Angelot Part 25

There was an almost vulture look in the fair face as she stooped over it.

"Ah--and what does this mean?"

"It means," Urbain said, "that General Ratoneau has seen the Prefect, and that that excellent man is ready to oblige him--and you, madame."

"Me?" Adelade looked up sharply, with a sudden flush. "I hope you gave no message from me."

"How could I? you sent none. I am to be trusted, I a.s.sure you. I simply hinted that if the affair could be managed from outside, you would not be too much displeased."

"Nor would you," she said.

"No--no, I should not." He spoke rather slowly, stroking his face, looking at her thoughtfully. This pale pa.s.sion of eagerness was not becoming, somehow, to his admired Adelade.

"Nor would you," she repeated. "Come, Urbain, be frank. You know it is necessary, from your point of view, that Helene should be married soon.

You know that silly boy of yours fancies himself in love with her."

"It would not be unnatural. All France might do the same. But pardon me, I do not know it."

"You mean that he has not confided in you. Well, well, do not lay hold of my words; you had eyes the night before last; you saw what I saw, what every one must have seen. You confessed as much to me yesterday, so do not contradict yourself now."

"Very well--yes!" Urbain smiled and bowed. "Let us agree that my poor boy may have such a fancy. But what does it matter?"

"Of course it does not really matter, because such a marriage would be absolutely impossible for Helene. But it is better for a young man not to have such wild ambitions in his head at all. You know I am right. You agree with me. That is one reason why you are working with me now."

"It is true, madame. You are right. But did it not seem to you, the other night, that Angelot himself saw the impossibility--"

"No, it did not," she said, and her eyes flashed. "He had to protect himself from his uncle's madness--that was nothing. By the bye, that wonderful brother of yours has changed his mind about Henriette. He sent her here this morning with a letter to me, and she is now doing her lessons with Sophie and Lucie."

"I am delighted to hear it," said Urbain, absently. "But now, to return to our subject--the Ratoneau marriage--" he paused an instant, and whatever his words and actions may have been, Madame de Sainfoy was a little punished for her scorn of his son by the accent of utter disgust with which he dwelt on the General's name.

For she felt it, and he had the small satisfaction of seeing that she did. She had trodden on her worm a little too hard, in telling Ange de la Mariniere's father that he might as well dream of a princess as of Helene de Sainfoy.

"Yes, yes," she said hastily, and smiled brilliantly on Urbain as much as to say, "Dear friend, I was joking. We understand each other.--Tell me everything you did yesterday--what he said, and all about it," she went on aloud. "Ah, Herve!" as her husband sauntered into the room--"do have the goodness to fetch me those patterns of silk hangings from the library. This dear Urbain has come at the right moment to be consulted about them."

CHAPTER XV

HOW HENRIETTE READ HISTORY TO SOME PURPOSE

The inside of the Chateau de Lancilly was a curious labyrinth of arched stone pa.s.sages paved with brick, cold on the hottest day, with short flights of steps making unexpected changes of level; every wall so thick as to hold deep cupboards, even small rooms, or private staircases climbing steeply up or down. The old ghosts of the chateau, who slipped in and out of these walls and flitted about the hidden steps, had lost a good deal of their credit in the last twenty years. No self-respecting ghost could show itself to Urbain de la Mariniere, and few mortals besides him haunted the remote pa.s.sages while the great house stood empty.

And now one may be sure that the ghosts were careful to hide themselves from Madame de Sainfoy. No half-lights, no chilly shadows wavering on the wall, no quick pa.s.sing of a wind from nowhere, such hints and vanishings as might send a shiver through ordinary bones, had any effect on Adelade's cool dignity. The light of reason shone in her clear-cut face; her voice, penetrating and decided, was enough to frighten any foolish spirit who chose to sweep rushingly beside her through the wall as she walked along the pa.s.sages.

"Do you hear the rats?" she would say. "How can we catch them? These old houses are infested with them."

She spoke so firmly that even the ghost itself believed it was a rat, and scuttled away out of hearing.

To reach the north wing, where her three girls and their governess lived, Madame de Sainfoy had to mount a short flight of steps from the hall, then to go along a vaulted corridor lighted only by a small lucarne window here and there, then down a staircase which brought her to the level of the great salons and the dining-room at the opposite end, which formerly, like this north wing, had hung over the moat, but were now being brought nearer the ground by Monsieur de Sainfoy's earthworks.

This old north wing had been less restored than any other part of the chateau. The pa.s.sage which ran through it, only lighted by a window at the foot of the staircase, ended at the arched door of a silent, deserted chapel with an altar on its east side, a quaint figure of Our Lady in a carved niche, and a window half-darkened with ivy leaves, overhanging the green and damp depths of the moat, now empty of water.

Before reaching the chapel--lonely and neglected, but not desecrated, for by the care of Madame de la Mariniere ma.s.s had been said in it once a year--there were four doors, two on each side of the corridor. The first on the left was that of the room where Sophie and Lucie both slept and did their lessons, a large room looking out west to the gardens and woods behind Lancilly; and opening from this, with a separate door into the pa.s.sage, was Mademoiselle Moineau's room. On the right the rooms were smaller, the chapel cutting them off to the north, with a secret staircase in the thickness of the wall by the altar. A maid slept in the first; and the second, nearest the chapel, but with a wide, cheerful view of its own across the valley to the east, was Helene's room.

Madame de Sainfoy, after disposing of Herve and hearing all that Urbain had to tell her, with digressions to the almost equally interesting subject of silk hangings, set off across the chateau to inspect the young people at their lessons. She was an excellent mother. She did not, like so many women, leave her children entirely to the consciences of their teachers.

Her firm step, the sharp touch which lifted the heavy old latch, straightened the backs of Sophie and Lucie as if by magic. Lucie looked at her mother in terror. Too often her round shoulders caught that unsparing eye, and the dreaded backboard was firmly strapped on before Madame de Sainfoy left the room; for Lucie, growing tall and inclined to stoop, was going through the period of torture which Helene, for the same reason, had endured before her.

They all got up, including Mademoiselle Moineau. The two girls went to kiss their mother's hand; Henriette, more slowly, followed their example.

"I hope your new pupil is obedient, mademoiselle," said Madame de Sainfoy, as her cold glance met the child's fearless eyes.

Mademoiselle Moineau c.o.c.ked her little arched nose--she was very like a fluffy old bird--and smiled rather mischievously.

"We shall do very well, when Mademoiselle de la Mariniere understands us," she said. "I have no wish to complain, but at present she is a little sure of herself, a little distrustful of me, and so--"

"Ignorance and ill-breeding," said the Comtesse, coolly. "Excuse her--she will know better in time."

Riette's eyes fell, and she became crimson. The good-natured Sophie caught her hand and squeezed it, thinking she was going to cry; but such weakness was far from Riette; the red of her cheeks was a flame of pure indignation. Ignorant! Ill-bred! She had been very much pleased when the little papa decided suddenly on sending her to join Sophie and Lucie in their lessons; she had been seized with a romantic admiration for Helene, independent of the interest she took in her for Angelot's sake, and in other ways the Chateau de Lancilly was to her enchanted ground.

And now this fair, tall lady, whom she had disliked from the first, talked of her ignorance and ill-breeding! She drew herself up, her lips trembled; another such word and she would have walked out of the room, fled down the corridor, escaped alone across the fields to Les Chouettes. She knew every turn, every step in the chateau, every path in the country, far better than these people did; they would not easily overtake her.

But Madame de Sainfoy was not thinking of Henriette.

"What are you doing? Reading history?" she said to the others.

"Mademoiselle, I thought it was my wish that Helene should read history with her sisters. The other day, if you remember, she could not tell Monsieur de Sainfoy the date of the marriage of Philippe Duc d'Orleans with the Princess Henriette of England. It is necessary to know these things. The Emperor expects a correct knowledge of the old Royal Family.

Where is Helene?"

"She is in her own room, madame. Allow me an instant--"

The three children were left alone. Madame de Sainfoy walked quickly into Mademoiselle Moineau's room, the little governess waddling after her, and the door was shut.

Riette made a skip in the air and pirouetted on one foot. Then while Sophie and Lucie stared open-mouthed, she was on a chair; then with a wild spring, she was hanging by her hands to the top cornice of a great walnut-wood press; then she was on her feet again, light as an india-rubber ball.

"Ah, mon Dieu! sit down, Riette, or we shall all be beaten!" sighed the trembling Lucie.

"Don't be frightened, children!" murmured Riette. "Where is our book?

Now, my angels, think, think of Henri Quatre and all his glory!"

In the meanwhile, Mademoiselle Moineau laid her complaint of Helene before the Comtesse. Something was certainly the matter with the girl; she would not read, she would not talk, her tasks of needlework were neglected, she did not care to go out, or to do anything but sit in her window and gaze across the valley.

"Of course there has been no opportunity--they have never met, except in public--but if it were not entirely out of the question--" Mademoiselle Moineau stammered, blushing, conscious, though she would never confess it, of having nodded one day for a few minutes under a certain mulberry tree. "The other night, madame, at the dinner party, did it strike you that a certain gentleman was a little forward, a little intimate--"

Madame de Sainfoy lifted her brows and shrugged her shoulders.

"You mean young La Mariniere? Bah! nonsense, mademoiselle. Only a little cousin, and a quite impossible one. We cannot keep him quite at arm's length, because of his father, who has been so excellent. But if you really think that Helene has any such absurdity in her head--"