CHAPTER II
THE MAISON DE MALINCOURT
SOME two or three hours after the scene in the market place a girl sat at her spinning wheel on the terrace of the Maison de Malincourt, opposite the head of the stately flight of steps leading down to the wide gardens. She had placed her wheel in an angle of the southern turret so that she could ply her task in comfort, protected from the rays of the July sun.
She was Lucette de Boisdegarde, the foster sister and close friend of Mademoiselle de Malincourt, for whose coming she was now waiting with as much patience as her quick vivacious temperament permitted.
Her industry was only fitful. At times her shapely little foot pressed with insistent vigour upon the treadle and the wheel flew round rapidly, as if keeping pace with the thoughts that drew her dark pretty face into a frown of petulance and made her large eyes flash with gathering purpose. But the wheel was often still and she would sit back, idly fingering the threads of gleaming flax and thinking, while her gaze would roam over the blaze of lovely flowers in the garden, or stray away to the red roofs of the city which showed through the skirting trees beyond, or rest curiously on the vacant seat at her side on the cushions of which lay some needlework.
She was in one of these preoccupied moods when her sharp ear caught the sound of a footstep. In a moment she set the treadle of her wheel whirling swiftly, while she crooned to herself the air of a ballad of the time, and appeared too deeply engrossed in her work and song to have eyes or ears for anything else.
Yet young Denys St. Jean was worth looking at. Well-built he was, soldierly in bearing and self-reliant in mien, with a fair frank honest face, though now grave with thought and purpose, as he turned the corner of the Maison at a slow deliberate pace.
Seeing Lucette he started and his face brightened; and he smiled as he perceived her absorption in her task was overacted. He hesitated just an instant as if about to speak to her, but with a slight frown checked the inclination, walked on a few paces, lingered again, and then stopped.
Lucette meanwhile was treading her wheel vigorously and singing sweetly to herself—
There was once a maiden in Arcady,
Whose lover so feal and true
Came riding forth from the sullen north
Her sweet white hand to woo.
During the verse Denys stood with his back to the singer, his arms folded in an attitude suggestive of antagonism; but once or twice, when he half-turned toward her, the smile on his lips and the light in his eyes told of very different feelings.
When the song ceased he maintained his attitude of indifference, keeping his back to her and his arms still folded, waiting for her to speak; but when she gave no sign that she knew of his presence, he turned and stole up behind her softly, with a smile of expectation, and bent over her.
Her industry and absorption appeared to increase, however, and her foot pressed the treadle, the wheel flew round, and her white fingers flashed hither and thither, tending the flax, gathering the thread, adjusting this and smoothing that, while all the while she crooned the old ballad.
Her patience beat him at length.
“You know I’m here,” he whispered.
“Ah, Antoine, I knew your tread.”
“Antoine!” exclaimed Denys with an angry start, “what do you mean by that, Lucette?”
The wheel stopped and she looked round, her face a pretty mask of coquettish surprise and her eyes beaming with mischief.
“So, it is not Antoine!” with just a suggestion of disappointment in the tone, a little shrug of the shapely shoulders, and a pout. “Only you. I thought you were gone for ever.”
“You will drive me away, if you treat me like this. What did you mean about knowing Antoine’s tread?”
For a second she let her roguish eyes rest on his, and then she smiled.
“His feet are so big and so clumsy,” she said, and turned again to her wheel.
“Do you mean you meet him so often you can recognize them?”
“Recognize them! Mon Dieu, they are not feet to forget when once seen,” she cried lightly.
“You can’t pass it off like that, Lucette. Were you expecting him here this afternoon? Is that what you mean?” He was still angry and his tone very earnest.
“I didn’t expect you, Monsieur Catechist.”
“And you meant to amuse yourself with him in my absence?”
She turned and made a pretty grimace of dismay and spread out her hands.
“Is it an hour since you said you would never speak to me again? What then does it matter to you? Would you play the dog in the manger?”
“Will you answer my question?”
“Why do you come back at all when all is at an end between us? You said so.”
“Don’t you know why I come back?” The tone was full of feeling; but Lucette merely shrugged her shoulders.
“To see if you had made me miserable, I suppose? You have not;” and she burst again into her song, when Denys caught her by the wrist, and looked intently into her face.
“Do you mean you don’t care, Lucette?”
“I care not to have my arm bruised with your great clumsy hands. Antoine would never——”
“To hell with your Antoine!” he burst in vehemently. “You play with me as a cat with a bird;” and throwing her hand from him he turned and strode away. He got no farther than the corner of the house, and looking back saw her leaning against the wall nursing her arm as if in pain. “Forgive me, Lucette,” he cried remorsefully, hastening back. “I am a brute; you fire my blood when you make me jealous. If you love Antoine de Cavannes better than me, say so now, and let me go. But don’t torture me.”
She stood nursing her arm and looking up at him.
“Torture you, is it? Torture you?” and she held her arm up in reproach.
“You have only to say the word, and I’ll never trouble you again. It can’t be both Antoine and me. Choose!”
“Choose!” she repeated, mocking his serious tone. Then with a laugh and a change to coquettish hesitation: “Hot-tempered, handsome Denys or splay-footed, ugly Antoine, eh? It can’t be both of you, eh? And if——” She paused teasingly.
“In God’s name, can’t you be serious?”
“When I am, I’ll choose neither of you, but just bury myself in a nunnery. So good-bye, my lord surly-face;” and she burst into a laugh.
“You mean that good-bye?”
“When did I wish you anything but good?”
“You’ll drive me away from you and from Morvaix,” he said angrily.
“Oh, you’ll soon be back again.”
“You think you can play with me as you will.”
“Stupid! As if I cared where you go! But you can’t leave Gabrielle. You can be many nasty things, but at least you can’t be untrue to your trust.”
His angry features relaxed somewhat at this.
“I wish I could read your heart.”
“So does Antoine.”
Angered again at this, a hot retort was stayed on his lips as Gabrielle de Malincourt stepped out of one of the tall windows of the terrace close to them.
“Ah, my good Denys, and, of course, Lucette,” she said with a smile.
“It should be the other order, mademoiselle, I fear,” he answered. “Lucette, and of course, Denys. It is Denys who is ‘of course.’”
Gabrielle glanced at them both and understood.
“Quarrelling again! Lucette, Lucette. You treat him villainously. But never mind, Denys. I know what’s in her heart whatever her lips may say.”
“Gabrielle, I——” began Lucette in protest, when Gabrielle interposed.
“Yes, yes, I know what you would say. But I am not Denys. When the sea is very calm some people like to rock a boat to make pretence; but when the storm comes in reality it’s all very different. Wait till there comes a bit of a storm, Denys, and you’ll see the truth. If Lucette had been I just now in the market place and you had been at hand, you would have seen to whom she would have turned.”
“Has anything chanced, mademoiselle?” asked Denys quickly.
“That which made me wish for you, good Denys. I had visited poor old Jacques Boulanger and was returning through the market place just when the heralds had proclaimed this new and shameful ordinance of the Governor’s—a tax so cruel that it makes my blood boil. A terrible thing occurred. Babillon, the smith, sprang forward to protest, and the Governor, holding him for a rebel, had him done to death there on the spot by his brutal soldiers.”
“How horrible!” exclaimed Lucette.
“But you, mademoiselle?” asked Denys.
“I had just heard the news when his wife came rushing through the place like one distraught, and I was seeking to comfort her in her anguish when the soldiers—oh, they are fiends, those men!—attacked the citizens who had lifted the smith’s body to bear it home, flung the dead on the ground, and when, burning with indignation, I ordered them to desist, they turned on me, one of them thrust me violently aside, and would have done I know not what next, had not a cavalier, a stranger, rushed up to help me.”
“Would I had been there, mademoiselle!” exclaimed Denys angrily. “Would you know the fellow again?”
“Do you mean the stranger cavalier?” asked Lucette, with a light of mischief in her eyes.
“Nay, Lucette, do not jest,” said Gabrielle earnestly. “The man was punished for his act, Denys. The cavalier struck him to the ground and faced the whole of them fearlessly; and I dreaded for a moment that a conflict would follow, for there are not many in Morvaix who would see me harmed. But a monk intervened then and the danger was averted. Babillon’s body was carried away, and I went with the wretched woman whom I have but now left, all desolate, broken and whelmed by her sorrow. These are ill days indeed for Morvaix.”
“But the men who maltreated you, mademoiselle, can be found, nay, must be found and punished,” cried Denys warmly.
“It is of no matter now, Denys. It is over; beside the cruel wrongs done to the people, my little hurt is nothing. These soldiers, moreover, are but hirelings, and do no more than hirelings’ work. But there is one quest—you must find the cavalier who served me.”
Lucette looked up.
“You learnt his name, Gabrielle?” she asked quickly.
“Nay, for I left the place with Babillon’s wife—wife alas! no more, but widow, poor soul.”
“The cavalier, Gabrielle, was he handsome as well as brave?” asked Lucette after a pause.
A faint tinge of colour tinted Gabrielle’s cheeks as she answered.
“In truth, I scarce had time to see, Lucette; but he seemed in all respects a manly man, a figure of distinction truly. Tall and knightly in mien; his face unbearded and full of strength, yet kindly and courteous; fair in colouring; and his blue eyes, keen and flashing fire as he faced the soldiery, were gentle and solicitous when viewing my plight; his voice resolute with the tone of one accustomed to command; yet tuned to gentle accents, as it seemed to me. I much mistake me if he be not a knight of loftier station than his sober brown attire would seem to bespeak him. A most gallant gentleman and a brave heart.”
“You saw much, cousin, it seems, although you had no time, as you say;” and Lucette, with a smile to herself, turned to her spinning wheel.
“I will seek him out, mademoiselle,” said Denys, “and no doubt shall find him. Shall I give him any message?”
“I could not even stay to thank him, and would wish to do so. Let him know as much.”
“Before I go, there is a grave matter on which I would speak with you.”
“Not now, Denys, but afterward. He must not think Gabrielle de Malincourt ungrateful. I beg you hasten at once in quest of him.”
“I will go,” he answered, and turning toward Lucette, said nervously: “Lucette, I——”
“We can finish our quarrel when you return,” she interposed. “I may forgive you if you do Gabrielle’s service quickly.” Her tone was one of indifference, but he read the smile in her eyes and went with a light quick step upon his errand.
Gabrielle had dropped into the vacant seat by Lucette and now leant back thinking, her lips slightly parted and her eyes dreamy.
“He was a handsome man, coz, this cavalier of yours?” Gabrielle started at the question and then met her friend’s half-quizzing look calmly.
“I have never seen a nobler, Lucette. I hope our good Denys will find him. Why do you plague that good fellow so sorely?”
“Nay, it is he plagues me. He is always quarrelling.”
“You are always finding cause to make him, you mean?”
“He is a man, and must be kept in his place;” and Lucette shrugged her shoulders.
“By bickering and teasing and wrangling? Does it please you?”
“There is always the making up again;” and Lucette laughed roguishly.
“Beware how you try him too much. He is sterling mettle.” She paused and suppressed a sigh as she added: “How happy you should be!”
Lucette glanced across at her and her manner changed.
“You are thinking again, Gabrielle. You are not sad?”
“Yes, I was thinking. I ought not to be sad, to-day of all days; and yet——” The rest of the sentence was an unmistakable sigh, deep and sincere.
“He may prove a gallant cavalier, Gabrielle, your Gerard; as gallant maybe as your hero of the market place. Don’t look like that, dear.”
“I am afraid, Lucette, horribly afraid. You cannot tell how it is with me. I am perhaps overwrought by this terrible scene in the market place, and—oh, I know not what I feel;” and with a shudder she covered her face with her hands.
“It will all come right, dear,” whispered Lucette gently, after a pause; but the words seemed to jar upon Gabrielle, who lowered her hands, and with a look of irritation replied almost petulantly.
“You judge from your own little outlook. You tease Denys and force a sham quarrel, knowing he will make it up and all will come right, as you say. But how would it be with you if you were in my place, given to a man you had not seen since you were a child; betrothed to one you know nothing about, and who may turn out to be—oh, what am I saying?”
“I should hate him before he came to claim me, Gabrielle,” said Lucette vigorously, tearing at the flax she held in her fingers. “Claim me!” she added, incensed by her own word. “I would make him feel that the claiming was no easy task. Oh, I should hate him! But you need not wed him. You are the mistress of Malincourt.”
“You do not understand, Lucette.” The girl looked up in genuine surprise at the change in Gabrielle’s tone, suddenly calm, proud and cold. “It is my duty to my family. My parents ordered it so, and it is not for me to disobey. I owe it to my house.”
“I can’t understand you, Gabrielle. At one moment you are a girl with all a girl’s heart and feelings, and the next, you are the grand dame, cold, passionless, proud—just the embodied spirit of the traditions of your house.”
“Were you a Malincourt you would understand. I have to live my life and must perforce be content.”
“But pride makes an ill substitute for love in a marriage, Gabrielle. And your motive is pride. If this M. Gerard de Cobalt, this distant kinsman and unseen betrothed, should turn out to be a hideous depraved wretch——”
“Peace, Lucette; you do but plague me. M. de Cobalt will be here to-day or to-morrow; and you will remember he is my affianced husband.”
“I am sorry my reckless tongue wounds you, Gabrielle. I love you so dearly;” and Lucette bent across and kissed her tenderly. “Pray God it may all be well with you. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive, dear,” answered Gabrielle sweetly. “You are right. I have two natures; and if the girl in me rebels sometimes, it is kinder to check than to encourage rebellion. To-day, somehow, it is harder than usual to check it. I shall be glad when M. de Cobalt comes. My uncle gives me good account of him, and speaks of him as brave and gallant.”
“Does M. de Proballe know him?”
“No, he has never seen him—at least not for many years; but he has heard much of him, and from what he says all should be well.”
“From what he says,” commented Lucette, with a little frown of disdain.
“You trouble me, Lucette, with these reflections on my uncle. You do not like him, and so would have me share your feeling. We’ll say no more;” and with a sigh she leant back to think.
Lucette, seeing her mood, resumed her work and set her wheel speeding busily on; but chancing to glance round a moment later she stopped abruptly with an exclamation of surprise which attracted Gabrielle’s attention.
A man was standing close behind Gabrielle’s chair in an attitude of excessive humility. He bowed low and spread out his hands as she turned to him, while an expressive curl of contempt drew down the corners of Lucette’s mouth.
“What is it? Why did you not say you were here?” asked Gabrielle sharply.
“I feared to interrupt miladi, and was awaiting your permission to speak my errand.” His voice was soft and his manner deferential.
“What is it? Speak.”
“My master, the Baron de Proballe, desires to know if it is convenient for him to wait upon you, miladi?”
“My uncle? Certainly. Where is he?”
“At present in his apartments, miladi.”
“Tell him I will see him at once.”
“I am miladi’s most humble servant,” was the reply with another deep bow, as he went.
“What a loathsome snake is that Master Dauban,” exclaimed Lucette, looking after him.
“My uncle says he is a very honest fellow and as faithful as a man can be.”
“I should need a higher character than that,” said Lucette with another very expressive shrug.
“The Baron de Proballe is my uncle, Lucette,” replied Gabrielle in a tone of reproach, as she rose to go into the house. And Lucette, by way of reply, turned her head away with a toss and made a grimace to herself as she bent over her wheel.