The Maid of Honour: A Tale of the Dark Days of France. Volume 1 of 3. Wingfield Lewis
and yet to go, and bit his nails in indecision. Concealed anxiety made calm Clovis querulous and snappish, and Gabrielle was not slow to perceive that he was suffering, though the cause she could not guess. He had got himself into some mess. Was it money? If only he would let her share his worries! Her timid overtures were promptly nipped; terror made him absolutely harsh. Sighing, she fell back upon herself, as usual, and kissed the cherubs in their bed.
At the time when this story opens, July, 1789, the marquis and his wife had been married six years. The latter, though easily led by kindness, could fitfully display sometimes symptoms of independence. As a loving and self-respecting woman, she had kept with infinite care her catalogue of troubles from her parents. They, content with constant assurances that all was well, desired no further information. Madame de Brèze had settled, to her complete satisfaction, that her son-in-law was a harmless lunatic. When she obliged him with her views, he looked through her at something beyond. But then, who had ever appreciated her sagacity? Well, well. Have not some of our brightest lights been misunderstood while alive, to be tardily canonized afterwards? As for M. de Brèze, he was perfectly satisfied with Clovis, who, if eccentric and somewhat fish-like, was delightfully free from vices. If a man is perfect in manners and deportment, always civil and obliging, surely you may forgive the small drawbacks which go with the visionary and the bookworm. The bluff soldier would have had him drink and gamble more, just to show that he was human and a man, and be less fond of mysterious societies. But as Clovis had himself remarked, we must take people as we find them, and be content with mercies vouchsafed. Why! The marquis might have turned out an incorrigible rake; have squandered large sums coaxed from his wife on low theatrical hussies. Thank goodness, he showed no signs of breaking out in that direction; and it was not until the soirée intime at the palace that it came home to the doting father that there might be something amiss in the ménage.
Gabrielle had looked so unaccountably distressed and confused. She was concealing something-what? Was the placid marquis an ogre in private? Of course not. As he strolled home the maréchal made up his mind to pump Toinon on the morrow, and, from hints ingeniously extracted from that astute damsel, severely catechise his daughter.
CHAPTER III.
INVESTIGATION
Who was Toinon? A very important personage. Foster-sister and confidential abigail to the Marquise de Gange, the two were as united as if they had indeed been sisters.
Of pretty dark-eyed roguish Toinon, neither the lacqueys, nor pages, nor hairdressers could make anything. When they exposed their flame for her edification she was irreverent enough to laugh. Tapping the swelling bosom, of whose outline she was justly proud, she would declare with a merry peal, that it was an empty casket. The organ which they professed to covet was no longer there, having been surrendered to the safe custody of a certain young man at Lorge. She had left it behind on purpose, lest some of these enterprising kitchen-beaux should steal it unawares. Whereabouts was Lorge, one gibed, that he might run and fetch the treasure?
Lorge, she replied, with mock seriousness, was a gloomy chateau on the Loire, home of rats and bats, of which the less one saw the better. He who would venture thither in search of that missing organ of hers would have to break a lance with Jean Boulot, a stalwart, honest gamekeeper, who would thrust the invader down an oubliette without compunction, to vanish for evermore.
When the worthy maréchal called at the Hotel de Gange, as was his daily wont, and, instead of making at once for his daughter's boudoir, turned aside into the tiny chamber where Toinon sat and worked, that damsel started and turned red. Brought up side by side with Gabrielle, she entertained a deep veneration for the old soldier. For him as for the marquise, she would have worked her fingers to the bone; have cheerfully submitted to any penance; and now her conscience tingled guiltily, for she knew that she deserved a lecture.
Doubtless it had come to the ears of de Brèze that when last the family was at Lorge, she and big Jean Boulot had plighted troth together. The maréchal would, of course, rate her soundly for her folly, since with her advantages she might have done much better than throw herself away upon a peasant.
Jean was a fine fellow, blunt and obstinate, but sincere, given to thinking for himself, but he was only a servant, half-gamekeeper, half-bailiff, and many a well-to-do farmer would have been too glad to place pretty Toinon at the head of his table. This was bad enough; but worse remained behind. Since it had been imprudently encouraged by the king, that plaguy Third Estate had been giving itself airs, flaunting its arrogant pretensions and propounding its ridiculous demands from every country cabaret. The absurd ant stood erect upon its hill with threatening mandibles. Mere yokels were presuming to chatter in village market-places, to discuss matters which concerned their betters, to express opinions of their own which were sadly lacking in respect; and somehow they escaped the lash. Such impudence caused proper-minded and cultured persons to shiver in dismay. If we turn swine into lap-dogs, we shall certainly regret our foolishness. The old maréchal, who hated Lorge, detested it more than ever, when he found that the evil leaven had penetrated into far Touraine, and was not slow in expressing his views with regard to the ant upon the hill. "Life is a game of give and take," he said, "in which the unscrupulous always take too much, unless kept well in hand. Peasants should have no individual opinions, but humbly follow their masters."
Now, was it not a shocking thing that Jean Boulot, who ought to have meekly bowed his head at the very mention of aristocracy, should be insolent enough to make rude remarks about the upper class under the shadow of ancestral Lorge? It was reported to the maréchal that his paid servant had harangued his cronies under the village tree, and had used pestilent expressions anent the local magnates. He received prompt warning that on a repetition of the offence he would lose his place, whereupon he was said to have remarked, with a broad grin, that soon there would be no place to lose. And Toinon, foster-sister and confidential abigail, had absolutely betrothed herself in secret to this abandoned wretch!
It was awful; but when we give ourselves away, how shall we recover the gift? She determined to bring her lover to a proper frame of mind before confessing what she had done. She wrote commenting sharply on the escapade, imploring her betrothed to reform, lest haply he should share the gruesome fate which she was informed awaited democrats. To this he had replied in an independent and flippant manner, which foreshadowed a thorny future. "My darling," he had the assurance to write, "never fear for me. If all masters were like ours, instead of being selfish tyrants, we should all be peaceable and happy; but, alas, the innocent minority must, for the general good, submit to suffer for the guilty. France, asleep too long, is slowly waking. National sovereignty, spell-bound for centuries, has yawned and stretched itself, and fools would oppose, to combat the champions of Liberty, the flickering will of a weak king! War, my dearest, it will have to be, for we must wade to the goal through blood. God gives justice to men only at the price of battles!"
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