Scaramouche (3 page)

CHAPTER III

BARON DE BATZ

André-Louis was annoyed; not hotly annoyed; he was never that; but coldly bitter. He expressed it without tact considering his audience.

"The more I see of the nobility, the better I like the canaille; the more I see of royalty, the more I admire the roture."

They sat—André-Louis, Aline and M. de Kercadiou—in the long narrow room appropriated by the Lord of Gavrillac on the first floor of the Three Crowns. It was a room entirely Saxon in character. There was no carpet on the waxed floor. The walls were lined in polished pine adorned with some trophies of the chase a half-dozen stags' heads, with melancholy glass eyes, the mask of a boar with enormous tusks, a hunting horn, an antiquated fowling-piece and some other kindred odds and ends. On the oak table, from which a waiter had lately removed the remains of breakfast, stood a crystal bowl containing a great sheaf of roses with which some lilies had been intermingled.

These flowers provided one source of André-Louis' ill-humour. They had been brought from Schönbornlust an hour ago by a very elegant, curled and pomaded gentleman, who announced himself as Monsieur de Jaucourt. He had delivered them with expressions of homage from Monsieur to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou, in the hope—so ran the royal message—that they might brighten the lodging graced by Mademoiselle until more suitable quarters should be found for her. The quarters in prospect were disclosed by a note of which M. de Jaucourt was also the bearer, a note from Madame to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou. And this was the second source of André-Louis' annoyance. The note announced that Mademoiselle de Kercadiou was appointed a lady-in-waiting to Madame. Aline's bright transport at this signal and unexpected honour had supplied André-Louis' annoyance with yet a third source.

With deliberate rudeness upon apprehending M. de Jaucourt's mission, he had gone to take his stand by the window, with his back to his companions, watching the rain that fell in sheets upon the churned mud of Coblentz. He had not even troubled to turn when M. de Jaucourt had taken ceremonious leave. It was M. de Kercadiou who had held the door for the departing messenger.

And now when at last André-Louis condescended to speak, his slight, agile, well-knit body moving restlessly in the gloom and damp chill of that long chamber, it was to interrupt Aline's delighted chatter in those uncompromising terms.

She was startled, astounded. Her uncle was scandalized. In the old days for the half of those words he would have risen up in wrath, stormed upon his godson, and banished him from his presence. But in the course of that journey from Paris a lethargy had been settling upon the Lord of Gavrillac. His spirit was reduced. It was as if, bending under the strain of the grim events of some ten days ago, he had suddenly grown old. Nevertheless, he reared his great head to combat this outrageous statement, and there was a note of anger in his voice.

"While you live under the protection of the one and the other it were more decent to repress these republican insolences." Aline surveyed him with a little frown above her candid eyes.

"What has disgruntled you, André?"

He looked down upon her across the table at which she was seated, and worship rose in him, as it ever did when he considered her, so fresh, so pure, so delicate, so dainty, her golden hair dressed high, but innocent of powder, a heavy curl resting on the right of her milk-white neck.

"I am fearful of all that approach you lest they go unaware of the holy ground upon which they tread."

"And now we are to have the Song of Songs," her uncle mocked him. Whilst Aline's eyes were tender, the Lord of Gavrillac pursued his raillery.

"You think that M. de Jaucourt should have removed his shoes before entering this shrine?"

"I should have preferred him to have stayed away M. de Jaucourt is the lover of Madame de Balbi, who is the mistress of Monsieur. In what relationship those two gentleman stand to each other as a consequence I'll not inquire. But their brows would help to adorn that wall." And he flung out a hand to indicate the antlered heads that gazed down upon them.

The Lord of Gavrillac shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "If you would practise towards my niece half the respect you demand for her from others it would be more decent." Severely he added: "You stoop to scandal."

"No need to stoop. It comes breast-high. It assails the nostrils."

Aline, whose innocence had been pierced at last by his allusion, coloured a little and looked away from him. Meanwhile he pursued his theme.

"Madame de Balbi is a lady-in-waiting upon Madame. And that, monsieur, is the honour proposed for your niece and my future wife."

"My God!" ejaculated M. de Kercadiou. "What will you insinuate? You are horrible."

"It is the fact, sir, that is horrible. I merely interpret it. It but remains for you to ask yourself if that vicious simulacrum of a Court is a fitting environment for your niece."

"It would not be if I believed you.

"You don't believe me?" André-Louis seemed surprised. "Do you believe your own senses, then? Can you recall how the news was received yesterday? How slight a ripple it made on the face of waters which it should have lashed into a storm?"

"Well-bred people do not abandon themselves in their emotions."

"But they are grave at least. Did you observe much gravity after the first gasp of consternation? Did you, Aline?" Without giving her time to answer, he went on. "Monsieur held you in talk for some time; longer perhaps than Madame de Balbi relished..."

"André! What are you saying? This is outrageous."

"Infamous!" said her uncle.

"I was about to ask you of what he talked. Was it of the horrors of last week? Of the fate of the King, his brother?"

"No."

"Of what, then? Of what?"

"I scarcely remember. He talked of...oh, of nothing. He was very kind...rather flattering...What would you? I...I...talked...Oh, he talked as a gentleman talks to a lady, I suppose."

"You suppose?" He was grim. The lean face with its prominent nose and cheek-bones was almost wolfish. "You are a lady, and you have talked with gentlemen before. Did they all talk to you as he talked?"

"Why, in some such fashion. André, what is in your mind?"

"Ay, in God's name, what?" barked M. de Kercadiou.

"It is in my mind that at such a time Monsieur might have found other occupation than to talk to a lady merely as gentlemen talk to ladies."

"You make one lose patience." said M. de Kercadiou gruffly. "Once the shock of the news was spent, where was the cause for anxiety? Within a month the allies will be at the gates of Paris, and the King will be delivered."

"Unless the provocation makes the people kill him in the meantime. There was always that for Monsieur to consider. And anyway, it is in my mind that Aline should not be a lady-in-waiting in a group that includes Madame de Balbi."

"But in Heaven's name, André!" cried the Lord of Gavrillac. "What can I do? This is not an invitation. It is a command."

"Madame is not the Queen. Not yet."

"As good as the Queen here. Monsieur is regent de posse, and may soon be so de facto."

"So that," said André slowly, almost faltering, "the appointment is not to be refused?"

Mine looked at him wistfully, but said nothing. He got up abruptly, stalked to the window again, and stood there tapping the pane and looked out as before upon the melancholy rain, a queer oppression at his heart. Kercadiou, whose scowl bore witness to his annoyance, would have spoken but that Aline signalled silence to him.

She rose and crossed to André's side. She set her muslin-clad arm about his neck, drew down his head and laid her smooth, softly-rounded white cheek against his own. "André! Are you not being very foolish? Very difficult? Surely, surely, you do not do me the honour of being jealous of Monsieur? Of Monsieur!"

He was softened by the caress, by the intoxicating touch of her so new to him still, so rarely savoured yet in this odd week of their betrothal.

"My dear, you are so much to me that I am full of fears for you. I dread the effect upon you of life in that Court. where corruption is made to wear a brave exterior."

"But I have been to Court before," she reminded him.

To Versailles, yes. But this is not Versailles, although it strives to put on the same appearance."

"Do you lack faith in me?"

"Ah, not that. Not that!"

"What then?"

He frowned; searched his mind; found nothing definite there. "I do not know," he confessed. "I suppose love makes me fearful, foolish."

"Continue to be fearful and foolish, then." She kissed his cheek and broke from him with a laugh, and thereby put an end to the discussion.

That same afternoon Mademoiselle de Kercadiou entered upon her exalted duties, and when later M. de Kercadiou and his godson presented themselves at Schönbornlust, and stood once more amid the courtiers in that white-and-gold salon, Aline, a vision of loveliness in coral taffetas and silver lace, told them of the graciousness of Madame's welcome and of the condescension of Monsieur.

"He spoke to me at length of you, André."

"Of me?" André-Louis was startled.

"Your manner yesterday made him curious about you. He inquired in what relationship we stood. I told him that we are affianced. Then, because he seemed surprised, I told him something of your history. How once you had represented your godfather in the States of Brittany, where you were the most powerful advocate of the nobility. How the killing of your friend Philippe de Vilmorin had turned you into a revolutionary. How in the end you had turned again, and at what sacrifice you had saved us and brought us out of France. He regards you very favourably, André."

"Ah? He said so?"

She nodded. "He said that you have a very resolute an, and that he had judged you to be a bold, enterprising man."

"He meant to say that I am impudent and do not know my place."

"André!" she reproached him.

"Oh, he is right. I don't. I refuse to know it until it is a place worth knowing."

A tall, spare gentleman in black approached them, a swarthy man in the middle thirties, calm and assured of manner. His cheeks were deeply scored with lines, and hollow, as if from loss of teeth. This and the close set of his eyes lent a sinister air to the not unhandsome face. He came, he announced, to seek the acquaintance of Monsieur Moreau. Aline presented him as Monsieur le Comte d'Entragues, a name already well-known for that of a daring, resolute royalist agent, a man saturated with the spirit of intrigue.

He made amiable small talk until the Countess of Provence, a foolish artificial smile on her plain face, descended upon them. Archly scolding them for seducing her new lady-in-waiting from her duties, she swept Mine away and left the two men together. But they were not long alone. M. le Comte d'Artois very deliberately approached them, a tall, handsome man of thirty-five, so elegant of shape and movement that it was difficult to believe that he sprang from the same stock as his ponderous brothers, King Louis and Monsieur de Provence.

He was attended by a half-dozen gentlemen, two of whom wore the glittering green and silver with scarlet collars which was the uniform of his own bodyguard. Among the others André-Louis beheld the sturdy, sardonic M. de Batz, who flashed him a smile of friendly recognition, and the pompous countenance of M. de Plougastel, who nodded frigidly.

Monsieur d'Artois, gravely courteous, his fine eyes intent, expressed satisfaction at the presence here of Monsieur Moreau in the happy circumstances which brought him. Soon André-Louis began to suspect that there was calculation in all this. For after M. de Artois' compliments came a shrewd questioning from M. d'Entragues on affairs in Paris and the movements and immediate aims of the revolutionary circles.

André-Louis answered frankly and freely where he could and with no sense of betraying anyone. In his heart he believed that the information he supplied could no more change the course of destiny than a weather-prophet's judgments can control the elements. This frankness conveyed the impression that he served the cause of the monarchists, and Monsieur d'Artois commended him for it.

"You will permit me to rejoice, Monsieur Moreau, in that a gentleman of your parts should have seen at last the error of his ways."

"It is not the error of my ways that matter: or was deplorable."

The dry answer startled them. "What then, monsieur?" asked the King's brother, as dryly.

"The circumstance that those whose duty it is to enforce the constitution so laboriously achieved, should be allowing their power to slip into the hands of scoundrels who will enlist a desperate rabble to gain them the ascendancy."

"So that you are but half a convert, Monsieur Moreau?" His highness spoke slowly. He sighed. "A pity! You draw between two sets of canaille a distinction too fine for me. I had thought to offer you employment in the army. But since its aim is to sweep away without discrimination your constitutional friends as well as the others, I will not distress you with the offer."