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- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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libertines; he is a gamester, but punctiliously honourable at play.
Believe me, monsieur, I have some acquaintance with Marcel de
Bardelys, and his vices are hardly so black as is generally believed;
whilst in his favour I think the same may be said that you have just
said of his father - he is an honest, upright gentleman.”
“And that disgraceful affair with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?”
inquired Lavedan, with the air of a man setting an unanswerable
question.
“Mon Dieu!” I cried, “will the world never forget that indiscretion?
An indiscretion of youth, no doubt much exaggerated outside Court
circles.”
The Vicomte eyed me in some astonishment for a moment.
“Monsieur de Lesperon,” he said at length, “you appear to hold this
Bardelys in high esteem. He has a staunch supporter in you and a
stout advocate. Yet me you cannot convince.” And he shook his head
solemnly. “Even if I did not hold him to be such a man as I have
pronounced him, but were to account him a paragon of all the virtues,
his coming hither remains an act that I must resent.”
“But why, Monsieur le Vicomte?”
“Because I know the errand that brings him to Lavedan. He comes
to woo my daughter.”
Had he flung a bomb into my bed he could not more effectively
have startled me.
“It astonishes you, eh?” he laughed bitterly. “But I can assure
you that it is so. A month ago I was visited by the Comte de
Chatellerault - another of His Majesty’s fine favourites. He came
unbidden; offered no reason for his coming, save that he was making
a tour of the province for his amusement. His acquaintance with
me was of the slightest, and I had no desire that it should
increase; yet here he installed himself with a couple of servants,
and bade fair to take a long stay.
“I was surprised, but on the morrow I had an explanation. A courier,
arriving from an old friend of mine at Court, bore me a letter with
the information that Monsieur de Chatellerault was come to Lavedan
at the King’s instigation to sue for my daughter’s hand in marriage.
The reasons were not far to seek. The King, who loves him, would
enrich him; the easiest way is by a wealthy alliance, and Roxalanne
is accounted an heiress. In addition to that, my own power in the
province is known, whilst my defection from the Cardinalist party
is feared. What better link wherewith to attach me again to the
fortunes of the Crown - for Crown and Mitre have grown to be
synonymous in this topsy-turvy France - than to wed my daughter to
one of the King’s favourites?
“But for that timely warning, God knows what mischief had been
wrought. As it was, Monsieur de Chatellerault had but seen my
daughter upon two occasions. On the very day that I received the
tidings I speak of, I sent her to Auch to the care of some relatives
of her mother’s. Chatellerault remained a week. Then, growing
restive, he asked when my daughter would return. ‘When you depart,
monsieur,’ I answered him, and, being pressed for reasons, I dealt
so frankly with him that within twenty-four hours he was on his way
back to Paris.”
The Vicomte paused and took a turn in the apartment, whilst I
pondered his words, which were bringing me a curious revelation.
Presently he resumed.
“And now, Chatellerault having failed in his purpose, the King
chooses a more dangerous person for the gratifying of his desires.
He sends the Marquis, Marcel de Bardelys to Lavedan on the same
business. No doubt he attributes Chatellerault’s failure to
clumsiness, and he has decided this time to choose a man famed for
courtly address and gifted with such arts of dalliance that he
cannot fail but enmesh my daughter in them. It is a great compliment
that he pays us in sending hither the handsomest and most
accomplished gentleman of all his Court - so fame has it - yet it is
a compliment of whose flattery I am not sensible. Bardelys goes
hence as empty-handed as went Chatellerault. Let him but show his
face, and my daughter journeys to Auch again. Am I not well advised,
Monsieur de Lesperon?”
“Why, yes,” I answered slowly, after the manner of one who
deliberates, “if you are persuaded that your conclusions touching
Bardelys are correct.”
“I am more than persuaded. What other business could bring him to
Lavedan?”
It was a question that I did not attempt to answer. Haply he did
not expect me to answer it. He left me free to ponder another
issue of this same business of which my mind was become very full.
Chatellerault had not dealt fairly with me. Often, since I had
left Paris, had I marvelled that he came to be so rash as to risk
his fortune upon a matter that turned upon a woman’s whim. That I
possessed undeniable advantages of person, of birth, and of wealth,
Chatellerault could not have disregarded. Yet these, and the
possibility that they might suffice to engage this lady’s affections,
he appeared to have set at naught when he plunged into that rash
wager.
He must have realized that because he had failed was no reason to
presume that I must also fail. There was no consequence in such an
argument, and often, as I have said, had I marvelled during the past
days at the readiness with which Chatellerault had flung down the
gage. Now I held the explanation of it. He counted upon the Vicomte
de Lavedan to reason precisely as he was reasoning, and he was
confident that no opportunities would be afforded me of so much as
seeing this beautiful and cold Roxalanne.
It was a wily trap he had set me, worthy only of a trickster.
Fate, however, had taken a hand in the game, and the cards were
redealt since I had left Paris. The germs of the wager permitted
me to choose any line of action that I considered desirable; but
Destiny, it seemed, had chosen for me, and set me in a line that
should at least suffice to overcome the parental resistance - that
breastwork upon which Chatellerault had so confidently depended.
As the rebel Rene de Lesperon I was sheltered at Lavedan and made
welcome by my fellow-rebel the Vicomte, who already seemed much
taken with me, and who had esteemed me before seeing me from the
much that Monsieur de Marsac - whoever he might be - had told him of
me. As Rene de Lesperon I must remain, and turn to best account my
sojourn, praying God meanwhile that this same Monsieur de Marsac
might be pleased to refrain from visiting Lavedan whilst I was there.
IN CONVALESCENCE
Of the week that followed my coming to Lavedan I find some difficulty
in writing. It was for me a time very crowded with events - events
that appeared to be moulding my character anew and making of me a
person different, indeed, from that Marcel de Bardelys whom in Paris
they called the Magnificent. Yet these events, although significant
in their total, were of so vague and slight a nature in their detail,
that when I come to write of them I find really little that I may
set down.
Rodenard and his companions remained for two days at the chateau,
and to me his sojourn there was a source of perpetual anxiety, for
I knew not how far the fool might see fit to prolong it. It was
well for me that this anxiety of mine was shared by Monsieur de
Lavedan, who disliked at such a time the presence of men attached
to one who was so notoriously of the King’s party. He came at last
to consult me as to what measures might be taken to remove them,
and I - nothing loath to conspire with him to so desirable end -
bade him suggest to Rodenard that perhaps evil had befallen Monsieur
de Bardelys, and that, instead of wasting his time at Lavedan, he
were better advised to be searching the province for his master.
This counsel the Vicomte adopted, and with such excellent results
that that very day - within the hour, in fact - Ganymede, aroused
to a sense of his proper duty, set out in quest of me, not a little
disturbed in mind - for with all his shortcomings the rascal loved
me very faithfully.
That was on the third day of my sojourn at Lavedan. On the morrow
I rose, my foot being sufficiently recovered to permit it. I felt
a little weak from loss of blood, but Anatole - who, for all his
evil countenance, was a kindly and gentle - servant was confident
that a few days - a week at most - would see me completely restored.
Of leaving Lavedan I said nothing. But the Vicomte, who was one
of the most generous and noble hearted men that it has ever been my
good fortune to meet, forestalled any mention of my departure by
urging that I should remain at the chateau until my recovery were
completed, and, for that matter, as long thereafter as should suit
my inclinations.
“At Lavedan you will be safe, my friend,” he assured me; “for, as I
have told you, we are under no suspicion. Let me urge you to remain
until the King shall have desisted from further persecuting us.”
And when I protested and spoke of trespassing, he waived the point
with a brusqueness that amounted almost to anger.
“Believe, monsieur, that I am pleased and honoured at serving one
who has so stoutly served the Cause and sacrificed so much to it.”
At that, being not altogether dead to shame, I winced, and told
myself that my behaviour was unworthy, and that I was practising a
detestable deception. Yet some indulgence I may justly claim in
consideration of how far I was victim of circumstance. Did I tell
him that I was Bardelys, I was convinced that I should never leave
the chateau alive. Very noble-hearted was the Vicomte, and no man
have I known more averse to bloodthirstiness, but he had told me
much during the days that I had lain abed, and many lives would be
jeopardized did I proclaim what I had learned from him. Hence I
argued that any disclosure of my identity must perforce drive him
to extreme measures for the sake of the friends he had unwittingly
betrayed.
On the day after Rodenard’s departure I dined with the family, and
met again Mademoiselle de Lavedan, whom I had not seen since the
balcony adventure of some nights ago. The Vicomtesse was also
present, a lady of very austere and noble appearance - lean as a
pike and with a most formidable nose - but, as I was soon to
discover, with a mind inclining overmuch to scandal and the
high-seasoned talk of the Courts in which her girlhood had been
spent.
From her lips I heard that day the old, scandalous story of
Monseigneur de Richelieu’s early passion for Anne of Austria. With
much unction did she tell us how the Queen had lured His Eminence
to dress himself in the motley of a jester that she might make a
mock of him in the eyes of the courtiers she had concealed behind
the arras of her chamber.
This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of discreditable detail
and scant regard for either her daughter’s presence or for the
blushes that suffused the poor child’s cheeks. In every way she
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