(1)
roland had come. he stood in the ‘nursery’ with an overjoyed friend holding him firmly by either arm.
“but why,” he was now demanding feverishly, “why cannot i see m. le marquis at once, and get it over?”
for if his sincere penitence had caused his grandfather to dismiss him in the end with a sort of blessing—a remark that he was, if crazy and disobedient, at least no milksop—the youth knew that there was a still more merited penance to be gone through before he could expect a blessing here. part indeed of that penance, and perhaps the worst part, he had already been undergoing at kerlidec—the ashamed realisation of the damage his own wilfulness had caused to his hero’s reputation, in the eyes, too, of one who was always so inexplicably hostile to m. de kersaint.
“why?” echoed artamène. “because, four nights ago, our revered leader met with an accident in the forest. (roland gave an exclamation.) the accident took the form of a blue, who shot him in the arm.”
“but he’s all right,” interpolated the kindhearted lucien. “they took out the bullet next morning. the abbé is very strict, however.”
“—and m. de brencourt shot the blue,” continued artamène, “shot him so dead that he was, apparently, blown completely off this planet.”
“you forget,” lucien reminded him, “that the comte distinctly stated that he got away.”
“what, after he was dead?” asked roland.
they looked at him; they drew closer, very close.
“bend your head, my paladin,” commanded artamène. and, almost glueing his lips to the attentive ear, he whispered into it, “the question is, whether he ever lived, that blue!”
“oh!” exclaimed the vicomte de céligny, drawing back.
“oh, and likewise ah, and many other vocables!” agreed m. de la vergne, his eyes bright.
“but that means. . .”
lucien put a finger on his lip. “we don’t discuss it, roland. we don’t—ahem—allow our minds to dwell on it. but——”
“?‘au clair de la lune,’?” hummed the chevalier de la vergne under his breath. “two gentlemen, seized with a sudden desire for a walk at half past ten at night. i was on duty that evening, and let them out. also, i met them returning—in perfect amity, i must confess; most correct. you see, m. le comte had been so obliging as to bandage the wound which he——”
“don’t go on, artamène!” cried lucien warningly. “remember that we are here in the region of hypothesis only.”
“listen to our student. ‘the wound which he so signally avenged,’ was what i was going to say, mon cher. now, is that statement in the region of hypothesis or of fact? if we knew that, we should know all!”
“but, merciful heavens, why should they——” began roland, in tones of horrified amazement.
“my good roland,” replied artamène, “though most things are in time revealed to enquiring intelligences, such as m. du boisfossé’s and mine, the reason for that promenade under the goddess of the night has not yet been disclosed. the infernally bad temper in which m. de bren—— chut! here’s the abbé, come to summon you to the scaffold.”
but that was not exactly m. chassin’s errand. he had come to say that m. de kersaint desired roland to sup with them and to relate his adventures. and if the prodigal should have a little private interview with him afterwards he, the priest, did not fancy that it would be very terrible.
“i expect you have been informed of his mishap,” concluded m. chassin, glancing at the other young men, neither of whom, by a singular coincidence, met his eye. “thank god it was not worse.—now mind you tell him, my child, all about mirabel—especially about the concierge there.”
(2)
so roland supped with the gods, as artamène and lucien had put it. the invitation, with its suggestion of pardon for the past, had pleased and flattered him; the banquet itself he found at first a little embarrassing. to begin with, he had uneasy anticipations of the interview afterwards; and then he found the sight of the marquis with his arm in a sling oddly shocking, after the revelations made to him downstairs. that support was as inconspicuous as possible, being of black silk; still, there was the leader of finistère, at the head of the table, unable to use his right hand; and at the other end sat the man who was . . . perhaps . . . responsible for his condition. the priest was placed opposite roland, and josef schnitterl, m. de kersaint’s bodyservant, waited upon them all; but he was little in the room.
now if roland, who possessed only conjectures, felt embarrassed, the little aum?nier, dowered though he was with an appearance of placidity and a good appetite, had arrived at the point where he could scarcely bear to see m. de brencourt in the same room with his foster-brother—much less because of what had passed at the moulin-aux-fées than because of the deadly wrong the comte was doing him now. and, as a matter of fact the marquis and his chief of staff did not seem to be seeking each other’s society these last few days, though when they were together their relations were of such a successful correctness that speculation downstairs—except with mm. du boisfossé and de la vergne—was beginning to languish. no one could have guessed that the priest was thinking, as he looked at the handsome and engaging young face opposite him, “if only roland knew of her identity!” and that he was preoccupied every hour of the day with the question, “will she come?” or was on tenterhooks at every communication the marquis received—for it might be from her.
when roland’s first constraint was over, and the meal had proceeded a little way, the marquis enjoined the young man to give a most particular account of all his doings. roland assumed the air of obeying to the full, though as a matter of fact he contrived to make his narrative begin with his arrival in paris. but this the marquis would not have.
“you can only earn my full pardon, roland,” he said, looking at him quizzically, “by an equally full confession of your sins—and by revealing the names of all your accomplices!”
the comte and the abbé both exclaimed at this. “no gentleman could consent to receive his pardon on such terms,” declared the former.
“it is true,” admitted the inquisitor, “that i know roland’s partners in guilt already. the one i have already dealt with; the other, i am afraid, lies outside my jurisdiction.”
“ah, there was another, was there?” asked the abbé, looking amusedly across at poor roland, who, blushing, was alternately studying the tablecloth and sending appealing glances at his leader. “i know of one. who was the other? not our staid lucien, surely?”
“no,” replied m. de kersaint, smiling, “not lucien. i have strong reasons to suspect another member of artamène’s family, no less daring than himself, and, presumably, even more inspiring.—but enough that i know the name of this . . . person.—go on, roland; after all we will dispense with the meetings of the conspirators at la vergne. continue from your leaving that nest of plotters.”
he was in better spirits than he had been for days; and how should roland guess with what pleasure he was looking forward to an interview after supper where, after all, he should let the penitent off rather easily? thankfully escaping from the dangerous neighbourhood of mlle de la vergne the young man carried on his narrative up to his falling unconscious at the foot of the statue of mercury in the park of mirabel.
m. de kersaint leant back in his chair. “we now come, i think, to the really romantic part of the story, do we not? enter mme vidal, i believe.”
as roland embarked on the entry of mme vidal into his recital the abbé and m. de brencourt became very silent. (but roland noticed nothing; his audience was m. de kersaint.)
almost immediately, however, the latter interrupted him. “what was she like to look at, this good angel?” he enquired, laying down his fork. “she was not young, that i have gathered.”
roland was rather at a loss. “i am afraid i am not very good at description, sir. but m. le comte or m. l’abbé”—he turned towards them—“surely you have heard all about her appearance from them.”
“no, indeed i have not,” replied the marquis. “rather remarkably, they neither of them seem able to describe her.”
“let us have your attempt, then, roland,” said the abbé. a vista of blest possibilities was opening out before him. the same thing was happening to the comte de brencourt . . . only the possibilities were not blest.
roland tried, but possibly through the hostile influence of the gentleman at the bottom of the table he failed to achieve anything recognisable.
“?‘tall, fair hair going grey, blue-grey eyes’—that does not advance us much,” observed m. de kersaint with truth. “it is like the passport descriptions, ‘bouche moyenne,’ and the rest. never mind mme vidal’s appearance, then, roland. but since you of the three had the most intimate acquaintance with her, tell us, at least, what impression her personality made on you. for though m. le comte does not seem to find the presence at mirabel of a concierge with royalist sympathies extraordinary, i must say that i do.”
“i said, marquis, if i remember,” interposed m. de brencourt rather hoarsely, “that i thought her sympathies need not have been so entirely royalist as you assume. she was a woman, m. de céligny an interesting young man, helpless and wounded . . . que sais-je? it was enough to appeal to any woman’s heart.”
roland, embarrassed at hearing himself described in these terms, and in such an unpleasant voice, broke in,
“oh but, indeed, monsieur le comte, she had royalist sympathies. at least she was the widow of a poor royalist gentleman . . . for of course, messieurs, you saw at once that she was a lady. indeed, i could not quite understand why she accepted the post, for she certainly seemed out of place in it. didn’t you think so, messieurs?”
“i did, certainly,” said the abbé quietly. the vista was opening out into a regular heaven. the comte was understood to say that he had hardly seen her.
“it certainly does seem extraordinary,” mused the marquis, leaning his head on his hand, his eyes fixed on roland.
“if you had seen her, sir, you would have thought so still more,” said roland with eagerness. “she had a carriage, always, and a way of speaking when she forgot herself—what i mean to say is, that if it hadn’t been so patently absurd to think so, one might even have taken her for a grande dame.”
“and why,” asked the abbé softly, “would it be so patently absurd to have taken her for one? stranger things have happened in the topsy-turveydom of to-day. i have heard of chevaliers of st. louis working as stevedores at a german port, and we all know how many émigrés in london earned——”
m. de brencourt broke in upon him rudely. “pshaw, abbé, you are too romantic, and so is m. de céligny. you forget, i have seen the woman too, and though undoubtedly superior, she was nothing out of the way, and as unlike the paragon of our young friend’s poetic fancy as——”
“as falsehood is unlike truth,” finished m. chassin, looking straight at him. “well, we differ, comte, in our estimate of what is ‘out of the way,’ that is all. i am with m. de céligny’s.—go on, my son. you think one might even have taken her for a grande dame?”
“stuff and nonsense,” muttered m. de brencourt angrily, pushing away his plate.
“really,” said the marquis, as this little passage of arms ended, “your mme vidal begins to intrigue me so much that i almost wish i had gone to mirabel myself!”
“ah, if only you had!” was drawn in a whisper from the abbé.
m. de kersaint heard, though he was not meant to, and raised his eyebrows. “why, it was your representations which prevented me from going!” he exclaimed. “what is the matter, monsieur de brencourt?”
“nothing,” replied the comte, who had half risen from his seat. “for the moment i thought—it was nothing.”
“you hear that testimony, monsieur le comte?” said the abbé, turning to him with a sudden air of combat. “you should be pleased with me—m. le marquis acknowledges that it was my wise counsels which prevailed on him not to go in person to mirabel!”
“and why the deuce do you suppose i should be pleased at that?” demanded the goaded gentleman. “m. de kersaint was welcome to go to mirabel if he wished, for all it mattered to me!”
(“how very rude he is!” thought roland, displeased.)
“you would not, surely, have had our leader run into such danger?”
“well, i had to run into it!” retorted the comte.
“yes—and succumbed!” returned the priest with such a world of meaning in his voice that the comte changed colour.
“come, abbé,” interposed the marquis, “are you not being ungenerous to a less fortunate rival? you are surely not casting it up at m. de brencourt that he endured a brief captivity for the king’s cause?”
the abbé shook his head. “m. le comte knows that i am not,” he replied. “but i am afraid that we are checking roland’s interesting recital by our divergences on the subject of mme vidal. if he will forgive our bad manners . . .”
“yes, go on, roland,” said the marquis. “but you must eat too. you were telling us about your actual entry into the chateau.”
“i got as far as mme vidal’s room,” resumed roland obediently, “and then i suppose i fainted again, for the next thing i remember is finding myself in bed there, and mme vidal bending over me again.—ah, by the way,” he cried, suddenly remembering something which might serve as a contribution to portraiture, “there was one curious little fact about her which i forgot to mention. it was then that i first noticed it. one of her eyes, though they were almost blue, had some brown specks in it. did you remark it, monsieur l’abbé? it was the right eye. you could only see it when she was quite near you.”
“no . . . i . . . did not observe it,” said the abbé. he spoke as if a strong wind of sudden origin had somehow taken away his breath. from the lower end of the table came the sound of a man drawing his sharply.
“i remember i used to look at it when she nursed me,” went on roland, happy at producing some effect in the end. “and i——”
he was interrupted by a voice he scarcely knew. “she had eyes, you say, almost blue, with brown specks in one?” gasped the marquis, jerking forward in his chair. “did i hear rightly? blue eyes . . . which one had the . . . say it again!”
in a dead silence, and much embarrassed thereby, roland repeated his observation. the marquis de kersaint, leaning forward in his chair, his left hand clutching the table, looked at him with eyes which seemed as if they would drive through him, and as the young man, fascinated by that extraordinary gaze, returned it, he saw his leader slowly turn so pale that it looked as if every vestige of blood had been drained away from his face. even his lips were the colour of paper. next moment, without a word, without even a gesture of apology, he had pushed back his chair, risen from his place, and disappeared into his bedroom.
roland fell back, smitten dumb with astonishment and, staring at the door which had just closed, he did not see the black and thunderous look which the comte de brencourt darted first at him and then at the abbé. but in a moment the priest, too, was on his feet.
“it must be that wound of his,” he said quickly. “if you will excuse me a minute, messieurs?” and he, too, went through the bedroom door. roland saw his face as he went; it was not inexpressive now. it wore a most singular look of mingled gravity and exultation.
the comte de brencourt and the unconscious author of this scene were now alone. and just because the comte was looking as he did roland felt that he must say something.
“i am afraid that m. le marquis’ wound——” he began timidly.
m. de brencourt gave a short laugh that was more like a snarl. “his wound!” he exclaimed. “well, yes, a wound if you like—a sore, a festering sore! mort de ma vie, boy, what made you so observant!”
“observant!” repeated the puzzled roland. “i don’t understand you, monsieur le comte. ought one not to have noticed that m. le marquis was—in pain. but the abbé——”
“go on with your supper, in heaven’s name!” broke in the comte roughly. he really looked like murder at that moment. “you have done a pretty evening’s work, on my soul—and i don’t suppose you are through with it yet, either!” and, laughing again, he poured out and drank off a glass of wine.
but roland, almost convinced that he was sitting at table with a madman, was in no mood to obey him. he merely stared at the second in command. fortunately it was only for a moment, for the bedroom door opened again and the abbé stood there.
“m. de kersaint wishes to speak to you, roland,” he said. amazing thing—he looked pleased. roland got up, utterly bewildered. his interview—now? he knew not what he had said or done to precipitate it, and apprehension was so written on his face that m. chassin put his hand kindly for a moment on his arm as he passed him, and gave it a little pressure.
the comte de brencourt now addressed the aum?nier. “since your services, monsieur l’abbé, don’t seem after all to be needed for this surprising seizure of m. de kersaint’s,” he observed, “perhaps you will be good enough to sit down and finish your supper. these constant exits hardly tend to good appetite!”
a flame of anger suddenly ran over the little priest’s face. “it is your services that have been required these many days, monsieur de brencourt,” he rapped out, “and you know it! i have no wish to sit down to table with you!” and turning on his heel he marched out of the sitting-room and slammed the door.
stupefaction seized m. de brencourt in his turn. he did know then, that wily old devil—he had known all the time! why, in the name of all his saints had he not told de trélan? but anyhow de trélan was in process of enlightenment at this moment behind that door, for of course he had had the boy in to question him further. in a few minutes he would doubtless come out, and then—well, there would probably be murder. for a little bloodshed would hardly wash away this time what their encounter the other evening had not availed to bring to light. . . .
for five minutes, perhaps, the comte de brencourt sat there with a set face waiting for this to happen; then, as no one emerged from the inner room, his fretted nerves drew him to his feet and sent him out in search of the abbé.
he found him standing motionless under the moon and stars just outside the farmyard—not far, to be exact, from the pigsties, as would have been obvious to anyone less absorbed. the comte strode over to the cassocked figure.
“may i ask what you meant by that remark you made just now?” he demanded without preliminary.
the abbé drew himself up. “it is no good talking to me in that tone, monsieur de brencourt,” he returned with spirit. “i am neither a gentleman nor a layman, so i can’t go out with you to the moulin-aux-fées.”
“certainly no one would ever take you for a gentleman,” responded the comte, his voice shaking with passion, “and it takes a priest indeed to play the part you have played—a spying hedge-priest——”
“which is worse, monsieur le comte, spying or lying?”
“lying!” ejaculated the comte with vehemence. “don’t your books of moral theology tell you that keeping quiet about a thing is as bad as lying about it? why was it more my business to tell the duc de trélan that his wife is alive than yours, as you evidently knew it?”
“dear me,” said m. chassin, and he smiled. “i was referring to something quite different—to the occasion on which, in so many words, you told mme vidal that her husband was dead—no tacit lie that! i think you are rather betraying yourself, are you not, by referring to yet another?”
“oh, go to the devil!” burst out m. de brencourt.
“i wish i knew where you were to go, monsieur le comte,” was the priest’s answer. “no, seriously, i do not wish to quarrel with you—even after the part you have played. the situation that you have brought about is much too grave for that. you must know that you have done a thing which god may forgive but which man will find it hard to. listen to me, monsieur de brencourt, i beg of you, before it is too late, and remove yourself from the clos-aux-grives, from m. de kersaint’s command even——”
m. de brencourt, thus adjured, exploded in an oath and struck the door of the pigsty so violent a blow that he brought out an enquiring inmate.
“by the god above us, abbé, you go too far! do you suppose that i am going to run away from de kersaint’s—from de trélan’s—from any man’s anger!—forgiveness—i have not asked for it! and when the duc de trélan wants me he will know where to find me!” he swung off in the direction of the forest.
“i only wish i could hope he did not know where to find you,” muttered the abbé, gazing after his receding figure, “for, short of a miracle, there will be a terrible day of reckoning for this silence of yours!”
but the flood of joy and gratitude in his heart was too potent; it swept away alike his disgust and his apprehension, and by the pigsty wall itself m. chassin fell on his knees and covered his face, while the moon, but little declined from her fatal plenitude of four nights ago, looked down benignantly upon him.
