THE GENERAL
Mme. la Marquise's incredulity with regard to her niece's assertion lasted well into the afternoon. She could not bring herself to believe that de Maurel's hostile attitude towards all the inmates of Courson, which he had so steadily maintained since his first unfortunate visit, could have undergone such a material change in so short a time.
She had looked on Fernande's childish boasting as mere nonsense, and during the past week had been eating out her heart in vain regret and remorse at her own folly, her own insentient pride, which had undoubtedly precipitated the catastrophe, and turned into an open feud what had, after all, only been a kind of skulking neutrality before. Mme. la Marquise was quite sure in her own mind that if she had been present throughout the interview between the two brothers, she would have known how to avert the quarrel. Once it had occurred, she felt that nothing would ever bridge it over. The short glimpse which she had that day of Ronnay de Maurel had told her plainly that he was, indeed, the son of his father—endowed with the same passionate and violent temperament and the same obstinacy. Some latent impulse—or perhaps mere idle curiosity, she thought—had prompted him to come the once. But unfortunately he had been made unwelcome, and Madame la Marquise knew that he would resent this most bitterly, and that he would prove as irreconcilable as her husband had been, as old Gaston de Maurel still was.
Was it likely, therefore, that he would surrender at a word from a mere girl, and come and eat that humble pie at Courson which was bound to be very distasteful to him? Madame thought not; and in this she proved herself as ignorant of male temperament as her son was of feminine wiles. But Fernande was so positive that M. de Maurel would come, that something of her confidence communicated itself to the others. Her appearance in a new frock of delicate muslin, with tiny puffed sleeves and the shortest of waists, the folds of her long skirt clinging very closely to her girlish figure, finally brought Madame's incredulity to an end, and though nothing was done this time in preparation of M. de Maurel's coming, the excitement which pervaded the château was none the less acute.
The weather continued to smile the whole afternoon. It had been the warmest day of the young year, and Madame—still pretending that she was not expecting her son—ordered Annette to bring some semblance of order in the vast circular veranda that overlooked the park. In olden days this veranda had been a favourite spot on warm afternoons; the view between the stone pillars right over the ornamental water and the English garden beyond was magnificent. In those days the flagged floor was covered with soft carpets, chairs and lounges stood around, with one or two card-tables and stands for wines or coffee. Now there were neither carpets nor lounges; a few garden seats of stout wood had alone survived the years of disrepair. But after Annette had scrubbed the floor and the chairs, after Madame had ordered a table or two to be brought out and light refreshments to be disposed on them, after she had spread a couple of gaily-coloured Paisley shawls—remnants of her own depleted wardrobe—over the seats, the place looked inviting enough, and nothing could spoil the view across the park, right over an apple orchard aglow with blossom to the distant wooded heights beyond.
Madame took her seat beside the coffee-urn, her knitting in her hand. M. de Courson, feeling unaccountably restless, joined her after a while, making pretence to read the Moniteur—a week old—which a courier from Paris had brought that morning. Soon afterwards Laurent and Fernande were seen coming round the ornamental water. They came up the stone steps to the veranda, Fernande's unconcerned prattle and her merry laugh raising the echoes of the old walls.
Laurent was moody, as he always was when his brother's name was so much as mentioned; but Fernande was in the highest possible spirits, even though she masked her gaiety behind a look of sober demureness.
Everyone's nerves were on the jar. The paper rattled in M. de Courson's hands; Madame's knitting needles clicked jerkily.
Laurent sat with his two hands tightly clasped between his knees, staring down most of the time at Fernande's little feet, which were stretched out before her. They were encased in a delicious pair of heelless black alpaca sandals, with satin ribbons criss-crossing over the instep and tied in a bow just above the ankle. Her fingers were busy with a delicate piece of embroidery, and she was expounding her views to Laurent on the subject of the rearing of chickens.
At half-past three Annette came rushing from the house on to the veranda.
"The General!" she cried excitedly. "He is just coming up the avenue. Matthieu sent me to ask if Mme. la Marquise will receive him."
Madame looked up from her work and turned cold, reproving eyes on worthy, perspiring Annette.
"The General?" she queried calmly. "I know no General in the King's army who is like to pay me a visit to-day."
Whereupon Annette, thus rebuked, was covered with confusion, from which it took her some time to recover.
"I beg a thousand pardons, Mme. la Marquise," she stammered ruefully, as she wiped her hot, red hands on her apron. "I have known the Gen—I mean M. de Maurel all these years, and ... I ... I was meaning that...."
"That what, my good woman?" asked Madame tartly.
She appeared very detached and haughty, but Fernande, who shot one of her keen, mischievous glances at her aunt from beneath her long lashes, noted with vast amusement that though Madame was not working for the moment, the knitting needles in her hands were clicking audibly one against the other.
"I mean, Madame la Marquise, that M. le Comte de Maurel is coming down the avenue," Annette was at last able to blurt out. "Will Mme. la Marquise receive him?"
"Of course I will receive M. le Comte," replied Madame with perfect dignity. "Tell Matthieu to show M. le Comte up here."
"Yes, Madame la Marquise," murmured Annette, who felt a little awed by the atmosphere of pomp which had so unaccountably descended on the old veranda and its inmates, and to which she—poor soul!—was wholly unaccustomed. "And Matthieu says, Madame la Marquise, what is he to do about the horse?"
"The horse?"
"The Gen ... I ... I mean M. le Comte is on horseback and the stable roof fell in six years ago."
"My good Annette," here interposed M. de Courson with marked irritability, "do not worry Madame la Marquise with such trifles. Surely Matthieu can look after a horse for an hour or so while a visitor pays his respects up here!"
"Well ... Matthieu says," muttered Annette, whose temper was none too equable at any time, "that he cannot come up and announce a visitor and look after a horse at one and the same time."
An exclamation of impatience came from Laurent as he rose from his seat.
"Why all this pother, I wonder?" he said. "I'll go and see after the man's horse. One of his own vanners, I suppose. He must look funny on horseback with that linen blouse of his flopping round him in the wind."
He crossed the veranda, ready to follow Annette. The worthy woman, having shrugged her fat shoulders and thrown up her hands with an expressive gesture of complete detachment from the doings of her betters, started to shuffle back the way she came. But before either she or Laurent had reached the wide glass portières which gave on the principal State apartments of the château, a firm tread, with a curious drag in it and accompanied by the click of spurs, was heard to cross the hall and then to resound on the parquet floor of the vast reception-room which led directly to the veranda.
"Too late, mon cousin," said Fernande in her tantalizingly demure way. "M. de Maurel has apparently been too impatient to await your welcome. He...."
She paused—the next words dying upon her lips—her hands poised in mid-air holding her work and the embroidery thread. Even she could not repress a slight gasp of astonishment as Ronnay de Maurel's tall figure appeared under the lintel of the door.
He wore the uniform of a General of Division in the army of the Emperor—the uniform which he had last worn at Austerlitz, and which he had since laid aside for the blue linen blouse. He carried his chapeau-bras under his arm, and there was, indeed, nothing visible now of the slouchy attire which had so offended against Madame la Marquise de Mortain's ideas of what was picturesque. The gorgeous uniform, though worn and patched, became the tall, massive figure admirably, and though the gold of collar and epaulettes was so tarnished that it looked almost black, and the cloth of tunic and breeches so faded that their original dark green colour was almost unrecognizable, they lent a certain barbaric splendour to this last descendant of an ancient lineage turned democrat from conviction and temperament. From out the tall, stiff collar, covered with tarnished gold, the neck rose erect and firm, and the shoulders were squared as on parade. Ronnay de Maurel had halted on the threshold, and with a rigid military salute had greeted the assembled company. Instinctively, and on the spur of the moment, M. de Courson had risen in order to greet the new-comer; he now advanced with hand extended. Madame la Marquise could scarce believe her eyes; a change had, indeed, come over the uncouth figure of a week ago. Her cold and quizzical eyes took in at a glance all that was fine and picturesque in her eldest son's demeanour. The gold-embroidered tunic pleased her, despite the stains on it caused by the grime and smoke of powder, and a quick look of compassion, which was almost furtive, so unwonted was it, crept into her grey eyes when they caught sight of the large stain and the obvious patch in the left leg of his breeches—there where the cloth had been torn away, when a bullet from the Austrian gun had laid this splendid soldier low.
As Ronnay came forward Madame rose slightly from her seat.
"It is a pleasure to see you, my son," she said graciously.
She gave him her hand, which he did not take. Obviously he did not see it, nor yet M. de Courson's kindly gesture. But he took Laurent's hand. The awkwardness which he felt was manifested in all his movements and in the few vague words of thanks which he uttered. Then suddenly Fernande's clear, young voice rang out merrily through the constrained atmosphere which de Maurel's appearance had produced on everyone present.
"Eh, mon cousin," she said gaily, "am I then so small or so insignificant that I alone am not worthy of your regard?"
She did not move from her seat, but this time de Maurel was not slow either in coming to her side or in taking the tiny hand which she held out to him. With a clumsy gesture, though without the slightest hesitation, he raised it to his lips. Laurent smothered an exclamation of wrath; but into Madame la Marquise's cold, grey eyes there came a sudden light of satisfaction.
"Will you not sit down, my son?" she said, with a well-bred air of condescension. "I trust that you have come to pay us a nice long visit. My brother-in-law is no worse, I hope?"
She pointed to a chair which, though at some distance from Fernande, would afford the sitter a clear view of the charming picture which the girl presented. That something more than a mere casual rencontre had taken place between her eldest son and her niece she no longer doubted; the child went up in her estimation at once, for obviously she had played her cards well. Nothing would suit Madame la Marquise's plans better than that de Maurel should evince an ardent admiration for Fernande de Courson; and if that admiration warmed into love—well, so much the better for the cause of the King. The bear was certainly beginning to dance, thought Madame, whilst the smile of satisfaction lingered round her lips and her thoughts went off roaming in the realms of fancy. Laurent would have to console himself with a rich heiress for the loss of his charming fiancée. At best, Madame herself did not greatly favour the match. M. de Courson had not a sou wherewith to endow his daughter, and Madame la Marquise had oft expressed her doubts as to His Majesty—even when he came to his throne again—being ever rich enough to compensate all his loyal adherents for the losses which they had sustained. Laurent was so handsome, that any rich girl would only be too proud to regild his escutcheon for him in exchange for all the advantages which his gallant bearing and his sixteen quarterings would bestow upon her. Indeed, everything was shaping out for the best. Madame, while talking platitudes to de Maurel to which he only listened with half an ear, was able to note with practised eye every symptom of profound attention which he bestowed on the slightest word or movement from Fernande.
In her mind she had already appraised the enormous advantages that would accrue to the King's cause if a marriage between a de Courson and this wealthy adherent of Bonaparte could be effected. Madame la Marquise de Mortain belonged to a generation which had often seen petticoat government ruling the destinies of nations. And though—Ronnay being what he was, the true son of his father, and having perhaps inherited his father's temperament as well as his democratic ideals—she could not fail to appreciate the possibility of a de Courson once again reducing a de Maurel to complete, if short-lived, slavery.
"You have not suffered from the result of your accident, Mademoiselle Fernande?"
"Not at all, mon cousin, I thank you."
A pause. Then a pair of blue eyes were once more raised from what seemed very absorbing work.
"The woods round La Frontenay are very beautiful, mon cousin."
"Very beautiful, Mademoiselle."
"I had never visited the silent pool in the early morning before."
Another pause, necessitated by an intricate stitch in the embroidery.
"The silent pool is a very romantic spot, do you not think so, mon cousin?"
"I know so little about romance, Mademoiselle."
"The woods will teach you, mon cousin."
"I would be grateful."
"Laurent and I often wander in the woods—don't we, Laurent?"
Laurent, sitting on the edge of the stone balustrade, with his arms folded over his chest and a sinister scowl upon his face, did not vouchsafe an answer to the direct query.
"We have been as far as the silent pool," continued Fernande unconcernedly.
"It is a short walk from Courson," rejoined de Maurel.
"A very long one, I think ... over six kilomètres."
"Over six kilomètres.... Yes."
"Therefore, we have never been further than the pool."
Yet another pause. Madame la Marquise had resumed her knitting. M. de Courson tried not to appear ill at ease, and Laurent, whose exasperation became more and more obvious every moment, jumped down from the balustrade and began pacing up and down the veranda, hoping thereby to keep his nerves under control.
"But from the distance I have seen the smoke of your foundries, mon cousin," again resumed Fernande, wholly unperturbed.
"!!"
"I have never seen the interior of a foundry in my life."
"It is not a romantic sight, Mademoiselle."
"Oh, que si, mon cousin!" she retorted with sudden seriousness. "There is nothing more romantic than to see a man toiling with his body and with his brain, using his intelligence and the power which his mind has given him, in order to overcome the many difficulties which God has laid in his path, in face of the great natural advantages which He has assigned to His brute creation. And then to see hundreds of men all working together in the same way and for the same end—working in order to wrest from Nature her manifold secrets and enchain them in the service of Man. Oh, it must, indeed, be a very inspiring sight, and one I would dearly love to see!"
She had spoken with an air of quaint earnestness which became the spiritual aspect of her personality to perfection. De Maurel had listened to her with grave intentness, his brows knit together as if he was afraid to miss some hidden meaning in her words. Laurent, on the other hand, had found it difficult to contain himself while she delivered herself of her somewhat pompous little speech. Now before his brother could reply he broke in with a harsh laugh:
"An inspiring sight, mayhap, but also a mightily unpleasant smell. Smoke, grime, dirt," he added tartly, "mingled with perspiring humanity, make up a sum total of unpleasant odours which you, Fernande, would be the first to resent if my brother Ronnay were so foolish as to accede to your whim."
"You must leave me to judge, my dear Laurent," retorted Fernande, with one of her demure little pouts, "as to what I would resent and what not. Well, mon cousin," she added once more, turning to de Maurel, "you hear what Laurent says. Are you going to be sufficiently foolish to gratify my curiosity?"
"Nay, do not appeal to Ronnay, dear cousin," rejoined the young man testily. "He hath no liking for women's company. Rumour hath it that the foundries are encircled by a wall beyond which no feminine foot hath ever trod, and anxious wives are not even allowed to bring hard-working husbands their dinner. 'Tis said that all the jail-birds in France are employed in forging cannon and manufacturing gunpowder, and that the overseers have to stand over them with flails and loaded muskets, for fear that the spirit of insubordination which is always rampant should break into open riot, and the foundries of La Frontenay be blown up sky-high by rebellious hands."
De Maurel had waited with outward patience and in his own calm somewhat sullen way until his young brother had come to an end with his tirade; then he interposed curtly:
"Rumour hath lied as usual."
"You cannot deny, anyhow," retorted Laurent, "that all the deserters out of the army are made to slave in your factories."
"There are not enough deserters in the armies of France to keep a single foundry going," rejoined de Maurel simply. "But these days, when foreign enemies threaten the country on every side, we cannot afford to keep even jail-birds idle. So we employ them in the powder factory, where the work is hard and full of danger, and where accidents, alas! are frequent. But the pay is good, and men who have a crime upon their conscience can redeem their past by toiling for their country, who hath need of their brain and of their muscle. Many pass out of the workshops into the army, and the Emperor had no finer soldiers than a company of our jail-birds, as you call them, who fought under my command at Austerlitz."
He paused, for, as usual, every reference to the army and to his Emperor, whom he worshipped, was apt to stir his blood, so that his words became less sober and less measured. And he had come here this afternoon with the firm determination not to lose control over himself as he had done the other day.
"If Mademoiselle Fernande desires to see the foundry," he said quite quietly after a while, "I will accompany her and show her all that there is to see."
"If accidents in your works are frequent, my good Ronnay," rejoined Laurent, who was vainly trying to conceal the irritability of his nerves, "'tis obviously not fit that our cousin should visit them."
"I would not take her there where there is any danger," retorted de Maurel curtly.
"There is always danger for a refined woman in the propinquity of men who have been nurtured in class-hatred. The sight of a delicate and aristocratic girl is like to rouse the same resentment in your jail-birds that led to the atrocities of the Revolution. Fernande would certainly run the risk of insults, if not worse. I for one marvel at you, my dear brother, that you should think of exposing our cousin to the danger of hearing the blasphemous and obscene language which I am told is the only one spoken inside the foundries of La Frontenay."
"There is neither blasphemous nor obscene language spoken inside my workshops when I am present. If Mademoiselle Fernande deigns to entrust herself to my guidance, I'll pledge mine honour that she shall neither hear nor see a single thing that may offend her eyes or her ears."
"But, indeed, mon cousin, I am over-ready ..." began Fernande, when Madame la Marquise interposed in her wonted decisive way:
"Hoity-toity!" she said. "Here are you young people discussing projects which obviously cannot be put into execution without the consent of your elders. 'Tis I and my brother who alone can decide whether Fernande might go to visit the foundry or not. Nor hath M. le Comte Gaston been consulted as to his wishes in the matter."
"My uncle would raise no objections," said Ronnay moodily. "The inspection of the foundry is open to the public...."
"'Tis not a case of objections, my son," rejoined Madame with quiet condescension; "nor is your cousin Fernande to be classed among the public to whom casual permission might thus be given."
De Maurel frowned and that old look of churlish obstinacy once more crept into his face.
"I don't understand what you mean," he said.
"Yet 'tis simple enough, my good de Maurel," interposed M. de Courson in his turn. "There are certain usages of good society which forbid a young girl to go about alone in the company of a man other than her father or her brother."
"Surely you knew that?" queried Laurent ironically.
"No, I did not," replied de Maurel curtly. "Why should not Mademoiselle Fernande come with me to visit my foundries, if she desires to see them?"
"Because ... because ..." said Madame somewhat haltingly, obviously at a loss how to explain to this unsophisticated rustic the manners and usages of good society.
"I would see that she came to no harm."
"I am sure of that, mon cousin," quoth Fernande with a little sigh and a glance of complete understanding directed at de Maurel. "I should feel perfectly safe in your company."
"Fernande!" exclaimed Laurent hotly.
"There, you see?" she said, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders. "La jeune fille is a regular slave to a multiplicity of senseless conventions. Do not argue about it, mon cousin, it is quite useless. Ma tante will hurl the proprieties at your head till she has made you feel that you are a dangerous Don Juan, and unfit to be left alone in the company of an innocent young girl like me."
"Fernande!" This time the exclamation came from Madame la Marquise, and it was uttered in a tone of stern reproach.
"A thousand pardons, ma tante! please call my words unsaid. And you, mon cousin, I entreat take no heed of the sighings of a young captive chafing against her fetters. Indeed, I am a very happy slave and only resent my chain on rare occasions, when it is pulled more tightly than suits my fancy. Otherwise my gaolers are passing lenient, and I am given plenty of liberty, so long as I indulge in it alone; and when in the early morning I take my favourite walks in the woods, I am even allowed to wander as far as the silent pool and listen to the pigeons of St. Front, unattended by a chaperone."
Fernande, while she spoke, appeared deeply engrossed in disentangling a knot in her embroidery silk; this, no doubt, accounted for the fact that her words came somewhat jerkily, and with what seemed like deliberate slowness and emphasis. Laurent, lost in the whirl of his own jealousy, watched her less keenly than he was wont to do. Certainly he did not notice the glance which accompanied those words—a glance which de Maurel, on the other hand, did not fail to catch. It was directed at him, and was accompanied by an enigmatical little smile which he was not slow to interpret—so much guile had a pair of blue eyes already poured into the soul of this unsophisticated barbarian! Twenty-four hours ago he would have been intolerant of a young woman's diatribe on the subject of conventions, with which he had neither sympathy nor patience; to-day he heard in it certain tones which for him were full of meaning and of a vague promise.
The feeling, too, that this exquisite creature took him, as it were, into her confidence, that she implied—by that one glance of her blue eyes—that a secret understanding existed between her and him, was one that filled him with an extraordinary sense of happiness—of detachment from everything else around him—of walking on air, and of seeing the blue ether above him, open to show him a vision of intoxicating bliss.
The minutes after that went by leaden-footed. Ronnay de Maurel was longing to take his leave, to ride home as fast as he could, and in the privacy of his bare, uncomfortable room to think over every minute of this eventful day, and to anticipate as patiently as possible the hour when it might reasonably be supposed that an angel would take its morning walk abroad. Madame la Marquise made great efforts to keep the ball of conversation rolling pleasantly; but she found it difficult owing to the fact that de Maurel scarcely opened his lips again. Fernande, too, had become silent and tantalizingly demure. Her aunt thought that she was sulking owing to the veto put upon the proposed visit to the foundries. Madame would have wished to reopen that subject, for, of a truth, she would not have been altogether averse to going over to La Frontenay or La Vieuville, or even to bearding old Gaston de Maurel in his own lair; but Ronnay, after his one suggestion that he would take Fernande over the works, did not again renew his offer. Laurent, too, had become indescribably morose, and for once in her life Madame found it in her heart to be actually angry with her beloved son. Obviously the rapprochement with the de Maurels would be impossible if Laurent remained so persistently on the brink of a quarrel with his brother.
Though after a while Annette brought wine and biscuits on a tray, and M. de Courson and Madame la Marquise performed miracles of patience in trying to remain genial, the atmosphere became more and more constrained every moment.
Fortunately, after a while de Maurel appeared quite as eager to go as was his mother to be rid of him. He rose to take his leave, and beyond making a clumsy bow in the direction where Fernande was sitting, silent and industrious, he took no more intimate farewell of her than he did of the others. This had the effect of allaying in a slight measure Laurent's irritation. He even unbent to the extent of accompanying his brother to the gates of the château, an act of courtesy in which M. de Courson also joined.
But the moment that de Maurel's back was turned, and the steps of the three men had ceased to echo through the house, Fernande threw down her work and ran over to her aunt. She stood before the older woman, holding herself very erect, her little head held up with a remarkable air of dignity, her hands clasped behind her back.
"Ma tante, tell me," she said abruptly, "for, of a truth, I have become confused—which of the two things in life do you prize the most—the cause of our King or the fetish of social conventions?"
"Fernande," retorted Madame sternly, "meseems that for the past day or two you have taken leave of your senses. I will not be questioned in this fashion by a childlike you...."
"Ma tante," broke in the young girl solemnly, "I entreat you to believe that I am asking no idle question. I beg of you most earnestly to answer the question which I have put to you."
"The question hath no need of answer. It is answered already. And you, Fernande, are impertinent to put the question to me."
"Nevertheless, ma tante, I ask it in all seriousness, and I beg for an answer in the name of the cause which we all hold dear."
"If you put it that way, child," rejoined Madame coldly, "I cannot help but reply: you are foolish and impertinent, and I almost feel bemeaned by pandering to your foolishness."
"Ma tante," pleaded Fernande insistently.
"What is it you want me to say, enfin?"
"Tell me plainly and simply, ma tante, which you prize most: a few hollow conventions or the success of our arms in the cause of our King."
"Tush, child! of course you know that I prize the cause of our King above all else on earth."
"And you are ready to make any sacrifice for its success?"
"Of course I am! What nonsense has got into that childish head of yours, I wonder?"
"One moment, ma tante. Tell me one thing more."
"Well?"
"In your opinion, do you think that every one of us should be ready for any sacrifice that might help to further the cause of our King?"
"Of course, child. I trust you are prepared to make whatever sacrifice the cause of the King may demand from you. I know that your father is more than prepared, and so is Laurent."
"And so am I, ma tante," said Fernande firmly. "Therefore, one day soon I'll go to meet M. de Maurel in the woods of La Frontenay, and together we'll visit the Maurel foundries—all in the name of the King, ma tante."