Volume Iii Part 4 (1/2)
Energetic mademoiselle was all for taking the bull by the horns and acting with decision. Why beat about the bush in this provoking way, she argued, since the chatelaine was completely in their power? The domestics were the abbe's creatures, drafted one by one, and dropped each into his place. Madame de Vaux and Angelique were too much alarmed to leave their own precincts; and now that the marquis was gone, the old gentleman had no motive for ambling over from Montbazon, since he had never understood Gabrielle, and instinctively disliked the brothers. He was grateful to Algae in that matter of the sciatic nerve, but it was not his place as a seigneur to make morning calls on a dependant. To prevent prying from without, it was easy to spread a report that Madame la Marquise de Gange had been attacked by typhus fever. The rustics of Touraine had a wholesome dread of the disease.
Madame had none on whom she could rely except her faithful abigail.
Would it not be the most natural thing in the world if the devoted foster-sister were likewise to succ.u.mb to the malady? There was nothing whatever to stop the prosecution of their plans, and it has long been an axiom that what has to be done is best done quickly.
There was nothing to cause the delay but the abbe's tortuous method.
It is said that each of us has been an animal in a previous phase, and that a shade of likeness, physical or moral, or both, yet clings to us in this. Mademoiselle was convinced that in his last existence the abbe had been a serpent. It was his nature to wriggle and twist, and he could not for the life of him move straight. If he beheld a dove upon a branch he must needs coil himself elaborately to fascinate it, instead of protruding a tongue and gobbling it up at once.
These and other views, did she propound to Pharamond, marching up and down the room as her wont was, when much in earnest, with elephantine tread, while the chevalier blinked at her in fear. A wonderful woman, an awful and terrible woman! It was not surprising that Clovis should have sunk under her thrall. She dared to beard, and even flout the still more awful Pharamond, and the two crossed swords sometimes with such a clash of arms that Phebus s.h.i.+vered in alarm. What two such strong ones willed, would certainly take place. No doubt about it. The poor thing upstairs was doomed. No effort that he, Phebus, could make, might stay her doom. Why, then, make any effort? He could only shed maudlin tears and wish her well through her misery. He quite agreed with Algae, that the inevitable should take place at once.
Now lecturing and advice that looked too like command, was by no means palatable to Pharamond, and he had much ado to maintain the suavity of his temper. The idea of typhus was not bad, but it would entail certain consequences. Nearly everybody at this time, both in France and England, was seamed with smallpox, and dreadful as the scourge was, familiarity had paled its terrors. The report of a spread of typhus, on the other hand, was enough to depopulate a district.
Happily, since the period which occupies us, advancing science has done much to mitigate its horrors, but in the eighteenth century, the sickening details of its course were enough to appal the bravest. The Marquise de Gange and her abigail having succ.u.mbed to the scourge, the inmates of the chateau must flee, or endure ostracism--they would be banned like lepers.
Though by the terms of the new will, the marquis would quietly inherit, it would not do for him and his brothers, after a.s.sisting at a typhus deathbed, to stay at Blois to transact necessary business.
Unluckily the unstable legatee could not be trusted to do much unaided. As had been decided he was to raise money on his expectations, sufficient to waft the party to Geneva, and keep them in proper style during tedious but necessary negociations. It was obvious, therefore, that mademoiselle's impatience was vexatious and ill-advised. When Clovis wrote to say that the sum was raised, then they would perform their one act drama, and, bowing, retire behind the scenes.
”Surely there ought to be no difficulty about raising the necessary sum,” grumbled Algae, with arms crossed, and moody brow. ”Clovis is so reprehensibly tardy. What can he be doing all this while! I would have settled the matter myself in half-an-hour, if the mission could have been confided to me.”
Phebus blinked more than usual. Oh! A wonderful woman, who appeared to him as a vision of fate in a violent hurry. Could she who had been sprightly and kittenish, be so athirst for another woman's blood?
”You deem yourself vastly clever,” sneered Pharamond, waxing wroth.
”Can you not remember that every mistake has been due to your stupidity? Half-an-hour, forsooth! Do you not know that bullion is as rare a commodity as diamonds? that to refuse payment in a.s.signats is to risk the guillotine, and that beyond the border, such things are but dirty paper? A pretty figure we should cut if we rattled into the courtyard of the Etoile d'Or, and attempted to pay the Swiss postilions with dead leaves! One cannot, of course, expect common sense from a woman, any more than grapes from thistles. Your querulous importunity is wearying. You must keep your promise and be content to be led by me.”
Even Pharamond was disconcerted, and Phebus cowered, when Algae dashed into the breakfast-room one day like a whirlwind, her eyes aflame, her dusky visage black with fury. She moved swiftly up and down, unable to articulate, upsetting the chairs in her career. What could have happened to enrage her thus? Verily, she was becoming a deplorable, insufferable nuisance, and it would be well to make an end of it.
”Patience,” she blurted out at last, thumping into her accustomed seat, and scattering the gla.s.ses. ”You never weary of exhorting me to patience. Perhaps you will yourself remember the elementary fact that events will not stand still while you are parleying.”
”What now?” Pharamond asked calmly.
”This now,” retorted mademoiselle. ”The Marechale de Breze has just arrived with an army of domestics, and is closeted upstairs with her daughter.”
This was news; unwelcome and unexpected news. Had the old lady arrived on an errand similar to that of the family solicitor? Hardly. If Gabrielle had again secretly sought protection, M. Galland would have come himself. And an army of servants, too! Servants are argus-eyed and uncharitable in their conclusions. These people could not be wheedled or cajoled like those selected by the abbe. Algae's wrath, though coa.r.s.ely expressed, was justified. The irruption of a foreign element, just at this juncture, was unfortunate.
”We must frighten them away,” Pharamond observed, quietly peeling a pear.
Mademoiselle snorted in scorn, while the abbe sat wrapped in thought.
Why was the marechale here now? Had anything fresh occurred in Paris, which had impelled flight? If that had been so, she would not have travelled with a retinue. She was timid and nervous, and fearful of bandits on the road. She could scarcely have been summoned by Gabrielle, since the latter had no suspicion of the cakes. Pharamond had satisfied himself of that, by knocking humbly and inserting a head, while ostentatiously remaining on the threshold. ”Pardon my intrusion,” he had meekly purred, ”but anxiety compels me to ask after your health. In Clovis's absence I feel responsible. Tell me that you have recovered, as I have, from the untoward incident due to a stupid cook?”
Gabrielle politely declared herself to be well, deplored the abbe's illness, and intimated with a slight inclination that the interview was over. Chilly, not to say icy. But there was no symptom of suspicion in her clear blue eyes. She declined to say more than was necessary to a man whom she detested, that was all. But Toinon, the abbe was convinced, knew all about it. Why had she kept her knowledge from her mistress? What had she done with the parcel? She had allowed him clearly to understand, that she was not taken in by his comedy.
Did she not always make a parade, to the scandal of the household, of having every article tasted that was to be consumed by her mistress or herself?
He had seen her wrap up the cakes which the dog had not devoured--to what end? It would be well to have those cakes and to destroy them; was it worth the trouble of finding and purloining them? It had been generally admitted that through carelessness there had been an accident which was not followed by a fatal result. In every household such accidents occur since the culinary genius is not infallible. Were the things to be a.n.a.lysed, it might transpire that the quant.i.ty of verdigris or subacetate on the copper plate had been excessive, so great as to look like deliberate purpose. Did Toinon propose to open a judicial inquiry under the presidency of Madame La Marechale; produce her _pieces de conviction_; accuse a respectable ghostly man of attempted murder? The idea was so ludicrous that Pharamond laughed aloud. Let her do as she liked. Bother the cakes! The inquiry would be very funny. He quite hoped that she would ventilate her suspicions for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the a.s.sembled household, and give him the chance of victory.
It behoved a son of the Church, brought up in a good school, to pay due and ceremonious respect to the mother of their chatelaine. He accordingly indited a sweet note expressive of joyous surprise, and requesting the honour of an interview.
Gabrielle was about to seize the note and tear it into fragments, but the hand impulsively raised fell by her side, and the words she would have spoken died upon her lips. Why worry the venerable dame with her own peck of troubles? She had gone through such paroxysms of terror on the journey that she was still all of a twitter. ”You've not the smallest idea! My pet--” she began in her high treble, ”what the villages and towns were like. Where such crowds of forbidding tatterdemalions could have sprung from I cannot understand. And when they saw my coach and armed servants, they pursued us with yells and stones, actually flints! A sharp one nearly struck me in the face. I was so indignant that I felt inclined to stop and say, 'You curs! Do you know I am the widow of one who spilt his best blood for his country and his king?' but now I am rather glad I did not.”
”Dearest mother!” the marquise murmured, clasping the old lady to her bosom, ”I am so glad you did not! Alas! even to name our martyr king is to rouse a volley of curses.”
And then the old lady, enchanted to have found a listener who would not interrupt her flow, gabbled on interminably about the condition of the capital. Before daring to decide on a journey she had called in good M. Galland who, contrary to her own views, had considered it an admirable suggestion that the mother should visit the daughter. ”If I had known all, wild horses would not have moved me. The threatening att.i.tude of your rustics is more menacing than our mob at home.” She failed to add that as she rarely stepped outside the door, she knew but little of the Paris rabble.