The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen (epub e reader txt) đź“–
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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his eyes and endeavoured to sleep.
His senses were slipping into a languid, bitter-sweet confusion, when a
stinging blast of air roused him. He sat up, shivering and coughing.
The window farthest from him had been opened, and a thin curl of mist,
icy cold, entered the coach. The man opposite slept and nodded, and the
lady by the open window held her head turned away, and seemed to be
gazing out at the darkness.
Luc’s courtesy would not permit him to ask her to close the window,
though to have it wide to the night in such weather seemed folly.
The cold crept up to him, and clung to him. Recollections of all that
cold had meant in his life came to him: the cold in Bohemia; the cold
outside Aix; even the delicate chill of evening in the garden off the
Rue Deauville.
And all these associations were with Carola Koklinska, and he recalled
that she had old him how she used to lie shivering under the trees when
she was a child—cold, cold, cold.
Wherever her soul might be, her body was cold now, stiff in the frosty
earth. He too, he shivered as he had not under the snows of PĂĽrgitz.
Again he closed his eyes, yet soon opened them.
Now the window was shut.
He stared, for he had not heard the sound of closing. When he reflected,
he had not heard the sound of opening either, nor had the lady changed
her attitude—and it was not possible that she could have pulled the
thick strap, moved down or up the ponderous frame of wood, the heavy
sheet of glass, without some sound, and without disturbing the folds of
the cloak across her hands.
Luc admitted to himself, with a little quiver, that his sight was more
and more failing him. In these last few weeks he could not trust himself
about objects even so near as was this window, that could never have
been opened.
He wondered where the cold came from, for it was increasing till every
bone ached. Yet his fellow-travellers were quiet. Could it be his fancy
conjuring up the past, the snow, the chill—and Carola, Clémence that
was? His head sank sideways on his breast, and he fixed his blurred
vision on the silent figure of the woman in the corner. Since he could
not see her face, he might please himself by imagining it; since he was
free to picture her as he would, he might believe she had black hair in
long fine ringlets, dark eyes and hollowed cheeks, and a fair throat
softly shadowed.
The coach rattled on with cumbrous pace. The lantern flame flared and
dipped in the socket; the man in the frieze coat sank huddled together in
a deeper sleep; and the cold became more intense, more searching, till
Luc felt as if some creature of ice were embracing him.
Presently, and for the first time, the lady in the corner moved. She did
not turn her head from gazing at the darkness, but she drew her hand
from under her cloak (that Luc now perceived to be of purple velvet) and
laid it on the seat between them.
It was a bare hand, white, and thin, and long.
Luc stared down at this hand, leant forward to bridge the space between
them. On the second of the fingers was a diamond ring with sapphire
points. Luc had seen a child with such a ring in her shroud buried in
the convent graveyard. He drooped against the back of the seat; the hand
came nearer, and it seemed to him that his sight suddenly became as
perfect as it once had been, for he saw every line and curve and shadow,
every tint and crease in the delicate hand creeping closer to him across
the worn red velvet of the seat; saw the blue and white sparkle of the
stones in the lamplight, and the minute details of their carved silver
setting.
She still did not look round. Luc put out his own hand, and the long
fingers rested on his. The deep cold increased till he felt that every
drop of blood in his body was chilled.
The coach jolted, the lamp shook violently, and the flame sank out;
darkness joined the cold. The coach vanished from about Luc; he felt
himself being drawn by that icy hand through soft blackness. Cloudy
pictures of all he had lost oppressed him: he heard his father’s voice,
very far off; his mother’s last cruel dismissal, coming too from a great
distance. He thought he was under the earth, lying in a grave with
Carola Koklinska. His own hand was now so cold that he did not know
whether or no another was resting in it. A faint Eastern perfume,
luxurious and warm, pervaded the universal cold; a sense of comfort, of
delight, stayed the long ache of regret in Luc’s heart, as if herbs had
been placed on a wound.
He thought he was back in Bohemia, sleeping on the frozen ground, and
that presently the dawn would break like a frosty lily, and he would
look up to see a lady in a habit of Oriental gaudiness ride round a tall
silver fir, in the topmost boughs of which the sun would sparkle among
the snow crystals.
But it was another light that broke across the peaceful, grateful
darkness that surrounded Luc. He sat up shivering, to find himself in
the close, worn interior of a public coach, the door of which was being
held open by the guard, who carried a lantern that cast a strong yellow
glow.
The coach had sopped. Luc’s fellow-passenger was yawning and shaking
himself.
“Ah, Messieurs,” the guard was saying, “a thousand pardons—the light
has gone out!”
“Eh?” yawned the man in the frieze coat. “Well, I think we have both
been asleep, have we not, Monsieur?” He smiled courteously at Luc.
“It would seem so,” shuddered the Marquis. Beyond the stout figure of
the guard, clumsy with heavy capes, he could see the misty lights of an
inn, and a group of men standing in front of the yellow square of the
door.
“The lady?” he asked. “Has the lady got out here?”
The fellow shook his head.
“There was no passenger save you two from Aix, Monsieur. Some others
join us at the next stage.”
Luc glanced at his fellow-traveller, who was chafing his hands
vigorously.
“Did you not think that there was a lady in that corner?” he asked
faintly.
When he saw the look turned on him, he repented having spoken.
“You have been dreaming, Monsieur,” was the brusque answer. “We have
been alone in the coach since Aix.” Luc controlled himself.
“Forgive me,” he said simply, “My sight is not very good, and there were
so many shadows I thought I saw a lady in a dark mantle seated in that
corner.”
The little man laughed.
“Mon Dieu, no, Monsieur.” He spoke pleasantly, being affected, almost
unconsciously, by the sweetness and gentleness of the slight stooping
gentleman who was so terribly marked by the smallpox and seemed to
breathe with such an effort.
The guard entered to relight the lantern, and the two travellers
descended and stood in the strip of light outside the inn, where the
coachman, some peasants, and two starved-looking people, who had been
travelling outside, were drinking hot spiced wine with wolfish relish.
Luc felt the night wind ouch his face. He walked out of the radius of
light, away from the sound of the talk, and stood facing the dark high
road.
_Can she, then, come back—has she, then, remembered? Did she mean to
comfort me?_
He breathed strongly and drew himself erect.
_Why should I fear sorrow and loss? Who am I that I should hope to be
free of grief and regret? I have’ not offended the Being who put me
here, and I fear nothing._
He stood motionless, for the wind was rising higher, and passed him with
a sound like the sweep of a woman’s skirt. He thought to feel a ouch, a
breath, to hear a voice, a sigh.
But the wind passed, and a great stillness fell.
Luc returned to the coach.
“Will you not have a glass of wine, Monsieur?” asked the man in the
frieze coat. “It is a bitter night for spring.”
The Marquis declined pleasantly.
“I suppose we are near the dawn?” he added.
“I think it will be light before the next stage, Monsieur.”
They mounted the step, entered, and closed the door. A heavy smell of
oil hung in the air, and the lamp burnt raggedly. From without came the
clink of glasses and money, voices, and the stamp of feet.
Luc was roused from the exaltation of his inner thoughts by the
question—
“How far are you travelling, Monsieur?”
“To Paris.”
“Ah, a long way.”
“Yes, a long way.”
“A fine city, Paris,” said the other, pulling on his gloves.
“Fine, indeed, Monsieur.”
They took their seats, and the coach started with a noisy effort. The
elder traveller was soon asleep again, but Luc sat awake, alert,
watching the blurred misty glass turn a cold white as the dawn came
slowly.
When Luc looked from the window of his room across the Isle of St. Louis
he realized the great gulf he had set between himself and his past.
The chamber was high up in a tall, straight-fronted house that had once
been of some pretensions to splendour, and a man with good vision could
have seen a strange array of twisted roofs and chimney-stacks beneath
the two dominant towers of Notre-Dame de Paris; and even Luc’s ruined
sight could discern a vast, if blurred, sweep of houses, sky, and
clouds.
Looking down into the street, he could dimly see the dirty house-fronts;
the kennels with their up-piled garbage; the poor wine-shop; the people
between poverty and draggled fashion, who came and went in this heart of
the city that was now so decayed, yet retained still some remnants of
splendour; a certain air of being old and royal; a certain pretence of
being prosperous and refined; a poor enough pretence, and one fast
wearing thin, still there, and sometimes, as on Sundays, when the small
lawyers and men of letters with their ladies walked abroad, worn
jauntily enough.
Newly polished swords, newly powdered wigs, gold lace, and hooped
petticoats would then grace the rambling streets. Sedan-chairs would
cross the cobbles, and sometimes a great man would dash past in a coach
and four to one of the hotels the Isle still boasted, where the wit and
learning of France gathered occasionally.
Often though, too, this romantic and brave pretence would be abandoned,
and the truth stick through, like sharp elbows through a threadbare
coat. And bitter penury, and coarse licence, and desperate lawlessness
showed openly enough in the narrow streets; and starved faces would be
common enough for those who liked to count them, and rebellious talk
common enough for those who cared to listen; and people at squalid
doorways would curse the war, and taxes, and sometimes the nobles. Even
the King did not seem so beloved in these dark streets as he was at
Versailles. But the priests, and the tax-gatherers, and the little
officials had the people well in hand, and Luc had seen them go,
obediently enough, to the church to celebrate a victory—and victories
came plentifully.
Maurice de Saxe was handing brilliant
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