A Sheaf of Bluebells by Baroness Orczy - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXV

THE WHITE PIGEON

I

Fernande waited in the hall below while Madame la Marquise went upstairs to see the last of her son. Half a dozen men from the La Frontenay works formed a guard of honour for the dead.

It was impossible even for Fernande, who knew her aunt so well, to guess at what Denise de Mortain felt. Her heart was so little capable of grief, that it was doubtful whether she really mourned Laurent, or whether pride, in that he died a hero's death, acted as a soothing balm upon her sorrow. When half an hour later she rejoined her niece in the small boudoir downstairs, she appeared outwardly quite calm, and talked of nothing but the new plans which already were seething in her brain, and which were destined to retrieve the mistakes of the night.

"De Puisaye was wise," she said, "not to jeopardize his forces. They are practically intact, ready for a coup which must in the near future be successful. We fell into many grave errors this time, and we shall now stand in the happy position of being forewarned."

Fernande thought it best to say nothing. What had been the use of arguing that Marshal de Maurel was also forewarned now?

"I have not given up the idea of a possible seizure of the La Frontenay works," Madame went on in her cold and placid way, just as if all her schemes of the past twelve months had not culminated in the death of the one being in the world whom she had professed to love; "but I still think that my own original idea when I first came to Courson last year, of being in open amity with my son Ronnay, was the wisest after all. I must speak with your father and with de Puisaye about that."

Fernande kept back, with difficulty, an exclamation of horror. More schemes! more intrigues! more tortuous by-paths! Was the whole of her young life to be linked indissolubly to this endless chain of treachery? Was she to be passively acquiescent—a tool, where need be—whenever plots were hatched that revolted her every sense of loyalty and of truth? Fortunately for her, Madame was too deeply engrossed in her own calculations to pay much attention to her, and after a while she—Fernande—was able to escape out of the boudoir where the atmosphere had already become stifling.

With aching heart she bade a final adieu to Laurent—the companion of her childhood, the man for whom she had such a tender affection and whom she had never loved, but also the man to whom she would have remained rigidly true, despite all that he would have made her suffer.

Then she went out into the park.

Yet another year of neglect had gone over the terraces and the walks. It looked perhaps a shade more tangled, a shade more forlorn. The heavy rain of the night before had broken down the slender, unpruned twigs of the roses, and the paths were littered with young branches torn from the parent trees. The scent of wet earth mingled with the fragrance of heliotrope and white acacia; there was a riot of bird-song in the old chestnuts and a hum of bees in the avenue of limes.

Fernande instinctively had wandered to the postern gate which gave on the apple-orchard. It was ajar, and she pushed it open and wandered out on the wet grass and under the apple-trees, already weighted down by the wealth of young fruit.

From the village distant a kilomètre or so from the park gates there came the sound of a clock striking seven. The air was redolent with the scent and savour of an early summer's morning. Fernande breathed it in with delight. The wet leaves of the apple-trees sent down an occasional shower of raindrops over her hair as she passed, and now and then she stooped to pick a sprig of brilliant-hued wild sorrel or a clump of snow-white marguerites.

How lovely was the world! Why should men and women plot and scheme to make it hideous with their own passions and their manifold treacheries?

As Fernande left the orchard behind her and struck a narrow path that wound its way through some ripening wheat-fields, a lark rose from the ground close by, and its gladsome song filled the lonely wanderer's heart with a sudden joy. She looked around her and recalled every phase of that journey, which she had taken a year ago in the strong arms of the man who knew so well how to love. From him there had never come reproach, mistrust, misunderstanding. Even at the hour when she had hurt him most deeply, he told her that he understood, and if—after the events of the past night—they were destined to be for ever parted from one another, she would still retain the certainty that in his great and simple heart he would never harbour one bitter thought against her. Her friends and kindred, her own father, her promised husband, had hatched a dastardly and murderous plot against him, and for her sake he had found it in his heart to gather his dead brother in his arms, and bring him in honour and loving gentleness to his last resting-place.

And Fernande, with a sudden gesture of heartfelt longing, stretched out her arms in the direction where the young birch and chestnut of La Frontenay woods gleamed through the golden haze of this midsummer morning.

"Take me, my beloved," she murmured under her breath; "let me rest in your strong arms again. Let me forget the world and its intrigues and its treachery within the safe harbour of your sheltering love!”

II

She wandered on, almost like a sleep-walker in a happy dream; her feet and the hem of her gown were soaked through with the sweet-smelling raindrops that still clung to the grass; the wet branches of the young chestnuts beat against her face as she plunged into the coppice. Her lips were parted in a strange, elusive smile, and her eyes gazed into the distance, right through the thicket, as if a compelling voice was calling to her from afar.

A soft breeze stirred the branches of the mountain-ash overhead, the scent of elder and acacia went to her head like wine.

He was waiting for her beside the silent pool, and as soon as she saw him, she knew that he had called to her, and that the compelling power of his love had drawn her to him, through park and orchard and fields, in answer to his call.

She stood still on the other side of the pool, and for a moment they looked across at one another, with the banks of moss and meadowsweet between them and a whole world around of love and trust and promise of happiness. No words could be spoken between them, because there was so much still that must part them for a while. He understood that well enough, for he always understood; but she had come to him on this the first morning, when his every thought, every feeling, had called to her to come, and now he would be satisfied to wait—that was his way—to wait and bide his time, knowing by the look in her eyes, by the unspoken avowal on her sweet lips, that she would come again.

The breeze sighed among the branches of the trees, the birch whispered to the larch, the chestnut to the oak, and a gentle ripple stirred the twigs of the meadowsweet. And from somewhere within the bosom of the silent pool there came the soft and melancholy call of a number of wood-pigeons.

And to this man and this woman, who stood here in a world of their own, a world peopled with angels and fairies and sprites, and with everything that is most fair and most exquisite, it seemed as if from out the pool there rose something ethereal, luminous and white, something that was so sacred and pure, that it rose straightway heavenward, and was soon merged with the fleecy clouds overhead, whilst the call of the fairy pigeons was stilled.

The trance-like vision lasted only a moment. De Maurel slowly dropped on his knees, and above the murmurings of the wood Fernande heard the voice of the man she loved calling to her:

"You will come to me, my beloved?"

And she replied: "Very soon!"

THE END