The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

Here the Squire interrupted with his loud laugh, and, clapping his hand on his stalwart son's head:

"You have just hit it, Cécile, it's here the difference lies. Adrian, I really believe, is a little mistake of Dame Nature; his brain was meant for a girl and was tacked on to that big body by accident, ho, ho, ho! He is quite lady-like in his accomplishments – loves music, and plays, by gad, better than our organist. Writes poetry, too. I found some devilish queer things on his writing-table once, which were not all Latin verses, though he would fain I thought so. And as for deportment, Madame Cécile, why there is more propriety, in that hobbedehoy, at least, more blushing in him, than in all the bread-and-butter misses in the county!"

Adrian said nothing; but, when not turned towards the ground, his gaze still sought the Countess, who now returned the look with a ripening smile open to any interpretation.

"Surely," she remarked, glancing then at the elder for an instant with some archness, "surely you English gentlemen, who have so much propriety, would not rather … there was young Mr. Bradbury, we heard talked of yesterday, whom every farmer with a red-cheeked lass of his own – "

"No, no!" hastily interrupted the baronet, with a blush himself, while Adrian's cheek in spite of the recent indictment preserved its smooth pallor – in truth, the boy, lost in his first love-dream, had not understood the allusion. "No, I don't want a Landale to be a blackguard, you know, but – " And the father, unable to split this ethical hair, to logical satisfaction, stopped and entered another channel of grumbling vituperation, whilst the Countess, very much amused by her private thoughts, gave a little rippling laugh, and resumed her indulgent contemplation of the accused.

"What a pity, now, school-boy Rupert is not the eldest; there would be a country gentleman for you! Whereas, this successor that is to be of mine is a man of books and a philosopher. Forsooth, a first-class bookworm; by gad, I believe the first of our race! And he might make a name for himself, I've been told, among that lot, though the pack o' nonsense he treats us to at times cannot, I'm thinking, really go down even among those college fuzzle-heads. But I am confounded if that chap will ever be of any use as a landlord whenever he steps into my shoes. He hates a gun, and takes more pleasure – what was it he said last time he was here? – oh, yes, more pleasure in watching a bird dart in the blue than bringing it down, be it never so neat a shot. Ho, ho! did ye ever hear such a thing? And though he can sit a horse – I will say that for him (I should like to see a Landale that could not!) – I have seen this big boy of mine positively sicken, ay! and scandalise the hunt by riding away from the death. Moreover, I believe that, when I am gone, he will always let off any poaching scoundrel on the plea that the vermin only take for their necessity what we preserve for sport."

The little foreign lady, smiling no longer, eyed her big cousin with wondering looks.

"Strange, indeed," she remarked, "that a man should fail to appreciate the boon of man's existence, the strength and freedom to dominate, to be up and doing, to live in fact. How I should long to be a man myself, if I ever allowed myself to long for anything; but I am a woman, as you see," she added, rising to the full height of her exquisite figure, "and must submit to woman's lot – and that is just now to the point, for I must leave you to go and see to the wants of that mioche of mine which I hear whining upstairs. But I do not believe my uncle's account of you is a complete picture after all, cousin Adrian. I shall get it out of you anon, catechise you in my own way, and, if needs be, convert you to a proper sense of the glorious privileges of your sex."

And she ran out of the room.

"Well, my lad," said Sir Thomas, that evening, when the ladies had left the two men to their decanter, "I thought my Frenchwoman would wake you up, but, by George, I hardly expected she would knock you all of a heap so quick. Hey! you're winged, Adrian, winged, or this is not port."

"I cannot say, sir," answered Adrian, musing.

The old man caught up the unsatisfactory reply in an exasperated burlesque of mimicry: "I cannot say, sir – you cannot say? Pooh, pooh, there is no shame in being in love with her. We all are more or less; pass the bottle. As for you, since you clapped eyes on her you have been like a man in the moon, not a word to throw to a dog, no eyes, no ears but for your own thoughts, so long as madam is not there. Enter madam, you're alive again, by George, and pretty lively, too! Gad, I never thought I'd ever see you do the lady's man, all in your own queer way, of course; but, hang it all, she seems to like it, the little minx! Ay, and if she has plenty of smiles for the old man she's ready to give her earnest to you – I saw her, I saw her. But don't you forget she's married, sir, very much married, too. She don't forget it either, I can tell you, though you may think she does. Now, what sort of game is she making of you? What were you talking about in the picture gallery for an hour before dinner, eh?"

"To say the truth," answered the son, simply, "it was about myself almost the whole time."

"And she flattered you finely, I'll be bound, of course," said his elder, with a knowing look. "Oh, these women, these women!"

"On the contrary, sir, she thinks even less of me than you do. That woman has the soul of a savage; we have not one thought in common."

The father burst into a loud laugh. "A pretty savage to look at, anyhow; a well-polished one in the bargain, ho, ho, ho! Well, well, I must make up my mind, I suppose, that my eldest son is a lunatic in love with a savage."

Adrian remained silent for a while, toying with his glass, his young brow contracted under a painful frown. At length, checking a sigh, he answered with deliberation:

"Since it is so palpable to others, I suppose it must be love, as you say. I had thought hitherto that love of which people talk so much was a feeling of sweetness. What I feel in this lady's presence is much more kin to anguish; for all that, as you have noticed, I appear to live only when she is nigh."

The father looked at his son and gaped. The latter went on, after another pause:

"I suppose it is so, and may as well own it to myself and to you, though nothing can come of it, good or bad. She is married, and she is your guest; and even if any thought concerning me could enter her heart, the merest show of love on my part would be an insult to her and treason to you. But trust me, I shall now be on my guard, since my behaviour has already appeared strange."

"Tut, tut," said the Baronet, turning to his wine in some dudgeon, his rubicund face clouding as he looked with disfavour at this strange heir of his, who could not even fall in love like the rest of his race. "What are you talking about? Come, get out of that and see what the little lady's about, and let me hear no more of this. She'll not compromise herself with a zany like you, anyhow, that I'll warrant."

But Adrian with all the earnestness of his nature and his very young fears was strenuously resolved to watch himself narrowly in his intercourse with his too fascinating relative; little recking how infinitesimal is the power of a man's free-will upon the conduct of his life.

The next morning found the little Countess in the highest spirits. Particularly good news had arrived from her land with the early courier. True, the news were more than ten days old, but she had that insuperable buoyancy of hopefulness which attends active and healthy natures.

The Breton peasants (she explained to the company round the breakfast table), headed by their lords (among whom was her own Seigneur et Maître) had again crushed the swarms of ragged brigands that called themselves soldiers. From all accounts there was no hope for the latter, their atrocities had been such that the whole land, from Normandy to Guyenne, was now in arms against them.

And in Paris, the hot pit whence had issued the storm of foulness that blasted the fair kingdom of France after laying low the hallowed heads of a good king and a beautiful queen, in Paris, leaders and led were now chopping each other's heads off, à qui mieux mieux. "Those thinkers, those lofty patriots, hein, beau cousin, for whom, it seems, you have an admiration," commented the lady, interrupting her account to sip her cup of cream and chocolate, with a little finger daintily cocked, and shoot a mocking shaft at the young philosopher from the depth of her black eyes.

"Like demented wolves they are destroying each other – Pray the God of Justice," quoted she from her husband's letter, "that it may only last; in a few months, then, there will be none of them left, and the people, relieved from this rule of blood, will all clamour for the true order of things, and the poor country may again know peace and happiness. Meanwhile, all has yet to be won, by much devotion and self-sacrifice in the cause of God and King; and afterwards will come the reward!..

"And the revenge," added Madame de Savenaye, with a little, fierce laugh, folding the sanguine budget of news. "Oh! they must leave us a few for revenge! How we shall make the hounds smart when the King returns to his own! And then for pleasures and for life again. And we may yet meet at the mansion of Savenaye, in Paris," she went on gaily, "my good uncle and fair cousins, for the King cannot fail to recall his faithful supporter. And there will be feasts and balls. And there, maybe, we shall be able to repay in part some of your kindness and hospitality. And you, cousin Adrian, you will have to take me through pavanne and gavotte and minuet; and I shall be proud of my northern cavalier. What! not know how one dances the gavotte? Fi donc! what ignorance! I shall have to teach you. Your hand, monsieur," slipping the missive from the seat of war into her fair bosom. "La! not that way; with a grace, if you please," making a profound curtsey. "Ah, still that cold hand; your great English heart must be a very furnace. Come, point your right foot – so. And look round at your partner with – what shall I say —admiration sérieuse!"

That she saw admiration, serious enough in all conscience in Adrian's eyes, there was little doubt. With sombre heart he failed not to mark every point of this all-human grace, but to him goddess-like beauty, the triumph and glory of youth. The coy, dainty poise of the adorable foot – pointed so– and treading the ground with the softness of a kitten at play; the maddening curve of her waist, which a sacque, depending from an exquisite nape, partly concealed, only to enhance its lithe suppleness; the divinely young throat and bust; and above all the dazzling black rays from eyes alternately mocking, fierce or caressing.

Well might his hand be cold with all his young untried blood, biting at his heart, singing in his head. Why did God place such creatures on His earth to take all savour from aught else under the sun?

"Fair cousin, fair cousin, though I said serious admiration, I did not mean you to look as if you were taking me to a funeral. You are supposed to be enjoying yourself, you know!"

The youth struggled with a ghastly smile; and the father laughed outright. But Madame de Savenaye checked herself into gravity once more.

"Alas! Nous n'en sommes pas encore là," she said, and relinquished her adorer's hand. "We have still to fight for it… Oh! that I were free to be up and doing!"

The impatient exclamation was wrung out of her, apparently, by the appearance of two nurses, each bearing an infant in long, white robes for the mother's inspection; a preliminary to the daily outing.

The elder of these matrons was Adrian's own old nurse who, much occupied with her new duties of attendant to Madame de Savenaye and one of her babies, now beheld her foster-son again for the first time since his return.

"Eh – but you've grown a gradely mon, Mester Adrian!" she cried, in her long-drawn Lancastrian, dandling her bundle energetically from side to side in the excess of her admiration, and added with a laugh of tender delight: "Eh, but you're my own lad still, as how 'tis!" when, blushing, the young man crossed the room and stooped to kiss her, glancing shyly the while at the white bundle in her arms.

"Well, and how are the little ones?" quoth Madame de Savenaye, swinging her dainty person up to the group and halting by beaming Sally – the second nurse, who proudly held forth her charge – merely to lay a finger lightly on the infant's little cheek.

"Ah, my good Sally, your child does you credit! – Now Margery, when you have done embracing that fine young man, perhaps you will give me my child, hein?"

Both the nurses blushed; Margery at the soft impeachment as she delivered over the minute burden; her daughter in honest indignation at the insulting want of interest shown for her foster-babe.

"No, I was not made to play with puppets like you, mademoiselle," said the comtesse, addressing herself to the unconscious little being as she took it in her arms, but belying her words by the grace and instinctive maternal expertness with which she handled and soothed the infant. "Yes, you can go, Sarah —au revoir, Mademoiselle Madeleine. Fie the little wretch, what faces she pulls! And you, Margery, you need not wait either; I shall keep this creature for a while. Poor little one!" sang the mother, walking up and down, and patting the small back with her jewelled hand as she held the wee thing against her shoulder, "indeed I shall have soon to leave you – "

"What's this – what's this?" exclaimed the master of the house with sudden sharpness. He had been surveying the scene from the hearthrug, chuckling in benevolent amusement at little Madam's ways.

Yes, it was her intention to return to her place by the side of her lord, she explained, halting in her walk to face him gravely; she had come to that resolution. No doubt her uncle would take the children under his care until better times – those good times that were so fast approaching. Buxom Sally could manage them both – and to spare, too!

Adrian felt his heart contract at the unexpected announcement; a look of dismay overspread Sir Thomas's face.

"Why – what? what nonsense, child!" cried he again in rueful tones. "You, return to that place now … what good do you think you could do – eh?" But here recollecting himself, he hesitated and started upon a more plausible line of expostulation. "Pooh, pooh! You can't leave the little ones, your husband does not ask you to come back and leave them, does he? In any case," with assumed authority, "I shall not let you go."

She looked up with a smile.

"Would you allow your friends to continue fighting alone for all you love, because you happened to be in safe and pleasant circumstances yourself?" she asked. Then she added ingenuously: "I have heard you say of one that was strong of will and staunch to his purpose, that he was a regular Briton. I thought that flattering: I am a Briton, of Brittany, you know, myself, uncle: would you have me be a worthless Briton? As to what a woman can do there – ah, you have no idea what it means for all these poor peasants of ours to see their lords remain among them, sharing their hardship in defence of their cause. Concerning the children," kissing the one she held and gazing into its face with wistful look, "they can better afford to do without me than my husband and our men. A strong woman to tend them till we come back, is all that is wanted, since a good relative is willing to give them shelter. René cannot be long in returning now, with the last news. Indeed, M. de Savenaye says that he will only keep him a few days longer, and, according to the tidings he brings must I fix the date for my departure."

Sir Thomas, with an inarticulate growl, relapsed into silence; and she resumed her walk with bent head, lost in thought, up and down the great room, out of the pale winter sunshine into the shadow, and back again, to the tune of "Malbrook s'en va t'en guerre," which she hummed beneath her breath, while the baby's foolish little head, in its white cap from which protruded one tiny straight wisp of brown hair, with its beady, unseeing black eyes and its round mouth dribbling peacefully, bobbed over her shoulder as she went.

Adrian stood in silence too, following her with his eyes, while the picture, so sweet to see, so strange to one who knew all that was brewing in the young mother's head and heart, stamped itself upon his brain.

At the door, at length, she halted a moment, and looked at them both.

"Yes, my friends," she said, and her eyes shot flame; "I must go soon." The baby bobbed its head against her cheek as if in affirmative; then the great door closed upon the pair.

CHAPTER IV