A Gentleman of France: Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne Sieur de Marsac by - (e reader for manga txt) 📗

‘Peace, woman!’ Maignan said in his deep voice. ‘You had your way and came with us, and you will obey orders as well as another! Be off, and see to the victuals before worse happen to you!’

‘Ay, see to the victuals!’ she retorted. ‘See to the victuals, forsooth! That is all you think of—to lie warm and eat your fill! A set of dastardly, drinking, droning guzzlers you are! You are!’ she retorted, her voice rising to a shriek. ‘May the plague take you!’

‘Silence!’ Maignan growled fiercely, ‘or have a care to yourself! For a copper-piece I would send you to cool your heels in the water below—for that last word! Begone, do you hear,’ he continued, seizing her by the shoulder and thrusting her towards the house, ‘or worse may happen to you. We are rough customers, as you will find if you do not lock up your tongue!’

I heard her go wailing into the darkness; and Heaven knows it was not without compunction I forced myself to remain inactive in the face of a devotion which seemed so much greater than mine. The men fell away one by one to look to their horses and choose sleeping-quarters for the night; and presently M. d’Agen and I were left alone standing beside the lanthorn, which the man had hung on a bush before his door. The brawling of the water as it poured between the banks, a score of paces from us, and the black darkness which hid everything beyond the little ring of light in which we stood—so that for all we could see we were in a pit—had the air of isolating us from all the world.

I looked at the young man, who had not once lisped that day; and I plainly read in his attitude his disapproval of my caution. Though he declined to meet my eye, he stood with his arms folded and his head thrown back, making no attempt to disguise the scorn and ill-temper which his face expressed. Hurt by the woman’s taunts, and possibly shaken in my opinion, I grew restive under his silence, and unwisely gave way to my feelings.

‘You do not appear to approve of my decision, M. d’Agen?’ I said.

‘It is yours to command, sir,’ he answered proudly.

There are truisms which have more power to annoy than the veriest reproaches. I should have borne in mind the suspense and anxiety he was suffering, and which had so changed him that I scarcely knew him for the gay young spark on whose toe I had trodden. I should have remembered that he was young and I old, and that it behoved me to be patient. But on my side also there was anxiety, and responsibility as well; and, above all, a rankling soreness, to which I refrain from giving the name of jealousy, though it came as near to that feeling as the difference in our ages and personal advantages (whereof the balance was all on his side) would permit. This, no doubt, it was which impelled me to continue the argument.

‘You would go on?’ I said persistently.

‘It is idle to say what I would do,’ he answered with a flash of anger.

‘I asked for your opinion, sir,’ I rejoined stiffly.

‘To what purpose?’ he retorted, stroking his small moustache haughtily, ‘We look at the thing from opposite points. You, are going about your business, which appears to be the rescuing of ladies who are—may I venture to say it? so unfortunate as to entrust themselves to your charge. I, M. de Marsac, am more deeply interested. More deeply interested,’ he repeated lamely. ‘I—in a word, I am prepared, sir, to do what others only talk of—and if I cannot follow otherwise, would follow on my feet!’

‘Whom?’ I asked curtly, stung by this repetition of my own words.

He laughed harshly and bitterly. ‘Why explain? or why quarrel?’ he replied cynically. ‘God knows, if I could afford to quarrel with you, I should have done so fifty hours ago. But I need your help; and, needing it, I am prepared to do that which must seem to a person of your calm passions and perfect judgment alike futile and incredible—pay the full price for it.’

‘The full price for it!’ I muttered, understanding nothing, except that I did not understand.

‘Ay, the full price for it!’ he repeated. And as he spoke he looked at me with an expression of rage so fierce that I recoiled a step. That seemed to restore him in some degree to himself, for without giving me an opportunity of answering he turned hastily from me, and, striding away, was in a moment lost in the darkness.

He left me amazed beyond measure. I stood repeating his phrase about ‘the full price’ a hundred times over, but still found it and his passion inexplicable. To cut the matter short, I could come to no other conclusion than that he desired to insult me, and aware of my poverty and the equivocal position in which I stood towards mademoiselle, chose his words accordingly. This seemed a thing unworthy of one of whom I had before thought highly; but calmer reflection enabling me to see something of youthful bombast in the tirade he had delivered, I smiled a little sadly, and determined to think no more of the matter for the present, but to persist firmly in that which seemed to me to be the right course.

Having settled this, I was about to enter the house, when Maignan stopped me, telling me that the plague had killed five people in it, letting only the man we had seen; who had, indeed, been seized, but recovered. This ghastly news had scared my company to such a degree that they had gone as far from the house as the level ground permitted, and there lighted a fire, round which they were going to pass the night. Fanchette had taken up her quarters in the stable, and the equerry announced that he had kept a shed full of sweet hay for M. d’Agen and myself. I assented to this arrangement, and after supping off soup and black bread, which was all we could procure, bade the peasant rouse us two hours before sunrise; and so, being too weary and old in service to remain awake thinking, I fell asleep, and slept; soundly till a little after four.

My first business on rising was to see that the men before mounting made a meal, for it is ill work fighting empty. I went round also and saw that all had their arms, and that such as carried pistols had them loaded and primed. Francois did not put in an appearance until this work was done, and then showed a very pale and gloomy countenance. I took no heed of him, however, and with the first streak of daylight we started in single file and at a snail’s pace up the valley, the peasant, whom I placed in Maignan’s charge, going before to guide us, and M. d’Agen and I riding in the rear. By the time the sun rose and warmed our chilled and shivering frames we were over the worst of the ground, and were able to advance at some speed along a track cut through a dense forest of oak-trees.

Though we had now risen out of the valley, the close-set trunks and the undergrowth round them prevented our seeing in any direction. For a mile or more we rode on blindly, and presently started on finding ourselves on the brow of a hill, looking down into a valley, the nearer end of which was clothed in woods, while the farther