The Abbess Of Vlaye Part 49

M. de Vlaye turned to his witnesses. "You hear all present," he said, "that it is with the Countess of Rochechouart's consent that I wed her. For me it is my part now and will be my part always to do her pleasure." Then turning his face again to the shrinking figure, that uttered no protest or word of complaint, "Father, you hear?" he continued, a note of triumph in his voice. "Do your office on us I pray, and quickly." And he advanced a step towards his bride.

The Romish sacrament of marriage is short, and reduced to its essentials is of the simplest. Father Benet had his orders, and thankful to be so cheaply quit of his task--for she might have appealed to him, might have shrieked and struggled, might have made of his work a public crime--he hastened to bind the two together. For one second, at the most critical part of the rite--if that could be said to have parts which was done within the minute--the bride hung, wavered, hesitated--seemed about to protest or faint. The next, as by a supreme effort, she tottered a step nearer to the bridegroom, and placed her hand, burning with fever, in his. In a few seconds the words that made them man and wife, the irrevocable "_Conjungo vos_,"

were spoken.

Then followed a single moment of awkwardness. The Captain of Vlaye's heart was high and uplifted. All had gone well, all had gone better than his hopes. Yet he was prudent as he was bold. He would fain have raised her veil before them all and kissed her, and proved beyond cavil her willingness. But he doubted the wisdom of the act. He reflected that women were strange beings and capricious. She might be foolish enough to shriek--more, to faint, to resist, to speak; she might realise, now that it was too late, the thing which she had done.

And a dozen curious eyes were on them, were watching them, were judging them. He contented himself with bowing over her hand.

"Would you be alone, madame?" he said gently. "If so, say so, sweet.

And you shall be alone, while you please."

The answer, low and half-stifled as it was, astonished him. "With you," she murmured, with face half-averted. And as the others, smiling and with raised eyebrows, looked at one another, and then at a glance from him turned to withdraw, "And a light," she added, in the same subdued tone, "if you please."

"Bring a light," he said to the waiting-woman. "And, mark you, see that when your lady wants supper it be ready for her."

She had still, before they withdrew, a surprise for him. "I would have a draught of wine--now," she murmured.

He pa.s.sed the order to them with a gay air, thinking the while of the queer nature of women. And he stood waiting by the door until the order was carried out. The footsteps of the witnesses and their laughter rose from the garden below as the maid brought in lights and wine and set them on the table beside him. "You can go," he said; and after a fleeting glance, half of envy, half of wonder at her new mistress--who had sunk into a sitting posture on the window-seat--the woman went out.

"May I serve you?" he murmured gallantly. And he poured for her.

With her face turned from him she lifted the gauzy veil with one hand and with the other--it trembled violently--she raised the wine to her lips. Still with her shoulder to him--but he set this down to modesty--she gave him back the empty cup, and he went and set it down on the table beside the door. When he turned again to her she had raised her veil and risen to her feet, and stood facing him with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"By Heaven!" he cried. And he recoiled a pace, his swarthy face gone sallow. Was he mad? Was he dreaming? The priest had been silent on the Abbess's visit. He believed her leagues distant. He had no reason to think otherwise. And he had not been more astonished if the one woman had turned into the other before his eyes. "By Heaven!" he repeated.

For the moment sheer astonishment, the stupor of bewilderment, held him dumb.

She did not speak, but neither did she quail. She stood confronting him, erect and stately, her beauty never more remarkable than now, her breast heaving slightly under the lace.

"Am I mad?" he muttered again. And he closed his eyes and opened them.

"Or dreaming?"

"Neither!" she replied.

"Then who in G.o.d's name are you?" he retorted, in something approaching his natural voice; though the awe of the unnatural still held his mind.

"Your wife," she answered.

"My wife!" With the words the full shock of that which had happened struck him.

"Your wife," she rejoined unblenching, though her heart beat wildly, furiously, in her bosom, and she feared, ah, how she feared! "Your wife! And which of us two"--she continued proudly--"has a better right to be your wife? I,"--and with the word she flung the lace superbly from her head and shoulders, and stood before him in the full splendour of her beauty--"or that child? That puny weakling? That doll? I," with increasing firmness--he had not struck her yet!--"who have your vows, sir, your promises, your sacred oath--and all my due, as G.o.d knows and you know--or that puppet? I, who dare, and for your sake have dared--you know it only too well!--or that craven, puling and weeping and waiting for the first chance to flee you or betray you? What I have done for you"--and proudly she held out her hands to him--"you know, sir. What she would have done you know not."

"I know that you have ruined me," he said, looking darkly at her.

"And in return for--what?" she answered, with a look as dark.

His nostrils quivered, a pulse beat hard in his cheek. Only the sheer boldness of that which she had done, only the appeal of the lioness in her to the lion in him--and her beauty--held his hand; held his hand from striking her down, woman though she was, at his feet. Had she faltered, had she turned pale or trembled, had she uttered but one word of supplication, or done aught but defy him, he had flung her brutally to the floor and trampled upon her.

For the Captain of Vlaye was no knight of romance. And no scruple on his part, no helplessness on hers would have restrained his hand. But he loved her after his fas.h.i.+on. He loved her beauty, which had never been more brilliant or alluring; he loved the spirit that proved her fit helpmeet for such as he. And thwarted, tricked, baffled, hanging still on the verge of violence over which the least recoil on her part would push him, he still owned reason in her claim. She was the more worthy--of the two; such beauty, such spirit, such courage would go far. And not many weeks back he had looked no higher, aimed no farther, but had deemed her birth fit dower. But love sits lightly on the ambitious, and driven by a new danger to a new s.h.i.+ft, forced to look abroad for aid, he had put her aside at the first temptation--not without a secret thought that she might be still what she had been to him.

Her eyes, her words told a different story, and in his secret heart he gave her credit for her act; and he held his hand. But his looks were dark and bitter and pa.s.sionate, as he told her again that she had ruined him, and flung it coa.r.s.ely in her face that she brought herself, and naught besides to the bargain.

"It is but a little since you thought that enough!" she replied, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

"You are bold to speak to me thus!" he said between his teeth. "What?

You that call yourself my wife, to beard me!"

"That am your wife!" she answered, though sick fear rapped at her heart.

"Then for that the greater need to heed what you say!" he replied.

"Wives that come empty-handed to husbands that ask them not had best be silent and be patient! Or in a very little time they creep as low as before they went high! You beautiful fool!" he continued, in a tone of mingled rage and admiration, "to do this in haste and forget I could punish at leisure! To do me ill, ay, to ruin me, and forget that henceforth my pleasure must be yours, my will your rule! My wife, say you?" with increasing bitterness. "Ay! And therefore my creature, helpless as the scullion I send to the scourge, or the trooper I hang up by the heels for sleeping! You--you----" and with a movement as fierce as it was sudden he grasped her wrist and twisted her round forcibly so that her eyes at close quarters looked into his. "Do you not yet repent? Do you not begin to see that in tricking the Captain of Vlaye you have made your master?"

She could have screamed with pain, for the bones of her slender wrist seemed to be cracking in his cruel grip--but she knew that in her courage, and in that only, lay her one hope. "I know this," she replied hardily, forcing herself to meet his eyes without flinching, "that you mistake! I do not come empty--or I had not come," with pride. "I bring you that will save you--if you treat me well. But if you hold me so----"

"What will you do?" savagely.

"Release me and I will tell you," she answered. "I shall not fly. And if I say nothing to the purpose, I shall still be in your power."

He yielded, moved in secret by her spirit. "Well," he said, "speak!

But let it be to the purpose, madam, that is all."

"Said I not it should be to the purpose?" she answered, her eyes bright. "And I keep my word, if you do not. Tell me, sir, frankly, what had that child, that doll"--bitterly--"to put in the scales against me? Beauty?"

"Nay!"

"A skin as white as mine or arms as round?" She held them out to him.

"Or brighter eyes? You have looked in mine often enough and sworn you loved me, sworn that you would do me no wrong! You should know them-- and hers!"

"It was none of these."

"Her birth? Nay, but she is no better born than I am! A Rochechouart is what a Villeneuve was. Her rank? No. Then what was it?"

"No one thing," he answered drily. "But five hundred things."

"Spears?"

"You are quick-witted. Spears."

"And her manors also, I suppose?" with contempt. "Her lords.h.i.+ps here and there! Her farms and castles in Poitou and the Limousin and Beauce and the Dordogne! Her mills in the Bourbonnais and her fis.h.i.+ngs in Sologne!"

"Not one of these!"

"No?"

"The spears only, as G.o.d sees me!" he answered firmly. "For without these I could enjoy not the smallest of those. Without these, of which you, beautiful fool, have robbed me--robbing me therewith of my last chance--I take no farm nor smallest mill, nor hold one groat of that I have won! Do you think, my girl," he continued grimly, "that I was not pressed when I gave up your lips and your kisses for that child's company? Do you think it was for a whim, a fancy, a light thing that I turned my back on you and your smiles, and at risk sought a puling girl, when I could have had you without risk? Bah! I tell you it was not to gain, but to hold--because he had no other choice and no other way--it was not for love but for life, that the King went to his Ma.s.s!

And I to mine!"

"All this I thought," she said quietly. She was no longer afraid of him.

"You thought it?"