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

velvet of

her cloak, he still imagined her as the poor peasant orphan.

 

She came closer; he felt her breath, and knew her face was very near

his. She loosened his hand, and he raised it to her other shoulder. He

felt velvet, hard embroidery, and the rise and fall of her breath

shaking her frame under his delicate grasp.

 

“I think the dawn is breaking,” he said. “You and I are strange company

to watch the sun rise.”

 

And he laughed under his breath.

 

The brim of her hat touched his beaver as she sharply turned her head.

 

“My God, yes, the dawn!” she murmured. She drew away from him

altogether. They were facing east, it seemed, for the sky before them

was a watery grey, faint, faint and melancholy; a blue of misty silver,

a mere promise of light. Slowly the shapes of things began to form out

of the darkness; a pallid glow overspread the heavens; the rain ceased.

 

Luc never moved. He put his hand before his eyes; in his ears was the

rustle of the poplar leaves, sounding very far away. A deeper chill

seemed to seize his limbs, to penetrate to his very heart, which was

beating faintly, reluctantly, and with a certain sense of pain.

 

He made an effort to free himself from the invading host of fancies that

beset him, and lifted his eyes from the shelter of his palm.

 

The wet, colourless world was revealed about him; a long gleam of yellow

silver divided earth from sky. He saw before him flat meadow land, a few

bare trees, a distant wood.

 

He moved stiffly and looked round for Carola.

 

Under one of the poplars was the figure of the young woman standing in

much the same attitude as that he had observed at the fête a few days

ago, very still, her head slightly bent, her whole pose expressing

containment, humility, and yet a certain pride. His fantasy of a peasant

girl was dispelled now. Her clothes, though wet and mud-stained, showed

of an incongruous grandeur: the dress that trailed over the damp fallen

leaves was brocade and shot with gold threads, the white feathers on her

drooping beaver were fastened with a jewelled clasp, and in her ears

hung long red diamonds.

 

She seemed to feel his gaze on her, for she raised and turned her head.

Her black hair had fallen under her hat and lay heavy in the folds of

her violet velvet cloak.

 

“We can go on our way now,” she said evenly.

 

Luc looked at what lay between him and her: a bundle wrapped in the

gaudy striped mummer’s cloak; at one end two small feet clad in bright

green stockings showed, and at the other a fair damp curl had fallen

between the folds of the wrap.

 

He glanced away, utterly sick; not all the dead that had lined the way

from Prague to Eger had power to move him as this little corpse. He

heard Carola coming over the leaves, but would not look round.

 

Now the sun was above the horizon, the whole landscape was brightening

rapidly; a faint sparkle of gold began to appear on the wet leaves, on

the wet grass. Luc saw the two horses waiting with drooping heads not

far off. With a long shiver he moved towards them; when he returned with

the bridles in his hand, he found Carola kneeling beside the little

girl, who was now decently covered from head to foot in the velvet

cloak, which folded her like a rich pall.

 

Carola was praying. She held between her bare ringless hands a silver

and ivory rosary. Her head was bowed reverently, so that her face was

hidden by the shade of her hat. The strengthening sun gleamed on the red

and gold and brown of the riding-habit that revealed her slight, womanly

figure.

 

Luc stood watching her.

 

“Do you find consolation in that, Madame?” he asked gently.

 

She looked up; then, seeing he was holding the horses, rose, slipping

the rosary back into the bosom of her gown.

 

“If not there, where else?” she asked, very sadly. “God is the only kind

person I know.”

 

She came towards her horse, and he helped her to mount. When she was in

the saddle he gave her his cloak, and she took it now, without a word,

and shivered into it. The dawn seemed colder than the night.

 

“Do you remember the story of Madame de Montespan and the pigs?” she

asked, leaning a little towards Luc.

 

He stared at her.

 

“She was very beautiful and very great,” continued Carola, “and when

King Louis loved her there were no flowers in France considered worthy

to lie on her breast. Then when she fell into disgrace she left the

Court and died—still beautiful. And they took her heart to bury it at a

certain convent; and the peasant who carried it became weary of the

journey, and cast the heart into a ditch, and turned back—and no one

cared. And some pigs nosing in the ditch ate the heart of the beautiful

Marquise, and lay down that night in their sty with the proudest blood

in France staining their jaws—and no one cared except God!” Her eyes

flashed. “I think He remembered it against King Louis.”

 

“Why do you tell me this?” asked Luc, with a shudder.

 

“Because I have been thrown to the ditch and the swine,” she answered;

“and out of the dirt I ask God to remember that I have paid for some of

my sins—here on earth.”

 

He did not understand her, but her speech held him. With his hand on his

bridle, he looked up at her, his haggard, resolute, and beautiful face

clear in the light of the rising sun.

 

“M. de Richelieu—” he began.

 

“Let M. de Richelieu be!” answered Carola. “It is you who have

punished me most.”

 

“I?” he questioned.

 

“You—to-night—when I was lonely as the damned—and facing death and

hell—and you would not kiss me.” Luc looked at her steadily.

 

“You have cast my heart alive to the swine,” she said, in a trembling

voice, “and God will remember it against you.”

 

He caught her meaning through a confusion of pain. He realized his own

self-absorption; he saw, suddenly and very vividly, her point of view.

 

“You think I hold you in contempt?” he said hoarsely.

 

“Why not?” she answered. “Why not?”

 

Luc shook his head.

 

“I am not fine, and I am not true,” said Carola. “There is no paint on

my face now, and you must see I am a very common creature, Monsieur le

Marquis.”

 

Luc’s hand was so slack on the bridle that his horse began cropping the

thin blades of grass that sprouted between the dead leaves.

 

“Give me the child,” said the Countess.

 

The day was quite bright now; fields of emerald, skies of pale azure,

trees of faint gold were about them as he raised his burden to her

saddle. The purple velvet trailed over the wet sides of her white horse;

he flung across his own holster the coarse striped mantle, and mounted.

 

“These nuns,” she said, “are very good. They had, three years ago, when

the plague was bad, a hundred people in their hospice.”

 

Luc offered to take the mummer’s child from her, but she refused. They

rode from the fields on to the flat, muddy grey road. The horses were

weary, and Carola, using only one hand, rode awkwardly. They went slowly

across a country that was wet, glimmering, and silent.

 

Luc’s thoughts began to stir like waking birds, first shivering, then

mounting into the circle of the sunlight. All disturbing pictures of the

past vanished from his mind; he only saw the future, an ineffable blaze

of glory. He spoke aloud, lifting his face to the fragrant early

heavens.

 

“Whatever happens, I will overcome,” he said.

 

Carola looked at him, and seemed to shrink into herself. They neither of

them spoke until they had crossed a river by a low bridge, and ridden up

to the walls and outbuildings of an ancient abbey and convent.

 

Luc dismounted and helped Carola from her horse. Between them they laid

the little girl on the long grass beneath the wall. Luc fastened the

horses to a staple that was there for that purpose; his hands were very

cold and his whole body shivering. When he came back to the narrow door,

he found Carola standing beside the great iron bell. Above her head an

ash drooped over the wall; the hard scarlet fruit hung against the grey

stone and mortar. She had removed her hat; through the fine black

ringlets showed the long red diamonds, flame in crystal, that glittered

in her ears. Under Luc’s black cloak, her dress gleamed rich, and soft,

and bright. Her face was pallid, hollow, and expressionless.

 

Luc stepped towards her. She thought he meant to ring, and moved aside;

but he stopped before her, looking at her intently.

 

She glanced up at that: her eyes were bloodshot, and the lids swollen.

He saw that she must have been crying, silently, in the dark. She seemed

frightened and very humble. She held herself flat against the wall, and

the beaver she held dropped from her loosening fingers.

 

Luc took off his hat. His face was serene and proud; his long locks of

hazel-coloured hair, escaping from the black ribbon, blew over his

forehead and shoulders; his cravat and the thick lace on his bosom

stirred in this same breeze. The beautiful lines of his face showed

fatigue but no sadness, and his eyes were clear and radiant.

 

“What is your name?” he asked.

 

“Clémence,” she answered.

 

“Clémence!”

 

“It is true—that was my name in Provence,” she murmured. “I would never

have told you—why did you ask?”

 

“Clémence,” he repeated. He stood with his hat in his hand as if he was

in attendance on a great lady.

 

“Why do you not ring?” she asked hoarsely.

 

He made a gesture with his sword hand towards the convent.

 

“You know what we go into,” he said: “perhaps death—perhaps hideous

corruption.”

 

She smiled bravely.

 

“There is no need that a nun should be—desirable.”

 

“You are not afraid?”

 

“No.”

 

“Ah—I saw a man once—who had been a soldier—disfigured.”

 

“I know. I have seen them. I hope it may be me, not you. Ring,

Monsieur.”

 

“One moment. We are set apart from the world, you and I, Clémence. We

have met many times, very strangely. I think this is going to be the

last time.”

 

“The last time,” she echoed. “And you—are afraid?”

 

“Afraid that I may miss death, and live—useless. Afraid

of—her—afterwards; afraid—of fear.” He smiled grandly as he spoke.

 

“I am the only person who will ever know that,” she said proudly.

 

He held out his right hand; she put hers into it, and then he cast his

hat away, and suddenly clasped her.

 

“Take the last kiss I have to give in this gorgeous world!” she cried.

 

As he kissed her, she sobbed in her throat; and her quick tears wetted

his cheek as their lips met the second time. He kissed the ends of her

hair, her neck, her hands, the brocade that covered her bosom, then let

her free of his embrace, and pulled the long iron chain.

 

As the strident clang of the bell echoed through the convent, he picked

up her beaver and gave it her.

 

“You know?” she asked. Her lips were still throbbing, so that