In The Day Of Adversity Part 11

As he mused thus--firm, determined, and cool, and fearing not to enter this grim abode, since she whom he loved more than his life was safe in the city half a league away--he heard the locks being turned in the doorway and saw the door open, doubtless after he had been regarded from the grille high up in it. Then a man appeared in the open s.p.a.ce and, shading his eyes with his hands, looked out at the cavalier sitting there on his horse--a man dressed as a servitor in some dark material, elderly, and with upon his head the serving-man's wig known as _la brigadiere_. Behind him there stood another--almost a boy, and also evidently a servant.

"What," he asked, "may monsieur desire? He summons the house somewhat late."

"To obey the order of his Majesty the king--to wait upon Madame la Marquise de Roquemaure. Say to her, if she be in her house, that Monsieur St. Georges, of the Chevaux-Legers of Nivernois, has come by order of the king to attend upon madame as he pa.s.ses on his way to Paris from Pontarlier."

The man bowed as he heard the words "by order of the king"; then he said he would carry his message. Would monsieur be so good as to wait until he returned? And monsieur answering that he would do so, the other withdrew, leaving the door open, and the younger servant standing in it, regarding St. Georges, who still continued to cast his eyes over the ancient pile.

Presently the man came back and said:

"Madame la marquise bids me say that any one ordered to visit her by his Majesty is welcome. Will monsieur be good enough to enter?

Monsieur doubtless stops the night--a room shall be at his service.

Madame and her daughter sup half an hour later; she trusts monsieur will honour her by joining the repast."

"Her daughter!" exclaimed St. Georges; "she has a daughter! Indeed!"

Then remembering himself, he replied: "Make my compliments to madame and say that I will join her. Yet, my friend, excuse me to her, too, for the manner in which I shall appear before her. I have ridden far in rough weather; I am scarce presentable."

"Madame will understand," the servitor answered respectfully. "As will Mademoiselle Aurelie.--Gaston," to the younger servant, "take monsieur's horse."

"And," said St. Georges, "be very attentive to it, I pray you. No soldier ever had a better or a truer one." He would have liked to see it fed and littered down himself, but could hardly insist on doing so; therefore--though he feared he was in the house of a deadly enemy!--he was forced to let the trusty creature, the animal on whose fleetness and strength not only his journey, but maybe his life depended--be taken away to some unknown stable.

"Have no fear, monsieur," said the old man. "Gaston loves animals better than his own kind. Even though you were his most hated foe, your beast would be sacred to him."

"I am glad to hear it," replied St. Georges, as the youth, with a smile, led the horse away. Then to himself he said, "I only hope that, should he know I am his master's enemy, he will be equally good to it!"

And now, as he followed the old man it was revealed to him how inappropriate was the name of manoir to this place, it having indeed been, if it was no longer altogether so, a strongly fortified residence, and doubtless had served as such in bygone ages. An outer court led into a second or inner one, which seemed to const.i.tute a hall, since it was roofed and more or less furnished. On the walls hung arms of all kinds, both ancient and of the period of the day, and ranging from battle-axes, maces and two-handled swords, boar-spears, halberds, and crossbows to more modern rapiers, pikes, musketoons, pistols, and blunderbusses. Also about this court or hall there was much armour, plate, mail, both gambeson and chain, and many headpieces, gantlets, shields, etc.

"Doubtless," thought St. Georges as he followed the old man past all these and up a broad staircase leading to the first floor; "it was from this choice armoury that my friend of the burganet drew his protection. Faith! he had enough to choose from!"

Escorted along a pa.s.sage on this flight, the old man showed him into a room comfortably furnished as a sleeping apartment--vastly different from that of Phelypeaux at Dijon--and informed him that he would return later, in a quarter of an hour, to escort him to the presence of madame la marquise, who would receive him for supper--after which and having proffered his services as valet, which St. Georges said he had no need for, he left the room.

The toilet made by the cavalier was necessarily short, since a soldier _en route_ in those days had to depend upon any attentions to his appearance which he might be able to pay by whatever opportunities came in his way. There were, however, in this room all the articles generally to be found in a country house of the time--a large metal basin and ewer of fresh water, some brushes, and a mirror--and with these he was able to attend to his hands, face, and hair, to remove some of the stains of travel from his clothes and long brown boots, and to make himself sufficiently presentable. At first, because he was a gentleman and could not suppose that treachery might be intended him, at least before ladies, he had thought to leave his sword behind, but a second reflection prompted him to take it with him. It was true no attack was likely to be made while he sat at meat with the woman whose hospitality he was receiving, but a sword, he reflected, was part of a soldier's dress and therefore not out of place, and--it was, perhaps, not safe to leave it behind!

Having decided thus and the servitor not being yet returned, he made a slight inspection of his room, as became one who was in a stranger's house, and that stranger a person whose friendliness toward him might--if he knew as much as he suspected of his history--be doubtful.

The room itself was a fairly large one, hung with tapestry representing, as he supposed, scenes from the ancient romancists, and lit by a window let into the upper part of the wall, so high up that no one could see out of it except by standing on the table. Of doors he could perceive no other but the one by which he had entered; nor on the floor, which was of polished wood or _parquet_, was there any sign that entrance could be made thereby--such entrance being a not uncommon thing in ancient houses of the type of this manoir. On the walls, let in between the tapestry and either lightly fastened to the panelling or painted thereon, were two full-length pictures--one of a man in full armour with his visor up and showing a stern, heavily mustached face; the other of a young woman in antique costume.

Satisfied by this inspection--made as best might be by the feeble rays of the lamp which the old man had left behind for his use--St. Georges sat down upon the chair by the bed and waited for the servitor to come and escort him to his hostess, and meditated--a little anxiously, perhaps--on what his interview with her and her daughter might bring forth.

"Is she, I wonder," he thought, "the she-wolf I have pictured her to myself as being? Does she know, for truth, who and what I am--who and what I believe myself to be? She may! It may indeed be so. If all reports are true that I have been able to gather and piece together in my remote life, far away from Paris and the world, she loved De Vannes once--was his affianced wife. What may she not therefore have known of his past? May know that I stand between this son of her husband and his desire, his succession; may stand, indeed, between her and the enjoyment for her lifetime of what her husband would have enjoyed had he lived. And more--far more--does she know of the attack on me three nights ago? Did she encourage--perhaps prompt--that attack? I must watch her, study her for myself! The time is at hand, surely."

It was, indeed, for at that moment a knocking at the door told him that the old man had come back for him. And so he went forth, prepared to meet his hostess.

His conductor led him down the great stairs and back into the great hall; then he knocked at a door on the left, and, on being bidden to enter, opened the door and ushered St. Georges into the room.

A room large and vast, hung with great tapestries--representing here battle and hunting scenes--with, at the end, a great oriel window over which more tapestry was drawn, but beneath which could be seen the brackets, or corbels, supporting it. Near this was the great marble chimney-piece, the jambs richly carved with figures, the mantel six feet from the floor, and in the grate a huge wood fire burning. And by a table in front of this there sat, as he saw by the light of a large clear lamp, two women, one almost old and the other young.

Coming in out of the sombre hall, the light of the fire and lamp dazzled him so that at first he could see nothing beyond the fact that they were two female forms which rose at his entrance; then, while he advanced to meet them as they came forward, he heard a soft voice say:

"Monsieur St. Georges visits on behalf of his Majesty. He is very welcome.--Monsieur, let me present you to my daughter, Mademoiselle de Roquemaure."

In the instant that he was bowing with easy grace before them, and while they in their turn observed the tall, gallant form of the soldier, his long, curling hair, long mustaches, and somewhat weather-worn riding dress, there flashed through his mind the thought: "Can this be the she-wolf who sends her whelp forth to midnight murder? Can she have had a hand in that foul attack?" Then, aloud, he murmured his thanks for her reception, and looking his hostess straight in the face, observed the features of the woman who, as he believed, his father had once loved.

Her hair was almost white now, yet rich and beautiful, and still with some of the original brown left in it, her eyes soft and clear, her features delicate and telling plainly of the beauty that had been. And as he gazed at the daughter standing by her side--a girl but just entering womanhood, a girl whose hazel eyes looked out at him from under her dark lashes, and whose colour came and went as she returned his bow with stately courtesy--he knew what her mother had once been like.

"Monsieur has ridden far," the marquise said, as she motioned him to a seat by the fire where they had been sitting, and regarded him with interest; "has come a long, perhaps perilous, voyage from Pontarlier?

The roads at this season are none too safe, they say, in spite of the _Marechausse_. Yet, monsieur is a soldier."

St. Georges bowed in reply--though swift as lightning there flashed through his mind the thought that the words "perilous voyage" showed that she knew, doubtless, of one great danger to which he had been exposed. Then he replied:

"As madame remarks, it was long and has been somewhat eventful. Yet, as I have said, I ride in the king's service. It may be that you know that, madame?"

"I know," she replied, "that you were to call at the Bishop of Lodeve's--ce _Phelypeaux_!--and take from him one word to the king, or to Louvois. Also that you are charged to take another word, perhaps a similar one, from me. Is it not so?"

Remembering what the bishop had said, recalling his utterance--"There is no need of secrecy; you may frankly tell her"--he answered: "It is so, madame. The bishop has sent the word. It may be that you will send the same by me when I ride forth to-morrow."

Her glance rested on him ere she answered. It seemed as if her reply depended on some unknown, subtle something pertaining to his mind or face which she was endeavouring to decipher or understand. Then she let her eyes fall upon the logs burning in the grate, and said:

"How can I say? You do not as yet tell me the word the bishop has sent."

Again he recalled Phelypeaux's remark that there was no need of secrecy. Therefore he answered, "The word that the bishop has sent, madame, is 'Yes.'"

"Ah!" she said, and again her glance scanned his face half eagerly, half wistfully, while now he noticed that Mademoiselle de Roquemaure's hand stole into hers as she sat by her side.

"Ah! It is as I thought: the word is 'Yes.'"

"That is it, madame."

"Come," she said, moving from her seat as the old servitor appeared in the shadows far down the room--"come; supper is served. Monsieur St.

Georges, I pray you give me your arm"; and she placed her hand on it, and, her daughter following, went with him to the door. Then, ere they reached the corridor, she, looking up into his face, said quietly:

"It would be best--I--I--have not the same word to send as Phelypeaux.

The one that I shall ask you to carry will be 'No.'"

CHAPTER XI.

THE MARQUISE TELLS A STORY.

It was a vastly different repast from that of the Bishop of Lodeve's which was offered to St. Georges, although the difference consisted more, perhaps, in the manner of cooking and serving than in aught else. The wine, which was excellent--though no better than that last bottle from the old Clos--did not come in at the end, but cheered the fasting and wayworn man from the commencement; the viands were in good condition and properly prepared; the soup was not dishwater, but of a good, sufficient quality. Moreover, here, as in the great _salon_, a cheerful fire blazed on the hearth, instead of the spluttering, snow-soaked logs that had hissed and smoked in Phelypeaux's house.

Also, he had for company two women, each beautiful according to her time of life--women soft, gentle, and well bred--instead of the cynical bishop of whom all France told strange tales.

Sitting there, his eyes resting sometimes on the budding loveliness of Aurelie de Roquemaure, sometimes on the mellowed sweetness of the face of the marquise, St. Georges forced himself to discard from his mind the thought which he had now come to deem unworthy--the thought that treachery lurked in their bosoms against him--that, though the present marquis might be the man who had led the foul and despicable attack on him in the graveyard at Aignay-le-Duc, they had had part or share in it. For, he told himself, to believe this was to believe that there was no faith nor honesty in womankind.

Yet one thing, at the commencement of the meal, and when the old servant and another had withdrawn from the room, had almost served to keep his suspicions alive. The marquise--as far as a woman of rank and high breeding might do so--had asked him many questions about himself, while Aurelie, following the rigidness which prevailed in French life of the time, sat by, a silent listener, scarce joining in the conversation at all.

And St. Georges, moved perhaps by the company in which he found himself, and, soldier-like, scorning to conceal any part of his history except that which he deemed absolutely necessary--he making no reference whatever to the name of De Vannes--told them much of his existence. His career in Holland until the peace; his lonely life in garrison; his marriage with a young girl, a daughter of the middle cla.s.ses; her death, and the little child she had left to his care, were all touched upon by him and listened to attentively--indeed, absorbingly. And so, at last, he came to the summons to Paris, to his setting forth, to his stay at Dijon, and the attack made upon him and Boussac.