The Abbess Of Vlaye Page 7

  CHAPTER V.

  THE CAPTAIN OF VLAYE.

  Danger, that by night sends forth a vanguard of fears, and quells thespirits before it delivers the attack, pursues a different course byday, seeking to surprise rather than to intimidate. Seldom had Junesun shone on a fairer scene than that which the lifting of the rivermists delivered to the eyes of the dwellers in the chateau on thefollowing morning, or on one more fit to raise the despondent courage.The tract of meadow land that, enfolded by the river, formed the onlyclear ground about the house lay in breezy sunshine, which patches ofshadow, flung on the sward by such of the surrounding trees as rose alittle higher than the ordinary, did but heighten. The woods whichenclosed this meadow land, here with a long straight wall of oaks,there with broken clumps of trees that left to view distant glades andalleys, sparkled, where the sun lighted their recesses, withunnumbered dew-drops, or with floating gossamers, harbingers of a fairday. The occasional caw of a rook flying fieldward over the open, orthe low, steady coo of the pigeons in the great stone cote beside thegate, added the last touch of peace to the scene; a scene so innocentthat it forbade the notion of danger and rendered it hard to believethat amid surroundings like these, and under the same sky of blue,man's passions were, in parts not distant, turning an earthly heavento a hell.

  Access to these meadows was by a sled-road, which, starting from thegreat gate, wound round the wall of the courtyard, and then, turningits back on the house, passed by a small stone bridge over the brookwhich had once supplied the moat. From the bridge the track ran acrossthe meadows to the abandoned farms which stood on the river bank halfa mile from the chateau. The only building among these which retaineda roof was a long wooden barn, still used to contain waste fodder andthe like.

  It was from this bridge, a narrow span of stone, that Bonne, thefollowing morning, gazed on the scene, her hand raised to shade hereyes from the sun. The whole of the Vicomte's household, with theexception of a deaf cook and of Solomon, who could be trusted, weregone to the hay-field; some with delight, as welcoming any change, andsome with whispers and surmises. Thence their shrill voices andlaughter were borne by the light breeze to the girl's ears.

  Nothing had been heard of the Countess's train, and her concealmentduring the hours of danger had perplexed both the Vicomte and hisadvisers. His pride would not permit him to make her privy to thecoming visit, or the precautions which it rendered needful. Yetwithout acknowledging his inability to protect her, it was not easy toconfine her to one room. For, with the elasticity of youth, she hadrisen little the worse for her adventures.

  The council sat long, and in the end the better course seemed to be toinvite her to the hay-field. As it fell out, a small matter gave anatural turn to the proposal. Her riding-dress--and more of her dressthan that--was so stained and torn as to be unwearable. And Bonnecould not help her, for the child, though perfectly formed, and of asoft prettiness, was cast in a smaller mould. Here, then, was aCountess without so much as a stocking, had not Bonne thought of alittle waiting-girl of about the same shape and size. This girl'sholiday attire was borrowed, and found to be a charming fit--at leastin the eyes of Roger. For the lad, because the Countess was shy, hadbecome, after a sort, her protector.

  The child's timidity was at standing odds with her rank, and on firstdescending in this dress she had been on the point of tears, asinfants cry when they think themselves the objects of ridicule. A verylittle and she had fled. But a moment later, whether she readsomething that was not ridicule in the lad's eyes, as she walked upand down the terrace, or youth stirred in her and raised a childishpleasure in the masquerade, she preened herself, blushing, andpresently she was showing herself off. So that at the first word shefell in with the notion of completing her make-believe by spending theday in the hay.

  Fortunately, Fulbert, the steward, who attended her like a dog, andlike a dog glared suspicion on all who approached her, raised noobjection. And about three hours before noon the move was made. Bonnehad gone with Mademoiselle as far as this bridge, where she now stood,and thence had sent her forward with Roger and Fulbert on the pleathat she must herself attend to household cares. Nevertheless, as thethree receded in the sun's eye, she lingered awhile lookingthoughtfully after them.

  The dainty creature, tripping in her queer travesty between herfoster-father and Roger's misshapen form, showed like a fairy betweentwo gnomes. Bonne watched and smiled, and presently the smile became atear, for Roger's sake. She had other and more pressing cares, otherand heavier burdens this morning; but her heart was warm for him. Shehad been mother as well as sister to him, and the reflection that hisdeformity--once she had heard a peasant call him goblin--wouldprobably for ever set him apart and deprive him of the joys of manhoodtouched her with grief as she stood.

  The tear was still on her lid when she heard a step behind her, turnedand saw des Ageaux--to her des Voeux. He read trouble in her clear,youthful face, fancied she was in fear, and paused to reassure her."Why so sad, mademoiselle," he asked, "when she"--with a good-humourednod in the direction of the Countess--"who has so much more to fear,trips along gaily? She is another being to-day."

  "I have others to fear for," she replied.

  "Your brother?"

  She fancied that he was about to press her to bring him to Charles,and to change the subject she avowed her trouble. Why, heaven knows;for though her presence of mind the previous evening had won a meed ofadmiration from him, he had made no sign.

  "I was not thinking of him," she confessed. "I was thinking of Roger.I was thinking how sad it is--for him."

  He understood her. "You make too much of it," he said lightly. "He hashealth and strength, and a good spirit when your father is notpresent. His arm is long, and will always keep his head. Have younever heard what M. de Gourdon, Governor of the March, who is--who islike your brother, you know--once said of himself? 'My back?' quoth heto one who mentioned it. 'My friends mind it not, and my enemies havenever seen it!'"

  She flushed and a light came into her eyes. "Oh, brave!" she cried."Brave! And you think that Roger----"

  "I think that Roger may some day make himself feared. And he who isfeared," the Lieutenant continued, with a half cynical, half whimsicalsmile, "has ever love on his other hand--as surely as dog follows thehand that feeds it."

  The words had barely left his lips when a wolf-hound, whose approachthey had not noticed, darted upon them, and, leaping up at theLieutenant's face, nearly overthrew him. Bonne recoiled, and with acry looked round for help. Then she perceived that it was with joy,not with rage, that the dog was beside himself; for again and again,with sharp shrill cries of pleasure, it leapt on the Lieutenant,striving to lick his hands, his face, his hair. In vain he bade it"Down! Down, dog!" In vain he struck at it. It set its paws againsthis breast, and though often repulsed, as often with slobbering mouthand hanging tongue sought his face.

  When he had a little calmed its transports and got it to heel, heturned to her, and for once showed an embarrassed countenance. "It isa dog," he said, "a dog of mine that has followed me."

  "I see that," she replied, smiling with something of mischief in herlooks.

  "It must have followed me----"

  "A full mile this morning," she said, stooping and patting the hound,which, with a dubious condescension, permitted the greeting. "It isboth fed and dry. And its name is----"

  He looked at her, but did not answer.

  "Does this often happen to you?" she continued, feeling on a sudden astrange freedom with him. "To talk of dogs and they appear? Have youthe habit when your horse falls lame of tying your dog to a tree, andplacing a sufficiency of food and water by it to last it two days?"And then, when he did not answer her, "Who are you, M. des Voeux?" shesaid in a different tone. "Whence do you come, and what is yourbusiness?"

  "Have I not told you," he answered, "that I wish to communicatethrough your brother with the Crocans? That is my business."

  "But you did not kno
w when you came to us that I had a brother," shereplied, "or that he had joined the Crocans, or that we were like tobe in these straits. So that you did not come for that. Why did youcome?" confronting him with clear eyes. "Are we to count you friend orenemy? Be frank with me and I will be frank with you."

  He looked at her with the first gleam of admiration in his eyes. Buthe hesitated. In the candour of a young girl who, laying asidecoquetry and advantage, speaks to a man as to a comrade there lies acharm new to him who has not known a sister; more new to him,more surprising to him whose wont has lain among the women of acourt--women whose light lives and fickle ambitions mark them of thosewho are but just freed from the seraglio. He smiled at her, openlyacknowledging by his silence and his air that he had a secret;acknowledging also, and in the same way, that he held her equal. Buthe shook his head. "In a little time I will be frank with you,mademoiselle," he said. "It is true I have a secret, and at thismoment I cannot tell it safely."

  "You do not trust me?"

  "I trust no one at this moment," he answered steadily.

  It was not the answer she expected. She had thought he would quibble.She was impressed by his firmness, but she did not betray the feeling."Good!" she said, with the least possible lifting of her head. "Thenyou must not expect to be trusted, or that I shall bring you to mybrother."

  "But you promised, mademoiselle."

  "That I would do so when I could do so--safely," she retorted withmischievous emphasis. "It is your own word, sir, and I shall not feelthat I can do so--safely--until I learn who you are. I suppose if mybrother were here you would tell him?"

  "Possibly."

  Her colour rose. "You would tell him, and you will not tell me!" shecried indignantly.

  "Now you are angry," he replied smiling. "How can I appease you?"

  She was not really angry. But she turned on her heel, willing to lethim think it. "By hiding yourself until this is over," she answered.And leaving him standing on the bridge, where he had found her,she made her way back to the house, where the only man left wasSolomon in his hutch beside the gate. He was an old servant, agarrulous veteran of high renown for the enormous fables he had everon his lips--particularly when the Vicomte reverted to the greatnessof the house before Coutras. Mademoiselle as she entered paused tospeak to him. "Have you seen a strange dog, Solomon?" she asked.

  "This morning, my lady?" he exclaimed in his shrill voice. "Strangedog? No, not I! Has one frightened you? Dog? Few dogs I see these saddays," he continued, with a gesture scornful of the present. "Dogs,indeed? Times were when we had packs for everything, for boars, andwolves, and deer, and hares, and vermin, and"--pausing in sheerinability to think of any other possible pack--"ay, each a pack, andmore to them than I could ever count, or the huntsman either!"

  "Yes, I know, Solomon. I have heard you say so at least. But you havenot seen a strange dog this morning?"

  "The morn! No, no, my lady! But last night I mind one--was't adeer-hound?"

  "Yes, a deer-hound."

  "Well, then, I can tell you," with a mysterious nod, "and no one else.It was with the riders who brought the young lady. But I'm mum,"winking. "Not a word will they get out of me. Secrets? Ay, I'm the mancan keep a secret. Why, I remember, talking of secrets and lives--andoften they are all one----"

  "But what became of the deer-hound?" she asked, ruthlessly cutting himshort.

  "Became of the dog?"--more shrilly than usual--he was a little hurt."Is that all you want? It went with them as brought it, I do suppose.It didn't stop, anywise. But as I was saying about secrets--thesecrets I have kept in old days--when there was no family had so manyas ours----"

  But she was gone. She had discovered what she wanted. And she wasmidway across the courtyard when the shrill sound of a hawk-whistlecaught her ear. Turning she went through the gate again, andlistened--not without a nervous feeling. Presently she coulddistinguish the dull tramp of a number of horses moving on the sward,the gay jingle of bit and spur, and mingled with these sounds thevoices of a number of persons talking at their ease.

  Warmly as the sun shone, she was aware of a shiver; of a presentimentthat gripped and chilled her. Whatever it portended, however, whatevermisfortune was in the air, the risk could not now be evaded. Alreadybright patches of moving colour glanced among the trees at the end ofthe approach, and steel points glittered amid the foliage, andfeathers waved gaily above the undergrowth. She had barely time totell Solomon to run and apprise her father of the arrival, when thehead of the cavalcade wheeled, talking and laughing, into the avenue,and her sister, who rode in the van by the side of M. de Vlaye, espiedher standing before the gate and waved a greeting.

  Behind the Abbess rode a couple of women, one in the lay costume,liberally interpreted, of her order, the other of the world confessed;following close on their heels half a dozen horsemen completed thefirst party. The young Abbess bore a hooded hawk on her wrist, and thetinkle of its light silver bells mingled with the ripple of her voiceas she approached, while two or three pairs of coupled hounds ran ather horse's heels. A little behind, separated from this select companyby an interval of two score yards, followed the main body, a troop ofsome forty horse, in steel caps and corslets, with long swordsswinging, and pistols in their holsters.

  A more picturesque or more gallant company, as they swept by threesand fours into sight between the two grey pillars and rode towards thehouse under sun and shade, or a band that moved with a lordlier air,it had been hard to find, even in those days of show and pageantry,when men wore their fortunes on their backs. The Captain of Vlaye,stooping his sinewy figure to his companion, well became a horse thatmoved as he moved, and caracoled because he allowed it. His dark, keenface would have been as handsome as his form but for a blemish. Insome skirmish of his youth he had lost the sight of an eye, and theblind orb gave his face a hard look which, so his enemies said,brought it into consonance with his character. He wore upturnedmoustaches without a beard, therein departing from the mode of theday. But his hunting-dress of white doeskin, with a fawn hat and belt,was in the fashion, and his horse's trappings shone almost as fine asthe riding-dress of green and silver which set off his companion'stall figure and haughty face. In first youth a nose, too like herfather's, and something over large in Odette de Villeneuve's frame,had foreshadowed charms not of the most feminine or the first order.But three years had supplied the carriage and the ripened and fullercontours that made her what she now was. To-day, if it pleased her tohave at her beck one whose will was law, and whose stern mannersinvited few to intimacy--and in truth her infatuation for thesuccessful adventurer knew no limits--he on his side found his accountin parading, where he went, a woman whose beauty exceeded even herbirth, and fell little short of her pride.

  And she was content; she at least aimed at no more than setting on asafer basis the power she looked to share. It was she who, ignorantthat her brother had joined them, had mentioned to her sister Vlaye'splan of suppressing the Crocans. That he had any other plan, that hisviews rose higher than a union with herself, that he hoped by a boldand secret stroke not only to secure what he had gained but to treblehis resources--that his ambition, passing by a Villeneuve, dared todream of an alliance with the ducal house of Longueville--of thesethings she had, as yet, no inkling. Not a jot, not a tittle. Nor wasshe likely to believe in their existence, save on evidence theclearest and most overwhelming.

  Bonne knew more. She knew these things; and, as she went forward tomeet the party, and after greeting her sister turned to her cavalier,the word "Welcome" stuck in her throat. She was conscious that hercheek grew a shade paler as she forced the word, that her knees shook.Her fear was that he would read the signs.

  Ordinarily he would not have remarked them; partly because he wasinured to meeting cowed looks, and partly because a carelessscorn--masked where the Vicomte was concerned by a veneer ofrespect--was all to which he ever treated the Abbess's impoverishedfamily. Crook-backed brother, tongue-tied sister, and the other fool,whose restive dislike had some
times amused him--he held them all inequal and supreme contempt. But to-day he had his reasons for notingthe girl more particularly; and the shadow of ill-temper that darkenedhis face lifted as her timid eye and fluttering colour confirmed hissurmises.

  "I thank you, I will not alight," he replied. "Your father is comingto the gate? M. le Vicomte is too kind, mademoiselle. But that beingso, I will await him here."

  The Abbess, with an air of patronage, touched Bonne's hair with thetip of her riding-switch. "Child, did you sleep in your clothes lastnight?" she said. "Or are you making hay with the kitchen-maids? Seeher blush, M. de Vlaye! What would you give me if I could blush asnaively?" And her eyes rallied him, seeking a compliment in his. "ButAbbesses who have been to Court----"

  "Carry a court wherever they go," he replied. But his look did notleave Bonne's face. The Abbess's women and the rest of the company haddrawn rein out of earshot, their horses making long necks that theymight reach the grass, or poking their heads to crop a tender shoot."I cannot alight," he continued, "for we are on an adventure,mademoiselle. I might almost say a pursuit."

  "Do you know, child," her sister chimed in, "that Mademoiselle deRochechouart never came to me last night? But you know nothinghere--even, I daresay, that I expected her. How should you? You mightas well live in a hole in the ground."

  "She never came?" Bonne faltered, for the sake of saying something.The blush had subsided, leaving her paler than before.

  "No, did I not say so? And she has not arrived today," the Abbesscontinued, flicking her horse's mane with her jewelled switch. "Butsome of her people were in by daylight this morning--from Heaven knowswhere--some hiding-place in the woods, I believe--making such a to-doas you would not credit. If they are to be believed, they wereattacked near nightfall by the Crocans----"

  "By the Crocans," M. de Vlaye repeated, nodding darkly at Bonne. Heknew more than the Abbess knew of Charles's desperate venture.

  "And M. de Vlaye," the Abbess continued, speaking in the negligentfashion, a trifle distant, in which she always addressed her family inhis presence, "has most kindly sent out parties in search of her.Moreover, as I came this way on the same errand, he fell in with me,and came on--more, I believe, for her sake than mine"--with a lookthat called for contradiction--"to make inquiries in this direction.But on the way--but here is my father. Good morning, sir. M. deVlaye----"

  "Has been waiting some time, I fear," the Vicomte said hurriedly. He,too, was not free from embarrassment, but he hid it with fair success."Why do you not alight and enter, my dear?"

  "Because we have business, by your leave, sir," Vlaye answered, hispoliteness scarcely covering an undertone of meaning. And he told in afew words--while Bonne stood listening in an agony of suspense--whatthe Abbess had told her. "Fortunately, after I fell in with yourdaughter this morning," he proceeded, "I had news of the Countess. Andwhere do you think, M. le Vicomte, we are told that she is?" hecontinued.

  Fortunately the Vicomte, whose hands were beginning to tremble,and whose colour was mounting to his wrinkled cheek, could notimmediately find his voice. It was his elder daughter who took onherself to answer. "Where do you think, sir?" she cried gaily. "Inyour hay-meadows--so M. de Vlaye says."

  "Mademoiselle de Rochechouart? In my hay-meadows?" the Vicomtefaltered.

  "Yes."

  "In my hay-meadows? It cannot be."

  "It is so--or so we are told."