The priest assumed a look of complete astonishment and perplexity. “I did not know,” he said, in a trembling voice. “But, I am certain there is some explanation.”
Dubonnet’s dull but honest countenance had flushed darkly and uneasily. He was enraged with his wife, it was evident. But it was also evident that in some things he agreed with her outburst. His pride made him breathe stormily.
“My husband!” cried Madame Dubonnet, with rising rage, “is a man of some learning. He could read and write long before Monsieur le Comte insisted that this cattle learn their letters and their books, also. He was a man of industry, and knew the people. Selflessly, he devoted himself to the interest of Monsieur le Comte, and enforced order and discipline upon these creatures. Yet, now, he must see them idling under the trees at noonday, their books before them, arguing with passion about matters which do not concern them, but which are treasonable, heretical and dangerous.”
She became more and more enraged. “I know whereof I speak, and this dull fool of mine acknowledges it with his blushes and his silence! We have a wayside shrine, as you know, Monsieur le Curé. With these own eyes of mine I saw a group of the peasants returning to their houses from the tavern. They were drunk. One of them discerned the shrine, and shouted: ‘Here is the image of the slavery of France!’ And Monsieur le Curé, may God strike me dead this moment if they did not spit, laughing and blaspheming, in the very face of the Holy Mother, Herself!”
The priest appeared horror-stricken, overcome. His eyes started from their hooded sockets. He crossed himself, with every appearance of terror and disbelief. Dubonnet and his wife followed suit, immediately. The air of the cottage ran with dread.
Then the priest spoke in a shaking voice: “You dare not tell me, Madame, that Monsieur le Comte de Vitry encourages this, advises this? You dare not tell me that he is instilling heresy in his people?”
Now Dubonnet found his tongue. He looked wrathfully at his wife, and exclaimed: “We tell you nothing of this, Monsieur le Curé. My good wife is loose with her tongue, out of her resentment and anger. Our lord encourages all pious observances, and has shown only friendliness to priests. He restored our Church, paid for the opening of the abbey, and is a close friend of the abbess. He has wronged me, it is true, and I am heart-broken. But in all justice it must be said that he has done all these things out of goodness of heart, and a belief that he accomplishes the welfare of his people—”
“Such as not punishing the blasphemers who spat in the face of the Holy Mother?” exclaimed Madame Dubonnet, with ferocious humor, and a glance at the priest.
Dubonnet subsided a moment, then muttered: “It is true that Monsieur le Comte declared that it was disrespectful, and childish, and intolerant of the beliefs of others. However, he pointed out that no one in that group was offended, that it was not done in the presence of those whose sensibilities might have been wounded. He has also declared that those blasphemers were free men on his estates, and so long as no one else was offended, and no rights of others injured, they acted in accordance with their convictions.”
“I was offended!” shrieked Madame, turning like a tigress upon her husband. “I was there!”
“Then, you were idling, woman,” said Dubonnet, sternly. “You were presumed to be in your own garden, attending to your vegetables. Why were you there?”
Madame was nonplussed. She bit her swollen lips. Then she said, lamely and with defiance: “Had I not a right to visit that shrine?”
“There is one in the garden,” her husband pointed out.
The priest smiled internally. But none of this appeared on his pale and shaken countenance.
He said, slowly and thoughtfully: “I have observed much, in my days in this glorious and contented spot. I have seen the happy condition of the people, the soundness and comfort of their good houses, the beauty of the little chapel, the health on the faces of the children. All this is very good. All thanks are due to the noble Comte de Vitry. If he has erred in some matters, he has accomplished much that is salubrious. I am afraid, my dear Madame, that personal pique regulates your ill opinion of your lord.”
“That is true,” said Dubonnet, eagerly, before his enflamed wife could answer.
“One must not harbor evil thoughts, however much provoked them,” urged the priest, beaming gently upon the woman.
“You are a saint, like all priests, Monsieur le Curé!” cried Madame. “But you are not fully aware of the wickedness which transpires in this ‘glorious and contented’ spot of yours! But I know,” she added, with a vicious and triumphant look.
The priest sank into a reverie. At intervals he shook his head, as though in distress. “No, no,” he muttered once or twice, and his distress appeared to increase. The man and his wife watched him with disturbed intentness.
Finally the priest looked up. He was pale. He smiled at them with the saintliness and the saddest of smiles.
“Be happy, my dear friends, that your beloved lord is not like another I have known. He, too, instituted reforms, such as these good things. But he had an evil motive. His thought was to pervert the souls of his people against Holy Mother Church, to seduce them into Protestantism. By his good works, he secured their confidence and their trust, and when this had been accomplished, he led them into heresy.”
Madame snorted with triumphant joy, jerked her head. But Dubonnet regarded the priest with horror and terror, wetting lips suddenly dry. Now all the narrow fanaticism of his inherent nature appeared in his eyes. He clenched his fists. He suddenly trembled.
“Not that!” he whispered, in a voice of dread and anguish. “Oh, not that! It is incredible! It is not to be believed!”
The priest rose. He laid his hand tenderly on the man’s shoulder, and gazed down into his stricken eyes.
“Praise God, Monsieur, that such is not the case, apparently, with your own dear master. Do not let suspicion enter your thoughts, even with such evidence as Madame has produced, before you. There are many pious and humble people on these estates. Guard your tongue, for it would be ingratitude to raise dark suspicions in their simple minds.”
He went on his way. He looked upon the moon, the white château, the lustrous valleys and the dark forests. A nightingale sang on a branch above him. The moonlight illuminated his face. He smiled in satisfaction.
CHAPTER XXXIII
It was a pale and lamenting bride whom Arsène brought home to the Hôtel de Vaubon. The Marquis had not been remiss in the decorating of the apartments the bridal couple were to occupy, and Clarisse found temporary alleviation for her distress in the gaiety and exquisite taste of her father-in-law, who adored her. Her boudoir of rose, blue and fairy gold aroused her listless spirits. It looked out, not on the teeming Champs-Elysées, but on a graceful garden, all green grottoes, white marble seats, bending willows, gleaming dark pools floating with jeweled water lilies, and beautiful graceful statues. A staircase led down from her balcony into these gardens, and at its foot were two great Chinese vases filled with the most beautiful flowers and ferns. She glided eagerly from room to room, exclaiming in her sweet flute of a voice, while the haggard Arsène followed, smiling faintly, pleased that his father, who was keeping pace with the delighted girl, had surpassed himself to give her pleasure. He pitied her, sadly, and felt for her the first tenderness of their association, a tenderness such as one feels for a bewildered child whom one has had to offend reluctantly.
As for the Marquis, he bridled excessively, curling one strand of hair over and over on his jeweled index finger, and avidly listening to the girl’s exclamations. He delighted himself in the joy of her flushed and pretty face, in the flow of her flaxen curls in the warm Paris breeze, in the panting of her fair and snowy bosom. She was lovingly appreciative. She squeezed his arm, and thanked him lavishly. With his understanding of the feminine taste, he had spared nothing to add beauty and delicacy in all the appointments. He had had a bed made for her, in the shape of a silver swan, and as she flung herself upon it with
little cries, he glanced with envy at his son, who was not looking at his bride, but was gazing with lassitude out upon the gardens.
The Marquis frowned, pulled his lip, but not so strongly that it marred the rouge upon it. The dog was, certes, not too appreciative of all the effort and thought which his father had expended for his happiness. Then the Marquis was suddenly and selflessly alarmed. For Arsène appeared ill of some obscure but lingering disease, his cheek gray, his lip colorless, his dark eyes ringed with mauve.
He waited until Clarisse had gone to give orders to her women, whose apartments adjoined hers. Then he took Arsène by the arm and forced his son to look at him. He saw grief and passionate anxiety in Arsène’s eyes.
“Forgive me,” said the young man. “I am not indifferent to all this finery, and this pleasantness, my father. But I have heard, from Madame de Tremblant, that the Duc has not returned. He is four weeks past his time.”
The Marquis frowned. He glanced about him cautiously, closed every door. Then, returning to Arsène, he whispered:
“‘Past his time?’ Where did he go? It is true he has been absent, but we believed he had visited his estates.”
Arsène hesitated. He grew even paler. Seeing this, the Marquis cried:
“No! You must not tell me! Have I said I shall not be discommoded by plots and counterplots?”
He was in real terror. He rubbed a dry patch of rouge on his lower lip feverishly. Then he glanced in the mirror, and carefully repaired the damage. But his hand shook. He said, gazing at Arsène in the mirror:
“Are you involved in this?”
Arsène nodded, in silence.
The Marquis swung about. His eyes were alive with fear.
“Is there nothing I can do to induce you to desist? Have you not outgrown foolish adventure, now that you have a bride, and are of some consequence at Court, and looked upon benignly by the Cardinal?”
Arsène said nothing. He fingered a fold of the drapery about Clarisse’s bed. He grew more haggard. Then at last he said: “I must go at once to Paul. He may have heard something.”
That de Vitry! Cursed be the day you first knew him! He has brought only fear and anxiety to this house.”
He began to pace the room with disordered but dainty steps.
“Is it not enough that Europe is teeming, rife with threats? Who knows but you will soon be called to engage in war? Is there not trouble enough, but you must sally forth to engage it in odd places?”
He paused beside Arsène. He seized him by both arms and forced the young man to give him full attention. His eyes were full of tears, and the paint upon them began to drip blackly upon his seamed and painted cheeks. Arsène felt a pang divide his heart. The Marquis spoke in a trembling voice:
“Look you, my son, I am an old man. I say this now, for the first time. I looked in my mirror this morning, and knew the truth. What is there left for me, in the world? I have suffered in my life; I have endured exile and humiliation, discontent and apprehension. I have never possessed what I have desired, for I have not known what I have desired. My life has been frivolous and superficial. Have I been happy in these latter years? Even I cannot say yes. I have plotted and intrigued, for I have a love for these things. But, now I am old, and it has been profitless. The women I have known sicken me with their memory. I rise more weary than I retired the night before. There is a dry and revolting taste upon my tongue, and it does not come entirely from a bad stomach.”
His jeweled hands tightened on Arsène’s arms, and his voice shook with wild sincerity:
“No man is responsible for another’s futility and sickness of heart. This I know. I have done much folly, and I blame no one but myself. But, does that decrease my weariness, my emptiness? At the last, what brings joy to a man’s soul? His good children, and his children’s children. He longs only for peace, in his family. I have been guilty of absurdities and foolishness, and now I am tired. Must you punish me, Arsène? Is there no pity for me, in your heart? Why will you not let me look upon you without fear, and rejoice in my grandchildren?”
He paused. His expression became full of vague wonderment. “My grandchildren! I have loathed the thought. But now it brings me a sense of exhilaration, and hope. Arsène, you will not deprive me of my son, and his sons?”
Out of his silly, vain, malicious and effeminate spirit, the old roué spoke with moving passion, with tears, with hands that held and trembled, with eyes that implored humbly. Arsène turned aside his head. He could not look upon his father’s tears without anguish. He put his hand over one of the hands that clutched him. Then he lifted it to his lips and kissed it with true and fervent love.
But he spoke resolutely, looking at his father with unfaltering gravity:
“You say there is a sickness in your heart and soul, my father. You declare you do not know its cause. But I do.”
The Marquis started. He tried to recoil, but it was Arsène who now held him.
“Would you have me, at your age, know the same sickness? Would you not spare me that, for the sake of your own father?”
The Marquis tore his arms from Arsène’s grasp. He retreated, looking at Arséne with wild terror, feeling himself naked. Arsène pursued him, with loving relentlessness.
“I was following behind you, my father, on the path that was leading to the same cul-de-sac, and futility, and selfdisgust. Now, I have left you. Do you wish me to return?”
The Marquis put his dark and sparkling hands to his lips. Over them his eyes glittered. Arsène waited.
“They will kill you!” whispered the Marquis, livid. “Do you not know that within a fortnight La Rochelle is to be attacked? Do you not know that they have already assassinated de Buckingham, who, for all his promises to a certain lady, had finally decided to give aid to the Rochellais?”
This was horrifying to Arsène. He forgot everything else. A faint scene began to form before his inner vision, and he saw the red face and beard of de Rohan.
“Who assassinated him?” he whispered, fiercely.
“It is said it was done by order of the Cardinal! After secret news had come that de Buckingham had repudiated his promise, and was preparing his navy to sail to la Rochelle.” The Marquis’ voice dwindled in fright, at the expression of Arsène’s face.
Arsène stared blindly before him, with a strange and evil smile.
“He did not repudiate his promise,” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “And so, he was removed, in order that the English might fulfill that promise against his desire.”
“What are you saying?” moaned the Marquis.
But Arsène was walking up and down the chamber, striking the palms of his hands together, with fierce exultation.
“It is war, then,” he said, unable to control himself. “To the death! It has come. Let it, then, come. We are ready.”
The door opened on a light laugh and Clarisse reentered. Color had returned to her pretty face, and vivacity. She ran to the distraught Marquis, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him with ardor. He looked down at her unseeingly, trying to smile. He placed his arm about her, but it was without true feeling.
She looked about her, laughing, for Arsène. But he had disappeared. She exclaimed aloud, pettishly, withdrew from the circle of the Marquis’ arm.
“He has disappeared again, that amiable husband of mine!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears. “Oh, my dear Marquis, I believed that when we should return to Paris that strange malaise of his would disappear, and he would again be my husband! But there is nothing but misery for me!”
The Marquis drew her to a seat. His face was gray and drawn under the rouge. He began to question the lamenting girl closely. He listened with grave attention, without malice, without smiles. And as he listened, he grew more despondent, more hopeless.
Arsène made his way with running steps down the gilt and marble steps of the circular staircase. His grandfather’s portrait gazed down at him with sudden and thrilling significance. He paused to contemplate it. Now it had a ne
w message for him, urgent and stern. While he gazed into those painted eyes, now so alive and portentous, his lackey, Pierre, following behind, adjusted his cloak.
“Pierre,” asked Arsène, suddenly, “do I resemble my grandfather? Look closely, and tell me truly.”
Pierre obediently scrutinized the portrait, and then his master. “There is not so much impatience, Monsieur, in this portrait. But, then, he was an older man when this was painted, and impatience dwindles with youth, ’tis said. Then wisdom comes.”
Arsène, laughing slightly, proceeded to the bottom of the staircase. He had hardly reached the lower floor when the Comte de Vitry was admitted.
The young Comte was as pale as death. When he saw Arsène, he smiled stiffly and feebly. The two young men embraced. “I received your message that you had returned, and would see me tonight,” whispered Paul. “Though I gathered that you hardly believed that I was in Paris.” He was breathing like a man heavily burdened. Arsène knew that he had come to announce calamity. He led his friend into the great empty drawing-rooms, where gilt mirrors lining the walls sent back to them countless ghostly replicas. Now that the Court season was in a state of suspension, all the multitude of golden chairs and marble tables and exquisite statuary in scattered niches were shrouded in linen cloths, and the draperies across the tall windows plunged the room into hot twilight.
Arsène began to realize how grave was this occasion, which had sent the dangerously suspect young Comte to him in broad daylight. It would not wait then, this terrible news. Arsène believed that he knew the ill tidings borne by his friend, and he said quickly, in a low voice: “I know, Paul. It is de Buckingham. My father has told me.”
Paul’s face changed. He shook his head slightly. “That is bad enough, pardieu! I heard it a day or two ago. But, this is worse.” And now Arsène perceived that his friend’s eyes were rimmed red with weeping.
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