THE SPRINGTIME OF THE YEAR
An hour later Mme. la Marquise de Mortain had been put in possession of all the facts which related to Ronnay de Maurel's quarrel with his brother and of his hasty exit from the château. Laurent had recovered from his sudden access of madness, and was not a little ashamed that Fernande had seen him at the very height of his outburst of fury against his brother, when fratricide was in his eye and in his uplifted hand. M. de Courson preserved a non-committal attitude. He was bound to maintain that de Maurel had been unduly provoked, yet owned that he was guilty of a grave social solecism in wearing the badge of the usurper in the house of his kinsfolk who were loyal adherents of the King. He thought the whole episode a grave pity, since it had undoubtedly jeopardized, if not entirely upset, every plan for ultimate conciliation.
"You promised me, Laurent," said Madame, with a frown of impatience, "that you would not quarrel with your brother."
"He exasperated me beyond endurance," retorted Laurent moodily, "and I consider that the manner in which he appeared here in Courson was an insult to us all."
It became very noticeable after a while that Fernande offered no opinion upon the brooding catastrophe which her timely interference alone had averted. At the midday meal, whilst every phase of the momentous interview with de Maurel was being discussed by the others, she remained strangely self-absorbed and silent. She was eating her dinner with a childish and hearty appetite, but whenever she sipped her wine, she looked over her glass and through the window opposite with eyes that seemed to dance with inward merriment and with elfish mischief, and whilst her father and her aunt talked and argued and conjectured, a whimsical smile played round the corners of her full, red lips.
"Something seems to have tickled your fancy, Fernande," said Laurent at last with some irritation, when on two separate occasions the young girl failed to reply to a direct question addressed to her by him.
"Something has," Fernande replied demurely.
"May we know what it is?" queried Mme. la Marquise. "The situation," she added tartly, "has become so grave for us all that, personally, I fail to detect any humour in it."
"That's just it, ma tante," rejoined Fernande gaily. "You fail to detect any humour in to-day's occurrence, so does father—so does Laurent. That is just what seems to me so ludicrous. The situation may be grave, but it is also very funny, and whilst you were all lamenting over it I was turning it over in my mind how best we can utilize it to our advantage."
"You are far too young, Fernande," interposed M. le Comte dryly, "to turn over any grave situation in your mind."
"Let us allow, then, that I have said nothing," retorted Fernande, with the same demure casting down of her eyes, which implied that a fund of worldly knowledge was concealed behind her smooth, white brow.
"Nay, my dear Baudouin," rejoined Mme. la Marquise sharply, "'tis like a father to belittle his own child's wisdom. I for one am over-ready to listen to advice wherever it may come from. I feel so guilty about the whole affair, for I fear me that we have gravely compromised the interests of His Majesty by quarrelling hopelessly with my son.
"I had made such firm resolutions," she added with a sigh, "to conciliate him, to make friends with him if possible. His help—or, failing that, his neutrality—would have been of such immense value to our cause. I had dreams of establishing myself at La Frontenay, of using the place as an arsenal—as headquarters for our leaders ... of suborning or winning over the workmen at the factory.... I am heart-broken at the thought that my own foolishness hath all in a moment destroyed my best laid schemes."
"Nay, ma tante," here broke in the young girl, with an elfish toss of her dainty head, "your schemes have not yet gone agley, that I can see. My cousin Ronnay—he is my cousin, is he not?—has of a truth departed hence in high dudgeon—but surely he can be brought back?"
"Never!" asserted M. de Courson emphatically.
And Mme. la Marquise shook her head. "No one can gauge the obstinate temper of a de Maurel—and Ronnay is the living image of his father. It was a delicate business to get him to come here at all. I declare that I am at my wits' ends how to bring him back."
For a moment or two Fernande de Courson was silent; a gentle glow suffused her cheeks, her eyes danced with mischief, her whole face was lit up with inward merriment.
"Will you let me try?" she asked suddenly.
"You, Fernande?" exclaimed Mme. la Marquise. "What in the world can you do in the matter?"
"Quite a great deal, ma tante," replied Fernande with that demure little air, which sat so quaintly upon her laughter-loving face.
"Ronnay de Maurel," here interposed M. de Courson, "is not bait for a feminine fisher. If you have thoughts of casting your nets in that direction, my child...."
"I for one would protest," broke in Laurent hotly.
"Protest against what?" queried the girl, and she turned wide, inquiring eyes on the young man, eyes in which injured innocence, unfettered mischief and provoking coquetry were alike expressed.
"Against your sowing seeds of hope of ... of ..." stammered Laurent with a scowl; "against your exercising your arts on that lout, who no doubt is filled with self-conceit, and might imagine things which...."
Fernande leaned back in her chair, and her rippling childlike laugh roused the echoes of the ancient walls around.
"Oh, you funny, jealous old Laurent!" she said breathlessly. Then seeing that the young man still looked morose and wrathful, she went on, with a quick turn to seriousness: "You are childish, my dear cousin. Let me begin by reminding you that your jealousy is not only unjustifiable but singularly out of place. The interests of His Majesty being at stake, it behoves us all to sharpen our wits by mature reflection, rather than to dull them by senseless outbursts of temper. Ma tante declared just now that M. de Maurel's wealth and influence would be of inestimable value to His Majesty, and yet owned that she was at her wits' ends how to bring him back repentant or reconciled to Courson. Well, where ma tante owns to having failed, I still believe in success; and though father says that I am too young to turn a grave situation over in my mind, I am convinced that I can turn the present one to our advantage."
"But how, my dear child?" sighed Madame dejectedly, "how?"
"I don't know yet," rejoined Fernande, "but I would dearly love to try."
"To try and do what?" queried Laurent, who was by no means mollified.
"To make the bear dance to my piping," replied Fernande archly.
"That is what I could never allow."
"If ma tante grant me leave," quoth Fernande dryly, "you, my dear cousin, will not be asked to give your consent."
"Fernande!" exclaimed the young man, in a tone of passionate reproach.
"There! there!" she said gently, "do not look so glum. It was you, remember, who talked of sowing seeds of hope in the impressionable field of M. de Maurel's fancy.... Father and tante Denise spoke of the necessity of making friends with that untamed bear, and I...."
"Yes? You, Fernande?" queried Laurent, his glowering eyes fixed moodily upon the exquisite face that smiled so tantalizingly upon him.
"I," she said lightly, "have no other wish save to bring back that same untamed bear to heel, and to make him pay his respects to ma tante; to bring him back to Courson, not once but often and willingly, until we are all the best of friends."
Then as her sally was greeted by a shrug of the shoulders from her father, a sigh of despondency from her aunt and a further scowl from Laurent, she continued more earnestly:
"Surely, if M. de Maurel's friendship is so important to the interests of His Majesty as ma tante and father think, it is worth while making an effort to gain it. No harm can come in trying. If I fail we shall be no worse off than we are now."
"You will fail, my dear," concluded Mme. la Marquise, with her usual authoritative decision. "You will fail. No de Maurel has yet succumbed to a woman's charm unless interest or obstinacy prepared him for the fall."
"Well, in this case obstinacy mayhap will prepare M. de Maurel for the fall. Laurent," added the young girl, turning once more to her cousin with merry, glowing blue eyes, "will you take me in a level bet that this day month Ronnay de Maurel will dance to my piping like a tamed bear? He will at my suggestion ask you and ma tante to take up your quarters at La Frontenay, he will close his eyes to everything that we don't wish him to see. His money and his influence will be at our disposal. With his help we'll dethrone that impudent Bonaparte whom at present he worships and who has dared to seat himself upon the throne of France, and we'll bring His Majesty King Louis XVIII. back to his own heritage again."
She rose to her feet, and with mock solemnity she held up her glass. "Long live Ronnay de Maurel!" she said, "by the grace of God and the machinations of Fernande de Courson the most loyal adherent His Majesty has ever had."
Then she placed her small white hand on Laurent's shoulder.
"I entreat you not to look so glum, dear cousin," she said, with that tender earnestness which at times lent to her dainty face an additional and contrasting charm. "Your own courage and loyalty will have their due; the courage and loyalty of all those who have sacrificed everything for King and country will have their just reward. But, remember, that the prospects of the cause which we all have so much at heart are none too rosy just now. We may despise Bonaparte for an usurper and impudent knight of industry, but we must grant that he is passing clever, and that he holds the allegiance of the nation at this moment in the hollow of his hand. We cannot go with flying banners through the villages and towns of Normandy and rally enthusiastic recruits to our armies; we shall have to go very warily to work and meet cunning with cunning ere we succeed. We want M. de Maurel's wealth, we want his influence. You knew that this morning, dear Laurent; ma tante knew it and desired it passionately. Yet you both quarrelled with him within half an hour of his arrival here."
"He insulted my mother," broke in Laurent hotly. "He...."
"I know he did," she rejoined quietly. "He is a bear—one with a sore head and an ill temper. But even flies must needs be caught with honey. You all think me very babyish and stupid, I know! Father says that I am too young even to weigh a serious situation in my mind. Well, that may be so, I don't know. But childish instinct hath oft been a guiding star, where hoary-headed wisdom has groped in the dark, and in any case, there is no one in the whole of France who has the cause of our King more at heart than I have."
"We all know that, my child," said the Comte gravely; "it was far from me to impugn your loyalty."
"Only my wisdom—eh, father mine? But 'tis not wisdom that is required now. Wisdom has quarrelled with Ronnay de Maurel—guilelessness shall bring about the reconciliation. M. de Maurel's wealth shall be placed at the service of the King on the faith of Fernande de Courson!"
"God hear you, my child!" concluded Mme. la Marquise fervently.
After that the conversation drifted to other subjects. Laurent remained morose until the end of dinner and Fernande made no effort to cheer him up. In the late afternoon she wandered out into the open. The garden was a mere tangle of weeds and overgrown shrubs; there were neither lawns nor parterres, but it smelled good of fresh earth and spring rains, of wet young leaves and opening blossom.
Fernande had slipped a coarse gardening apron over her white gown and, gardening tools in hand, she set to work to disentangle a fragrant hedge of hawthorn and lilac from a mass of encroaching weeds. Despite the sorrowful outlook in her young life, despite the cares and heavy thoughts which weighed upon her father and her friends and kindred—almost despite herself—she felt singularly gay and elated. It was not the fashion to be merry in the circles of these émigrés who had just returned to their devastated homes, through the clemency of the Corsican usurper; tempers had to be sober and looks demure. The cause of the King had to be fought again; thoughts of danger, of conspiracy and self-sacrifice—aye! even of crime—all in a just cause—were in the air. Women, men, young girls and boys were prepared to shed the last drop of their blood in order to restore the Bourbons to their heritage, even though the nation had ceased to want them, and to oust from his self-constituted throne the soldier of fortune—the Emperor, who to many was still the little corporal, and who was the idol of France.
These aims were so high and so serious, that levity appeared out of place. Mme. la Marquise never smiled, M. de Courson was a pattern of seriousness, Laurent was ofttimes self-absorbed and always thoughtful, and Fernande—when her natural gaiety, her youth and healthful spirits caused inward laughter to bubble up and a song to rise to her throat—would take refuge in the tangled garden and share her joy in life with the birds.
She was fond of the solitude, the quietude of those avenues of limes, wherein the call of mating birds alone disturbed the silence that reigned around. Fernande was very young still—little more than a child, scarce out of the school-room, wherein the only lesson of life which she had learned was that of loyalty to a degenerate cause, of sacrifice to ideals and political aims which she really was far too inexperienced thoroughly to understand. Her heart was full of the aspirations of a healthy young being who sees life lying a rose-coloured dream stretched out before her, of a desire for a happiness at which she could only vaguely guess, for joy and gaiety, for poetry and for beauty. And it was full, too, of that vague longing for love which stirs the sensibilities of every woman the moment she steps across the threshold of childhood. But of this Fernande de Courson was no more conscious than is the rose-bud when it opens its sweet-scented corolla to the kiss of the sun. Ever since her fair curls had been dressed to the top of her head she had looked on Laurent de Mortain as her future husband. Never in so many words had she plighted her troth to him, but she knew that she loved him with a tenderness that no other emotion in her could surpass. He was so handsome, and his voice had a delicious tremor in it when he spoke her name. No other man had touched her heart as he did, no words of love spoken by other lips—and she had heard many—had caused the same delicious blush to rise to her cheeks. She was never so gay as when, hand in hand, with Laurent, she could wander through the peaceful lanes of Devonshire in far-off England, even though the shadow of poverty and of exile had already darkened her young life. She was never so happy as when Laurent sat or knelt beside her, and in impassioned tones spoke to her of the future, when the sombre cloud of anarchy and rebellion would be lifted from fair France, and he and she together would enjoy the delights of repatriation, of home and comfort and peace.
Yet in spite of all this, in spite of her deep love for Laurent and her delight in his company, Fernande on this late afternoon of early May was conscious of a slight feeling of impatience when she suddenly spied him coming towards her from the terrace. Her head was so full of exciting and riotous thoughts that she longed for solitude so that she might co-ordinate them. The project which she had so boldly formulated a while ago of bringing Ronnay de Maurel back to heel like a repentant cur, had of a certainty been the result of impulse, but not of a thoughtless one. It had its origin in the flash from his dark eyes as they met hers for one second across the uplifted arm of a would-be fratricide. During that one second Fernande, with that swift intuition which some women possess, had read each varying emotion as it became reflected in their depths: wrath, puzzlement, bewilderment—then that gradual softening of the sinister scowl, the changing hue of the orb from black to a deep violet, the look of self-consciousness and of shame. Fernande had seen the pathetic and furtive glance cast on the stained blouse and the toil-worn hands; she had seen the stealthy grasp of that bit of crimson ribbon, the one brief flash of pride wherewith the outraged soldier clasped the insignia of glory to his breast.
And from out that one peep into a man's troubled soul Fernande had woven her project of winning him to the cause which was so dear to her heart.
The project being still immature, Fernande had wandered out into the garden with the intention of thinking out its preliminary details; she was not attuned to Laurent's society just then. In her heart she knew that he disapproved of her plan; that his jealousy—which at all times was on the qui-vive—would flare up at the first bond of harmony which she would succeed in effecting with Ronnay de Maurel. Indeed, she would have need of all her sharp wits and her feminine wiles to bring the two brothers together again and yet to avert a quarrel more deadly than the first.
For the moment she was intent on her work, and not prepared to listen to Laurent's tender reproaches. The weeds were many, and despite the earliness of the year had already become rank. She had been humming a little ditty quietly to herself: "Et ron et ron! petit Pataplon! Il était une bergère!" But now, when she heard Laurent's footsteps on the path behind her, the song died upon her lips. She made pretence not to hear his coming, nor did she turn her head in his direction until he called her name:
"Fernande!"
Even then she appeared too busy to do more than respond quite calmly: "Yes, Laurent. Is that you?"
Then, as he remained silent, and seemed to have come to a halt immediately beside her, she continued serenely:
"I am sorry if you want me to come for a walk just now. I must finish clearing this piece of hedge. Will you go and get a hoe and lend me a helping hand?"
"I will in a moment," he replied, "but not just yet. I must speak to you, Fernande—just for a few minutes.... Will you turn to me and put down those tools a while? Upon my soul, it is passing serious ... Fernande!" he reiterated more earnestly, seeing that with strange obstinacy the young girl still kept her head resolutely bent to her work.
But at his insistence she threw down her tools and straightened her young figure. "What is it?" she queried as she faced him, with a mocking glance in her blue eyes.
He took her hand, which for just the space of a second she tried to free from his grasp.
"Fernande," he said in a tender tone of appeal, "you are not angry with me, are you?"
"Angry? You foolish Laurent!" she retorted gently. "Why should I be angry?"
"You did not mean all that you said at table?" he insisted.
"What did I say?"
"You implied by your words that ... that it was not within my rights to control your actions."
"Well," she asked, holding her tiny head a little to one side, and giving him an arch look of coquetry from beneath her long lashes, "is it?"
"Fernande," he entreated.
"Well, what is it?"
"You don't know how you hurt me, when you speak so flippantly. If you only knew how every word from your dear lips sinks into my heart! The cruel words make it ache so that I could cry out with the pain ... and one sweet word from you makes me so happy that I would not exchange this earth for the most glorious corner of paradise."
"Dear, foolish Laurent!" she sighed. Indeed, her heart was, as usual, inexpressibly touched by his ardour. She could see that his eyes were moist with unshed tears. She allowed him to take both her hands and to draw her nearer to him; she did not protest when anon his arm stole round her waist, and he buried his face against her shoulder. Indeed, she felt a wonderful fondness at this moment for the companion of her youth, the playmate of her childhood in the far-off days in England, when they were all poor and wretched together and had only each other to cling to, to trust, to look to for solace and for sympathy. She felt his burning kiss upon her neck, and with her small hand she stroked his hair and patted his cheek with a tender, almost maternal gesture.
The day was fast drawing in. The softness of the night—of a spring night laden with the fragrance of opening buds and ripening blossom—wrapped the sweet tangle of young growth in its embrace. The lilac and the hawthorn were weighted with April rain, overhead the branches of a young lime quivered in the evening breeze ere it sent down a shower of scented drops upon the two young people who were clinging to one another in the pure embrace of budding love. The mating birds in the branches of the old elms had already gone to rest; from far away came the monotonous croaking of frogs and the soft call of the wood-pigeons from the tangled woodland close by.
"Fernande," reiterated Laurent with growing intensity, "you do love me, do you not?"
And nothing could have been more tender, nothing more serene than her reply, and the kiss wherewith she just touched his hair:
"Of course I love you, dear Laurent. You have so often asked me that. Why do you ask again?"
"Because I want to make sure of you, Fernande," he retorted vehemently, as both his arms closed round her now. "I want to make sure," he reiterated passionately. "I would give my soul to know what goes on behind that exquisite, white forehead of yours. Oh, of course you are a child: you don't understand—you cannot—the torture which the serenity of your blue eyes inflicts on me at moments like this, when I long to kiss you and yet feel that your sweet lips will not answer to mine with the same thrill of passion which has gone nigh to searing my soul."
"Dear Laurent," murmured Fernande with tender indulgence. She disengaged herself quite gently from his arms, and then coolly divested herself of her gardening apron.
"There," she said gaily, "it is too dark to go on weeding. We'll go for a walk, dear cousin, an you have a mind. Dear, foolish Laurent! I believe you are ready to cry! Why, on such a lovely spring evening as this I feel as if I could run singing and shouting through the woods! Come with me to the lake. I feel sure the fairy pigeons will be cooing to-night, and the white dove rise from its watery prison, never to be captured again. You know the legend, dear cousin, do you not? Old Matthieu told it me in his quaint, halting way. Come to the lake and I'll tell it you. Perhaps we'll see the white pigeon. If we do, it means that we have found lasting happiness...."
"More like we'll only hear the grey ones," he rejoined with a sigh. "Yes, I know the legend of the fairy pigeons—but they are not like to foretell happiness for any of us just now."
"Father is very anxious," she mused.
"So are we all. We are arming the countryside as fast as we can, but we have so little money ... so few opportunities for drilling the raw village lads in the use of arms, so little place wherein to keep our stores. Fouché's spies are everywhere. One does not know whom one can trust. Oh, if we had La Frontenay and Ronnay de Maurel's wealth at our disposal, King Louis would be back in France ere the leaves which are now unfolding have fallen from the trees."
"You shall have both. That is to be my affair."
"But...."
"Nay!" she broke in a little impatiently; "but methought you had the cause of our King at heart. Are you going to allow petty jealousy to stand in the way of success?"
"I would give my life for our cause, Fernande," he retorted firmly. "You know that. But," he added, with one of those sudden waves of passion which had the power through their very might to raise a responsive thrill in the young girl's heart, "God help me! I do believe that if I had to choose 'twixt my duty to my King and my love for you, I would forget everything for the sake of my love."
Darkness was closing in around them, and they wandered together through the broken-down monumental gates of the park, in the stone ornaments of which thrushes and finches had built their nests. An intoxicating scent of lilac was in the air; Laurent's arm was round his beloved, and she leaned against his shoulder. The gathering gloom lent him courage; he poured into Fernande's shell-like ear the full phial of his impassioned eloquence, and for once it seemed to him as if she responded with all the fervour of her young soul. The danger which encompassed him, the duty which he set out to fulfil, the spirit of self-sacrifice which caused him to give up a life of ease and of pleasure for stern adherence to his ideals—all helped to render him dear to Fernande; and when, leaving the park behind them, they wandered in the woods, where at their feet the dead leaves of yester year made a soft carpet whereon they walked, and where overhead soft, almost imperceptible twitter of birds proclaimed the spring of the year, Laurent suddenly raised her face to his and mutely asked for that first kiss which would transform a girl's tenderness into a woman's love.
She looked up into his eyes and thought him handsome and brave, and when his lips at last sought hers, she gave caress for caress with all the selflessness born of springtime, of youth, of a passionate yearning for happiness.