The Abbess Of Vlaye Page 5

  CHAPTER III.

  STILL WATERS TROUBLED.

  Had Bonne de Villeneuve, a day earlier, paid a visit much in fashionat that time, and consulted the "dark man" who, in an upper room onthe wall of Angouleme, followed the stars and cast horoscopes, and wasreputed to have foretold the death of the first Duke of Joyeuse asthat nobleman passed southwards to the field of Coutras, she mighthave put faith in such of the events of the night as the magic crystalshowed her; until it came to mirror, faint as an evening mist besidethe river, her thoughts after the event. Then, had it foretold that,as she lay quaking in her bed, she would be thinking neither of thebrother, whose desperate venture wrung her heart, nor of Roger, herdearer self, but of a stranger--a stranger, whose name she had notknown six hours, and of whose past she knew nothing, she would havepaused, refusing credence. She would have smiled at the phantasm ofthe impossible.

  Yet so it was. Into the quiet pool of her maiden heart had fallen inan hour the stone that sooner or later troubles the sweet waters. Asshe lay thinking with wide-open eyes, her mind, which should have beenemployed with her brother's peril, or her own escape, or her father'srage, was busy with the stranger who had dropped so suddenly into herlife, and had begun on the instant to play a sovereign part. Sherecalled his aspect as he looked in on them, cool and confident, attheir midnight conference. She heard his tone as he baffled herfather's questions with cunning answers. She marvelled at the wit thatin the last pinch had saved her from discovery. He seemed to her a manof the world such as had not hitherto come within the range of herexperience. Was he also the perfect knight of whom she had not beenwoman if she had not dreamed?

  What, she wondered, must his life have been, who, cast among strangesurroundings, bore himself so masterfully, and so shrewdly took hispart! What chances he must have seen, what dangers run, how many men,how many cities visited! He might have known the Court, that strange_melange_ of splendour and wickedness, and mystery and valour. Hemight have seen the King, shrewdest of captains, bravest of princes;he might have encountered eye to eye men whose names were history. Hecame out of the great outer world of which she had visions, andalready she was prepared to invest him with wonderful qualities. Hercuriosity once engaged, she constructed for him first one life andthen another, and then yet another--all on the same foundation, theone fact which he had told them, that he was a poor gentleman ofBrittany. She considered his ring, and the shape of his clothes, andhis manner of eating, which she found more delicate than herbrothers'; and she fancied, but she told herself that she was foolishto think it, that she detected under his frigid bearing a habit ofcommand that duller eyes failed to discern.

  She was ashamed at last of the persistence with which her thoughts ranon him, and she tried to think of other things, and so thought of himagain, and, awaking to the fact, smiled. But without blushing; partlybecause, whatever he was, he stood a great way from her, and partlybecause it was only her fancy that was touched, and not her heart; andpartly again because she knew that he would be gone by mid-day, andcould by no possibility form part of her life. Nevertheless, it wasnot until her time for rising came that anxiety as to her brother'ssafety and her father's anger eclipsed him. Then, uncertain how muchthe Vicomte knew, how near the truth he guessed, she forgot her hero,and thought exclusively of her father's resentment.

  She might have spared her fears. The Vicomte was a sour and embitteredman, but neither by nature nor habit a violent one. Rage had for anhour rendered him capable of the worst, capable of the murder of hisson if, having an arm in his hand, he had met him, capable of theexpulsion of his daughter from his house. But the fit was not naturalto him; it was not so that he avenged the wrongs which the world hadheaped upon him--since Coutras. He fell back easily and at once intothe black cynical mood that was his own. He was too old and weak, hehad too long brooded in inaction, he had too long wreaked hisvengeance on the feeble to take strong measures now, whatever happenedto him.

  But some hours elapsed before Bonne knew this, or how things would be.It was not her father's custom to descend before noon, for with hisstraitened means and shrunken establishment he went little abroad; andhe would have died rather than stoop to the rustic tasks which Rogerpursued, and of which Bonne's small brown hands were not ignorant. Shehad not seen him when, an hour before noon, she repaired to a seat inthe most remote corner of the garden, taking with her some householdwork on which she was engaged.

  The garden of the chateau of Villeneuve--the garden proper that is,for the dry moat which divided the house from the courtyard wasplanted with pot-herbs and cabbages--formed a square, having for itsone side the length of the house. It lay along the face of thebuilding remote from the courtyard, and was only accessible throughit. Its level, raised by art or nature, stood more than a man's heightabove the surrounding country; of which, for this reason, it affordeda pleasant and airy prospect. The wall which surrounded and buttressedit stood on the inner side no more than three feet high, but rose onthe outer from a moat, the continuation of that which has just beenmentioned.

  The pleasaunce thus secured on all sides from intrusion consistedfirst of a paved walk which ran under the windows of the chateau, andwas boarded by a row of ancient mulberry-trees; secondly, beyond this,of a strip of garden ground planted with gooseberry-bushes andfruit-trees, and bisected by a narrow walk which led from the house toa second terrace formed on the outer wall. This latter terrace layopen towards the country and at either end, but was hidden from theprying eyes of the house by a line of elms, poled and cut espalierfashion. It offered at either extremity the accommodation of alichen-covered stone bench which tempted the old to repose and theyoung to reverie. The east bench enabled a person seated sideways onit--and so many had thus sat that the wall was hollowed by theirelbows--to look over the willow-edged river and the tract of lushmeadows which its loop enclosed. The western seat had not this poeticadvantage, but by way of compensation afforded to sharp eyes a glimpseof the track--road it could not be called--which after passing thechateau wound through the forest on its course to Vlaye and the south.

  From childhood the seat facing the river had been Bonne's favouriterefuge. Before she could walk she had played games in the dust beneathit. She had carried to it her small sorrows and her small joys, herfits of nursery passion, her moods as she grew older. She had nurseddolls on it, and fancies, dreamed dreams and built castles; and in anot unhappy, thought neglected girlhood, it had stood for that sweetand secret retreat, the bower of the budding life, which remains holyin the memory of worn men and women. The other bench, which commandeda peep of the road, had been more to her elder sister's taste; nor wasthe choice without a certain bearing on the character of each.

  This morning, she had not been five minutes at work before she heardfootsteps on the garden path. The sun, near its highest, had drivenher to the inner end of the seat, where the elm in summer leafstraggled widely over it, growing low, as elms will. She knew thatwhoever came she would see before she was seen.

  It turned out as she expected. M. des Ageaux lounged onto the terrace,and shading his eyes from the sun's rays, gazed on the prospect. Shejudged that he thought himself alone, for he took a short turn thisway and that. Then, after a casual glance at the empty seats--empty ashe doubtless judged, though she from her arbour of leaves could watchhis every movement--he wheeled about, and, facing the chateau, seemedto satisfy himself that the wall of pollard elms sheltered him fromsight.

  His next proceeding was mysterious. He drew from his breast a packet,of parchment or paper, unfolded it, and laid it flat on the wallbefore him. Then he stooped and after poring over it, glanced at theview, referred again to the paper, then again to the lie of thecountry, and the course of the river which flowed on his left. Finallyhe measured off a distance on the map. For a map it was, beyond doubt.

  A shadow fell on her as she watched him. Nor did his next movementdispel the feeling. Folding up the map he replaced it in his breast,and leaning over t
he wall he scrutinised the outer surface of thebrickwork. Apparently he did not discover what he sought, for heraised himself again, and with eyes bent on the tangle of nettles andrough herbage that clothed the bottom of the moat, he moved slowlyalong the terrace towards her. He reached, without seeing her, theseat on which she sat, knelt on it with one knee, and leaning far overthe moat, allowed a low laugh to escape him.

  She fought the faint suspicion that, unwelcome, asserted itself. Hehad behaved so honourably, so reticently, in all that had happenedthat she was determined not to believe aught to his discredit. But herfolly, if foolish she was, must not imperil another. She made a mentalnote that there was one thing she must not tell him. Very quickly thatreflection passed through her brain. And then--

  "Why do you laugh?" she said.

  He wheeled about so sharply that in another mood she must havelaughed, so much she had the advantage of him. For an instant he wasso taken aback that he did not speak. Then, "Why did you startle me?"he asked, his eyes smiling.

  "Because--yes, my brother came in that way."

  "I know it," he answered; "but not why you startled me, mademoiselle,a minute ago."

  "Nor I," she retorted, smiling faintly, "why you were so inquisitive,M. des Voeux?"

  "I am going to tell you that," he said. He seated himself on the benchso as to face her, and doffing his hat, held it between his face andthe sun. He was not, we know, very amenable to the charms of women,and he saw in her no more than a girl of rustic breeding, comely andgentle, and something commonplace, but a good sister whose aid withher brother he needed. "I am going to tell you," he said; "because Iam anxious to meet your brother again and to talk with him."

  She continued to meet his eyes, but her own were clouded. "On whatsubject," she asked, "if I am not too curious?"

  "The Crocans."

  On her guard as she was, the word put her out of countenance. Shecould not hide, and after one half-hearted attempt did not try tohide, her dismay. "The Crocans?" she said. "But why do you come tome?" her colour coming and going. "What have we to do with them, ifyou please? Or my brother?"

  "He has been banished from his home for some offence," the Lieutenantanswered quietly. "Your father forbids the mention of the nameCrocans. It is reasonable to infer that the offence is connected withthem, and, in a word, that your brother has done what any young manwith generous instincts and a love of adventure might do. He hasjoined them. I do not blame him."

  "You do not blame him?" she murmured. Never had she heard such wordsof the Crocans--except from her brother. "You mean that?"

  "I say it and mean it," the Lieutenant replied. But he spoke withoutemotion, emotion was not his forte. "Nor am I alone," he went on, "inholding such opinions. But the point, mademoiselle, is this. I wish tofind a means of communicating with them, and he can and probably willbe willing to aid me. For certain, if the worst comes to the worst, Ican aid him."

  Bonne's heart beat rapidly. She did not--she told herself that she didnot distrust him. Had it been her own secret he was seeking she wouldhave delivered it to him freely. But the manner in which he had bornehimself while he thought himself alone, the possession of the map, andthe shrewdness with which he had traced her brother's movement andsurprised a secret that was still a secret from the household,frightened her. And her very inexperience made her pause.

  "But first, I take it, you need his aid?" she murmured.

  "I wish to speak with him."

  "Have you seen my father?"

  He opened his eyes and bent a little nearer. "Do you mean,mademoiselle----"

  "I mean only," she said gently, "that if you express to him the viewson the Crocans which you have just expressed to me, your opportunitiesof seeing my brother will be scant."

  He laughed. "I have not opened them to him," he said. "I have seenhim, and whether he thinks that he was a little more exigent lastnight than the danger required, or he desires to prove to me thatmidnight alarms are not the rule at Villeneuve, he has not given menotice to go. His invitation to remain is not, perhaps," he smiledslightly, "of the warmest. But if you, mademoiselle, will secondit----"

  She muttered--not without a blush--that it would give her pleasure.And he proceeded, "Then no difficulty on that point will arise."

  She stooped lower over her work. What was she to do? He wanted thatwhich she had decided she must not give him. Just that! What was sheto do?

  She was so long in answering, that he dubbed her awkward andmannerless. And thought it a pity, too; for she was a staunch sister,and had shown herself resourceful; and in repose her face, thoughbrown and sunburnt, was not without grace. He came to the point. "MayI count on you for this?" he asked bluntly.

  "For--what?"

  "That as soon as you can you will bring me face to face with yourbrother?"

  She looked up and met his gaze. "As soon as I think it safe to do so,"she said, "I will. You may depend on me."

  He had not divined her doubt, nor did he discern her quibble. Still,"Could I not go to him to-day?" he said. "If he is still in theneighbourhood?"

  She shook her head. "I do not know where he is," she answered, gladthat she could say so much with truth. "But if he show himself, and itbe safe, I will let you know. Roger----"

  "Ha! To be sure, Roger may know?"

  She smiled. "Roger and I are one," she said. "You must not expect toget from him what I do not give." She said it naively, with just somuch of a smile as showed her at her best, and he hastened to say thathe left himself in her hands. She blushed through her sunburn at that,but clung to her quibble, telling herself that this was a stranger,the other a brother, and that if she destroyed Charles she could neverforgive herself.

  He saw that she was disturbed, and he changed the subject. "You havealways lived here?" he asked.

  "Yes," she answered, "but I can remember when things were differentwith us. We were not always so broken. Before Coutras--but," with afaint smile, "you have heard my father on that, and will not wish tohear me."

  "The Vicomte was present at the battle?"

  "Yes, he was in the centre of the Catholic army with the Duke ofJoyeuse. He escaped with his life. But we lay in the path of thepursuit after the flight, and they sacked the house, and burned thehamlet by the ford--the one you passed--and the two farms in the bendof the river--the two behind you. They swept off every four-leggedthing, every horse, and cow, and sheep, and left us bare. One of theservants who resisted was killed, and--and my mother died of theshock."

  She broke off with an uncontrollable shiver. She was silent. After apause, "Perhaps you were at Coutras, M. des Voeux?" she said, lookingup.

  "I was not of the party who sacked your house," he answered gravely.

  She knew then that he had fought on the other side; and she admiredhim for the tact with which he made it known to her. He was a soldierthen. She wondered, as she bent over her work, if he had foughtelsewhere, and under whom, and with what success. Had he prospered orsunk? He called himself a poor gentleman of Brittany, but that mighthave been his origin only, he might be something more now.

  In the earnestness of her thoughts she turned her eyes on his ring,and she blushed brightly when with a quick, almost rude movement hehid his hand. "I beg your pardon!" she murmured. "I was not thinking."

  "It is I should beg yours," he said quietly. "It is only that I do notwant you to come to a false conclusion. This ring--in a word I wearit, but the arms are not mine. That is all."

  "Does that apply also," she asked, looking at him ingenuously, "to thepistols you carry, M. des Voeux? Or should I address you--for I sawlast evening that they bore a duke's coronet--as your Grace?"

  He laughed gaily. "They are mine, but I am not a duke," he said.

  "Nor are you M. des Voeux?"

  Her acuteness surprised him. "I am afraid, mademoiselle," he said,"that you have a mind to exalt me into a hero of romance--whether Iwill or no."

  She bent over her work to hide her face. "A duke gave them to you, Isuppose?" she said.r />
  "That is so," he replied sedately.

  "Did you save his life?"

  "I did not."

  "I have heard," she returned, looking up thoughtfully, "that atCoutras a gentleman on the other side strove hard to save the Duke ofJoyeuse's life, and did not desist until he was struck down by his ownmen."

  "He looked to make his account by him, no doubt," the Lieutenantanswered coldly. "Perhaps," with a scarcely perceptible bitterness,"the Duke, had he lived, would have given him--a pair of pistols!"

  "That were a small return," she said indignantly, "for such aservice!"

  He shrugged his shoulders. And to change the subject--

  "What are the grey ruins," he asked, "on the edge of the wood?"

  "They are part of the old Abbey," she answered without looking up,"afterwards removed to Vlaye, of which my sister is Abbess. There wasa time, I believe, when the convent stood so close to the house thatit was well-nigh one with it. There was some disorder, I believe, andthe Diocesan obtained leave to have it moved, and it was planted onlands that belonged to us at that time."

  "Near Vlaye?"

  "Within half a league of it."

  "Your sister, then, is acquainted with the Captain of Vlaye?"

  She did not look up. "Yes," she said.

  "But you and your brothers?"

  "We know him and hate him--only less than we fear him!" She regrettedher vehemence the moment she had spoken.

  But he merely nodded. "So do the Crocans, I fancy," he said. "It isrumoured that he is preparing something against them."

  "You know that?" she exclaimed in surprise.

  "Without being omniscient," he answered smiling. "I heard it inBarbesieux. It was that, perhaps," he continued shrewdly, "which youwished to tell your brother yesterday."

  On that she was near confessing all to him and telling him, in spiteof her resolutions, where on the next day he could find her brother.But she clung to her decision, and a minute later he rose and movedaway in the direction of the house.

  When they met at table the mystery of the Vicomte's sudden impulse tohospitality, which was something of a puzzle to her, began to clear.

  It had its origin in nothing more substantial than his vanity; whichwas tickled by the opportunity of talking to a man who, with somepretensions to gentility, could be patronised. A little, too, hethought of the figure he had made the night before. It was possiblethat the stranger had been unfavourably impressed. That impression theVicomte thought he must remove, and to that end he laboured, after hismanner, to be courteous to his guest. But as his talk consisted, andhad long consisted, of little but sneers and gibes at the companionsof his fallen fortunes, his civility found its only vent in thisdirection.

  Des Ageaux indeed would gladly have had less of his civility. Morethan once--though he was not fastidious--his cheek coloured withshame, and willingly would he, had that been all, have told theVicomte what he thought of his witticisms. But he had his cardssorted, his course arranged. Circumstances had played for him in thedangerous game on which he was embarked, and he would have beenunworldly indeed had he been willing to cast away, for a point offeeling--he who was no knight-errant--the advantages he had gained.

  Not that he did not feel strongly for the two whose affection for oneanother touched him. Roger's deformity appealed to him, for he fanciedthat he detected in the lad a spirit which those who knew him better,but knew only his gentler side, did not suspect. And the girl who hadgrown from child to woman in the rustic stillness of this moatedhouse--that once had rung with the tread of armed heels and been gaywith festive robes and tourneys, but now was sinking fast into alonely farmstead--she too awakened some interest in the man of theworld, who smiled to find himself embedded for the time in a life soalien from his every-day experiences. Concern he felt for the one andthe other; but such concern as weighed light in the balance againstthe interests he held in his hands, or even against his own selfishinterest.

  It soon appeared that the Vicomte had another motive for hospitality,in the desire to dazzle the stranger by the splendours of his eldestdaughter, on whom he continued to harp. "There is still one of us," hesaid with senile vanity--"I doubt if, from the specimens you haveseen, you will believe it--who is not entirely as God made her! Thankthe Lord for that! Who is neither clod nor clout, sir, but has as muchfashion as goes to the making of a modest gentlewoman."

  His guest looked gravely at him. "I look forward much to seeing her,M. le Vicomte!" he said for the tenth time.

  "Ay, you may say so!" the Vicomte answered. "For in her you will see aVilleneuve, and the last of the line!" with a scowl at Roger. "Neithera lout with his boots full of hay-seeds--pah! nor a sulky girl with asmuch manner as God gave her, and not a jot to it! Nice company I have,M. des Voeux," he continued bitterly. "Did you say des Voeux--I neverheard the name?"

  "Yes, M. le Vicomte."

  "Nice company, I say, for a Villeneuve in his old age! What think youof it? Before Coutras, where was an end of the good old days, and thegood old gentrice----"

  "You were at Coutras?"

  "Ay, to my cost, a curse on it! But before Coutras, I say, I had atleast their mother, who was a Monclar from Rouergue. She had at anyrate a tongue and could speak. And my daughter the Abbess takes afterher, though may-be more after me, as you will think when you see her.She will be here, she says, to-morrow, for a night or two." This hetold for the fifth time that evening.

  "I am looking forward to seeing her!" the guest repeated gravely--alsofor the fifth time.

  But the Vicomte could not have enough of boasting, which was doublysweet to him; first because it exalted the absent, and secondlybecause it humiliated those who were present. "Thank God, she at leastis not as God made her!" he said again, pleased with the phrase. "AtCourt last year the King noticed her, and swore she was a trueVilleneuve, and a most perfect lady without fault or blemish!"

  "His Majesty is certainly a judge," the listener responded, thetwinkle in his eye more apparent than usual.

  "To be sure!" the old man returned. "Who better? But, for the matterof that, I am a judge myself. My daughter--for there is only oneworthy of the name"--with a withering glance at poor Bonne--"is nothand in glove with every base-born wench about the place, trapesing toa christening in a stable as readily as if the child were a king'sson! Ay, and as I am a Catholic, praying beside old hags' beds tillthe lazy priest at the chapel has nought left to do for his month'smeal! Pah!"

  "Ranks are no doubt of God's invention," des Voeux said with his eyeson the table.

  The Vicomte struck the board angrily. "Who doubts it?" he exclaimed."Of God's invention, sir? Of course they are!"

  "But I take it that they exist, in part at least," des Ageauxanswered, "as a provision for the exercise of charity; and of----" hehesitated, unwilling--he read the gathering storm on the Vicomte'sbrow--to give offence; and, by a coincidence, he was saved from thenecessity. As he paused the door flew open, and a serving-man, not oneof the two who had waited on the table, but an uncouth creature,shaggy and field-stained, appeared gesticulating on the threshold. Hewas out of breath, apparently he could not speak; while the gust ofwind which entered with him, by blowing sideways the long, stragglingflames of the candles, and deepening the gloom of the ill-lit room,made it impossible to discern his face.

  The Vicomte rose. They all rose. "What does this mean?" he cried in arage. "What is it?"

  "There's a party ringing at the gate, my lord, and--and won't takeno!" the man gasped. "A half-dozen of spears, and others on foot andhorse. A body of them. Solomon sent me to ask what's to do, and if heshall open."

  "There's a petticoat with them," a second voice answered. The speakershowed his face over the other's shoulder.

  "Imbeciles!" the Vicomte retorted, fired with rage. "It is your ladythe Abbess come a day before her time! It is my daughter and you stayher at the door!"

  "It is not my lady," the second man answered timidly. "It might besome of her company, my lord, but 'tis not her. And Solom
on----"

  "Well? Well?"

  "Says that they are not her people, my lord."

  The Vicomte groaned. "If I had a son worthy the name!" he said, andthen he broke off, looking foolish. For Roger had left the room anddes Ageaux also. They had slipped by the men while the Vicomtequestioned them, and run out through the hall and to the gate--notunarmed. The Vicomte, seeing this, bade the men follow them; and whenthese too had vanished, and only four or five frightened women who hadcrowded into the room at the first alarm remained, he began to fumblewith his sword, and to add to the confusion by calling fussily forthis and that, and to bring him his arquebus, and not to open--notto open till he came! In truth years had worked imperceptibly onhim. His nerves, like many things about him, were not what they hadbeen--before Coutras. And he was still giving contrary directions, andscolding the women, and bidding them make way for him--since it seemedthere was not a man to go to the gate but himself--when approachingvoices broke on his ear and silenced him. An instant later one or twomen appeared among the women in the doorway, and the little crowd fellback in wonder, to make room for a low dark man, bareheaded andbreathing hard, with disordered hair and glittering eyes, who,thrusting the women to either side, cried--not once, but again, andyet again:--

  "Room! Room for the Countess of Rochechouart! Way for the Countess!"

  At the third repetition of this--which he seemed to saymechanically--his eyes took in the scene, the table, the room, and thewaiting figure of the scandalized Vicomte, and his voice broke."Saved!" he cried, flinging up his arms, and reeling slightly as if hewould fall. "My lady is saved! Saved!"

  And then, behind the low, dark man, who, it was plain, was almostbeside himself, the Vicomte saw the white face and shrinking form of asmall, slight girl little more than a child, whose eyes were like noeyes but a haunted hare's, so large and bright and affrighted werethey.