The Huguenot Part 10

"Not I, indeed," said the Count; "I shall go and speak to the Duke and his excellent lady: and I suppose in time shall have to go through all sorts of necessary formalities with la belle Clemence; but till it is needful I have no inclination to increase any lady's vanity who seems to have so much of it already."

Thus saying, he turned away, only hearing the Prince exclaim, "O mighty Sybarite!" and moving with easy grace through the room, he advanced into the great saloon, cast his eyes round the whole extent, looking for the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess, and pa.s.sing over la belle Clemence and her party with a mere casual glance, as if he scarcely saw or noticed her. There was an immediate whisper in the little group itself; several of those around took upon them to tell her who he was, and all eyes followed him as with the same calm and graceful, but somewhat stately, steps he advanced to the spot where the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess were placed, and was warmly greeted by the latter as an old and valued friend.

She made a place for him by her side, and leaning down from time to time by the good old lady's chair, he took the opportunity of each interval between the appearance of the new guests to address to her some little kindly and graceful observation, calling back her memory to old times, when she had fondled his boyhood, and, by mingling perhaps a little of the melancholy that adheres to the past with more cheerful subjects, rendered them thereby not the less pleasant.

The d.u.c.h.ess was well pleased with his attention, and for some time seemed inclined to enjoy it alone; but at length she said, "I must not keep you here, Count, all night, or I shall have the Duke jealous at sixty, which would never do. You must go and say sweet things, as in duty bound, to younger dames than I am. See, there is Mademoiselle de Fronsac, as pretty a creature as ever was seen, and our Clemence. You know Clemence, do you not?--but look, Mademoiselle de Fronsac, as if to give you a fair opportunity, has dropped her bracelet."

The Count advanced to pick up the bracelet for the young lady to whom his attention had been called; but his purpose was antic.i.p.ated by a gentleman who stood near, and at the same moment the Chevalier seeing his friend detached from the side of the d.u.c.h.ess, crossed the saloon towards him, and took him by the arm. "Come, Albert," he said, "come!

this is affectation. You must come and undergo the ordeal of those bright eyes. She has been speaking of you, and with deep interest, I a.s.sure you."

The Count smiled. "To mortify some culprit lover!" he said, "or give a pang to some young foolish heart. Was it you, Louis?" he asked in the same tone; "was it you she sought to teaze, by speaking with interest of another?"

"You are wrong, Albert," said the Chevalier in a low voice, leading him gradually towards the spot, "you are wrong--I do not seek Clemence de Marly. My resolution has long been taken. I shall never marry--nor would any consideration upon earth lead her to marry me. I know that full well; but while I say so, I tell you too that you do her injustice. You must not judge of her at once."

They were now within a few steps of the spot where Clemence stood, and the Count, who had been looking down while he advanced, listening to the low words of the Chevalier, now raised his eyes as the other took a step forward to introduce him. To his surprise he saw the colour varying in the cheek of the lovely being before whom he stood, and a slight degree of flutter in her manner and appearance, which Albert de Morseiul could only account for by supposing that the scene in which they had last met, the robbers, and the wood, and the plunder of the carriage, had risen up before her eyes, and produced the agitation he saw in one, who was apparently so self-possessed in her usual demeanour. There upon her finger too, he saw the identical ring that he had saved for her from the robbers; and as he was in no way vain, he attributed the heightened colour to all those remembrances. But while he recalled that evening, his feelings towards Clemence grew less severe--he felt there was a tie between them of some interest, he felt too that her demeanour then had been very different from that which it appeared to be now. Though scarcely ten words had been spoken in the wood, those words had been all indicative of deep feelings and strong affections; there had been the signs of the heart, the clinging memories of love, the pure sensations of an unworldly spirit; and when he now gazed upon her, surrounded by flatterers and lovers, heartless herself, and seeming to take no delight but in sporting with the hearts of others, the ancient story of the two separate spirits in the same form seemed realised before him, and he knew not how to reconcile the opposite traits that he observed.

All this pa.s.sed through his mind in a moment. Rapid thought, that, winging its way along the high road of time, can cover years in a single instant, had glanced over all that we have said, even while the words of introduction were hanging upon the tongue of the Chevalier d'Evran. The Count bowed low but gravely, met the full glance of those l.u.s.trous eyes without the slightest change of countenance, and was about to have added some common place and formal compliment; but Clemence de Marly spoke first.

"I sent the Chevalier to you, Monsieur de Morseiul," she said with the same musical voice which he remembered so well, "because you seemed not to recognise me; and I wished to thank you for a service that you rendered long ago to a wild girl who might probably have been killed by a fiery horse that she was riding, had you not stopped it, and given her back the rein which she had lost. Perhaps you have forgotten it, for I hear that great acts are so common to the Count de Morseiul that he is likely not to recollect what was to him a trifling event.

To me, however, the service was important, and I have not forgotten either it or the person who rendered it."

The eye of the Chevalier d'Evran was upon the Count de Morseiul while the lady spoke, and there was a sparkling brightness in it which his friend scarcely understood. At the same time, however, it was scarcely possible for human nature to hear such words from such lips totally unmoved.

"Your pardon, madam," replied the Count, "I have never forgotten the adventure either; but I did not expect that you would have remembered so trifling a service. I recollected you the moment that I saw you; but did not of course venture to claim to be recognised on the merit of so insignificant an act."

"I can answer for his not having forgotten it," said the Chevalier d'Evran, "for it is not more than five or six days ago, Mademoiselle de Marly, that he told me the whole circ.u.mstances, and if I would I could mention----"

The colour rose slightly in the Count de Morseiul's cheek, as the Chevalier d'Evran gazed upon him with a malicious smile; but the latter, however, paused in his career, only adding, "If I would, I could mention all this grave Count's comments upon that event;--but I suppose I must not."

"Nay, nay," exclaimed Clemence, "I insist upon your telling us. You are our bondsman and slave. As you have vowed worship and true service, I command you, Monsieur le Chevalier, to tell the whole without reserve--to give us the secrets of the enemy's camp."

"I hope, madam," said the Count, willing to turn the conversation, and yet knowing very well that he might obviate his own purpose if he showed any anxiety to do so, "I hope, madam, that you do not cla.s.s me amongst the enemy; if you do, I can a.s.sure you, you are very much mistaken."

"That is what I wish to know, Count," replied the lady, smiling; "it is for that very purpose of knowing whether you are of the friends or the enemies, that I put the Chevalier here upon his honour as to your comments."

"I suppose, madam," said the elder gentleman to whom she had been speaking during the former part of the evening, and who did not seem at all well pleased with the interruption occasioned by the Count's presence, "I suppose, madam, if you put the Chevalier upon his honour, he will be obliged to keep secret that which was intrusted to him in confidence."

Clemence turned and gazed at him for a moment in silence, and then said, "You are right, Monsieur le Duc de Melcourt, though I did not think to hear you take part against me. I will find means to punish you, and to show you my power and authority in a way that perhaps you do not know. Monsieur le Chevalier, we shall excuse you for your contumacy, having the means of arriving at information by a higher power. Monsieur de Morseiul," she continued, raising her head with a look of queenly authority, "we command you to give us the information yourself; but that the ears of these worthy cavaliers and gentlemen who stand around may not be gratified by the intelligence, we will permit you to lead us to the dance which we see they are preparing for in the other room."

She extended her hand towards him. He could not of course refuse to take it; and after giving one glance of gay and haughty irony at the group she left behind, Clemence de Marly moved forward towards the other room with Albert of Morseiul. With the same air of proud consciousness she pa.s.sed through the whole of the first saloon; but the moment that she entered the second, which was comparatively vacant, as the dancers were gathering in the third, her manner entirely altered. The Count felt her hand rest somewhat languidly in his; her carriage lost a great degree of its stately dignity; the look of coquettish pride pa.s.sed away; and she said, "Monsieur de Morseiul, I need not tell you that my object in exercising, in this instance, that right of doing any thing that I like unquestioned which I have found it convenient to a.s.sume, is not to ask you any foolish question of what you may have said or thought concerning a person but little worthy of your thoughts at all. Perhaps, indeed, you may have already guessed my object in thus forcing you, as it were, to dance with me against your will; but that does not render it the less necessary for me to take the first, perhaps the only opportunity I may have of thanking you deeply, sincerely, and truly, for the great service, and the kind, the manly, the chivalrous manner in which it was performed, that you rendered me on the night of Monday last. I have my own particular reasons--and perhaps may have reasons also for many other things that appear strange--for not wishing that adventure to be mentioned any where. Although I had with me two servants attached to the carriage, and also my old and faithful attendant whom you saw, there was no chance of my secret being betrayed by any one but by you.

I was not sure that I had made my wishes plain when I left you, and was anxious about to-night; but I saw in a moment from your whole demeanour in entering the room that I was quite safe, and I may add my thanks for that, to my thanks for the service itself."

"The service, lady, required no thanks," replied the Count. "I do believe there is not a gentleman in France that would not have done the same for any woman upon earth."

Clemence shook her head with a grave--even a melancholy look, replying, "You estimate them too highly, Count. We women have better opportunities of judging them; and I know that there are not three gentlemen in France, and perhaps six in Europe, who would do any thing for any woman without some selfish, if not some base motive--unless his own gratification were consulted rather than her comfort."

"Nay, nay, nay; you are bitter, indeed," said the Count. "On my word I believe that there is not one French gentleman who would not, as I have said, have done the same for any woman; and certainly when it was done for you, any little merit that it might have had otherwise, was quite lost."

"Hush, hush," said Clemence, with a blush and a somewhat reproachful smile, "hush, hush, Monsieur de Morseiul; you forget that I am accustomed to hear such sweet speeches from morning till night, and know their right value. If you would prove to me that you really esteem me, do not take your tone from those empty c.o.xcombs that flutter through such scenes as these. Be to me, as far as we are brought into communication together, the same Count de Morseiul that I have heard you are to others, frank, straightforward, sincere."

"Indeed I will," replied the Count, feeling the full influence of all his fanciful dreams in the past, reviving in the present; "but will you never be offended?"

"There is little chance," she replied as they moved on, "that we should ever see enough of each other for me to be offended. You, I hear, avoid the court as far as possible. I am doomed to spend the greater part of my life there; and I fear there is very little chance of the Duke, my guardian, going to the quiet shades of Ruffigny, where first I had the pleasure of seeing you."

"Were you then at Ruffigny when I first saw you?" demanded the Count with some surprise.

"Yes," she answered; "but I was staying there with some of my own relations, who were on a visit to the Duke. Do you remember--I dare say you do not--do you remember meeting me some days after with a party on horseback?"

"Yes," he replied, "I have it all before my eyes even now."

"And the lady who was upon my left hand?" she said.

"Quite well," replied the Count; "was that your mother?"

"Alas, no," replied Clemence, "that was my step-mother; my mother died three years before. But to return to what we were saying, I do not pretend to be less vain than other women, and therefore can scarcely answer for it, that, if you were to tell me harsh truths, I might not be offended; but I will tell you what, Monsieur de Morseiul, I would try--I would try as steadily as possible, not to be offended; and even if I were, I know my own mind sufficiently to say I would conquer it before the sun went down twice."

"That is all that I could desire," replied the Count; "and if you promise me to do so, I will always be sincere and straightforward with you."

"What an opportunity that promise gives," replied the lady, "of asking you to be sincere at once, and tell me what were the comments of which the Chevalier spoke. Would that be ungenerous, Monsieur de Morseiul?"

"I think it would," replied the Count; "but I will pledge myself to one thing, that if you keep your promise towards me for one month, and take no offence at any thing I may say, I will tell you myself what those comments were without the slightest concealment whatsoever."

The eyes of Clemence de Marly sparkled, as she answered, "You shall see;" but they had lingered so long that the dance was on the eve of commencing, and they were forced to hurry on into the other room.

There the Count found the eyes of the Prince de Marsillac wherever he turned; and there was a peculiar expression on his countenance--not precisely a smile, but yet approaching to it--with a slight touch of sarcastic bitterness on the lip, which was annoying. Could the Count have heard, however, the conversation that was going on amongst two or three of the group which he and Clemence had quitted shortly before, he might have felt still more annoyed. There were three persons who took but a small part in that conversation, the Chevalier, the young Marquis de Hericourt, and the Duc de Melcourt. It was one of those that stood behind who first spoke.

"How long will she be?" he demanded.

"In doing what?" said another.

"In fixing the fetters," replied the first; "in making him one of the train."

"Not two whole days," said the second.

"Not two whole hours I say," added a third; "look at them now, how they stand in the middle chamber: depend upon it when the Count comes back we shall all have to make him our bow, and welcome him as one of us."

There was a little shrivelled old man who sat behind, and had, as yet, said nothing.

"He will never be one of you, gentlemen," he now said, joining in, "he will never be one of you, for he sets out with a great advantage over you."

"What is that?" demanded two or three voices at once.

"Why," replied the old man, "he is the first man under sixty I ever heard her even civil to in my life. There is Monsieur le Duc there; you know he's out of the question, because he's past the age."

The Duc de Melcourt looked a little mortified, and said, "Sir, you are mistaken; and at all events she never said any thing civil to you, though you are so much past the age."

"I never asked her," replied the other.

"But there is the Chevalier d'Evran," replied one of the younger men, "she has said three or four civil things to him this very night:--I heard her."