Uncle Bernac: A Memory of the Empire by Arthur Conan Doyle (ebook reader with highlighter .txt) 📖

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Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

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silence.

'Never,' answered I.

'Well, what do you think of him now you have met him?'

Such a question from a daughter about her father filled me with a certain vague horror. I felt that he must be even a worse man than I had taken him for if he had so completely forfeited the loyalty of his own nearest and dearest.

'Your silence is a sufficient answer,' said she, as I hesitated for a reply. 'I do not know how you came to meet him last night, or what passed between you, for we do not share each other's confidences. I think, however, that you have read him aright. Now I have something to ask you. You had a letter from him inviting you to leave England and to come here, had you not?'

'Yes, I had.'

'Did you observe nothing on the outside?'

I thought of those two sinister words which had puzzled me so much.

'What! it was you who warned me not to come?'

'Yes, it was I. I had no other means of doing it.'

'But why did you do it?'

'Because I did not wish you to come here.'

'Did you think that I would harm you?'

She sat silent for a few seconds like one who is afraid of saying too much. When her answer came it was a very unexpected one:

'I was afraid that you would be harmed.'

'You think that I am in danger here?'

'I am sure of it.'

'You advise me to leave?'

'Without losing an instant.'

'From whom is the danger then?'

Again she hesitated, and then, with a reckless motion like one who throws prudence to the winds, she turned upon me.

'It is from my father,' said she.

'But why should he harm me?'

'That is for your sagacity to discover.'

'But I assure you, mademoiselle, that in this matter you misjudge him,' said I. 'As it happens, he interfered to save my life last night.'

'To save your life! From whom?'

'From two conspirators whose plans I had chanced to discover.'

'Conspirators!' She looked at me in surprise.

'They would have killed me if he had not intervened.'

'It is not his interest that you should be harmed yet awhile. He had reasons for wishing you to come to Castle Grosbois. But I have been very frank with you, and I wish you to be equally so with me. Does it happen—does it happen that during your youth in England you have ever—you have ever had an affair of the heart?'

Everything which this cousin of mine said appeared to me to be stranger than the last, and this question, coming at the end of so serious a conversation, was the strangest of all. But frankness begets frankness, and I did not hesitate.

'I have left the very best and truest girl in the world behind me in England,' said I. 'Eugenie is her name, Eugenie de Choiseul, the niece of the old Duke.'

My reply seemed to give my cousin great satisfaction. Her large dark eyes shone with pleasure.

'You are very attached?' she asked.

'I shall never be happy until I see her.'

'And you would not give her up?'

'God forbid!'

'Not for the Castle of Grosbois?'

'Not even for that.'

My cousin held out her hand to me with a charmingly frank impulsiveness.

'You will forgive me for my rudeness,' said she. 'I see that we are to be allies and not enemies.'

And our hands were still clasped when her father re-entered the room.

CHAPTER VIII — COUSIN SIBYLLE

I could see in my uncle's grim face as he looked at us the keenest satisfaction contending with surprise at this sign of our sudden reconciliation. All trace of his recent anger seemed to have left him as he addressed his daughter, but in spite of his altered tone I noticed that her eyes looked defiance and distrust.

'I have some papers of importance to look over,' said he. 'For an hour or so I shall be engaged. I can guess that Louis would like to see the old place once again, and I am sure that he could not have a better guide than you, Sibylle, if you will take him over it.'

She raised no objection, and for my part I was overjoyed at the proposal, as it gave me an opportunity of learning more of this singular cousin of mine, who had told me so much and yet seemed to know so much more. What was the meaning of this obscure warning which she had given me against her father, and why was she so frankly anxious to know about my love affairs? These were the two questions which pressed for an answer. So out we went together into the sweet coast-land air, the sweeter for the gale of the night before, and we walked through the old yew-lined paths, and out into the park, and so round the castle, looking up at the gables, the grey pinnacles, the oak-mullioned windows, the ancient wing with its crenulated walls and its meurtriere windows, the modern with its pleasant verandah and veil of honeysuckle. And as she showed me each fresh little detail, with a particularity which made me understand how dear the place had become to her, she would still keep offering her apologies for the fact that she should be the hostess and I the visitor.

'It is not against you but against ourselves that I was bitter,' said she, 'for are we not the cuckoos who have taken a strange nest and driven out those who built it? It makes me blush to think that my father should invite you to your own house.'

'Perhaps we had been rooted here too long,' I answered. 'Perhaps it is for our own good that we are driven out to carve our own fortunes, as I intend to do.'

'You say that you are going to the Emperor?'

'Yes.'

'You know that he is in camp near here?'

'So I have heard.'

'But your family is still proscribed?'