Bardelys the Magnificent - Rafael Sabatini (affordable ebook reader .txt) 📗

is not to be set at naught in a

day by a resolve, however firm. A score of times was I reminded

that an evil is but increased by being ignored. A score of times

confession trembled on my lips, and I burned to tell her everything

from its inception - the environment that had erstwhile warped me,

the honesty by which I was now inspired - and so cast myself upon

the mercy of her belief.

 

She might accept my story, and, attaching credit to it, forgive me

the deception I had practised, and recognize the great truth that

must ring out in the avowal of my love. But, on the other hand,

she might not accept it; she might deem my confession a shrewd part

of my scheme, and the dread of that kept me silent day by day.

 

Fully did I see how with every hour that sped confession became

more and more difficult. The sooner the thing were done, the

greater the likelihood of my being believed; the later I left it,

the more probable was it that I should be discredited. Alas!

Bardelys, it seemed, had added cowardice to his other shortcomings.

 

As for the coldness of Roxalanne, that was a pretty fable of

Chatellerault’s; or else no more than an assumption, an invention

of the imaginative La Fosse. Far, indeed, from it, I found no

arrogance or coldness in her. All unversed in the artifices of her

sex, all unacquainted with the wiles of coquetry, she was the very

incarnation of naturalness and maidenly simplicity. To the tales

that - with many expurgations - I told her of Court life, to the

pictures that I drew of Paris, the Luxembourg, the Louvre, the

Palais Cardinal, and the courtiers that thronged those historic

palaces, she listened avidly and enthralled; and much as Othello won

the heart of Desdemona by a recital of the perils he had endured, so

it seemed to me was I winning the heart of Roxalanne by telling her

of the things that I had seen.

 

Once or twice she expressed wonder at the depth and intimacy of the

knowledge of such matters exhibited by a simple Gascon gentleman,

whereupon I would urge, in explanation, the appointment in the Guards

that Lesperon had held some few years ago, a position that will reveal

much to an observant man.

 

The Vicomte noted our growing intimacy, yet set no restraint upon it.

Down in his heart I believe that noble gentleman would have been well

pleased had matters gone to extremes between us, for however

impoverished he might deem me; Lesperon’s estates in Gascony being,

as I have said, likely to suffer sequestration in view of his treason

—he remembered the causes of this and the deep devotion of the man

I impersonated to the affairs of Gaston d’Orleans.

 

Again, he feared the very obvious courtship of the Chevalier de

Saint-Eustache, and he would have welcomed a turn of events that

would effectually have frustrated it. That he did not himself

interfere so far as the Chevalier’s wooing was concerned, I could

but set down to the mistrust of Saint-Eustache - amounting almost

to fear - of which he had spoken.

 

As for the Vicomtesse, the same causes that had won me some of the

daughter’s regard gained me also no little of the mother’s.

 

She had been attached to the Chevalier until my coming. But what

did the Chevalier know of the great world compared with what I

could tell? Her love of scandal drew her to me with inquiries upon

this person and that person, many of them but names to her.

 

My knowledge and wealth of detail - for all that I curbed it lest

I should seem to know too much - delighted her prurient soul. Had

she been more motherly, this same knowledge that I exhibited should

have made her ponder what manner of life I had led, and should have

inspired her to account me no fit companion for her daughter. But

a selfish woman, little inclined to be plagued by the concerns of

another - even when that other was her daughter - she left things

to the destructive course that they were shaping.

 

And so everything - if we except perhaps the Chevalier de

Saint-Eustache - conspired to the advancement of my suit, in a

manner that must have made Chatellerault grind his teeth in rage

if he could have witnessed it, but which made me grind mine in

despair when I pondered the situation in detail.

 

One evening - I had been ten days at the chateau - we went a

half-league or so up the Garonne in a boat, she and I. As we were

returning, drifting with the stream, the oars idle in my hand, I

spoke of leaving Lavedan.

 

She looked up quickly; her expression was almost of alarm, and her

eyes dilated as they met mine - for, as I have said, she was all

unversed in the ways of her sex, and by nature too guileless to

attempt to disguise her feelings or dissemble them.

 

“But why must you go so soon?” she asked. “You are safe at Lavedan,

and abroad you may be in danger. It was but two days ago that they

took a poor young gentleman of these parts at Pau; so that you see

the persecution is not yet ended. Are you” - and her voice trembled

ever so slightly - “are you weary of us, monsieur?”

 

I shook my head at that, and smiled wistfully.

 

“Weary?” I echoed. “Surely, mademoiselle, you do not think it?

Surely your heart must tell you something very different?”

 

She dropped her eyes before the passion of my gaze. And when

presently she answered me, there was no guile in her words; there

were the dictates of the intuitions of her sex, and nothing more.

 

“But it is possible, monsieur. You are accustomed to the great

world—”

 

“The great world of Lesperon, in Gascony?” I interrupted.

 

“No, no; the great world you have inhabited at Paris and elsewhere.

I can understand that at Lavedan you should find little of interest,

and - and that your inactivity should render you impatient to be

gone.”

 

“If there were so little to interest me then it might be as you say.

But, oh, mademoiselle—” I ceased abruptly. Fool! I had almost

fallen a prey to the seductions that the time afforded me. The

balmy, languorous eventide, the broad, smooth river down which we

glided, the foliage, the shadows on the water, her presence, and our

isolation amid such surroundings, had almost blotted out the matter

of the wager and of my duplicity.

 

She laughed a little nervous laugh, and - maybe to ease the tension

that my sudden silence had begotten - “You see,” she said, “how your

imagination deserts you when you seek to draw upon it for proof of

what you protest. You were about to tell me of - of the interests

that hold you at Lavedan, and when you come to ponder them, you find

that you can think of nothing. Is it - is it not so?” She put the

question very timidly, as if half afraid of the answer she might

provoke.

 

“No; it is not so,” I said.

 

I paused a moment, and in that moment I wrestled with myself.

Confession and avowal - confession of what I had undertaken, and

avowal of the love that had so unexpectedly come to me - trembled

upon my lips, to be driven shuddering away in fear.

 

Have I not said that this Bardelys was become a coward? Then my

cowardice suggested a course to me - flight. I would leave Lavedan.

I would return to Paris and to Chatellerault, owning defeat and

paying my wager. It was the only course open to me. My honour, so

tardily aroused, demanded no less. Yet, not so much because of that

as because it was suddenly revealed to me as the easier course, did

I determine to pursue it. What thereafter might become of me I did

not know, nor in that hour of my heart’s agony did it seem to matter

overmuch.

 

“There is much, mademoiselle, much, indeed, to hold me firmly at

Lavedan,” I pursued at last. “But my - my obligations demand of me

that I depart.”

 

“You mean the Cause,” she cried. “But, believe me, you can do

nothing. To sacrifice yourself cannot profit it. Infinitely better

you can serve the Duke by waiting until the time is ripe for another

blow. And how can you better preserve your life than by remaining

at Lavedan until the persecutions are at an end?”

 

“I was not thinking of the Cause, mademoiselle, but of myself alone

—of my own personal honour. I would that I could explain; but I am

afraid,” I ended lamely.

 

“Afraid?” she echoed, now raising her eyes in wonder.

 

“Aye, afraid. Afraid of your contempt, of your scorn.”

 

The wonder in her glance increased and asked a question that I could

not answer. I stretched forward, and caught one of the hands lying

idle in her lap.

 

“Roxalanne,” I murmured very gently, and my tone, my touch, and the

use of her name drove her eyes for refuge behind their lids again.

A flush spread upon the ivory pallor of her face, to fade as swiftly,

leaving it very white. Her bosom rose and fell in agitation, and

the little hand I held trembled in my grasp. There was a moment’s

silence. Not that I had need to think or choose my words. But

there was a lump in my throat - aye, I take no shame in confessing

it, for this was the first time that a good and true emotion had

been vouchsafed me since the Duchesse de Bourgogne had shattered

my illusions ten years ago.

 

“Roxalanne,” I resumed presently, when I was more master of myself,

“we have been good friends, you and I, since that night when I

climbed for shelter to your chamber, have we not?”

 

“But yes, monsieur,” she faltered.

 

“Ten days ago it is. Think of it - no more than ten days. And it

seems as if I had been months at Lavedan, so well have we become

acquainted. In these ten days we have formed opinions of each other.

But with this difference, that whilst mine are right, yours are

wrong. I have come to know you for the sweetest, gentlest saint in

all this world. Would to God I had known you earlier! It might

have been very different; I might have been - I would have been -

different, and I would not have done what I have done. You have

come to know me for an unfortunate but honest gentleman. Such am

I not. I am under false colours here, mademoiselle. Unfortunate

I may be - at least, of late I seem to have become so. Honest I

am not - I have not been. There, child, I can tell you no more. I

am too great a coward. But when later you shall come to hear the

truth - when, after I am gone, they may tell you a strange story

touching this fellow Lesperon who sought the hospitality of your

father’s house - bethink you of my restraint in this hour; bethink

you of my departure. You will understand these things perhaps

afterwards. But bethink you of them, and you will unriddle them for

yourself, perhaps. Be merciful upon me then; judge me not

over-harshly.”

 

I paused, and for a moment we were silent. Then suddenly she looked

up; her fingers tightened upon mine.

 

“Monsieur de Lesperon,” she pleaded, “of what do speak? You are