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

front of him that he held to his bosom with his right hand; his

gaze went beyond Carola and beyond the flames. She thought he had

forgotten she was there.

 

She mounted and brought her horse alongside his. “Ah, Madame,” he

murmured, with a start.

 

They rode together out of the light of the flames.

 

CHAPTER XIII # CLÉMENCE

 

The lantern failed, and the moonlight was often obscured, or completely

blotted out by the passing sullen clouds.

 

Luc’s right arm was stiff about the heavy child and his left hand cold

on the bridle; his very blood was chill. It seemed to him that the

creeping bitterness of the night was more intense than all the hurricane

snows of Bohemia. He seldom moved his head, and his body was cramped in

one position with the weight of the little girl against it; but his mind

had never been clearer, more alert, more active.

 

Picture after picture flashed before him with agonizing vividness—all

that had gone to make his life since his return from Bohemia to his last

parting, a few hours ago, with Clémence in her father’s house formed and

faded with mechanical repetition, and against the background of their

visionary memories raced his thoughts.

 

It came to this: a little while ago he had been happy with the ecstatic

happiness of youth—of proud, ambitious youth; he had seen honourable

labour behind, honourable labour ahead; he had felt love rest against

his heart, and seen glory hovering very near. And now—he was riding

through the dark, with disease, corruption, perhaps death, in his arms;

riding away from the home to which he had lately pledged himself, away

from Clémence and all she stood for—with a woman associated with

humiliation and sadness for his companion—with great chances that he

would never be able to turn back again to those things he had left

behind.

 

Yet he was conscious all the time of the highest exaltation perhaps that

he had ever known—an intermittent sensation, now weaker, now stronger,

that, however, held his heart up steadily.

 

The night seemed endless. Only once did they meet anyone—some peasants

in a cart, who stopped and seemed to wonder at them.

 

“We carry the plague!” cried Carola as they galloped past, and they

heard the men’s cries of terror and supplications to God.

 

The child began to stir in Luc’s arms. He himself felt faint; the night

wind brought on his cough, which had troubled him since his last

campaign. He tried to comfort the little girl; she became still again,

and, he thought, heavier.

 

He turned to Carola beside him; since they started she had not spoken to

him.

 

“It must be near the dawn,” he said.

 

“I do not know,” she answered, and added, after a little, “Are we not

off the road? I think we have lost the way.”

 

The moon was setting. Luc had been dwelling so in his thoughts that he

had not noticed through what growing blackness they were riding. A wind

was up, and they could hear it shaking some trees near with a deep

rustling sound.

 

“Poplar trees,” came Carola’s voice; and he thought, as he knew she

thought, of the poplar trees in the garden off the Rue Deauville.

 

They drew rein; he had no light whatever, and her lantern had gone out.

 

“We must wait for the dawn,” said Carola again. “I cannot find the way.

The dawn must be soon now, I think.”

 

He heard her dismount and sigh.

 

“This is grass—a field,” she continued. “We have left the road. How is

the child?”

 

He turned back the woollen cloak that was damp with dew and delicately

touched the small face in the hollow of his arm.

 

“Very cold,” he answered. “Ah!”

 

“What is it?” asked Carola.

 

“Her eyes are wide open and her mouth, but she does not move.”

 

“Dead?” asked Carola.

 

“I think—dead.”

 

He moved his cramped arm from under his burden and laid her across his

shoulder while he dismounted; out of the dark came Carola’s hand and

touched his arm, then her other hand, and took the child from him.

 

“We must let the horses go,” he said. “It is raining. Perhaps we could

find some shelter.”

 

Carola’s voice came faintly, as if it was a long way off. “The child is

dead. I cannot feel her heart at all. What soft hair she has!”

 

Luc heard the jingle of harness as the horses moved away. The rain fell

with a cold sting on his bare hands, his blood was frozen, his limbs

stiff; the darkness lay like a weight on his eyes.

 

“We must wait here for the light,” he said.

 

He heard Carola move.

 

“Yes, we will wait,” she answered. “Perhaps we had better have stayed in

the tent—yet what chance had she there? Oh, my dear, my poor dear!” and

he heard her kiss the little tight-rope dancer.

 

“Give me your hand,” he said; “we might find the trees.” He turned to

where he thought she was, and presently felt her hand again, ungloved,

in his. With his right hand flung before him, he discovered the long

narrow trunks of the trees.

 

“Here!’ he called to his companion. She withdrew her hand from his; he

guessed that she was still carrying the child. There was a little pause,

then he heard her cast herself on the ground.

 

“O God, believe that I am tired, tired!” she cried out.

 

Luc leant against the tree-trunk, gazing across the blackness. For the

second time they were alone together in the cold and dark with a dead

child between them; it seemed to him a symbol of what separated them and

yet what brought them together: death and sorrow—but endeavour and

exaltation. The enigma that had seemed to have poorly solved itself in

the house of M. de Richelieu was now suddenly again unsolvable. Was she

not brave and kind?—what she had appeared in Bohemia—had not all his

estimates been utterly wrong? And what was the meaning of this constant

crossing of their lives—connected always with death?

 

He put his hand wearily to his forehead; her voice came up from the

ground, near his feet.

 

“These fields are not new to me, Monsieur de Vauvenargues. I have slept

under these trees before. I used to watch the sheep here when I was a

little ragged child. Sometimes I used to go to Aix with milk, and see

you, Monsieur le Marquis, riding with your brother. Then I had another

name—it was before I went to Paris.”

 

“So you are from Provence?” he murmured.

 

“Yes. Here I was born, homeless, nameless; and here I shall die,

homeless, nameless also. I have done what I wished to, and I regret

nothing.”

 

Luc could not speak; that their lives should have been so twisted

together strangely troubled him.

 

She seemed to divine his silence.

 

“I could not help this. For Mademoiselle de Seguy’s sake, I would have

done anything it had not happened.”

 

The rosy face of Clémence with her devoted eyes sprang out of the

blackness to confront Luc; he shivered and put his hands over his

forehead.

 

“Why do you not speak?” came the weak voice from his feet. “Are you

thinking of the future?”

 

“Yes,” said Luc, with an effort.

 

He felt that she shuddered.

 

“Are you—afraid?” she asked, in a tone of horror.

 

“Yes,” said Luc simply.

 

The terror of that admission filled the darkness.

 

Luc set his back against the tree. He could feel the fine rain on his

hands and dripping from his hat; he coughed and shivered.

 

“In Bohemia we were on the heights,” came Carola’s voice; “but this is

the lowlands, and there is not one star.”

 

Luc was thinking again of Paris, and the river, and the beggar on the

quay, and of Clémence as she had stood in her father’s hall to say

good-bye to him with soft lamplight over her face that seemed to express

something never to be put into words, and her gown, lace, perfume, and

pale colours.

 

“Speak, Monsieur le Marquis, speak!” the woman’s voice implored. “I am

here with a dead child.”

 

“She is dead, then?” asked Luc.

 

“I cannot warm her or make her move.” The answer was unsteady and

wistful. “Yes, she is dead.”

 

Luc was thinking now of his home, of his family waiting for him, of

their wonder at his absence. He recalled the work he had meant to do

to-night and the letters he had intended to write. He was now as cut off

from that as if he had been swept to another world.

 

A sob came shivering up to him; he started with a sense of his great

selfishness.

 

“Rise up, Madame,” he said; “rise up. Take my hand, and stand beside me.

It has happened that those brought as near contagion as you are have

escaped.”

 

She did not answer.

 

“And it may not be the smallpox,” added Luc, against his own deep

conviction.

 

This time she answered.

 

“I know it is. We are infected, perhaps doomed. As for me, it is no

matter; but you—your future?”

 

Luc made no reply; darkness lay on his brain as well as before his eyes.

He felt his strength, almost his life, being drawn from him by the chill

and the damp; it seemed worse than the snows of Bohemia. He realized how

weak he had been since his illness at Eger; how even the burden of a

child and the cold of a night in one of his native fields was almost

beyond his endurance.

 

He turned towards the spot where Carola must be still seated.

 

“You are cold, Madame? Take my cloak—I am warm enough.”

 

“No—no!” she said sharply. “I have my own, and I have often slept out

in an old thin shawl—I should be used to it.”

 

“And I,” answered Luc sadly—“I who was a soldier.” He was unclasping

his cloak with numb fingers when he heard her rise to her feet; she

touched his shoulder.

 

“I am warm,” she said.

 

Her hand trembled down his arm, found his hand and held it. He let her

clasp it between hers, which were, as she said, warm. The touch of her

soft palms caused a wave of mingled anguish and pleasure to rise to his

heart. She came closer; he felt her heavy cloak sweep his foot; the

faint Eastern perfume he always associated with her crept into his

nostrils; his head sunk slightly on his chest, and he shivered.

 

She drew his cold hand to her bosom. He felt, with a quickening of all

his senses, the stiff smoothness of her satin gown, the straining of her

breast against the silk cords, and even the hasty beating of her heart.

She raised his hand, and he felt her throat, her chin, and finally her

lips.

 

A soft and timid kiss was lightly pressed on his fingers—the kiss of a

suppliant, of one who asks for mercy.

 

Then she brought his slack hand down to her bosom again.

 

“You are very cold, Monsieur,” she said; her voice was infinitely sad.

 

Luc saw her as a humble peasant girl with black hair hanging about her

shoulders and bare feet. The great lady had disappeared; he thought only

of the girl she had described, keeping sheep in the fields and sleeping

under the trees. His brain was numb, and fantasy dazed him. He put out

his free hand and caught her shoulder; though he felt the rich