Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (best ebook reader under 100 .txt) đź“–
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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a pattern of the class of women amongst whom my youth had been spent,
a class which had done so much towards shattering my faith and
lowering my estimate of her sex. Lavedan had married her and brought
her into Languedoc, and here she spent her years lamenting the scenes
of her youth, and prone, it would seem, to make them matter for
conversation whenever a newcomer chanced to present himself at the
chateau.
Looking from her to her daughter, I thanked Heaven that Roxalanne
was no reproduction of the mother. She had inherited as little of
her character as of her appearance. Both in feature and in soul
Mademoiselle de Lavedan was a copy of that noble, gallant gentleman,
her father.
One other was present at that meal, of whom I shall have more to
say hereafter. This was a young man of good presence, save, perhaps,
a too obtrusive foppishness, whom Monsieur de Lavedan presented to
me as a distant kinsman of theirs, one Chevalier de Saint-Eustache.
He was very tall - of fully my own height - and of an excellent
shape, although extremely young. But his head if anything was too
small for his body, and his good-natured mouth was of a weakness
that was confirmed by the significance of his chin, whilst his eyes
were too closely set to augur frankness.
He was a pleasant fellow, seemingly of that negative pleasantness
that lies in inoffensiveness, but otherwise dull and of an untutored
mind - rustic, as might be expected in one the greater part of whose
life had been spent in his native province, and of a rusticity
rendered all the more flagrant by the very efforts he exerted to
dissemble it.
It was after madame had related that unsavoury anecdote touching
the Cardinal that he turned to ask me whether I was well acquainted
with the Court. I was near to committing the egregious blunder of
laughing in his face, but, recollecting myself betimes, I answered
vaguely that I had some knowledge of it, whereupon he all but caused
me to bound from my chair by asking me had I ever met the Magnificent
Bardelys.
“I - I am acquainted with him,” I answered warily. “Why do you ask?”
“I was reminded of him by the fact that his servants have been here
for two days. You were expecting the Marquis himself, were you not,
Monsieur le Vicomte?”
Lavedan raised his head suddenly, after the manner of a man who has
received an affront.
“I was not, Chevalier,” he answered, with emphasis. “His intendant,
an insolent knave of the name of Rodenard, informed me that this
Bardelys projected visiting me. He has not come, and I devoutly
hope that he may not come. Trouble enough had I to rid myself of
his servants, and but for Monsieur de Lesperon’s well-conceived
suggestion they might still be here.”
“You have never met him, monsieur?” inquired the Chevalier.
“Never,” replied our host in such a way that any but a fool must
have understood that he desired nothing less than such a meeting.
“A delightful fellow,” murmured Saint-Eustache - “a brilliant,
dazzling personality.”
“You - you are acquainted with him?” I asked.
“Acquainted?” echoed that boastful liar. “We were as brothers.”
“How you interest me! And why have you never told us?” quoth madame,
her eyes turned enviously upon the young man - as enviously as were
Lavedan’s turned in disgust. “It is a thousand pities that Monsieur
de Bardelys has altered his plans and is no longer coming to us.
To meet such a man is to breathe again the air of the grand monde.
You remember, Monsieur de Lesperon, that affair with the Duchess de
Bourgogne?” And she smiled wickedly in my direction.
“I have some recollection of it,” I answered coldly. “But I think
that rumour exaggerates. When tongues wag, a little rivulet is
often described as a mountain torrent.”
“You would not say so did you but know what I know,” she informed
me roguishly. “Often, I confess, rumour may swell the importance
of such an affaire, but in this case I do not think that rumour
does it justice.”
I made a deprecatory gesture, and I would have had the subject
changed, but ere I could make an effort to that end, the fool
Saint-Eustache was babbling again.
“You remember the duel that was fought in consequence, Monsieur de
Lesperon?”
“Yes,” I assented wearily.
“And in which a poor young fellow lost his life,” growled the
Vicomte. “It was practically a murder.”
“Nay, monsieur,” I cried, with a sudden heat that set them staring
at me; “there you do him wrong. Monsieur de Bardelys was opposed
to the best blade in France. The man’s reputation as a swordsman
was of such a quality that for a twelvemonth he had been living upon
it, doing all manner of unseemly things immune from punishment by
the fear in which he was universally held. His behaviour in the
unfortunate affair we are discussing was of a particularly shameful
character. Oh, I know the details, messieurs, I can sure you. He
thought to impose his reputation upon Bardelys as he had imposed it
upon a hundred others, but Bardelys was over-tough for his teeth.
He sent that notorious young gentleman a challenge, and on the
following morning he left him dead in the horsemarket behind the
Hotel Vendome. But far from a murder, monsieur, it was an act of
justice, and the most richly earned punishment with which ever man
was visited.”
“Even if so,” cried the Vicomte in some surprise, “why all this heat
to defend a brawler?”
“A brawler?” I repeated after him. “Oh, no. That is a charge his
worst enemies cannot make against Bardelys. He is no brawler. The
duel in question was his first affair of the kind, and it has been
his last, for unto him has clung the reputation that had belonged
until then to La Vertoile, and there is none in France bold enough
to send a challenge to him.” And, seeing what surprise I was
provoking, I thought it well to involve another with me in his
defence. So, turning to the Chevalier, “I am sure,” said I, “that
Monsieur de Saint-Eustache will confirm my words.”
Thereupon, his vanity being all aroused, the Chevalier set himself
to paraphrase all that I had said with a heat that cast mine into
a miserable insignificance.
“At least,” laughed the Vicomte at length, “he lacks not for
champions. For my own part, I am content to pray Heaven that he
come not to Lavedan, as he intended.”
“Mais voyons, Gaston,” the Vicomtesse protested, “why harbour
prejudice? Wait at least until you have seen him, that you may
judge him for yourself.”
“Already have I judged him; I pray that I may never see him.”
“They tell me he is a very handsome man,” said she, appealing to me
for confirmation. Lavedan shot her a sudden glance of alarm, at
which I could have laughed. Hitherto his sole concern had been his
daughter, but it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps not even her
years might set the Vicomtesse in safety from imprudences with this
devourer of hearts, should he still chance to come that way.
“Madame,” I answered, “he is accounted not ill-favored.” And with
a deprecatory smile I added, “I am said somewhat to resemble him.”
“Say you so?” she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows, and looking at
me more closely than hitherto. And then it seemed to me that into
her face crept a shade of disappointment. If this Bardelys were not
more beautiful than I, then he was not nearly so beautiful a man as
she had imagined. She turned to Saint-Eustache.
“It is indeed so, Chevalier?” she inquired. “Do you note the
resemblance?”
“Vanitas, vanitate,” murmured the youth, who had some scraps of
Latin and a taste for airing them. “I can see no likeness - no
trace of one. Monsieur de Lesperon is well enough, I should say.
But Bardelys!” He cast his eyes to the ceiling. “There is but one
Bardelys in France.”
“Enfin,” I laughed,” you are no doubt well qualified to judge,
Chevalier. I had flattered myself that some likeness did exist, but
probably you have seen the Marquis more frequently than have I, and
probably you know him better. Nevertheless, should he come his way,
I will ask you to look at us side by side and be the judge of the
resemblance.”
“Should I happen to be here,” he said, with a sudden constraint not
difficult to understand, “I shall be happy to act as arbiter.”
“Should you happen to be here?” I echoed questioningly. “But surely,
should you hear that Monsieur de Bardelys is about to arrive, you
will postpone any departure you may be on the point of making, so
that you may renew this great friendship that you tell us you do the
Marquis the honour of entertaining for him?”
The Chevalier eyed me with the air of a man looking down from a
great height upon another. The Vicomte smiled quietly to himself as
he combed his fair beard with his forefinger in a meditative fashion,
whilst even Roxalanne - who had sat silently listening to a
conversation that she was at times mercifully spared from following
too minutely - flashed me a humorous glance. To the Vicomtesse alone
who in common with women of her type was of a singular obtuseness -
was the situation without significance.
Saint-Eustache, to defend himself against my delicate imputation,
and to show how well acquainted he was with Bardelys, plunged at
once into a thousand details of that gentleman’s magnificence. He
described his suppers, his retinue, his equipages, his houses, his
chateaux, his favour with the King, his successes with the fair sex,
and I know not what besides - in all of which I confess that even
to me there was a certain degree of novelty. Roxalanne listened
with an air of amusement that showed how well she read him. Later,
when I found myself alone with her by the river, whither we had
gone after the repast and the Chevalier’s reminiscences were at
an end, she reverted to that conversation.
“Is not my cousin a great fanfarron, monsieur,” she asked.
“Surely you know your cousin better than I,” I answered cautiously.
“Why question me upon his character?”
“I was hardly questioning; I was commenting. He spent a fortnight
in Paris once, and he accounts himself, or would have us account
him, intimate with every courtier at the Luxembourg. Oh, he is very
amusing, this good cousin, but tiresome too.” She laughed, and
there was the faintest note of scorn in her amusement. “Now,
touching this Marquis de Bardelys, it is very plain that the
Chevalier boasted when he said that they were as brothers - he and
the Marquis - is it not? He grew ill at ease when you reminded
him of the possibility of the Marquis’s visit to Lavedan.” And she
laughed quaintly to herself. “Do you think that he so much as
knows Bardelys?” she asked me suddenly.
“Not so much as by sight,” I answered. “He is full of information
concerning that unworthy gentleman, but it is only information
that the meanest scullion in Paris might afford you, and just as
inaccurate.”
“Why do you speak of him as unworthy? Are you of the same opinion
as my father?”
“Aye, and with better cause.”
“You know him well?”
“Know him? Pardieu, he is my worst enemy. A worn-out libertine;
a sneering, cynical misogynist; a nauseated reveller; a hateful
egotist. There is no more unworthy person, I’ll swear, in
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