The Maid of Honour Volume Iii Part 7

Toinon earnestly begged for permission to tell the abbe that the marquise refused to see him; but the latter shook her head and smiled her dreary smile. "Go to," she sighed, "if the man wishes me evil how shall I protect myself? If he has aught to say it is better that I should hear it."

The visitor found Gabrielle sitting on a low sofa, and as, unbidden, he sank into the place by her side, a thrill pa.s.sed along his nerves, for the statuesque composure of her mien was exactly suited to her beauty.

"Dear Gabrielle," he murmured, "you are more beautiful than ever."

"You have intruded here to-day to tell me so?" she inquired, coldly.

"Take care! You burn and freeze at the same time. Such loveliness as yours may account for any rashness."

Alas! how ghastly a mockery had this same beauty been! The fairest woman of her time--her affections withered, her heart broken--deserted, friendless, desolate. At thought of it Gabrielle smiled, and the abbe considered himself encouraged.

"Gabrielle," he said, taking her unwilling hand, "in what I am about to say you must not deem me harsh. It is sometimes for the best to speak quite openly. I am a very forgiving man, as you shall have cause to know. You flouted, scorned, insulted me, and yet, though you deliberately chose my hate, I have nothing but deep love for you."

Again! The marquise wondered in a hazy way what could be the motive for this comedy.

"Love," she observed, reflecting, quite unruffled. "A strange form of love, is it not, which injures the object that is adored? Wherein lies the difference betwixt such love and the hate you promised?"

"An ardent, hot-headed man may be goaded by desperation to acts that he afterwards deplores in sackcloth and in ashes."

"An odd form of love that kills and crushes!"

"Hear me out quietly, and you will be convinced that I have striven in vain to hate you--that my carefully barbed darts have fallen blunted.

Your position here is desperate. It is, believe me; and yet, though you are walled about by triple barriers, against which it would be idle to buffet, yet there is a loophole by which you may escape."

Gabrielle turned her deep blue eyes upon the speaker, and raised her brows inquiringly.

"Your case is desperate because all are combined against you; all are resolved upon your death--all, except me, and why? Because my love stands between you and them, a saving plank in the approaching hurricane. Your husband and his friend are bent on your destruction.

He has left the house until it is accomplished. You are hemmed about with foes. Every servant in this household is suborned. They are men, carefully selected, who know no pity--on whose shoulders, were they bared, you would see the galleys-brand--men who would one and all look on your death struggle with indifference--as callous as the bravo of romance. I have before told you, and it is more true than ever now, that my love is your only safeguard. I hold the door ajar to Hope.

Yield to my suit and grant me the boon I ask, and I swear that the shackles will fall from off your limbs; that your troubles will cease, for you'll be free. Free to depart with me to a distant land where in freshly-flowing happiness, the past shall be as a dream. Sorceress!

What is this witchcraft that you exert over me? I love you all the more ardently for the long siege. Be mine the grateful task to rescue you from the clutches of these wretches. Say the word. We will quit France secretly together, and leave _them_ to the fate which they deserve."

In the eagerness of his pleading, the abbe had edged close to Gabrielle. She could feel his hot breath--the beating of his heart against her arm--and she s.h.i.+vered from top to toe, as Toinon outside was s.h.i.+vering, her eyes distended by alarm.

The frayed string was about to snap. The long-expected moment was come. Thank G.o.d that suspense was over.

"I thank you for your engaging candour," Gabrielle said in a voice that was clear and steady. "I had learned to know you for a villain, but had not gauged the deeps of your rascality. False to the core.

True to nothing but your own devilish pa.s.sions. A Judas even to your confederates!"

There was so sharp a ring of scorn in the tone in which she spoke--a flash of such unmeasurable contempt in the dark blue eyes--that Pharamond, though he had smarted under the lash before, felt his withers wrung, while Toinon without was torn by fear and admiration.

Was he, before whose fascinations many a fair dame had willingly succ.u.mbed, so vile a reptile as to warrant the storm of disgust that racked this haughty woman? She loathed him worse than death since, seeing her impending fate with crystalline vision, she cheerfully preferred its chill embrace to his ardent one. And now with eyes flas.h.i.+ng and delicately chiselled nostrils distended, and a tinge of rose on either pallid cheek, her beauty had gained once more the animation that it so frequently lacked. She was lovelier at this moment than he had ever seen her--and in her direful plight she shrank from his touch as though he were hideously diseased. It was written then, that he was never to attain the full measure of revenue for the rebuffs he had endured at her hands? He was not to sully this fair form, suck the orange dry then fling its rind into the gutter? What a pity! How complete the triumph would have been if she, at this eleventh hour could have been persuaded to seek safety with him in flight. He would have carried off for his own use alone the goose that laid golden eggs. How he would have snapped his fingers at Clovis and Algae--mean grovelling worms--with their ridiculous testament which was not to be the last! What a refined pleasure it would have been, when sated, and weary of the toy, to break it slowly! He would have carried the marechal's heiress to some secure and distant spot, have forced her by famine or other torment to execute yet another will--in his sole favour this time--and then he would have gloated over her suffering and degradation as he compelled her to sink to the lowest depths of female infamy and shame, ere, drop by drop, he squeezed away her life! And it was not to be--actually might never be, this exhilarating programme--he realized that now as he gazed in her proud face, each string of his evil nature tingling. Baffled and disappointed, he must even be content to share with the others, to carry out the plan as previously arranged, to sweep her from the path.

Oh, what a grievous pity, for the other arrangement would have been deliciously complete and satisfactory.

There was nothing to be gained by continuing the interview, since it had fallen to his lot to play the _role ridicule_. He rose, therefore, flinging the hand from him which he had so ardently been pressing with a movement of m.u.f.fled fury.

"On your own head be the consequences," he growled. "You have spoken your own sentence. Amen!"

"My life," replied Gabrielle, drearily, "has been fraught with pain and overlong, although I'm not five and twenty! The death you threaten me withal, I will accept with thanks as a release."

"You shall be released, nor will you have long to wait," the abbe remarked with a dry laugh. "You, who are alive, may count yourself as dead and buried." With that he left her to her reflections, banging the door behind him.

CHAPTER XXVI.

WILL JEAN BOULOT COME?

Two persons, from entirely opposite motives, were thinking about Jean Boulot. Toinon, her wits sharpened by eavesdropping, saw plainly that not a moment must be lost if she and her mistress were to be saved. It stood to reason that if the marquise was doomed, so was her foster-sister, in order that the voice of the accuser might be silenced. The daring of the poor hara.s.sed lady had been admirable--she had conspicuously shown the moral courage which in extreme peril goes with breeding; but it would have been more prudent to have temporised.

What use is there in making of oneself a sublime spectacle of defiant virtue if there is no public to applaud? How many malefactors have made "fine exits" sustained by the murmurs of a sympathetic mob, who, if executed in private, would have died screeching? Truth is a nice thing in theory, but the practice of it in our sinful sphere too often leads to complications which would be avoided by appropriate mendacity.

Toinon, much as she adored her mistress, had frequently deplored her blunt and uncompromising truthfulness. Knowing that she had a noose about her neck, which only required a pull from the abbe to tighten to strangulation point, it was vastly foolish to cry out, "Do your worst." She ought to have pondered and asked for time, have argued and implored, have even shown signs of yielding, have trembled and blushed--have murmured in one breath that she would, yet wouldn't.

Where is the man, however cunning, who cannot be hoodwinked by a woman if she seriously sets about the operation? Precious hours might thus have been gained--nay, days, by a skilful display of comedy. Boulot might be even now upon the road, and arrive too late to be of use, owing to the inopportune sublimity of the too artless chatelaine.

Having defied the arch-conspirator, he would certainly act promptly.

If Jean Boulot was to come to the aid of the two women, it must be at once, or there was no use in his coming at all. The anxious abigail felt that they were in precisely the same harrowing position as Sister Anne and Fatima. Was there n.o.body coming? The sand in the gla.s.s was dripping all too swiftly. Was there no sound of approaching hoofs, no curl of dust upon the way? Quite idly, in obedience to a whimsical fancy due to restlessness, Toinon put on her hood, resolved to take a stroll upon the road that led to Blois. She would see the cloud of dust and rush towards it, cry out to honest Jean to use his spurs, chide him for his culpable delay.

But Toinon, while deploring the mistakes of her mistress, was unaware that she had herself been guilty of an error. It had been an act of gross imprudence to threaten the abbe with Boulot as she had done when she met him on the landing. It set the abbe thinking of Boulot, whose existence he had well-nigh forgotten. Though there had been a tiff or an estrangement, the gamekeeper and the abigail were lovers. They had been, and possibly still were, betrothed. It struck the abbe as not at all improbable that Mademoiselle Toinon had written to him anent the cake fiasco, and that her lover might inopportunely arrive to look after her safety. It was most obliging of the young woman to have vouchsafed a hint suggestive of such a contingency, and he would be guilty of gross ingrat.i.tude if he failed to act on it forthwith.

Hence, when in pursuance of her fancy she moved across the yard to the archway, where of old a portcullis used to hang, she was surprised to perceive that the ponderous entrance gates were closed, and that the key had been removed from the lock. The concierge was leaning against the stonework smoking pensively, his hands plunged deep into his breeches pockets.

"What does this mean?" cried the abigail, with an imperious frown which served to mask a new-born terror.

"It means that the gates are locked, and will remain so," was the composed answer.

"But I want to go out--I have a mission from madame to one of the cottagers hard by."

"So sorry," returned the concierge, smiling roguishly. "Mademoiselle must remain within--a pretty little bird within a cage. Nay, I but obey my orders. If mademoiselle will deign to discuss the point, yonder is the porter's room. We shall be quite alone and undisturbed, and I will make myself agreeable to mademoiselle."

There was a studied insolence about the man's manner--he had been engaged quite recently--which made Toinon tremble. The fowler's net was closing in; she already fluttered in the toils, but would attempt another struggle to make a.s.surance sure.

"This castle is the property of the Marquise de Gange," she said, haughtily, "and the lacqueys who dwell therein eat her bread. I have warned you that I am sent by her. Open that door immediately."

The man puffed slowly at his pipe and gave a long reflective whistle that spoke volumes. "Bread? Ah yes," he observed, abstractedly. "The bread is excellent, but it is not hers. Such, at least, are my instructions."

"Impudent brute!" cried Toinon, stamping her foot. "I will report you instantly to our mistress, and you will be dismissed at once. A pretty pa.s.s, indeed! when I, her confidential maid, am to stand by and hear her insulted."

"What is all this about?" demanded a big base voice behind, at sound of which the man put away his pipe and a.s.sumed an obsequious att.i.tude.

"It means, Mademoiselle Brunelle," retorted Toinon, trembling with ire, "that Madame la Marquise is reaping the earthly reward of divine forbearance. But you can goad even her too far, as you had cause to know when you were ignominiously expelled from the chateau."

The dusky face of Algae darkened a shade, and her heavy mobile brows lowered over her eyes with menace. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave vent to a rumbling laugh.

"Circ.u.mstances alter cases," she observed, with exasperating composure. "You always did me the honour to dislike me. When I am mistress here, it is you who will be expelled. You are silent?

Come--that is better. Go to your room and mind your business, and perhaps no harm will come to you."

"I will send over to Montbazon," returned Toinon, striving hard to conceal her growing terror. "M. de Vaux and the Seigneurie will interfere for madame's protection."

"Do you think so?" inquired Algae, with interest. "The de Vaux are nice people, if timid, who were always kind to me. I hardly think they are likely to interfere."

"What have you done?" asked Toinon, her heart sinking within her.