St. Martin's Summer Part 25

CHAPTER XIV. FLORIMOND'S LETTER

In the great hall of Condillac, where the Marquise, her son, and Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye had been at dinner, a sudden confusion had been spread by the arrival of that courier so soon as it was known that he bore letters from Florimond, Marquis de Condillac.

Madame had risen hastily, fear and defiance blending in her face, and she had at once commanded mademoiselle's withdrawal. Valerie had wondered might there not be letters--or, leastways, messages--for herself from her betrothed. But her pride had suppressed the eager question that welled up to her lips. She would, too, have questioned the courier concerning Florimond's health; she would have asked him how the Marquis looked, and where the messenger had left him. But of all this that she craved to know, nothing could she bring herself to ask before the Marquise.

She rose in silence upon hearing the Dowager order Fortunio to summon Battista that he might re-conduct mademoiselle to her apartments, and she moved a few paces down the hall, towards the door, in proud, submissive readiness to depart. Yet she could not keep her eyes from the dust-stained courier, who, having flung his hat and whip upon the floor, was now opening his wallet, the Dowager standing before him to receive his papers.

Marius, affecting an insouciance he did not feel, remained at table, his page behind his chair, his hound stretched at his feet; and he now sipped his wine, now held it to the light that he might observe the beauty of its deep red colour.

At last Fortunio returned, and mademoiselle took her departure, head in the air and outwardly seeming nowise concerned in what was taking place.

With her went Fortunio. And the Marquise, who now held the package she had received from the courier, bade the page depart also.

When the three were at last alone, she paused before opening the letter and turned again to the messenger. She made a brave figure in the flood of sunlight that poured through the gules and azures of the long blazoned windows, her tall, lissome figure clad in a close-fitting robe of black velvet, her abundant glossy black hair rolled back under its white coif, her black eyes and scarlet lips detaching from the ivory of her face, in which no trace of emotion showed, for all the anxiety that consumed her.

"Where left you the Marquis de Condillac?" she asked the fellow.

"At La Rochette, madame," the courier answered,' and his answer brought Marius to his feet with an oath.

"So near?" he cried out. But the Dowager's glance remained calm and untroubled.

"How does it happen that he did not hasten himself, to Condillac?" she asked.

"I do not know, madame. I did not see Monsieur le Marquis. It was his servant brought me that letter with orders to ride hither."

Marius approached his mother, his brow clouded.

"Let us see what he says," he suggested anxiously. But his mother did not heed him. She stood balancing the package in her hand.

"Can you tell us, then, nothing of Monsieur le Marquis?"

"Nothing more than I have told you, madame."

She bade Marius call Fortunio, and then dismissed the courier, bidding her captain see to his refreshment.

Then, alone at last with her son, she hastily tore the covering from the letter, unfolded it and read. And Marius, moved by anxiety, came to stand beside and just behind her, where he too might read. The letter ran:

"MY VERY DEAR MARQUISE,--I do not doubt but that it will pleasure you to hear that I am on my way home, and that but for a touch of fever that has detained us here at La Rochette, I should be at Condillac as soon as the messenger who is the bearer of these presents. A courier from Paris found me a fortnight since in Milan, with letters setting forth that my father had been dead six months, and that it was considered expedient at Court that I should return home forthwith to a.s.sume the administration of Condillac. I am lost in wonder that a communication of this nature should have been addressed to me from Paris instead of from you, as surely it must have been your duty to advise me of my father's decease at the time of that untoward event. I am cast down by grief at this evil news, and the summons from Court has brought me in all haste from Milan.

The lack of news from Condillac has been for months a matter of surprise to me. My father's death may be some explanation of this, but scarcely explanation enough. However, madame, I count upon it that you will be able to dispel such doubts as I am fostering. I count too, upon being at Condillac by the end of week, but I beg that neither you nor my dear Marius will allow this circ.u.mstance to make any difference to yourselves, just as, although I am returning to a.s.sume the government of Condillac as the Court has suggested to me, I hope that yourself and my dear brother will continue to make it your home for as long as it shall pleasure you. So long shall it pleasure me.

"I am, my dear marquise, your very humble and very affectionate servant and stepson,

"FLORIMOND"

When she had read to the end, the Dowager turned back and read aloud the pa.s.sage: "However, madame, I count upon it that you will be able to dispel such doubts as I am fostering." She looked at her son, who had s.h.i.+fted his position, so that he was now confronting her.

"He has his suspicions that all is not as it should be," sneered Marius.

"Yet his tone is amiable throughout. It cannot be that they said too much in that letter from Paris." A little trill of bitter laughter escaped her. "We are to continue to make this our home for as long as it shall pleasure us. So long shall it pleasure him!"

Then, with a sudden seriousness, she folded the letter and, putting her hands behind her, looked up into her son's face.

"Well?" she asked. "What are you going to do?"

"Strange that he makes no mention of Valerie" said Marius pensively.

"Pooh! A Condillac thinks lightly of his women. What are you going to do?"

His handsome countenance, so marvellously like her own, was overcast. He looked gloomily at his mother for a moment; then with a slight twitch of the shoulders he turned and moved past her slowly in the direction of the hearth. He leaned his elbow on the overmantel and rested his brow against his clenched right hand, and stood so awhile in moody thought.

She watched him, a frown between her arrogant eyes.

"Aye, ponder it," said she. "He is at La Rochette, within a day's ride, and only detained there by a touch of fever. In any case he promises to be here by the end of the week. By Sat.u.r.day, then, Condillac will have pa.s.sed out of our power; it will be lost to you irretrievably. Will you lose La Vauvraye as well?"

He let his hand fall to his side, and turned, fully to face her.

"What can I do? What can we do?" he asked, a shade of petulance in his question.

She stepped close up to him and rested her hand lightly upon his shoulder.

"You have had three months in which to woo that girl, and you have tarried sadly over it, Marius. You have now at most three days in which to accomplish it. What will you do?"

"I have been maladroit perhaps," he said, with bitterness. "I have been over-patient with her. I have counted too much upon the chance of Florimond's being dead, as seemed from the utter lack of news of him.

Yet what could I do? Carry her off by force and compel at the dagger's point some priest to marry us?"

She moved her hand from his shoulder and smiled, as if she derided him and his heat.

"You want for invention, Marius," said she. "And yet I beg that you will exert your mind, or Sunday next shall find us well-nigh homeless. I'll take no charity from the Marquis de Condillac, nor, I think, will you."

"If all fails," said he, "we have still your house in Touraine."

"My house?" she echoed, her voice shrill with scorn. "My hovel, you would say. Could you abide there--in such a sty?"

"Vertudieu! If all else failed, we might be glad of it."

"Glad of it? Not I, for one. Yet all else will fail unless you bestir yourself in the next three days. Condillac is as good as lost to you already, since Florimond is upon the threshold. La Vauvraye most certainly will be lost to you as well unless you make haste to s.n.a.t.c.h it in the little moment that is left you."

"Can I achieve the impossible, madame?" he cried, and his impatience waxed beneath this unreasonable insistence of his mother's.

"Who asks it of you?"

"Do not you, madame?"

"I? Pis.h.!.+ All that I urge is that you take Valerie across the border into Savoy where you can find a priest to marry you, and get it done this side of Sat.u.r.day."

"And is not that the impossible? She will not go with me, as you well know, madame."