The Quest of Glory - Marjorie Bowen (most interesting books to read txt) 📗

antechamber of the audience room he saw a solitary young man coming

down the corridor.

 

“This is my Vauvenargues,” he smiled.

 

Louis paused, looked back, and, seeing the young man, smiled also.

 

Luc, grave, alert, serenely glad of his appointment as secretary to the

embassy to Madrid which had just been conferred on him by M. Amelot,

came on along the gallery, unconscious of the two gentlemen half

concealed by the heavy folds of the great velvet curtain until he was

just upon them. Then he raised his eyes, to see M. de Richelieu

regarding him closely and the tall gentleman with the beautiful face,

whose wonderful deep blue eyes were now lit by a kind of amusement. Luc

was irresistibly attracted to this face with the loose curls dishevelled

round the short, fine features, which he now saw for the first time in

broad daylight.

 

M. de Richelieu realized in an instant that Luc did not know the King.

 

“I congratulate you on your appointment, M. le Marquis,” he said.

 

Luc uncovered; a flush rose to his brow as a sudden thought stung him.

 

“Do I owe this appointment to your influence, Maréchal?” he asked.

 

“No, Monsieur,” replied M. de Richelieu, smiling broadly; “to this

gentleman’s.”

 

Louis’ blue eyes flickered over the slim, erect figure of the young

noble. He remembered perfectly well his last meeting and all that Luc

had said. He was essentially good-humoured, and the present situation

diverted him.

 

“Monseigneur,” said the Marquis with dignity, “I have the honour of your

acquaintance, not of your name.”

 

He waited with his hat in his hand and the colour deepening in his face,

for he felt acutely that the Maréchal was laughing at him.

 

“I do not know to whom I am indebted,” he added.

 

“Monsieur,” answered Louis, “to the King of France.”

 

“His Majesty!” stammered Luc, bewildered.

 

“I am the King,” smiled Louis with a lazy, soft grandeur.

 

Luc’s quick mind saw it all in a flash of pain—his first sight of this

man, their meeting, the unplaceable manner, his own foolish, impetuous

words. He rallied to the shock as he had rallied to many a cavalry

charge; he faced the blue eyes unflinchingly, though his face became as

colourless as the soft folds of muslin under his black velvet stock.

 

“I stand at your Majesty’s mercy,” he said, in a faint but even voice.

 

“You remember our meeting, Monsieur?” asked Louis. “Yes, sire.”

 

Louis advanced a step. Luc did not lower his eyes; the two men looked at

each other with a steady intentness.

 

“You spoke of the King of France,” said Louis, “and you gave him too

many virtues, Monsieur. It is a rare fault, for the King has more

detractors than defenders. I hope you may keep your loyalty in your new

employment.” He smiled a little sadly, and the blue eyes clouded and

flashed.

 

Luc was disarmed; the languid young idler was transformed into the man

who might indeed be the King of his imaginings—a man who was too great

to be affronted, too noble to remember trivialities. Luc was aware of

nothing in that moment but a passionate desire to serve the King—to

instantly prove his loyalty; the generous blood surged back into his

face.

 

“Your Majesty will have no idle servant in me,” he said, and his voice

quivered a little now.

 

Louis held out his large, shapely hand.

 

“Sire!” cried Luc, overwhelmed. He sank on one knee and kissed the

King’s fingers with throbbing lips.

 

“We hope to see you on your return from Spain,” said Louis as he rose.

 

“Your Majesty!” murmured Luc. He took his dismissal with a dignity above

a courtier’s and stepped backwards, bowing low.

 

Louis was silent for a little after Luc had gone, but M. de Richelieu

laughed, as if he were in possession of a delicious jest.

 

“What is the matter, Maréchal?” asked Louis at length, turning sleepy

eyes on him.

 

“I was thinking that, after all, your Majesty does it better than I

could.”

 

Louis gave him a sideway glance, revealing, it seemed, that he was not

so unconscious of his own arts as he appeared to be.

 

“Ah,” he answered languidly. “I did not like the fellow,” he added

thoughtfully; “he has a bright look of death. I hope he will not come

back.” With a sudden shudder he continued, “keep these dying men away

from me, Richelieu!”

 

“Dying?” echoed the Maréchal, startled. “Why, he is well enough—La

Koklinska was in love with him last week.”

 

“All the same, I do not think he has long to live,” replied the King

gloomily.

 

A sound of voices and the tap of high-heeled shoes came from the end of

the corridor.

 

Louis turned his beautiful face with a startled movement. “Mon Dieu,” he

cried, angry and paling, “it is Madame de Chateauroux!”

 

He caught M. de Richelieu by the arm and drew him sharply into the

audience chamber.

 

CHAPTER XI # THE FÊTE

 

A honey-coloured haze of autumn glory hung over the trees and fields

outside Aix, where a fête was being held, this perfect day in late

October. Among the crowds who wandered in and out of the trees, the

booths, the stalls were Luc de Clapiers and his promised wife, Clémence

de Séguy. He had returned home for his betrothal and to prepare for the

appointment he was to take up in the spring. His prospects were suddenly

pure gold to him; the sense of the opportunity ahead, of the achievement

within his grasp, of success, of fulfilment mingled with the joy of

pleasing his father, of satisfying all those claims of family affection

and family pride, which had so often seemed a chain and a clog, into one

ecstasy of living that was crowned by the gentle passion and happy

devotion of Clémence, who seemed to have no wish in the world but to

shine for him. Her soft youth, her grave ignorance, her pretty follies

and lofty ideals of constancy, self-sacrifice, and truth won from him a

tender respect and a generous gratitude that seemed to her perfect love.

When she was absent from him he did not often think of her. She filled

her place in his mind as his promised wife; over his soul she had no

dominion.

 

They paused before a stage in front of a tent set among a group of elm

trees. A little group of townsfolk in their best clothes were watching a

marionette show that was nearly concluded. Above the tent fluttered long

red pennons against the blue sky and gold leaves; the stage was hung at

the back with white curtains and in front with a striped tapestry of

many colours, on the edge of which, where it trailed in the golden dust,

a man in green velvet with a comical painted face sat beating a scarlet

drum.

 

From the back of the tent sounded a brisk, lively music, to which the

puppets danced a finale, fluttering their laces and spangles.

 

Clémence laughed instinctively and laid her hand on Luc’s sleeve.

 

“Is it not beautiful?” she said. She had never been out of Aix in her

life, and never to a fair before: she was only eighteen.

 

The marionettes disappeared, and a little girl not above six years old

sprang on to the stage with a coil of rope in her hand.

 

“I should like to stay,” said Clémence.

 

There was a thin semicircle of seats about the stage; at one end of

this, in the front, they seated themselves.

 

The small performer deftly fastened the rope from one end to the other

of the stage, about five feet from the ground, and commenced walking

across it. She wore an apple-green coloured bodice and a white skirt

with a red frill; she had a small, dark face, and frowned down at the

rope with her arms spread wide and her body swaying.

 

Clémence leant forward and watched with grave absorption. Luc looked at

her, studied her with covert intensity, which she was too occupied with

the performance to notice.

 

Her face was slightly flushed, the lips parted, the absorbed eyes shaded

by the brim of her straw hat; between her warm-coloured, fine neck and

the frilled cambric of her fichu rolled a cluster of brown curls that

caught the sunlight in threads of gold; her small and helpless-looking

hands, covered in fine black silk mittens, were folded in her lap; the

full folds of her pale violet silk gown fell over the chair and touched

the dust.

 

Luc marvelled at her, That adorable little face had never expressed

sorrow, weariness, depression, anger, or any sad passion; it was

untouched by yearning, longing—by any struggle; it was, save for the

full development of its beauty, the face of an infant; and yet she had

calmly pledged herself to the stormy virtues of constancy,

self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, unending fidelity—more than he had

ever asked of her.

 

“I used to consider her a child,” thought Luc; “but she is nearer an

angel.” Then he forgot the stage under the trees, the passing

holiday-makers, and even the near presence of his betrothed, and was

only aware of the sunshine, which carried him back to Paris and the Pont

Neuf—and the river flowing past the Louvre and the isle of the city

(always the river ran through all his dreams and visions)—and the Rue

du Bac at night with the street lights gleaming through the rain—and

then the sunshine again over the poplar trees on the quays and the

spires of the churches.

 

He thought, too, of M. de Voltaire, and how that great man would smile

to think that he, Luc, was supremely happy in the prospect of his modest

appointment and his simple wife.

 

A timid touch on his sleeve roused him. Clémence was gazing at him with

shining eyes.

 

“Is it not wonderful?” she whispered.

 

Luc glanced at the stage; the child had raised herself by one hand on

the rope upright into the air, her feet close together, her green tights

a vivid line of colour, and her white and crimson skirts a ruffle round

her waist.

 

A man came from the back of the stage and caught the child in his arms;

he wore a robe of loose pattern composed of squares of black and white,

and he began to execute a fantastic dance with the child on his

shoulder.

 

The man in green velvet left off beating the drum, and began collecting

from the crowd in a pink and gold shaded shell.

 

Luc’s gaze wandered from the performers, and he watched the mummer’s

extravagant bows and grimaces as he solicited his guerdon from the

spectators.

 

Presently he stopped before a lady who stood in the shade under one of

the elm trees, and who was remarkable both for a certain air of the

great world not common to the nobility of Aix, and for the fact that she

was alone with only a black page in attendance. Luc could not see her

face, for she wore a heavy-plumed beaver, and her figure was disguised

by a scarlet riding-cloak, yet she interested him by reason of an

extraordinary mixture of humility and defiance in her air, conveyed by

something in her pose, the droop of her shoulders, and the set of her

head.

 

She gave the player a coin, and he passed on; she remained under the

tree, a conspicuous figure, and one of a mournfulness out of place in

this time of carnival.

 

Several people looked at her; some stopped to stare.

 

Luc wondered who she was, why she