The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen (epub e reader txt) đź“–
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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drooping wild pinks.
She wore a chip straw hat tied under the chin with gold ribbons and a
white lace shawl over her shoulders.
When she saw Luc she laughed prettily and advanced to the table; her
extreme fairness seemed the greater by contrast with the shining dark
mahogany.
“Of course you do not recall me,” she said, in a delicate and pleasing
voice. “I am Clémence de Séguy, who saw you leave to join your regiment
nine years ago—when she was in the convent school.”
Luc made an effort to place and remember her; his instinctive courtesy
helped him, though his thoughts had been strangely scattered by her
sudden appearance.
“I remember no one like you, Mademoiselle,” he said, “in all Provence;
but your name is known to me as that of one of my father’s friends.”
She laughed as if pleased.
“Tell me about the war,” she answered.
As he looked at her he seemed to see the powerful face, slender figure,
and gorgeous garments of the Countess Carols standing beside her in
absolute contrast. The two could not have been more different; the
reality before Luc’s eyes was not so strong as the inner vision. He put
his hand to the fragrant letter in his pocket.
The Marquis entered and presented him with pretty ceremony. As Luc
kissed the girl’s fingers he thought of another hand that he would soon
salute in Paris—Paris.
The answer from M. de Biron contained flat discouragement. In his words
seemed to lurk a smile at the simplicity of Luc: there were no places at
Court or even in obscure corners of France that were not already
allotted, long before they were vacant, to those who were friends of
pensioners of the Court favourites and the Ministers.
It was absurd to hope that anyone with no recommendation above his
talents could obtain even a clerk’s place in the Government, added M. de
Biron, and he advised Luc to spare himself the fatigue and humiliation
of further applications, and suggested that he should abandon ideas that
were certain to end in disappointment.
The letter was meant kindly, but it brought a flush of anger to Luc’s
cheek; then he laughed, and with the laugh his old serenity returned. M.
de Biron should not block his way; there were other channels. He did not
show the letter to his father, but merely told him that his former
Colonel could be no help.
The Marquis said nothing, but a few days later produced, with much
pride, a letter from M. de Caumont to M. de Richelieu, Governor of
Languedoc, asking for his interest for Luc, who was touched and moved by
his father’s thought.
Yet he was not altogether pleased. He had heard enough of M. de
Richelieu from Hippolyte, M. de Caumont’s son, who had never spoken of
him with anything but dislike, and he knew the Governor’s reputation as
the most famous man of fashion of the moment and a hard persecutor of
the Protestants in Languedoc.
But he could refuse neither his own father’s interest nor the help of
his dead friend’s father, and M. de Richelieu was a great gentleman who
could raise anyone where he would. It happened also that he was now at
Avignon, where he seldom enough made his residence, and Luc’s direct
enthusiasm resolved him to go there and present his letter himself. His
father was for sending it by messenger, and his mother wished to detain
him in Aix. He suspected her of tender little schemes with regard to
himself and Mademoiselle de SĂ©guy, who had, with such innocent coquetry,
been sent in upon him that August evening, when, as it happened, he had
first made the resolve to enter politics. He overruled this gentle
opposition and left Aix in late September with one servant and a good
roan horse. Though his soul was serious it was young. The freedom of the
peaceful open country, the freshness of the autumn air, the sight of the
fields of grain—these simple things affected his spirits to the height
of exaltation. He felt his old health return; he was as light-hearted as
if he had never seen Bohemia.
But as they rode farther into Languedoc the surroundings changed: the
ground was neglected, the cottages mere huts, the peasantry silent and
ragged, the cattle poor and scarce. Luc, noticing this, fell into a kind
of gravity.
They took the journey easily. On the second day, when within easy
distance of Avignon, they stopped at a humble inn on the high road
shaded by a dusty grove of poplar trees.
Luc found two other travellers in the parlour. At the first glance he
was interested in them; he had a passion for studying character, and
could never observe strangers indifferently. He crossed to the window,
which looked on to a herb garden, and seated himself on the
chintz-covered window-seat and delicately watched the two, who were
engaged in eating omelette and salad at a round table near the
fire-place. One was a priest and a conspicuously handsome man, but
without attraction, for his dark face was hard and immobile and his
eyes, though very brilliant, expressionless; he wore the black robes of
a canon, which hung gracefully on his spare, powerful figure.
His companion was, as Luc knew at once, a foreigner; what else he might
be was not so easy to decide. His age might be between thirty and forty.
He was tall, well-made, and well-featured, with a rich olive complexion
and quickly moving brown eyes. He wore his own hair hanging about his
face, and there was more than a little of the eccentric in his dress,
which was of the brightest green silk lined with black.
From the hard quality of his French, something vivid, self-confident,
gay, and yet indifferent in his manner and person, Luc believed he was
Italian.
He, on his part, was not long in noticing the slim young gentleman in
the window-seat, and, leaning back in his chair, he called out an
invitation to wine. Something in his cordial tone, his attitude, his
smile of gleaming, excellent teeth showed Luc that he was a fellow of no
breeding.
Without hesitation he civilly declined and left the room. As he closed
the door he heard the foreigner laugh good-naturedly and say something
to the priest in Italian marked by a beautiful Roman accent.
Luc had his own meal outside on one of the little tables under the dusty
vines, and before the middle of the afternoon rode on again, meaning to
reach Avignon before the night.
Towards evening they came to a miserable village, whose inhabitants
seemed in a considerable state of excitement: a great number of women
were talking and shrieking round the fountain in the marketplace, and
three priests argued outside the porch of the poor little church.
The Marquis acknowledged their humble salutes, and was glad to be rid of
them and out in the open country again.
He had not long cleared the houses, however, before he overtook a
procession, which was evidently the cause of the commotion. It consisted
of four soldiers, a serjeant, and a prisoner, followed by a crowd of
peasants, mostly men and boys.
Luc’s hazel eyes flashed quickly to the prisoner, who walked between the
two foremost soldiers. She was a young peasant girl, finely made and not
more than eighteen years of age. Her blue skirt and red bodice were
worn, faded, and patched, her feet and arms bare; round her coarse,
sun-dried hair was a soiled white handkerchief. Her face, though pale
under the tincture of the weather, was composed and serene, even though
the crowd was assailing her with hideous names, with horrible
accusations, with handfuls of dirt and stones.
Her hands were tied behind her, and if her walk fell slowly the soldiers
urged her on with the points of their bayonets.
The Marquis reined up his horse to allow them to pass. He supposed they
were going to set her in the stocks for witchcraft or scolding; that
look on her face he supposed must be stupidity. The whole spectacle
roused in him sad distaste.
The rabble of peasantry, seeing that he was a gentleman, fell to silence
till they were well past him, then broke out again into shouts and
curses. The soldiers turned off the high road across a field that led to
a long slope and a little thin wood.
The Marquis remained still, with his patient servant behind him,
watching the little procession.
He noticed the girl stumble and saw one of the soldiers thrust at her so
that she fell on to her knees. The crowd at once broke into laughter and
pelted her with dirt.
Luc touched up his horse, crossed the field, and in a moment was among
them. One of the guard had dragged the prisoner to her feet; she was
being assailed by such horrid terms of abuse that he thought she must be
some shameless thief or murderess. He spoke to the serjeant with quiet
disgust, and his fine appearance, lofty manner, and long habit of
command served to win the man’s respectful answer: he could not, he
declared, keep the people off. As he spoke he threatened with his sword
the nearest of the crowd, which had already scattered at the sight of
the gentleman.
“The law,” said Luc, “is no matter for me to interfere with,” for he saw
the fellow pulling a warrant from his pocket; “but I will use my whip on
these should they further molest yonder wretch.”
He glanced at the prisoner, who stood for the moment isolated with her
head bent. Her feet and the edge of her dress were covered with mud; her
shoulders were bruised and her legs scratched and bleeding; her face,
which was handsome, but of low type, was flooded with sudden colour and
her wide lips twitched uncontrollably. The Marquis sickened to see her;
he was turning back when she looked up straight into his face. Her eyes
were large, far apart, and bloodshot, the lashes white with dust. As she
gazed at Luc her disfigured, almost stupid-looking countenance was
changed by a smile which was like a lady’s thanks for courtesy.
Then she bent her head again and began to walk on painfully. The
soldiers closed round her, the serjeant fell in with a salute to the
Marquis, and the crowd followed, but at some distance and in silence.
Luc watched them till they were over the hill and out of sight; he
frowned in absorption and hardly troubled to notice two horsemen who had
joined him and reined their horses near his. When he turned,
indifferently, to look at them, he saw that they were the same
remarkable couple that he had noticed at the inn.
The Italian saluted him instantly.
“Monsieur,” he said with some eagerness, “where has the woman gone?”
“Over the hill,” answered Luc shortly.
The Italian rubbed his hands together softly.
“Well, well,” he said under his breath.
“What has the creature done?” asked the Marquis of the priest. “And
where have they brought her from?”
The priest named a village some leagues off, and the Italian remarked
that they had seen the procession earlier in the day, and that the
probable object of bringing her this distance was to terrorize the
countryside.
“What is her crime?” demanded the Marquis haughtily. He disliked priests
and foreigners in general and felt no reason to make an exception for
these two.
The priest fixed on him eyes that were metallic and twinkling in their
hardness; he made the sign of the
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