CHAPTER XVIII.
A SURPRISE.
The quartet that journeyed back to solitude was not a lively one, foreach of the four occupants of the travelling berline was fullyengrossed by private speculations. The chevalier was nervous anduneasy, having received severe mental castigations at the hands ofbrother Pharamond. The marquis avoided his wife's eye, and glancedwistfully now and again at his Mentor, as though to crave support insome matter of which his conscience was afraid. The abbe smiled andnodded encouragement at intervals, and then grew grave again, for heknew that he was on the point of playing a trump card, and playersmiscalculate sometimes as to what remains in the adversary's hand.Gabrielle, gazing calmly from the windows, seemed scarcely aware offlitting trees and passing villages, or the constantly recurring jerkystoppages for the change of steaming horses. She did not remark thealtered attitude of the rustics, who scowled at the emblazonedcarriage panels, with hat on head, pipe in mouth, and arms crossedtightly over chest. A party of fugitive aristos, fleeing from thesinking ship like other rodents. Well, let them go. France was wellrid of such vermin that were not worth the rope and lantern. As theyapproached their destination, some recognized the coronet and coat,and made furtive awkward bows. The Gange family were not so bad asothers, report said, and as for the lady, sure no wickedness couldlurk in her mild angel's face.
She was about to see her darlings, and her spirits rose, for thesojourn in the capital had been a long one. Of course they were safein Toinon's care, but the mother had been weaving ingenious plans fortheir advantage, which she longed to execute forthwith. And then shefell a wondering as to how, under fresh auspices, they would all geton at Lorge. So far as the fortune was concerned there was naught todread. Were her secret fears due, indeed, as had been suggested, tomorbid fancy? No. Life would be far from easy; but a sturdy heartarmoured in love's panoply can surmount difficulties. She knew toowell now that, at best, the brothers looked on her existence as anecessary evil. She could see it in the lack-lustre eyes even of thechevalier, who, doubtless, had been well tutored and taught to believefalse tales. The poor drivelling chevalier! What his hazy views mightbe on any subject was of little consequence. As friend or foe he wasequally harmless. It was well to have been undeceived as to the abbe,and to know him for what he was--plausible, cunning, double-faced,vindictive. Why should she, Gabrielle, fear him? Forewarned,forearmed. If she placed no trust in her smooth brother-in-law--heldstudiously aloof from him--he could not betray or do her injury. Yetwas this so? What of the horoscope and her own presentiment? To remainunmolested was overmuch to hope for. And then the marquise foundherself marvelling what form his too certain malevolence would take.He would, of course, misconstrue all her acts and read them awry toClovis. Alas! as things were, even that no longer mattered. For thefuture, so long as they lived, husband and wife would each go theirways, tacitly agreeing not to annoy each other, and in the ancientchateau there was so much room that the pair need never meet. A sadcondition of affairs to have arrived at, and yet--is it not best tosave painful fretting of soul and futile nerve friction by boldlyconfronting and accepting the inevitable in all its ugliness?
When we have given up crying for the moon, we can coldly contemplatethe once-desired prize, critically examine each blemish, and shallprobably be surprised at ourselves for having yearned after so spottyan object. The Marquis de Gange, deprived of glamour robes, was but acommonplace mortal, after all. Not good; not particularly bad.Unpractical, lazy, given to useless theorizing. Sure, in a previouslife, he must have been a comely ox, fond of swishing its tail in thesunshine and blinkingly chewing the cud, with its legs to the knees ina puddle. Reflexion brought conviction that the diabolical woman who,happily, was gone for ever, had, out of sheer spitefulness, smirchedher own fair fame without a cause. She had avowed herself themarquis's mistress merely to irritate his wife, just as she hadthreatened to warp the children's minds to frighten the mother intorashness. Poor distracted wife and mother. What could have possessedher--Gabrielle marvelled--to have gone through that performance in thewater? Could she really and seriously have been so acutely affected bythe idea that Mademoiselle Brunelle had succeeded in occupying theplace within her husband's heart for which she had herselfunsuccessfully longed? What a foolish and unnecessary fraying of heartstrings! Was she so blinded as to have been unable to realize that thething he called his heart was so full of selfishness that there lackedroom for any other feeling? No. Even though she loved him then, it wasnot wholly on his account that she had suffered. It was the loss ofher children, apparently complete and irrevocable, that had goaded herto mad despair. Well, well, Heaven had been merciful. The woman hadbeen driven forth--her baleful shadow would cross her path no more.The darlings were her own again. The future was not so black afterall. She would, on arrival at the chateau, place things on an entirelynew footing; would take up her quarters in the wing erst occupied bythe objectionable Aglae, and, by aid from without, continue theeducation of Victor and Camille, which, during the last year, had beensorely neglected. As for the rest of the chateau, the three brothersmight have it to themselves, and what they did and how their time wasspent, so long as they did not tease her, should be no concern ofhers.
Thus, I daresay, has the ingenuous lamb, clothed in the white wool ofits simplicity, thought to cope, with success, against the hoveringwolf and snarling panther. There is room enough for all of us, it hasbleated. Let me gambol on this square of sward, and do you frolic asyou choose beyond. The artless thing cannot discern the smacking chopsof wolf or hungry leer of panther, or perceive that it is its ownquivering pink limbs that the two are after, and which they arepreparing presently to rend. If Gabrielle could have read the thoughtsthat were working in two busy skulls within that rumbling berline shemight have, perhaps, gazed out of the window with less hopefulequanimity.
Clovis, touched on his rawest points, was burning with exasperation.As Pharamond had truly declared it was absolutely monstrous of the olddonkey who was dead to have placed a noble of ancient race and loftylineage in so ridiculous a predicament; and it was just one shade moreshocking that his never-sufficiently-to-be-execrated daughter shouldhave so meanly taken advantage of the situation. She had actuallydared, with an innocent simper which set all his nerves twanging, totell him one morning to his face that he was to live on an allowance!He, her lord and master! Whether the allowance was to be large orsmall was beside the question. He was firmly resolved, and supportedtherein by Pharamond, utterly to repudiate the allowance. She hadhumiliated him once, and was bent on doing so again and again--wasunwise enough, having planted a dagger, to turn it in the wound,thereby rousing the victim out of sheer pain to make a desperateeffort of retaliation. By the terms of a will which she had beensufficiently insolent to make, her fortune was to pass over his headfor the behoof of his own children, who would be thus emancipated fromany control on his part. If she could act so outrageously and show soclearly how little she respected his feelings, she could not expecthim to consider hers. And with it all there was a sham veneer ofdeference that was but added insult. "Clovis," she had said, whencomposedly making the announcement, "I have thought it all overcarefully, and am acting for the best according to my lights. I shouldlike you to feel assured that the revenues I hand to you for your ownuse are, indeed, your own; I mean that however ill you may behave tome I will never withdraw them, for I do not wish you to feel, on yourgood behaviour, at the mercy of your wife."
There was a lofty air of magnanimity about this that was sheerimpertinence. It was as though she were to say:--"I know you to be aworm while I am an aeglet, and the lower you may elect to grovel, Ishall myself, by contrast, appear to soar the higher." Was it a craftyway of putting him on his honour? Was he to understand that, ofcourse, he must respect the wishes in all things of so magnanimous abenefactress? It was treating him like a schoolboy, and, whatever heshould elect to do to show his independence would be justifiable,however unpalatable it might prove t
o the self-elected schoolmistress.
Thus, by the most crystalline of demonstrations was it proved toconscience that reproaches were out of place, and that thatimportunate monitor would do well to go to bed. But for all thatClovis felt secretly ashamed of himself as well as a little frightenedabout something he had done, and impelled to look to the abbe forsupport.
The abbe, happily for himself, had long since smothered his ownmonitor under the pillows, and had replaced the corpse by a rival,called Expediency. He had made a suggestion to the marquis a few dayssince, and the latter, shocked and alarmed at first, had permittedhimself without much trouble to be argued into its acceptance. So farso good. The suggestion had been quietly carried out, and it remainedto be proved how the marquise would take it.
It was in the afterglow of a lovely evening in late summer, that theparty arrived within sight of the well-known turrets. There were noservants about. Toinon stood smileless at the gate alone, gazing intovacancy, and seemed to survey her mistress as she descended from thecarriage with a serious air of doubtful concern.
"Here we are at last!" said the marquise, with an assumption ofgaiety. "Why, how odd you look. This is not a cordial welcome!"
"Madame is welcome," returned Toinon, curtly.
"The children--they are well?"
"Monsieur Victor and Mademoiselle Camille are well," was the briefrejoinder.
"Of course, the little dears are well," cried the abbe, cheerfully,"or we should have heard of it. Poor Mademoiselle Toinon has lost hertongue, being reduced to stone by ennui. How goes my old enemy, MaitreJean Boulot?"
"He is at Blois, busy."
"So much the better, for I don't mind confessing now that I was a weebit afraid of his rough ways and stalwart bulk. His room is betterthan his company--a Jacobin!"
"No one who is good need be afraid of Jean," retorted Toinon, who,without another word, led the way across the courtyard.
The chill of presentiment touched Gabrielle like an icy wind as shepassed in to the dreary hall, black now in shadowy twilight. Thecrumbling implements of torture on the walls took fantastic andforbidding shapes. The panoplies of helmets of the Moyen Age seemed tomope, and mow, and wink their eyeless sockets. Somehow, Lorge seemedmore grimly forbidding than before, after the long absence; there wasa pervading odour of dank decay which was as a breath from out thecharnel-house. The chatelaine shuddered, and drawing her cloak closertook her foster-sister by the hand.
"What is it? Toinon, tell me," she whispered. "Has something dreadfulhappened?"
Toinon glanced round quickly with the same strange expression of doubtmingled with concern, and held her peace.
What could it be? Toinon appeared to consider that her mistress haddone something wrong--or was it some act, whose unwisdom she wouldsurely rue, which filled the eyes of the foster-sister withdisapproval. In the look there was pained surprise as well as pity.The tightened lips were closed, imprisoning reproach.
Foreboding, she knew not what, the marquise mounted the grandstaircase and opened the door of the long saloon, expecting to findthe children there.
"Not here? Where are they?" began Gabrielle. Then her voice died away,the words frozen on her lips. The brothers had remained below,ostensibly to superintend the removal of the baggage from the coach.In the dim saloon with its view through the gaunt row of windows ofthe crocus-coloured Loire, stood Gabrielle aghast, and Toinon, withbrows knit anxiously--and against the light at the further end a tall,upright figure like a sable shadow, that was only too familiar.
"She!" murmured the startled chatelaine, clasping her hands upon herbreast. "Mademoiselle Aglae Brunelle!"
"It was a trick, then," Toinon muttered, with a deepening frown. "Sheknew not of her coming!"
The commanding figure swept swiftly past the tapestries of Odette andthe mad old king, and with a glad cry Aglae seized Gabrielle's coldhands and covered them with kisses.
"The good marquise!" she cooed. "The dear excellent marquise! I am soglad, so glad, to have been summoned! There was a littleunpleasantness, was there not? A deplorable misunderstanding, and ourdearest lady like the angel that she is, has forgiven and forgotten,and we are better friends than ever."
"I never summoned you," began the marquise, faintly, but her voice wasquickly drowned in the torrent of the other's volubility.
"I know--I know," she purred, with kittenish gestures of overweeningjoy. "It was but a tiny ripple on our ideal life! Madame was sorry tohave so misread her Aglae's devotion, and bade the dear abbe to inviteher hither on a visit. Did I delay an instant? Surely not, for Iburned to show the good marquise how cruelly she'd wronged me. Oh!What ineffable delight! Is it not well to be divided by a tiff totaste the glad moment of reunion?"
Gabrielle remaining silent, too giddy and too sick to collect herthoughts, the other went on glibly--
"I arrived yesterday, a whole day before you, and have been sogood--have I not, Mademoiselle Toinon? You like not poor Aglae, andfrown at her, but must speak honest truth. Knowing to my dismay andgrief when I went hence that madame could deign to be jealous of oneso insignificant, I refrained from embracing my pets until madameshould grant permission. And since I adore them as if they were myown, madame can guess what that has cost me. Yes! I can hardly believeit possible myself, but I've not yet seen either Victor or Camille,the sweet ones!"
With a sigh of admiration and a large gesture of the dusky arms,suggestive of amazement at such self-control, Aglae ceased, shakingher head archly, and holding the unwilling chatelaine by both hands,gazed long and fondly at her.
It was evident that the woman was playing a part, and was over-actingit. Was this done purposely, that the marquise, who was not clever,might have no doubt about the acting? It seemed so to watchful Toinon.The creature had succeeded somehow in inflicting her baleful presencefor a second time upon the _menage_, and wished it to be understoodthat the returned Mademoiselle Brunelle was another person, norelation to the one who had been ejected. Why had she come? What didshe propose to do? She surely did not expect the hapless marquise toclasp in her arms one who had so injured her--respond in earnest toher blandishments?
The brothers had come up the stairs to reconnoitre, and stood somewhatshyly in the doorway. Was there to be an explosion---a harrowing scenein which passion was to be torn to tatters; or was the artful play ofthe abbe to win the trick? He took in the situation with an exultingheart-thump. He had judged rightly. Of course he had! The marquise,pale as marble, was struck dumb--discomfited. She neither stormed norwept. With a movement almost as kittenish as Aglae's, he joined thegroup.
"Reconciled? I knew it," he cried, rubbing his white hands withrelief. "Clovis, come and witness this delightful spectacle. The pastis past and buried. We shall now begin afresh, and, profiting byexperience, will be so happy, that madame will forgive our little_ruse_. The fact is, my sweet Gabrielle, that Clovis intends to devotehimself to a yet deeper course of study, which requires a secretaryand a partner--one who has an inkling of the secrets which are to beunearthed for the world's benefit. I took on myself, therefore, torisk the vials of a transient annoyance for the ultimate good of all.Mademoiselle will now be so occupied with her new duties that, to herregret, she must renounce all intercourse with the little ones. This,I believe, will meet your wishes? You are not angry? That is well. Weare both pardoned, are we not?"
The marquise cast one slow glance of dumb remonstrance at Clovis, whowas shifting from one foot to the other, guiltily, and shaking herselffree from the exuberant Aglae, left the room with Toinon.
Her strange reception by the latter was fully explained. Herfoster-sister had believed that she was sufficiently unstable ofpurpose herself to have summoned the evil spirit that had beenexorcised; it had not entered the girl's head that the men could havedared secretly to play such a trick upon her patience. What was theirmotive for the proceeding? Did the woman wield an occult power overthe marquis such as forced him to obey her will even from a distance?Did she hold him in such abject thraldom tha
t he really could not geton without her? The abbe had been the acting party in the arrangement.Had he re-introduced the bugbear merely to distress his sister-in-law,and display his malignant spleen? Such speculations as these passedvaguely through Gabrielle's dizzy brain as she stared aimlessly fromher bedroom window into the courtyard, mechanically counting the bigfamiliar stones which composed the opposite wall, surveying theiron-bound postern door with its complicated locks and bolts.
Toinon watched her mistress with growing ire as she bustled hither andthither arranging the details of the toilet.
Though scarce conceivable it was true--she could perceive it in everymournful line on the gloomy face of the marquise--that these bad menhad deliberately done behind her back that which they knew to be mostabhorrent to the gentle chatelaine; and she the one to whom they owedevery earthly comfort! By so mad a stroke they had overreachedthemselves, for, of course, madame would resent the intolerableinsolence--order the woman off with contumely--send the men packing.Toinon was aware of the late marechal's testamentary dispositions; wasthankful now to remember that it rested with her mistress alone toturn out the ex-governess as well as the chevalier and the abbe; andit somewhat nettled the faithful abigail that she should not at oncehave shown a proper spirit, and have abruptly closed the situation.The marquis looked just now so shamefaced that a few indignant wordswould have brought him to a sense of his wickedness. Whether therewere or not guilty relations between the marquis and mademoiselle, wasbeside the point. The latter had by her fiendish behaviour well-nighdriven the marquise out of the world, and here she was playing theaffectionate friend with exaggerated pantomime. It was disgusting.Madame being much too good, would perhaps give her shelter till themorrow, instead of expelling her into the night; but madame must risein the morning with a firm resolve to make them all understand thatshe was mistress.
Thus grumbling, Toinon, who was answered only by a sigh. A thrill ofdoom had passed over Gabrielle. She felt the feeling of helplessnessin face of the inevitable which brings with it an abiding sense ofcalm. She was hedged round by enemies--what mattered one the more?That Clovis should be so unutterably base as he now showed himself tobe filled her with a numb surprise, tinged with subdued regret. Theworld, from the point where she now stood, was of such exceedinghideousness, that it came home with conviction to the spectator thatnothing mattered any more. Oh! to be out of it! To be protected by ashield of sod from the tawdry mockeries that make this dwelling-placeuntenable! Should she, acting on Toinon's counsel, gird up her loinson the morrow, and assert her rights? _A quoi bon?_ Gabrielle felt soshocked, so sore, so weary, and so desolate, that to show energy wasnot worth while. They had had the tact to let her comprehend at oncethat there was to be no more interference between herself and the dearones. That was a prudent move on their part. Were these not now herall? If she and they were permitted to live their quiet life in thesecluded wing, what signified the rest? Victor and Camille were out ofreach of the greed and malice of the foe, quite secure from harm, forwere their mother to be snatched away, they would be removed at onceby the marechale, and watched over by the friendly solicitor.
Toinon surveyed her mistress with amazed disgust when the latterquietly remarked, as she unrobed to go to rest, that for the presentshe would watch and wait; and act, if need were, by and by.
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