Lorraine Part 28

"The prince--pardon, monsieur--they call him Lulu in Paris."

"Hurry," said Jack; "I want that horse at once."

Ten minutes later he was galloping furiously down the forest road towards the Chateau de Nesville. The darkness was impenetrable, so he let the horse find his own path, and gave himself up to a profound dejection that at times amounted to blind fear. Before his eyes he saw the pallid face of the Marquis de Nesville, he saw the man stretched on the floor, horribly still; that was the worst, the stillness of the body.

The sky was gray through the trees when he turned into the park and skirted the wall to the wicket. The wicket was locked. He rang repeatedly, he shook the grille and pounded on the iron escutcheon with the b.u.t.t of his riding-crop; and at length a yawning servant appeared from the gate-lodge and sleepily dragged open the wicket.

"The marquis was ill, have you heard anything?" asked Jack.

"The marquis is there on the porch," said the servant, with a gesture towards the house.

Jack's heart leaped up. "Thank G.o.d!" he muttered, and dismounted, throwing his bridle to the porter, who now appeared in the doorway.

He could see the marquis walking to and fro, hands clasped behind his strong, athletic back; his head was turned in Jack's direction. "The marquis is crazy," thought Jack, hesitating. He was convinced now that long brooding over ancient wrongs had unsettled the man's mind. There had always been something in his dazzling blue eyes that troubled Jack, and now he knew it was the pale light of suppressed frenzy. Still, he would have to face him sooner or later, and he did not recoil now that the hour and the place and the man had come.

"I'll settle it once for all," he thought, and walked straight up the path to the house. The marquis came down the steps to meet him.

"I expected you," he said, without a trace of anger. "I have much to say to you. Will you come in or shall we sit in the arbour there? You will enter? Then come to the turret, Monsieur Marche."

Jack would have refused, but he had not the courage. He was not at all pleased at the idea of mounting to a turret with a man whom he had laid violent hands on the night before, a man whom he had seen succ.u.mb to an access of insane fury in the presence of the Emperor of France. But he went, cursing the cowardice that prevented him from being cautious; and in a few moments he entered the chamber where retorts and bottles and steel machinery littered every corner, and the pale dawn broke through the window in ghastly streams of light, changing the candle-flames to sickly greenish blotches.

They sat opposite each other, neither speaking. Jack glanced at a heavy steel rod on the floor beside him. It was just as well to know it was there, in case of need.

"Monsieur," said the marquis, abruptly, "I owe you a great deal more than my life, which is nothing; I owe you my family honour."

This was a new way of looking at the situation; Jack fidgeted in his chair and eyed the marquis.

"Thanks to you," he continued, quietly, "I am not an a.s.sa.s.sin, I am not a butcher of dogs. The De Nesvilles were never public executioners--they left that to the Bonapartes and Monsieur de Paris."

He rose hastily from his chair and held out a hand. Jack took it warily and returned the nervous pressure. Then they both resumed their seats.

"Let us clear matters up," said the marquis in a wonderfully gentle voice, that would have been fascinating to more phlegmatic men than Jack--"let us clear up everything and understand each other. You, monsieur, dislike me; pardon--you dislike me for reasons of your own. I, on the contrary, like you; I like you better this moment than I ever did. Had you not come as I expected, had you not entered, had you refused to mount to the turret, I still should have liked you. Now I also respect you."

Jack twisted and turned in his chair, not knowing what to think or say.

"Why do you dislike me?" asked the marquis, quietly.

"Because you are not kind to your daughter," said Jack, bluntly.

To his horror the man's eyes filled with tears, big, glittering tears that rolled down his immovable face. Then a flush stained his forehead; the fever in his cheeks dried the tears.

"Jack," he said, calling the young fellow by his name with a peculiarly tender gesture, "I loved my son. My soul died within me when Rene died, there on the muddy pavement of the Paris boulevards. I sometimes think I am perhaps a little out of my mind; I brood on it too much. That is why I flung myself into this"--with a sweep of his arm towards the flasks and machinery piled around. "Lorraine is a girl, sweet, lovable, loyal. But she is not my daughter."

"Lorraine!" stammered Jack.

"Lorraine."

The young fellow sat up in his chair and studied the face of the pale man before him.

"Not--your child?"

"No."

"Whose?"

"I cannot tell."

After a silence the marquis stood up, and walked to the window.

His face was haggard, his hair dishevelled.

"No," he said, "Lorraine is not my daughter. She is not even my heiress. She was--she was--found, eighteen years ago."

The room was becoming lighter; the sky grew faintly luminous and the mist from the stagnant fen curled up along the turret like smoke.

Jack picked up his cap and riding-crop and rose; the marquis turned from the window to confront him. His face was no longer furrowed with pain, the cold light had crept back into his eyes.

"Monsieur," said Jack, "I ask your permission to address Lorraine. I love her."

The marquis stood silent, scarcely breathing.

"You know who and what I am; you probably know what I have. It is enough for me; it will be enough for us both. I shall work to make it enough. I do not expect or wish for anything from you for Lorraine; I do not give it a thought. Lorraine does not love me, but," and here he spoke with humility, "I believe that she might.

If I win her, will you give her to me?"

"Win her?" repeated the marquis, with an ugly look. The man's face was changing now, darkening in the morning light.

"Monsieur," he said, violently, "you may say to her what you please!" and he opened the door and showed Jack the way out.

Dazed, completely mystified, Jack hurried away to find his horse at the gate where he had left him. The marquis was crazy, that was certain. These unaccountable moods and pa.s.sions, following each other so abruptly, were nothing else but reactions from a life of silent suffering. All the way back to Morteyn he pondered on the strange scene in the turret, the repudiation of Lorraine, the sudden tenderness for himself, and then the apathy, the suppressed anger, the indifference coupled with unexplainable emotion.

"No sane man could act like that," he murmured, as he rode into the Morteyn gate, and, with a smart slap of his hand on Faust's withers, he sent that intelligent animal at a trot towards the stables, where a groom awaited him with sponge and bucket.

The gardeners were cleaning up the litter in the roads and paths left by the retreating army. The road by the gate was marked with hoof and wheel, but the macadam had not suffered very much, and already a roller was at work removing furrow and hoof-print.

He entered the dining-room. It was empty. So also was the breakfast-room, for breakfast had been served an hour before.

He sent for coffee and m.u.f.fins and made a hasty breakfast, looking out of the window at times for signs of his aunt and Lorraine. The maid said that Madame de Morteyn had driven to Saint-Lys with the marquis, and that Mademoiselle de Nesville had gone to her room. So he finished his coffee, went to his room, changed his clothes, and sent a maid to inquire whether Lorraine would receive him in the small library at the head of the stairs.

The maid returned presently, saying that Mademoiselle de Nesville would be down in a moment or two, so Jack strolled into the library and leaned out of the window to smoke.

When she came in he did not hear her until she spoke.

"Don't throw your cigarette away, monsieur; I permit you to smoke--indeed, I command it. How do you do?" This in very timid English. "I mean--good-morning--oh, dear, this terrible English language! Now you may sit there, in that large leather arm-chair, and you may tell me why you did not appear at breakfast. Is Monsieur Grahame still sleeping? Gone? Oh, dear! And you have been to the Chateau de Nesville? Is my father well? And contented?

There, I knew he would miss me. Did you give him my dearest love?

Thank you for remembering. Now tell me--"

"What?" laughed Jack.

"Everything, of course."