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

something I want to ask you,” she said hurriedly.

 

“Yes, my child,” he answered gravely.

 

“Is he—will he be able to go to Madrid?”

 

A dark look clouded the old man’s eyes.

 

“Why do you want to know? Is it not enough that he is coming home

to-morrow?” he replied.

 

“Yes; ah, yes. But I wondered—his career.”

 

The Marquis flashed round on her.

 

“Do you think of his career, when his life has only been spared by a

miracle?”

 

She shrank away from him.

 

“For his sake I think of it,” she answered piteously. “He was always so

ardent for—glory.”

 

An expression so terrible, so swiftly distorting, passed over the fine

features of the Marquis that Clémence stopped in her walk to stare at

him.

 

“Come into the house,” he said, gripping her arm. “I wish to speak to

you.”

 

She murmured some awed response, and came obediently.

 

They entered the dark, heavy dining-room by the window where Luc had

stood the day of his return from the war, and watched his father, his

brother, and the bright dogs in the summer garden.

 

The Marquis closed the window. There was a great fire on the hearth, and

Clémence crouched close to it, mechanically loosening her furred cloak

and pulling off her doeskin gloves.

 

M. de Vauvenargues seated himself on the other side of the long black

polished table. His erect, massive figure; his old-fashioned, handsome

clothes; his aristocratic, proud, yet simple and kindly face, were

flooded with red light from the fire, which threw it up against the

sombre background of the dark chamber that always, even on the most

brilliant day, seemed filled with shadows.

 

He leant a little forward, and fixed his eyes on the rosy vision of the

young girl in her white fur, white silk, and gold laces.

 

“You love Luc, do you not?” he asked, in a terrible voice.

 

Her eyes widened, holding his in a full stare of terror.

 

“Take care what you commit yourself to,” he continued.

 

“Think before you answer. Do you love my son?”

 

“Yes,” answered Clémence. “How strange for you to ask me, Monseigneur!”

 

“You have never been to see him—not even when all fear of infection was

over.”

 

She flushed painfully.

 

“He did not wish me to—you told me so yourself.”

 

“Well, you will see him to-morrow, Clémence.” The strong voice was

touched with tenderness and sorrow. “And you love him? You know what

that means?—Love?”

 

“Yes, yes,” shivered Clémence.

 

For a while—a very little while—the Marquis was silent; then he said—

 

“Luc will not be able to go to Madrid.”

 

“Ah!” she murmured.

 

“He wrote yesterday,” continued the Marquis, “to refuse the post. He

will never be able to do any work again.” Clémence clenched her hands on

her lap.

 

“He is—not strong enough?”

 

“No.”

 

“He has—no career?”

 

“No.”

 

“I do not quite understand.” She frowned over her words. “He is

recovered?”

 

“He will never completely recover.”

 

“Monseigneur, you frighten me. What has happened to Luc?

 

“Whatever has happened it can make no difference to us who love him,”

answered the Marquis. His eyes held Clémence with a power before which

she blenched.

 

“No, of course not,” she said in a laboured way “But—I am sorry for

Luc,” she ended feebly.

 

“Mademoiselle,” replied M. de Vauvenargues proudly, “this is not a thing

one is sorry for. It is a great tragedy.”

 

“A—tragedy?”

 

“The word frightens you? But remember that it is in your power to soften

it. Luc has lost everything—but you.”

 

“Oh!” she murmured again. “Yet if he is well—”

 

The Marquis lifted his head still higher, never taking his eyes from her

changing face.

 

“You have seen people who have had the plague?”

 

She gave some miserable little exclamation under her breath. He waited

for her to find words.

 

“He is changed?” she managed at last.

 

“Yes.”

 

She tried to smile.

 

“Well, I suppose—not much.”

 

“A great deal.”

 

Clémence rose, sat down, and rose again.

 

“Changed—very much?”

 

“So changed,” said the Marquis slowly, “that only those who love him

would know him.”

 

“Monseigneur, you try to frighten me!”

 

“You have to see him to-morrow.”

 

Her breast heaved and her soft eyes were rebellious.

 

“He was—beautiful,” she murmured. “I think he had no right. He did not

think of me.”

 

“He kept the plague from you—from Aix.”

 

She took no notice.

 

“For a vagabond’s child,” she continued—“for the sake of a thing of

nought!”

 

“No,” interrupted the Marquis sternly, “for the sake of his honour.”

 

Clémence dropped again into the great black chair by the fire.

 

“You will be here to welcome him to-morrow?” he added. “He speaks of you

so often.”

 

She did not reply.

 

“Why do you not answer?” he asked harshly.

 

“Oh, I shall be here,” she answered. “I was thinking of—how

differently—I dreamed it.”

 

She rose again, picked up her swansdown-edged muff, her gloves, her

cane, and fastened her cloak at the chin.

 

“Good-bye, Monseigneur,” she said timidly. “My father will bring me

to-morrow. I will go now—I think—the horses will be tired—of

waiting.”

 

She curtsied and was turning away when the Marquis rose suddenly and

stood between her and the door. “Mademoiselle,” he said hoarsely.

 

She stopped and looked at him. He was no longer erect, no longer

haughty. He looked old and bitterly troubled. He stood in a deprecating

attitude before her delicate young loveliness.

 

“Forgive me if I was harsh,” he said thickly. “I have no right perhaps

to ask what I do.”

 

She shuddered violently.

 

“I entreat you not to forsake my son,” continued the old man

passionately—“I implore you.”

 

She closed her eyes.

 

“I will not deceive you, Mademoiselle. He is—to a woman’s eyes—you may

imagine.”

 

She shrank against the wall.

 

The Marquis continued, forcing the words out in almost incoherent

agitation—

 

“You know what I wish to say, Mademoiselle. You must see him to-morrow.

His strength has gone—and his comeliness. He could not use—a sword—or

ride a horse—he—Oh, my God!”

 

He brought his hands to his grey hair with a gesture of agony.

 

Clémence quivered into a little sob; she opened her eyes fearfully.

 

“This is a great scourge,” continued the Marquis, struggling for command

over himself—“a great scourge. I want to tell you everything. He

is—almost—blind.”

 

His head sank as if he had confessed a crime. But this humiliation of

his fine nobility was lost on Clémence; his words alone impressed her.

 

“Why was I not told before?” she asked frantically. “We had not the

courage,” the old man confessed. “And if you love him—”

 

“Oh, if I love him!” she interrupted. “I loved the Luc de Clapiers that

was!”

 

“He is still the same in spirit, still my son, still your lover. Why,

this is a chance for you.” He spoke with piteous eagerness. “You used to

say how you wished you could prove your love. Do you not remember? Luc

told me once—he spoke like a man who holds the Eucharist in his hands

when he told me that you had said you wished you could prove—This is

your chance.”

 

Her heaving bosom, her eyes, the rise and fall of colour in her cheeks

bespoke desperation.

 

“And you have told me again—just now, that you love him.”

 

“Monseigneur, give me time—let me think. This is very terrible. I pity

him—oh, how I pity him!”

 

“Pity him! You should be proud of him.”

 

“Yes, that too—but I am distracted—give me time.”

 

“There is no time. He is coming home to-morrow. There is your chance,

Mademoiselle; you must meet him—as if—he were the same.”

 

She put her hands before her eyes.

 

“I do not think—I can,” she whispered.

 

The Marquis flashed into wild anger.

 

“Then you never loved him! You were toying with youth and gallantry,

and his devotion was but like a brooch to your gown—and you vowed

constancy because it sounded pretty, and you liked to be with him

because he was a graceful cavalier—you did not love him for his noble

soul as it walked before God!”

 

She cowered and trembled under his fierce rush of words.

 

“But you pretended you did, Mademoiselle, and now you shall pay the

penalty of your pretence.”

 

She could not answer. He caught her wrist. Then his wrath died, and he

was old, and broken, and pitiful again. “Mademoiselle—my son used to

kiss you?”

 

She stared forlornly.

 

“Think of him when he used to kiss you.”

 

Her face flushed.

 

“Ah, Monseigneur!”

 

“Forgive an old man, very humble before your beauty. I think no one else

ever kissed you?”

 

“Never,” she said fiercely—“never—nor he often; I could not bear it,

for I loved him—too much.”

 

She drew her hand away, and as if her own words had loosened memories of

too sweet a rapture to be endured she began to weep hotly.

 

“You can never forsake him!” cried the Marquis. “No—no—and you will

make life so pleasant to him that he will not regret even—glory.”

 

He took the hem of her cloak and kissed it.

 

“Thank God for women like you.”

 

She looked up with wet and terrified eyes.

 

“Do not praise me—I do not know myself—I must have been very young—a

few months ago—I said things I did not understand. Let me go,

Monseigneur.”

 

She made an effort to pass him, but he arrested her.

 

“You will not leave me like this, Mademoiselle. He is not so changed—I

wanted to prepare you, that is all—his mother thought there was very

little difference.”

 

“Ah, his mother,” murmured Clémence. “I was to be his wife.”

 

“You will be. I will do anything for you—anything. You shall live in

Aix—we shall all worship you—and you will be happy.”

 

“But if I cannot make him happy?” she asked mournfully.

 

“You will, you will, you must! He loves you—there will be nothing else

in the world for him.” The old man could not contain his anguish of

apprehension. “Do not tell me that you could forsake him!”

 

She dried her eyes on a little handkerchief she took from her muff;

after a few seconds of self-control she spoke gently—

 

“Monseigneur, I shall be here to-morrow. I am not going to break the

promise I gave Luc. I am quite—content—only a little shocked. Please

do not grieve so—he might have died, you know.” She smiled wistfully.

 

He kissed her hands, and she felt his hard wrung tears on them. When he

raised his head she leant forward and kissed his poor wrinkled cheek,

then left him swiftly with no backward look.

 

“Might have died,” she wailed to herself as she shivered down the

hall; “he ought to have died for every one’s sake—feeble, disfigured,

nearly—blind!”

 

Such a tumult of terror seized her as she fled from the house of the de

Clapiers that she was aware of nothing but the tremendous beating of her

heart that seemed to echo through her whole body.