In the Day of Adversity

"Monsieur St. Georges visits on behalf of his Majesty. He is very welcome. – Monsieur, let me present you to my daughter, Mademoiselle de Roquemaure."

In the instant that he was bowing with easy grace before them, and while they in their turn observed the tall, gallant form of the soldier, his long, curling hair, long mustaches, and somewhat weather-worn riding dress, there flashed through his mind the thought: "Can this be the she-wolf who sends her whelp forth to midnight murder? Can she have had a hand in that foul attack?" Then, aloud, he murmured his thanks for her reception, and looking his hostess straight in the face, observed the features of the woman who, as he believed, his father had once loved.

Her hair was almost white now, yet rich and beautiful, and still with some of the original brown left in it, her eyes soft and clear, her features delicate and telling plainly of the beauty that had been. And as he gazed at the daughter standing by her side – a girl but just entering womanhood, a girl whose hazel eyes looked out at him from under her dark lashes, and whose colour came and went as she returned his bow with stately courtesy – he knew what her mother had once been like.

"Monsieur has ridden far," the marquise said, as she motioned him to a seat by the fire where they had been sitting, and regarded him with interest; "has come a long, perhaps perilous, voyage from Pontarlier? The roads at this season are none too safe, they say, in spite of the Maréchausse. Yet, monsieur is a soldier."

St. Georges bowed in reply – though swift as lightning there flashed through his mind the thought that the words "perilous voyage" showed that she knew, doubtless, of one great danger to which he had been exposed. Then he replied:

"As madame remarks, it was long and has been somewhat eventful. Yet, as I have said, I ride in the king's service. It may be that you know that, madame?"

"I know," she replied, "that you were to call at the Bishop of Lodève's – ce Phélypeaux! – and take from him one word to the king, or to Louvois. Also that you are charged to take another word, perhaps a similar one, from me. Is it not so?"

Remembering what the bishop had said, recalling his utterance – "There is no need of secrecy; you may frankly tell her" – he answered: "It is so, madame. The bishop has sent the word. It may be that you will send the same by me when I ride forth to-morrow."

Her glance rested on him ere she answered. It seemed as if her reply depended on some unknown, subtle something pertaining to his mind or face which she was endeavouring to decipher or understand. Then she let her eyes fall upon the logs burning in the grate, and said:

"How can I say? You do not as yet tell me the word the bishop has sent."

Again he recalled Phélypeaux's remark that there was no need of secrecy. Therefore he answered, "The word that the bishop has sent, madame, is 'Yes.'"

"Ah!" she said, and again her glance scanned his face half eagerly, half wistfully, while now he noticed that Mademoiselle de Roquemaure's hand stole into hers as she sat by her side.

"Ah! It is as I thought: the word is 'Yes.'"

"That is it, madame."

"Come," she said, moving from her seat as the old servitor appeared in the shadows far down the room – "come; supper is served. Monsieur St. Georges, I pray you give me your arm"; and she placed her hand on it, and, her daughter following, went with him to the door. Then, ere they reached the corridor, she, looking up into his face, said quietly:

"It would be best – I – I – have not the same word to send as Phélypeaux. The one that I shall ask you to carry will be 'No.'"

CHAPTER XI.

THE MARQUISE TELLS A STORY

It was a vastly different repast from that of the Bishop of Lodève's which was offered to St. Georges, although the difference consisted more, perhaps, in the manner of cooking and serving than in aught else. The wine, which was excellent – though no better than that last bottle from the old Clos – did not come in at the end, but cheered the fasting and wayworn man from the commencement; the viands were in good condition and properly prepared; the soup was not dishwater, but of a good, sufficient quality. Moreover, here, as in the great salon, a cheerful fire blazed on the hearth, instead of the spluttering, snow-soaked logs that had hissed and smoked in Phélypeaux's house. Also, he had for company two women, each beautiful according to her time of life – women soft, gentle, and well bred – instead of the cynical bishop of whom all France told strange tales.

Sitting there, his eyes resting sometimes on the budding loveliness of Aurélie de Roquemaure, sometimes on the mellowed sweetness of the face of the marquise, St. Georges forced himself to discard from his mind the thought which he had now come to deem unworthy – the thought that treachery lurked in their bosoms against him – that, though the present marquis might be the man who had led the foul and despicable attack on him in the graveyard at Aignay-le-Duc, they had had part or share in it. For, he told himself, to believe this was to believe that there was no faith nor honesty in womankind.

Yet one thing, at the commencement of the meal, and when the old servant and another had withdrawn from the room, had almost served to keep his suspicions alive. The marquise – as far as a woman of rank and high breeding might do so – had asked him many questions about himself, while Aurélie, following the rigidness which prevailed in French life of the time, sat by, a silent listener, scarce joining in the conversation at all.

And St. Georges, moved perhaps by the company in which he found himself, and, soldier-like, scorning to conceal any part of his history except that which he deemed absolutely necessary – he making no reference whatever to the name of De Vannes – told them much of his existence. His career in Holland until the peace; his lonely life in garrison; his marriage with a young girl, a daughter of the middle classes; her death, and the little child she had left to his care, were all touched upon by him and listened to attentively – indeed, absorbingly. And so, at last, he came to the summons to Paris, to his setting forth, to his stay at Dijon, and the attack made upon him and Boussac.

To both women this portion of his narrative caused great excitement. For, stately as the marquise was, environed, so to speak, by all the dignity of the haute noblesse of the days of the Great King, she could not prevent her agitation from being apparent to him. Her white, jewelled hand quivered as she raised it to her breast; her eyes sparkled as they might have sparkled when she was her daughter's age; while, as for that daughter, her bosom rose and fell with her rapid breathing, her colour came and went – once she was as pale as death, the next moment her face suffused.

"The cowards!" exclaimed the marquise; "the base, cowardly dogs, to attack two men thus, and one hampered with a defenceless child! Quel tour de lâche! Oh! sir, I would to God your brand or that of your brave companion had struck the poltroon, the craven who sheltered himself behind his visor, his death blow! I would to God one of your swords had found out his heart as they found out the hearts of his mercenaries!"

The sympathy of this graceful woman – sympathy that roused her from the well-bred calmness which was her natural state, to one of almost fury – earned the deepest respect and gratitude of St. Georges; yet he looked at her almost with amazement as he bowed and murmured some words of appreciation. For there was no acting here, he knew; yet she was De Roquemaure's stepmother, the kinswoman of the man whom he believed to be his and his child's attempted assassin!

And Aurélie de Roquemaure, too – what of her? A glance from under his eyes showed him that still the beauteous face was agitated as it had been before, that all which her mother had said was re-echoed by her.

Again the marquise spoke, though now she rose from the table as she did so.

"Sir," she said, "never rest until that man and you stand face to face, point to point; since, until that happens, your child's life will not be safe. For you, a man, a soldier, it matters not – is best, indeed, that you should meet him and end his miserable existence forever. I pray you may do ere long. And, when you do meet him, slay him like a dog! It is the only way."

Still astonished, almost appalled, by her vehemence, St. Georges took the hand she extended him and bent over it, and next, that of her daughter, ere the two passed out of the room.

"Forgive," said the marquise, "that I should feel so strongly. I – I – have a child myself." Then, after a pause, and turning round as she reached the corridor, she added: "If we do not meet to-morrow ere you return to the city to fetch your child, remember, sir, I pray you, that my answer to the king or his minister is precisely different from that of the bishop. It is 'No.'"

"I will remember, madame."

Then, with a last glance from each, both were gone. And St. Georges, standing in front of the great fireplace waiting for the old servitor to come and escort him to his room, was more overwhelmed with amazement than he had been at aught which had occurred since he set out from Pontarlier.

"What does it mean?" he whispered to himself. "What does it mean?"

In a room at the opposite end of the corridor from that where the apartment was situated which had been bestowed on St. Georges, the mother and daughter sat. It was the sleeping-room of madame la marquise, large, vast, and sombre – save that here, too, a fire burnt in the grate, and that there were many candles alight in the sconces set about the room.

And the marquise, lying back in her deep fauteuil before the fire, her face white and drawn, and with tears upon her cheeks, was speaking to her daughter who knelt by her side.

"The wolf!" she said, "the wolf! How know it? How find out? God! I thought that I alone, of all living people, knew, until I divulged my story to you, until I wrote to Louis asking him to do justice to a much-wronged man. Who – who has betrayed my confidence? Not the king, surely. Oh! not he, not he! Nay, more, I doubt if the letter ever reached his hands."

"Mother," Aurélie said, as she stroked her hand, "there must be some other who knows."

"There was no living soul on earth. Listen, even you do not know all."

The girl seated herself against her mother's knee and gazed up into her face. Then she whispered: "Tell me all now, mother. From to-night let me understand exactly with what he is encompassed. Tell me, I beg."

"You know," the marquise said, "for I have told you often, that the Duc de Vannes and I loved each other when we were young – yet that we never married. No matter for the reason now – it was my fault! Let that suffice. And we parted – he to go his way, I mine. Then, some years later, not many it is true, but still long enough for us to have forgotten what had separated us, we met again, and once more he asked me to be his wife, to renew the love vows we once had made. But it was then impossible. I was affianced to your father – the day was fixed, and I had come to admire him, to respect him; in no case would I have gone back from my plighted word. So again we parted to meet only once more in life."

The girl touched her hand – perhaps – who knows? – in admiration of her mother's strength in keeping her vow to the man who was not her first love and in discarding the man who was. And the marquise continued:

"It was one night a few weeks before he set out to join Turenne in the Palatinate. A great fête was given by Louis to celebrate his birthday at St. Germain-en-Laye, his birthplace, and it was there we met again. Presently, when both of us were able to escape from the great crowd of courtiers, marshals, and ministers who surrounded the king, he told me that he was glad he had met me once more – that he wished to confide a secret to me if I would hear it, a charge if I would accept it. At first I hesitated, then – when I found it would not thrust against your father's honour" – again the girl stroked her mother's hand – "I told him he might confide in me. Aurélie, he told me that, embittered by having lost me, he had married in private an English lady, daughter of a refugee, that he had learned to love her, and that death had parted them after a few years of marriage. Also, he told me, she left him a son, whom he had brought up in ignorance of the position that must be his, but that – should he return from the Palatinate – he meant to acknowledge him. He never did return, and his son has never been acknowledged."

"Why, my mother?" asked Aurélie, with an upward glance. "Why?"

"Nay, child," the marquise replied. "Think no evil of me. No base thoughts entered my mind. No remembrance that his son stood in the way of your half-brother's inheritance – he and your father being ostensibly De Vannes's heir. No! no! no! But in that hurried interval both he and I had made one fatal slip – had committed one hideous act of forgetfulness. He had forgotten to tell me – I to ask – where this son was, and in what name he was known."

The girl dropped her hands with a despairing action into her lap; then a moment later she turned the soft hazel eyes up again toward her mother's face and said: "Yet now you know! You have found out!"

"Yes, I have found out. That son is the man who sleeps beneath our roof to-night – Lieutenant St. Georges."

"But how? How? How?"

"Again, listen. For years I sought to find him, made inquiries in every quarter I could think of, asked – quietly and cautiously – of all who might by chance possess any information. Then, at last, it came – from the quarter least to be imagined. From your half-brother."

"Raoul?"

"Ay, Raoul, your father's heir – also heir to the fortune of the Duc de Vannes, as all the world thought and still thinks. He came to me one day – three months ago – when he had been privately to Paris; for what reason I know not, although I know that his visit was a secret one, since he had not been presented to the king. He came in, I say, and standing before me, he said, 'Madame, who is Monsieur St. Georges?' I answered that I had never heard of the gentleman before, to which he replied: ''Tis strange, madame. He is an officer of the Régiment de Nivernois. And his commission was given him by the king at the request of your late – friend, shall I say? – the Duc de Vannes!'