The Quest of Glory - Marjorie Bowen (most interesting books to read txt) 📗
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general gaiety.
He was looking at her when she came slowly out of the shadow, her page
behind her, and as she moved into the sunlight Luc recognized Carola
Koklinska.
“The show is over,” said Clémence regretfully.
A gaudy painted curtain had been drawn across the little stage, and the
people were moving away to other booths. “Shall we go?” asked Luc.
“Yes; it is rather cold,” she answered shyly. She rose from the little
green chair, and as she turned Carola, walking in front of the poles and
canvas, was full in her vision.
Carola looked over her shoulder and saw the girl; the two gazed directly
at each other.
“Who is that lady?” asked Clémence, for she saw Luc’s salutation and the
stranger’s faint, answering smile.
“A Polish Countess,” he answered, “whom I met in Prague and in Paris.”
“Why, what is she here for—alone?” questioned Mademoiselle de Séguy.
“And will you not present me to her?” Her ardent desire to be gracious
to any acquaintance of his showed in her eager words.
Luc smiled.
“I never knew her well enough,” he said, “and it seems she does not wish
to speak to me.”
Certainly Carola, without a backward look, had disappeared in the crowd.
Clémence seemed disappointed.
“I wish she had stayed,” she remarked sincerely.
Luc made no answer; he was wondering what had brought Carola to Aix. He
had thought that she was still in Austria; he supposed she might be on
her way to Avignon; yet he knew M. de Richelieu was in Paris, and under
any circumstances it seemed curious that she should be alone at a public
fête—she who had always affected such magnificence.
A little sigh from Clémence recalled him from his momentary reflection.
“It is cold,” she repeated timidly.
“Come out into the sun,” he answered, and they moved slowly away from
the crowd, beyond the elms, and so beyond the fête, into a little slope
of meadow land where the grass was yet untrod and green. The western
distance, blue, hazed, and mysterious, was half hid by a belt of beech
trees, whose boughs bent beneath a load of tawny, orange, gold, and
crimson leaves.
The distant, mechanical music of the fête was in the air, ‘and
occasional gusts of laughter and of applause broke the monotonous rhythm
of the melody.
Luc and Clémence moved farther and farther away from these sounds; the
streaming sunlight wrapped them in warmth and glory, the beech trees
were a dazzle of golden colour before their eyes, and the sky overhead
was clear blue without a trace of cloud. The girl sighed, looked at the
trees, the heavens, then at the ground.
“Are you sad, my dear?” asked Luc very tenderly.
“No,” she answered in a thin voice; “only I should like to
do—something—for you.”
“For me?” His face flashed into a charming smile.
“Yes.” She lifted her childlike countenance and her voice was stronger.
“Sometimes I wish that you were poor or lonely or—despised—that I
might prove what I can only say now.”
He was abashed and overwhelmed. He saw tears of sincerity glittering on
her long, drooping lashes; the heroic in his own soul was quick to
salute the heroic rising to him in hers.
He stopped and turned to face her.
“You must not say that,” he said, taking her by the shoulders very
gently. “I do not deserve that you should say that, Clémence.”
She shuddered and bent her head lower.
“I am such an ordinary woman—but now I feel I could do something
great—for you. I—I cared for you before you ever thought of me, you
know. When you were in Paris—I used—to—pray—every night—that you
might come back.”
She gave a quivering little laugh. He looked at her with intense
earnestness, and the blood flushed into his face.
“You will have my life’s entire homage, Clémence,” he responded gravely
“To have you for my wife is beyond my desert. I want you to do nothing
for me but be yourself and smile on my endeavours to please you.”
He took his hands lightly from her shoulders, and she clung weakly and
gently to his arm.
“You do believe I would do anything in the world for you?” she said in a
kind of broken passion. “Oh, I feel so foolish, so ignorant—and you
have a great career before you. But if I ever have a chance—”
“What makes you speak like this?” he asked in a tone of reverent wonder.
“I have done nothing for you—”
“Oh, oh!” she murmured, as if she concealed a secret pain. “You do not
understand me. But if you are ever in any misfortune—”
“You are the sweetest child in the world,” Luc interrupted, “and you
must not think of misfortune—I trust never to bring you within the
shadow of any trouble.”
She gave a little fluttering sigh and slipped her arm from his. They
reached a low fence that separated the meadow from the beech trees and
there they rested, looking, through a break in the ruddy foliage, at the
sweet expanse of open country.
Luc’s heart was singing within him. All sense of struggle, of discord,
of loneliness, of hopes deferred, of ambitions cheated was over; the
road was open, free. He would tread it in the old ways of honour and
nobility; he would fulfil himself, and at the same time respect his
name, his blazon, and the traditions of his race. His companion was
beside him and prepared to follow him with more than conventional
affection, while he experienced a new and exquisite pleasure in offering
her all the devotion of a hitherto untouched heart. In truth it seemed
to Luc, as he gazed over the prospect of Provence, that here, in his
native place, among his own people, he had found the peace he had looked
for uselessly abroad; here, in simple Clémence, were the high virtues he
had once thrilled to think he had met in Carola Koklinska.
The sun glowed to its setting; superb bars of purple and scarlet began
to burn out of the dense gold of the west; a low, clear breeze arose and
swept over the grass.
Clémence broke the charmed silence.
“Are you sure of me?” she asked with panting force.
He gave her a quick smile; the glamour of all his visions and hopes
transfigured the moment.
“As I am sure of God,” he said. He raised the cold, mittened hand from
the fence and kissed it.
“Ah, Luc,” she said below her breath, “Luc!”
They went slowly back towards the fête with the sun behind them and
their shadows long across the grass before them, and all the air circled
with glory and the ineffable light of the setting sun.
As they entered the grounds of the fair they met the old Marquis and
Joseph.
If Luc had needed any completion of his happiness he would have found it
in the radiant demeanour of his father, whose every wish had been now
fulfilled and satisfied. He did not know of Luc’s correspondence with M.
de Voltaire; in Aix, Luc attended Mass, and never mentioned the new
philosophy that guided Paris. There was nothing to trouble the elder M.
de Vauvenargues’s touching pleasure in his sons.
Coloured lamps began to appear in the trees, mingling their twinkling
beams with the sanguine fires of the sun, and music sounded with renewed
gaiety from the gaudy tents.
Luc de Clapiers was content.
The last generous glow of October had passed into the first chill of
November; the white haze of an early frost lay over the fields as Luc,
but a few days after the fête, rode across the fields where he had
walked with Clémence on his way home from the house of the Comte de
Séguy.
He noted, even in his happy mood, a certain sadness in the deserted spot
that had been so gay. The fair was over, the travelling players had
gone, leaving behind them worn grass, scattered rubbish, and trampled
bushes; in one corner of the field a ragged tent still stood with a long
blue and scarlet streamer fluttering above it. Luc wondered at ‘that,
for there was no indication of anyone having been left behind; but he
rode on briskly towards the gates of Aix, and was striking out of the
fields into the high road when round the group of elms, where the stage
had been but so short a time before, rode Carola Koklinska.
It seemed as if she would have passed him without a word, but he drew
rein, and then she checked her horse also. “You wonder to see me in
Aix,” she said.
It was sunless and near to twilight. She wore a dark dress and hat, and
in her whole person was no colour whatever; her face was pallid, and the
blood only showed faintly in her lips; her mount was a fine white
horse—an animal such as she had ridden when she came round the silver
firs in Bohemia.
“Certainly; I thought you were in Austria, Madame,” said Luc with a
grave smile.
She looked at him steadily through the cold, uncertain light.
“I have been a failure in Austria,” she answered. “Perhaps you have not
heard, Monsieur, that I have been a failure altogether.”
“No,” said the Marquis; “I have heard nothing of you. I was surprised
to see you the other day—here, at the fête.”
“I came,” she replied, still gazing at him, “because I shall not be
likely to ever hear music or see gaiety again—not even this little
simple country merry-making.”
The wind blew sharply between them and a few dead leaves fell from the
elm on to Carola’s lap.
“Is M. de Richelieu in Paris?” asked Luc.
“M. de Richelieu “—she spoke without heat or bitterness—“is now the
servant of Madame de la Poplinière, and M. Amelot, who was my friend,
has fallen. The Marquise de Pompadour has changed the face of the Court;
every post is now filled by her creatures. Besides, I was very stupid in
Austria—I was found out.”
Her horse shook his head and the bridle silver twinkled in the
stillness.
Luc asked her what she had once asked him—
“What are you going to do with your life?”
“I have made my choice.” Her answer was ready. “M. de Richelieu is
generous—he gives one—alternatives. I have an estate in Poland, my
husband’s estate. I could go there, with a pension—I could die—like
Madame de Chateauroux—I could go into a convent. I have decided on the
last.”
“Why?” asked Luc, leaning a little forward on his saddle.
“Because I am tired.” Her dark, heavy-lidded eyes were still clear and
steady. “You must not think that I am more holy than I ever was. I have
simply done what I meant to—come to the usual end—and I am tired.”
“Will your religion console you for the loss of the world?” smiled Luc.
“Yes,” she answered swiftly. “Do you remember me in the chapel of St.
Wenceslas? I believe.”
“Are you putting this resolve in practice—at once?” She answered in her
old precise tones.
“I am journeying to a convent near Avignon which is under a certain
obligation to me. I was generous to them and they will be generous to
me.”
“Alone?” asked Luc gently. “You are travelling alone?”
She smiled.
“I had my page. He left me yesterday with most of my jewels. Yes,
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