had not the trace
of a wrinkle. There was no suggestion of sunkenness about his eyes;
just as his falsetto voice came from high in his throat without a
tremor and without hesitation. And yet--such the situation seemed to
be! He was indeed the ancestor par excellence, the veritable patriarch,
and of an age that beggared the full many years of the fathers of
Abraham!
But of what could I be really sure?
The silence continued unbroken. Now we were in our chairs, the three
of them facing me. They looked for all the world like a tribunal, with
the marquis figuring as chief justice, and his son and grandson as
associates. And I, what was I in that picture? Suspect? Defendant? A
culprit awaiting sentence?
The silence lasted an unutterably long time. The three pairs of eyes
fixed upon me eventually got on my nerves. To conceal my annoyance and
self consciousness, I turned my head and again examined the vast hall.
It was a sort of living-room--low-studded--and not a parlor, nor a
lounge. The woodwork on the chairs was gilded, and the upholstery, as
I had before observed, was of old brocade. The plastering was painted
simply, without hangings, mirrors, or pictures, of any kind. Meagre,
also, the furnishings: in addition to our four arm-chairs, two divans
in the same style (an impeccable Louis XV), and two seats of fantastic
form--_dormeuses_, one might have called them--with complicated
rests for arms and feet and head, and so deep that they might have
smothered rather than accommodated the human form. I further noticed
an old-fashioned clock and a chest, on opposite sides of the room, and
then a kind of horse, or easel, such as painters use to incline their
canvases according to the fall of light.
I was studying this latter object, when the Marquis Gaspard coughed,
and then sneezed noisily. My eyes came back to him. He was holding
a snuff box in his hand and had just taken a pinch from it. He
returned the object to his pocket, and then began, evidently by way of
introduction:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I am eager, before all else, to convince you of
our good will in your regard, a good will that is absolute and which
will prove, I trust, efficient. Changing times have done us wrong, to
tell the truth; for to look at us, I suppose, one would take us rather
for brigands of the wild than for amiable, well-intentioned gentlemen.
And yet, we are not so bad as we seem, a fact of which you will, in the
end, become aware.”
The old man fell silent, took out his snuff-box again, treated himself
to another pinch, and then sat thinking for a moment.
“Monsieur,” he resumed at last, “I should dislike being put into the
position of matching wits with you. I prefer to rely on your honesty
and honor as a soldier of France. I put the question quite bluntly
therefore: Was it, or was it not, by pure chance, that you came, last
evening, so very very close to this residence of ours?”
I did not have time to answer. He silenced me with a gesture and went
on:
“Of course, I take a number of things for granted. You did not venture
into this retreat for the purpose merely of paying us a visit! Far from
that, monsieur! My vanity would not be crossed if I did not hear such
an extravagant avowal on your part. I am quite ready to admit that
before this evening our triple existence played a slight if any part
at all in your normal thoughts and preoccupations. I am right on that
point, am I not? Quite so! So much for that!
“Nevertheless, it is not inconceivable that your present trespass on
our domains may be due to something more, a little something more,
than plain simple chance.... May I expatiate: monsieur le vicomte,
my grandson, found you some hours ago in an extraordinary place, to
say the least. You were on your way from the Mort de Gauthier to the
Grand Cap? Be it so! Heaven preserve me from doubting your assertion
in the slightest. And yet, and yet! The fact is that to reach the
point where the vicomte found you, you must have proceeded with your
back persistently and repeatedly turned upon your goal. The brush
and undergrowth on the mountains, I suppose, are by no means an easy
problem for the wayfarer. To find one’s way about therein requires
no little presence of mind. Permit me, nevertheless, to express my
great surprise that a gentleman of such talent as I perceive in you, a
gentleman trained in cartography as the members of your distinguished
profession are, should have gone so far, so very very far, astray,
and over such rough and trying ground! My honor, Monsieur! Must one
assume that some will-o’-the-wisp, running the heath to lure poor
travellers to destruction, may have caught you in its spell! I suggest
that hypothesis--one I am by no means loathe to accept. So I ask you,
Monsieur le capitaine: Was it such a wandering fay--an evil fairy of
the deadliest lineage--that brought you to our refuge?”
He concluded, and fastened his eyes upon me.
From the first syllable in his quaintly formal discourse, I had
foreseen the point at which he was ultimately to arrive. So I was not
by any means taken unawares. His address, besides, had been a long one,
and I had had plenty of time to make a supreme decision. When he came
to his will-o’-the-wisp, my mind was quite made up. Gently my hand
had made its way to my pocket and come to rest on my revolver. I had
withdrawn my left leg from beneath my chair and stiffened the muscles
of the calf. Ready to spring forward and mix in, I now looked up and
answered without a tremor:
“Monsieur, will you not take your own choice? You have suggested
chance, foxfire, fairies. Have it as you will. I have no reply to make.
On the contrary I have a number of questions to put to you!”
He did not bat an eyelash, nor did the men to the left and right of
him; but eventually a smile came to his lips and refused to fade as
time went on. I got a good grip on my automatic.
“I have no intention,” I resumed, “of matching wits with you either! I
expect immediate frankness on your part; for you will find it to your
interest, I assure you, not to prevaricate by a syllable. Shall we then
come to the point without evasion? I ask you, monsieur: are you by any
chance acquainted with a young lady, Madame Madeleine de X....”