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- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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France. Peste! The very memory of the fellow makes me sick.
Let us talk of other things.”
But although I urged it with the best will and the best intentions
in the world, I was not to have my way. The air became suddenly
heavy with the scent of musk, and the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache
stood before us, and forced the conversation once more upon the
odious topic of Monsieur de Bardelys.
The poor fool came with a plan of campaign carefully considered,
bent now upon overthrowing me with the knowledge he would exhibit,
and whereby he looked to encompass my humiliation before his cousin.
“Speaking of Bardelys, Monsieur de Lesperon—”
“My dear Chevalier, we were no longer speaking of him.”
He smiled darkly. “Let us speak of him, then.”
“But are there not a thousand more interesting things that we might
speak of?”
This he took for a fresh sign of fear, and so he pressed what he
accounted his advantage.
“Yet have patience; there is a point on which perhaps you can give
me some information.”
“Impossible,” said I.
“Are you acquainted with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?”
“I was,” I answered casually, and as casually I added, “Are you?”
“Excellently well,” he replied unhesitatingly. “I was in Paris at
the time of the scandal with Bardelys.”
I looked up quickly.
“Was it then that you met her?” I inquired in an idle sort of way.
“Yes. I was in the confidence of Bardelys, and one night after we
had supped at his hotel - one of those suppers graced by every wit
in Paris - he asked me if I were minded to accompany him to the
Louvre. We went. A masque was in progress.”
“Ah,” said I, after the manner of one who suddenly takes in the
entire situation; “and it was at this masque that you met the
Duchesse?”
“You have guessed it. Ah, monsieur, if I were to tell you of the
things that I witnessed that night, they would amaze you,” said he,
with a great air and a casual glance at Mademoiselle to see into
what depth of wonder these glimpses into his wicked past were
plunging her.
“I doubt it not,” said I, thinking that if his imagination were as
fertile in that connection as it had been in mine he was likely,
indeed, to have some amazing things to tell. “But do I understand
you to say that that was the time of the scandal you have touched
upon?”
“The scandal burst three days after that masque. It came as a
surprise to most people. As for me - from what Bardelys had told
me - I expected nothing less.”
“Pardon, Chevalier, but how old do you happen to be?”
“A curious question that,” said he, knitting his brows.
“Perhaps. But will you not answer it?”
“I am twenty-one,” said he. “What of it?”
“You are twenty, mon cousin,” Roxalanne corrected him.
He looked at her a second with an injured air.
“Why, true - twenty! That is so,” he acquiesced; and again, “what
of it?” he demanded.
“What of it, monsieur?” I echoed. “Will you forgive me if I
express amazement at your precocity, and congratulate you upon it?”
His brows went if possible closer together and his face grew very
red. He knew that somewhere a pitfall awaited him, yet hardly where.
“I do not understand you.”
“Bethink you, Chevalier. Ten years have flown since this scandal
you refer to. So that at the time of your supping with Bardelys and
the wits of Paris, at the time of his making a confidant of you and
carrying you off to a masque at the Louvre, at the time of his
presenting you to the Duchesse de Bourgogne, you were just ten years
of age. I never had cause to think over-well of Bardelys, but had
you not told me yourself, I should have hesitated to believe him so
vile a despoiler of innocence, such a perverter of youth.”
He crimsoned to the very roots of his hair.
Roxalanne broke into a laugh. “My cousin, my cousin,” she cried,
“they that would become masters should begin early, is it not so?”
“Monsieur de Lesperon,” said he, in a very formal voice, “do you
wish me to apprehend that you have put me through this catechism
for the purpose of casting a doubt upon what I have said?”
“But have I done that? Have I cast a doubt?” I asked, with the
utmost meekness.
“So I apprehend.”
“Then you apprehend amiss. Your words, I assure you, admit of no
doubt whatever. And now, monsieur, if you will have mercy upon me,
we will talk of other things. I am so weary of this unfortunate
Bardelys and his affairs. He may be the fashion of Paris and at
Court, but down here his very name befouls the air. Mademoiselle,”
I said, turning to Roxalanne, “you promised me a lesson in the lore
of flowers.”
“Come, then,” said she, and, being an exceedingly wise child, she
plunged straightway into the history of the shrubs about us.
Thus did we avert a storm that for a moment was very imminent. Yet
some mischief was done, and some good, too, perhaps. For if I made
an enemy of the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache by humbling him in the
eyes of the one woman before whom he sought to shine, I established
a bond ‘twixt Roxalanne and myself by that same humiliation of a
foolish coxcomb, whose boastfulness had long wearied her.
THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE
In the days that followed I saw much of the Chevalier de
Saint-Eustache. He was a very constant visitor at Lavedan, and the
reason of it was not far to seek. For my own part, I disliked
him - I had done so from the moment when first I had set eyes on
him - and since hatred, like affection, is often a matter of
reciprocity, the Chevalier was not slow to return my dislike. Our
manner gradually, by almost imperceptible stages, grew more distant,
until by the end of a week it had become so hostile that Lavedan
found occasion to comment upon it.
“Beware of Saint-Eustache,” he warned me. “You are becoming very
manifestly distasteful to each other, and I would urge you to have
a care. I don’t trust him. His attachment to our Cause is of a
lukewarm character, and he gives me uneasiness, for he may do much
harm if he is so inclined. It is on this account that I tolerate
his presence at Lavedan. Frankly, I fear him, and I would counsel
you to do no less. The man is a liar, even if but a boastful liar
and liars are never long out of mischief.”
The wisdom of the words was unquestionable, but the advice in them
was not easily followed, particularly by one whose position was so
peculiar as my own. In a way I had little cause to fear the harm
the Chevalier might do me, but I was impelled to consider the harm
that at the same time he might do the Vicomte.
Despite our growing enmity, the Chevalier and I were very frequently
thrown together. The reason for this was, of course, that wherever
Roxalanne was to be found there, generally, were we both to be found
also. Yet had I advantages that must have gone to swell a rancour
based as much upon jealousy as any other sentiment, for whilst he
was but a daily visitor at Lavedan, I was established there
indefinitely.
Of the use that I made of that time I find it difficult to speak.
From the first moment that I had beheld Roxalanne I had realized
the truth of Chatellerault’s assertion that I had never known a
woman. He was right. Those that I had met and by whom I had
judged the sex had, by contrast with this child, little claim to
the title. Virtue I had accounted a shadow without substance;
innocence, a synonym for ignorance; love, a fable, a fairy tale
for the delectation of overgrown children.
In the company of Roxalanne de Lavedan all those old, cynical
beliefs, built up upon a youth of undesirable experiences, were
shattered and the error of them exposed. Swiftly was I becoming a
convert to the faith which so long I had sneered at, and as lovesick
as any unfledged youth in his first amour.
Damn! It was something for a man who had lived as I had lived to
have his pulses quicken and his colour change at a maid’s approach;
to find himself colouring under her smile and paling under her
disdain; to have his mind running on rhymes, and his soul so enslaved
that, if she is not to be won, chagrin will dislodge it from his body.
Here was a fine mood for a man who had entered upon his business by
pledging himself to win and wed this girl in cold and supreme
indifference to her personality. And that pledge, how I cursed it
during those days at Lavedan! How I cursed Chatellerault, cunning,
subtle trickster that he was! How I cursed myself for my lack of
chivalry and honour in having been lured so easily into so damnable
a business! For when the memory of that wager rose before me it
brought despair in its train. Had I found Roxalanne the sort of
woman that I had looked to find - the only sort that I had ever
known - then matters had been easy. I had set myself in cold blood,
and by such wiles as I knew, to win such affection as might be hers
to bestow; and I would have married her in much the same spirit as
a man performs any other of the necessary acts of his lifetime and
station. I would have told her that I was Bardelys, and to the woman
that I had expected to find there had been no difficulty in making
the confession. But to Roxalanne! Had there been no wager, I might
have confessed my identity. As it was, I found it impossible to
avow the one without the other. For the sweet innocence that
invested her gentle, trusting soul must have given pause to any but
the most abandoned of men before committing a vileness in connection
with her.
We were much together during that week, and just as day by day, hour
by hour, my passion grew and grew until it absorbed me utterly, so,
too, did it seem to me that it awakened in her a responsive note.
There was an odd light at times in her soft eyes; I came upon her
more than once with snatches of love-songs on her lips, and when she
smiled upon me there was a sweet tenderness in her smile, which, had
things been different, would have gladdened my soul beyond all else;
but which, things being as they were, was rather wont to heighten
my despair. I was no coxcomb; I had had experiences, and I knew
these signs. But something, too, I guessed of the heart of such a
one as Roxalanne. To the full I realized the pain and shame I should
inflict upon her when my confession came; I realized, too, how the
love of this dear child, so honourable and high of mind, must turn
to contempt and scorn when I plucked away my mask, and let her see
how poor a countenance I wore beneath.
And yet I drifted with the tide of things. It was my habit so to
drift, and the habit of a lifetime
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