Part 27 (1/2)
He paused here and smote a resonant and louder chord. His voice ascended in dulcet supplication.
”Rise, And succor the benighted world that cries, _The sun is single, but her eyes are twain!_”
”Eh--? So it is you, is it?” Claire was peeping disdainfully from the window. Her throat was bare, and her dusky hair was a shade dishevelled, and in her meditative eyes he caught the flicker of her tardiest dream just as it vanished.
”It is I,” John Bulmer confessed--”come to awaken you according to the ancient custom of Poictesme.”
”I would much rather have had my sleep out,” said she, resentfully. ”In perfect frankness, I find you and your ancient customs a nuisance.”
”You lack romance, my wife.”
”Oh--?” She was a person of many cryptic exclamations, this bride of his.
Presently she said: ”Indeed, Monsieur Bulmer, I entreat you to leave Poictesme. I have informed Louis of everything, and he is rather furious.”
John Bulmer said, ”Do you comprehend why I have not already played the emigrant?”
After a little pause, she answered, ”Yes.”
”And for the same reason I can never leave you so long as this gross body is at my disposal. You are about to tell me that if I remain here I shall probably be hanged on account of what happened yesterday. There are grounds for my considering this outcome unlikely, but if I knew it to be inevitable--if I had but one hour's start of Jack Ketch,--I swear to you I would not budge.”
”I am heartily sorry,” she replied, ”since if I had known you really cared for me--so much--I would never have married you. Oh, it is impossible!” the girl laughed, with a trace of worriment. ”You had not laid eyes on me until a week ago yesterday!”
”My dear,” John Bulmer answered, ”I am perhaps inadequately acquainted with the etiquette of such matters, but I make bold to question if love is exclusively regulated by clock-ticks. Observe!” he said, with a sort of fury: ”there is a mocking demon in me who twists my tongue into a jest even when I am most serious. I love you: and I dare not tell you so without a grin. Then when you laugh at me I, too, can laugh, and the whole transaction can be regarded as a parody. Oh, I am indeed a coward!”
”You are nothing of the sort! You proved that yesterday.”
”Yesterday I shot an unsuspecting man, and afterward fenced with another--in a s.h.i.+rt of Milanese armor! Yes, I was astoundingly heroic yesterday, for the simple reason that all the while I knew myself to be as safe as though I were snug at home snoring under an eider-down quilt. Yet, to do me justice, I am a shade less afraid of physical danger than of ridicule.”
She gave him a womanly answer. ”You are not ridiculous, and to wear armor was very sensible of you.”
”To the contrary, I am extremely ridiculous. For observe: I am an elderly man, quite old enough to be your father; I am fat--No, that is kind of you, but I am not of pleasing portliness, I am just unpardonably fat; and, I believe, I am not possessed of any fatal beauty of feature such as would by ordinary impel young women to pursue me with unsolicited affection: and being all this, I presume to love you. To me, at least, that appears ridiculous.”
”Ah, do not laugh!” she said. ”Do not laugh, Monsieur Bulmer!”
But John Bulmer persisted in that curious laughter. ”Because,” he presently stated, ”the whole affair is so very diverting.”
”Believe me,” Claire began, ”I am sorry that you care--so much. I--do not understand. I am sorry,--I am not sorry,” the girl said, in a new tone, and you saw her transfigured; ”I am glad! Do you comprehend?--I am glad!” And then she swiftly closed the window.
John Bulmer observed. ”I am perhaps subject to hallucinations, for otherwise the fact had been previously noted by geographers that heaven is immediately adjacent to Poictesme.”
IX
Presently the old flippancy came back to him, since an ancient custom is not lightly broken; and John Bulmer smiled sleepily and shook his head.
”Here am I on my honeymoon, with my wife locked up in the chateau, and with me locked out of it. My position savors too much of George Dandin's to be quite acceptable. Let us set about rectifying matters.”
He came to the great gate of the castle and found two sentries there. He thought this odd, but they recognized him as de Soyecourt's guest, and after a whispered consultation admitted him. In the courtyard a lackey took charge of Monsieur Bulmer, and he was conducted into the presence of the Marquis de Soyecourt. ”What the devil!” thought John Bulmer, ”is Bellegarde in a state of siege?”
The little Marquis sat beside the d.u.c.h.esse de Puysange, to the rear of a long table with a crimson cover. Their att.i.tudes smacked vaguely of the judicial, and before them stood, guarded by four attendants, a ragged and dissolute looking fellow whom the Marquis was languidly considering.
”My dear man,” de Soyecourt was saying as John Bulmer came into the room ”when you brought this extraordinary epistle to Bellegarde, you must have been perfectly aware that thereby you were forfeiting your life.