THE WORD OF THE MASTER
De Maurel stood waiting for her in the pillared hall. In accordance with the custom which he himself had established during his last visits to Courson, he was in uniform without his sword and mantle. Madame la Marquise had already fully recovered her self-possession; her short progress across the hall restored to her the full measure of her habitual sang-froid. With a well-schooled smile upon her lips she came forward eagerly to greet him.
"Ah! my dear Ronnay," she said, as she extended a gracious hand to him, "this is indeed a surprise—none the less joyous as it was so wholly unexpected. Indeed, we here at La Frontenay had come to believe that you had wholly forgotten us."
He bowed low over the gracious hand, and even touched the finger-tips with his lips.
"You look more bronzed than ever, M. le Maréchal," added Madame with an arch smile, "and your numerous new dignities and the added gorgeousness of your uniform will play sadder havoc than ever before in the hearts of our impressionable young girls. You have come to pay me a long visit, I hope. Come to my boudoir, my dear Ronnay, the room which your generosity hath furnished with such lavish care for your old mother. We can talk undisturbed there."
"Within a few moments, Madame," he said quietly, "I will be entirely at your service. But, first of all, may I, with your gracious permission, speak a few words with my overseer Leroux?"
The abruptness of the attack nearly caused Madame to lose countenance then and there. Of a truth, the danger was more real and more immediate than she had foreseen. For the space of a few brief seconds she debated in her mind whether she would deny Leroux' presence in the house altogether—feign ignorance of it, and risk an exposure which might prove disastrous and certainly would be humiliating. It all depended on how much Ronnay really knew. If he had actually seen Leroux entering the château, denial would be positively fatal; if his attitude at this moment only rested on surmise, then it might prove a good card to play. Unfortunately time pressed, and she was forced to decide on a course of action in the space of a few seconds while de Maurel kept dark, inquiring eyes fixed composedly upon her face. In any case, a little procrastination was imperative, and Madame, with a certain vague fear gnawing at her heart-strings, at last contrived to say with a complacent smile and an affectation of great surprise:
"Your overseer, my son? I do not understand.... Why should you seek your overseer in this house?"
"Because I happen to have seen him enter it, half an hour ago," he replied curtly, "in spite of my strict prohibition which I enjoined upon him yesterday."
"He comes courting one of my maids, perhaps."
"Perhaps. But my prohibition is none the less binding on him. So with your leave, Madame ..." he added, as he made a movement in the direction of the door whence Madame la Marquise had just emerged in order to greet him.
"My dear Ronnay," rejoined Madame, with all the haughtiness which she could command, "I trust that you will not inflict a scene upon me here in this house, which would be extremely unpleasant for us all. If you wish to speak with your overseer, surely you can wait till he has returned to your works. A factory or a workshop, or even the high road, are fitter places for a wrangle with a refractory workman than in your mother's private room."
"It is neither my fault nor my wish," retorted de Maurel dryly, "that a refractory workman in my employ happens to be in my mother's private room. Nor would I care to wait until the man chooses to return to his duties in order to give him the trouncing which he deserves. I have no time to waste in waiting on his good pleasure, and I specially desire to speak with him here—in this house—and in your presence, Madame, an you will grant me leave."
"In my presence!" exclaimed Madame, with a forced laugh which was intended to hide an ever-increasing terror. "My dear Ronnay, meseems that you have taken leave of your senses. What in the world have I got to do with your overseer and with your quarrels with your men?"
"That is just what I desire to ascertain, Madame," rejoined de Maurel quietly.
"Well, you cannot do it," said Madame testily, "either here or now. You will not, I presume, have the effrontery of forcing your way into my private apartments."
"Your presumption is correct, Madame. I would not for the world intrude upon your privacy. But let me not, on the other hand, detain you here. I can wait your gracious pleasure, until you deign to turn my overseer out of your private apartments, and send him hither to speak with me."
For a moment Madame looked round her in hopeless bewilderment. The situation had developed in a manner wherewith she was unable to cope. For the first time in her life she would have given much to have someone else's support or counsel in this crisis which she began seriously to fear would culminate in disaster. But there was no one near to help her out of her difficulty. Fernande had not left her room, M. de Courson and Laurent were far away, and even old Matthieu had very discreetly retired as soon as he saw Madame la Marquise in close conversation with "M. le Maréchal."
There was silence in the vast pillared hall for a second or two while these two equally firm wills stood up in bitter conflict one against the other. There was never a doubt for a moment as to who would be forced to yield. Madame even now felt like some bird whose strong wings were in the hands of a ruthless tamer, who already was busy in clipping them. She tried to brave that tamer or else to defy him; but he, armed with a determination no less firm than her own and with a tenacity that nothing could conquer, was waging a war of attrition, and was calmly biding his time while Madame, torn between genuine fear and outraged dignity, was seeking in vain for a means of extricating herself from this harrowing position.
Ronnay de Maurel, in fact, was leaning against one of the marble pillars of the hall with a smile round his firm lips which, had not the situation been quite so tense, might almost have been interpreted as one of keen, if somewhat grim, amusement, whilst Madame stood before him, hot and defiant, her small foot tapping the ground in order to ease the exacerbation of her nerves.
"Very well," she said abruptly, and she deliberately turned on her heel and made for the door of the library, where Leroux no doubt was still standing, quaking in his shoes like the miserable craven that he was. "Very well! An you are determined to put this insult on your mother in the presence of such an oaf, I can do naught to prevent you. Go and speak with your overseer an you have a mind."
"And will you deign to be present at the interview, Madame?" he asked.
"If you wish it," she replied curtly.
Of a truth, she would not have trusted Leroux to speak alone with de Maurel; the man was three parts a coward, and it was more than doubtful whether under stress of fear he would remain true to his bargain with de Puisaye; whilst the part of him that was base and criminal might lead him to an attack of violence, which, whatever its results might be, was certainly not within the scope of Madame's reckonings.
Therefore she chose to make a virtue of necessity and, walking rapidly across the hall, she called curtly to de Maurel to follow her into the library.
Leroux had assumed an air of jaunty defiance which the pallor of his cheeks and the shifty looks in his eyes did more than belie. He had recognized his employer's voice at the outset, and one or two words spoken in Madame's somewhat shrill voice had prepared him, in a measure, for the interview which he so frankly dreaded.
Like most cowards, Leroux himself would have been quite incapable of saying definitely what it was that he was afraid of. He had oft proclaimed it audibly that he would as soon be sent to Prussia or to New Caledonia as to continue the life of honest work and of monotony which his present conditional liberation entailed. He could not, therefore, be afraid of a mere dismissal, whilst he was quite keen and shrewd enough to know that de Maurel was not like to resort to physical violence against him, and punishments, even degradation from his present position, could not longer affect him, seeing that he was pledged to de Puisaye and the Royalists.
It must be presumed, therefore, that Leroux' access of terror when his employer suddenly appeared under the lintel of the door in the wake of Madame la Marquise, was just due to the unpleasant physical sensation which assails a dastard in the presence of a brave and loyal man. He was standing close beside the window, and with his back to the door, and as Madame and de Maurel entered, he turned round suddenly, with something of a snarl like a savage creature trapped.
"M. de Maurel desired to speak with you, Leroux," Madame said, whilst de Maurel closed the door behind him, "and I have allowed him to see you in this house...."
"Where you had no right to be, as you know well, Leroux," interposed de Maurel, speaking calmly and in measured tones. "I warned you yesterday that I would look on any infraction of my commands as direct and wilful disobedience."
Leroux shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, but he looked his master squarely in the face.
"Orders such as those," he said, "are for the men in subsidiary positions. I am chief overseer now—what? I come and go as I please and where I please."
"I told M. de Maurel," broke in Madame hurriedly, "that I saw no objection to your visiting my maid Marie, seeing that she is betrothed to you. I have begged him to overlook your transgression this time, and urged that your anxiety might excuse you. Marie is very ill," she continued, turning to de Maurel, "and this unfortunate fellow forgot his duty, I fear me, in his solicitude for the girl."
"A solicitude all the more remarkable, Madame," rejoined de Maurel with a quaint laugh, partly of amusement and partly of impatience, "as Leroux has already a wife of his own, whose faithful heart his many crimes have oft wounded before now. I fear me that you must look upon me as a gaby to unfold so specious a tale for my delectation. Nor—an you will forgive me for saying it—are you serving the man's interests by trumping up such hollow excuses for his disobedience."
"I come and go as I please, and where I please," reiterated Leroux surlily.
"You are neither daft nor deaf," said de Maurel quietly. "You heard and understood my orders yesterday."
"I am chief overseer now," retorted the man obstinately. "Such orders do not apply to me."
"Every order which I give applies to every man in my employ. I told you when first I returned and found you installed in a position, which I knew you neither deserved nor were able to fill, that I would leave you in it on probation only. I am now convinced that you are quite unfit to rule over any of my men, seeing that you have no idea of discipline, of obedience, or of truth."
"I am ready to leave your service," said Leroux with a muttered oath; "'tis not a downy bed—what?—to sweat day after day over those accursed mortars, with your life hanging by a thread all the time."
"You are not in my service, Leroux. You are primarily in the service of the State, whose laws you have broken, and who has given you this means of working out your punishment, by honest toil and loyalty to your country, rather than as a convict in jail or New Caledonia. But for the time being I am your employer. You eat my bread and owe loyalty and obedience to me."
"Then send me packing," growled Leroux, "if you are not satisfied."
"That is exactly what I intend to do," rejoined de Maurel. "At the hour when you chose flagrantly to disobey my orders you ceased to be my overseer. Go back now at once to the factories and report yourself to Mathurin, who will take over your duties at the close of the day. After to-day you will take up your place once more, among the rank and file and with the other workmen—the same place, in fact, which you occupied before you proved yourself unworthy of the trust which M. Gaston de Maurel reposed in you. Now you may go."
Already while de Maurel spoke, Leroux had slowly advanced toward him, with a measured tread that in itself implied rebellion, and hands held tightly clenched. Now he came to a halt as close to his master as he dared; his eyes shot defiance and rage, his breath came with a hissing sound through his set teeth.
"I'll not go," he said hoarsely, "I'll not. Curse you for your arrogance and your blustering, dictatorial ways. I'll not go, do you hear?"
"Leroux!" exclaimed Madame firmly.
The man turned to look at her; his shifty eyes encountered the warning glance wherewith she strove with all her might to enjoin outward yielding and prudence to him.
"M. de Maurel is perhaps somewhat harsh, my good Leroux," she continued, trying to put as much significance into her words as she dared; "but I feel sure that on consideration you will decide that submission is really the best in your own interests. Let me advise you to return to the factory now and to think over quietly the events of the past hour. I feel confident that by to-morrow you will have convinced M. de Maurel that you are a man worthy of confidence and of trust."
The moment she began to speak, a change came over Leroux' attitude. He had, indeed, forgotten for the time being and in the paroxysm of his rage, that within a few hours he would hold the employer whom he hated completely at his mercy—in the hollow of his grimy hand. Obviously—as Madame said—it was in his interest to appear submissive now. He wanted the next few hours to himself, to prepare the treacherous coup which was to satisfy both his greed and his desire to be revenged upon the execrated taskmaster. Any overt rebellion now might render his position doubly difficult later in the day, while he still had the power to rally his confederates around him. The advent of de Maurel upon the scene had, of a truth, been more than unfortunate; but all was not yet lost. He—Leroux—was still in possession of the Lodge, and, as far as he knew, his degradation to the ranks was not to take effect until after the close of day—not in any event till after he had been able to concert with his mates. All these thoughts coursed swiftly through his tortuous brain, and he contrived, after a moment or two of hesitation, to throw a reassuring look to Madame la Marquise. Then he turned to de Maurel, and said with an air of contrition and of shamefacedness:
"I was forgetting myself just now, was I not, M. le Maréchal? But even Madame la Marquise has deigned to admit that you have been unduly harsh with me. I have worked in your factories for over two years now; you will not, I hope, degrade me before all my mates in any hurry."
"I will act as I think best, my man," rejoined de Maurel, unperturbed. "You have wilfully placed yourself outside the pale of my consideration. At the same time, you may rest assured that I did not condemn you behind your back. Until I actually found you out in flagrant disobedience and disloyalty I would not have made a change in the administration of the factory. But anon at close of day all your mates will know that you have once more become one of themselves. Now go," he added more harshly, "and do not waste my time with further parleyings. When I return to the works presently, let me hear from Mathurin that you are back at your work, and that you are not trying by words or acts to incite the others to discontent. Remember that I know how to punish, and that I mean to bring back order and discipline in my works, if necessary at the cost of utmost rigour."
He pointed to the door with an authoritative gesture, and Leroux, no longer hesitating—eager, perhaps, to get out of the presence of his master—shuffled across the room. Madame was able to throw him a last, warning look, to which he responded by a significant nod of the head. Whether de Maurel actually saw either of these two signs, or whether his suspicions had been aroused during the interview, it were difficult to say. Certain it is that Leroux had already opened the door and was stepping across the threshold, when a peremptory "Stay!" from de Maurel brought him to a halt. He remained standing under the lintel, his hand upon the door and glancing back over his shoulder at Ronnay.
"What is it now?" he queried sullenly.
"You will vacate the Lodge at close of day, of course," said de Maurel curtly.
"Vacate the Lodge?" muttered Leroux. "I cannot vacate the Lodge all in a moment like that. What should I do with my clothes? Where should I sleep to-night?"
"In the compound," replied de Maurel dryly, "and you can collect your effects in an hour."
"It is like turning a dog out of his kennel," retorted Leroux with a snarl. "And who is to sleep at the Lodge to-night? Mathurin cannot leave the foundries. There are fifty thousand barrels of powder stacked in the shed behind the Lodge ... and fifty men working overtime to-night. Who is going to look after them? Who is going to see that the fifty thousand barrels of gunpowder are not blown into kingdom come through the carelessness of one of them?"
"Surely not you," rejoined de Maurel quietly, "whose disobedience is only equalled by your criminal carelessness. Yesterday, after closing hours, I found the side gate open and unguarded."
"Carelessness is not a crime," riposted Leroux in a more conciliatory tone. "We are all worked to death at the factory like galley-slaves ... I more than the rest.... I forgot to see to the side gate—what? It is not a crime. If I am to be turned out of my bed like a cur," he reiterated sullenly, "who, I should like to know, is going to sleep in it to-night?"
"I am," replied de Maurel simply.
"You!"
The word came simultaneously from two pairs of lips. Madame had spoken it instinctively, just as—instinctively—she had risen to her feet, and Leroux had uttered it hoarsely and raucously, as he suddenly turned on his heel, and once more faced the master whom he hated and feared.
"You?" he reiterated in an indefinable tone of incredulity, of rage and of terror.
"I spoke plainly enough," rejoined de Maurel unmoved. "Did you perchance think that I was jesting?"
For a moment or two the man was silent. He stood immovable and quite close to de Maurel, the while his shifty gaze tried to probe in the other's dark eyes what lay hidden within their depths. And Ronnay, from his great height, looked down on the coarse and evil face which was turned up to his; he, too, was trying to fathom all that was going on behind that narrow, receding forehead and behind the pale, protruding eyes, with their flaccid lids and lines around them of recklessness and dissipation. For that brief moment there was deadly silence in the room, silence through which the crackling of Madame's silk dress could distinctly be heard, as she was quivering from head to foot.
Then Leroux, challenged by de Maurel's fixed gaze, replied slowly:
"No!"
"Then see that the Lodge is vacated by ten o'clock this evening. Overtime work must be finished by then, and you can hand me over all your keys ere you go back to the compound."
It seemed as if Leroux meant to say something; once or twice he even opened his mouth, as if the words were about to tumble out of it; but every time that he looked up, he encountered de Maurel's gaze fixed quite steadily upon him, and after a while no doubt he realized that for the moment, at any rate, he was sorely at a disadvantage. So he contented himself with muttering a curse and a threat, after which he turned rapidly on his heel, and with a few quick steps he stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Madame had not moved since the moment when de Maurel's announcement that he intended to sleep at the Lodge that night had so completely staggered her that she felt momentarily dazed and quite unable to think. For a second or two it seemed to her as if her heart had completely ceased to beat, as if her body alone had remained sitting in the room there, while her spirit had fled on the wings of a nameless terror.
Ronnay de Maurel at the Lodge that night! What did that mean? How much did he know? What did he suspect? These were questions which went hammering through her brain while Leroux was finally cowed and dismissed. Now that she was once more alone with her son, it was obviously of the most vital importance that nothing in her attitude should betray the agitation which she felt. She had to make an almost superhuman effort to recover herself, to rise from her chair, and to steady her knees which were shaking under her. But all this she did, and even succeeded in saying, with every appearance of unconcern:
"I do think, my dear Ronnay, that you were unnecessarily harsh with the man. He is not a sympathetic personality I own, and, of course, he did very wrong in disobeying you; but now that we are alone, let me assure you that it is indeed my maid Marie whom he has been visiting of late. He knew that he had done wrong; your allusion to his own wife roused his surly temper, and undoubtedly he forgot himself. And now," she added glibly, "shall we forget this unpleasant incident? Fernande is in the garden. Shall we join her?"
"I thank you, Madame," he replied coldly, "but I must return home as soon as possible. My uncle cannot bear me out of his sight for very long, and there are many matters I must attend to before nightfall. An you will allow me to pay you my respects another time...."
"'Tis not much respect you have paid me to-day, my good Ronnay," rejoined Madame, who, indeed, by now was once again completely mistress of herself. "Why you should have dragged me into your quarrel with that creature I cannot imagine, and I ought to deal very severely with you for this want of consideration for me."
"I am sorry to have offended you, Madame, and fear me that I must do so again ere I go."
"'Twere not wise to do that, Ronnay," she retorted haughtily; "even a mother's indulgence hath its limits."
"I trust that I shall not be overstepping them, Madame, when I request you in all earnestness to refrain in future from any intercourse with my workpeople."
"Are you afraid that I might succeed in imbuing them with a spirit of loyalty to their King?"
"Whatever my motive, Madame, I earnestly pray you to follow my behests."
"You mean, your commands?"
"We'll call them that an you wish," he replied slowly.
"You forbid me to speak to your workpeople?"
"Absolutely."
"You are not over confident of their loyalty," she said, with a sardonic little laugh.
He made no reply. Madame's searching gaze was fixed upon him; she would have given worlds to divine his thoughts. On the whole, she felt reassured that he knew nothing of the vital issues which centred round the powder factory to-night. She was pretty certain that Leroux would try to see her again to-day—he had probably not left the château, and was waiting his opportunity to have speech with her as soon as de Maurel had gone. Something would have to be devised, something thought of, to meet the unlooked-for eventuality of de Maurel's presence at the factory to-night. But for this Madame required solitude and a calm view of the new situation. For the moment she was supremely conscious of the desire to be alone. Ronnay's presence now jarred well nigh unbearably on her nerves; the calm way in which he regarded her and dictated his will to her, with a certainty that she would obey, irritated her past endurance.
She turned away from him, for she did not choose to let him see how maddened she was, how thoroughly shaken was her usual haughty placidity. She walked deliberately to the window and turned her back on him, her aristocratic fingers beating a devil's tattoo against the panes.
"I'd best go now," suggested de Maurel, after a while, in that same awkward manner of his which seemed only to have dropped from him when he was dealing with Leroux.
"You are in your own house, my good Ronnay," rejoined Madame coldly, and without turning to look at him; "you have a perfect right to come and go as you please."
"Then am I your obedient servant," he said placidly.
Madame, from where she stood, could feel that his whole attitude was one of complete detachment. Her wrath and her scorn had no more effect on him than Leroux' threats of a while ago. She knew instinctively that he bowed and took his leave in that clumsy manner which she abhorred. Then she heard him moving across the room, opening the door, and finally shutting it behind him.
Even then she did not turn round. She remained standing beside the window, gazing out into the distance—seeing nothing and yet still gazing—her mind fixed upon the one great, all-absorbing puzzle. What was to happen to-night? She never moved, while her ears caught the sound of that firm, dragging step as it slowly died away in the distance. Then, when even its echo had ceased to reverberate through the silent house, she caught at the heavy curtain beside her, for suddenly in her whole body there was a relaxing of the tension on her nerves, and for the first time in her life Madame de Mortain felt ready to swoon. But even when she was all alone she would have scorned an unnecessary exhibition of weakness. A few seconds sufficed her to regain her self-control. She turned away from the window at last and sat down beside the heavy desk whereat she had so often penned enthusiastic reports to the Royalist agents. She drew pen and ink closer to her and sat thinking for a while. She had a mind to send a letter to de Puisaye—a runner might be found quick and clever enough to deliver it into the hands of the Chouan leader in the Cerf-Volant woods and to bring back his answer before nightfall.
In any case, before she wrote Madame was bent on seeing Leroux again. Leroux alone, she thought, would be able to cope with the situation as it now presented itself. Leroux was a man of resource, as his correspondence with Madame over the wall of the exercising ground had proved. He was not greatly troubled with scruples, and though he was by nature a coward, his temper, when roused, was apt to be both defiant and ugly.
Moreover, he was wilful, and would know how to act without any very explicit instructions, which Madame, in the absence of the chiefs, was not prepared to give him.
She put down her pen again, and pushing her chair away from the table, she rose with an impatient, nervy little sigh. Despite the warmth of this June afternoon she shivered, almost as if she felt cold.
Somewhere in the château a distant clock struck six.