The Maid of Honour (Historical Novel). Wingfield Lewis
the tinsel grandeur of a squalid globe to take refuge at the altar-foot?
The castles insisted on being built, however. Patience and long-suffering would reap their reward some day. The cherubs would grow up and weave an indissoluble link with their young fingers which should draw the estranged parents together and bind them tight at last. Their mother would fondly teach them to adore their father, to see none but his best side. They would learn to respect his crotchets. And at this point she would herself be lost in dreamy reverie. Could his tenets with regard to the prophet be aught but midsummer madness? There was no doubt that he cured the sick. What if it were really possible to rout the wicked demons and produce millennium? To her practical but limited intelligence the creed was a farrago of folly. But then, Clovis, who was so clever, believed in it. Was she more stupid and ignorant even than humility confessed? Then she would rise suddenly and go about some household business, with the head-shake of the antlered stag that scatters dewdrops. The new creed was blasphemy, and she would have naught to do with it. The holy angels would guard herself and the dear innocents, if angelic suffrages could be secured by never-ceasing fervent prayer.
Sages do not care for babies, though mothers generally do. Clovis, when exhorted to that effect, contemplated his offspring once a day as some curious product from a distant land, gave each cherub a finger to suck, then retired with unseemly alacrity to his 'cello and his books.
The ramifications of secret societies in the metropolis were spreading in all directions--societies which deliberated with closed doors to escape vulgar ribaldry--bands of philanthropists urged by pure benevolence, in search now of a universal panacea. Humanity was a vast brotherhood to be united for mutual defence against the machinations of the devils. Exhorted by Mesmer from a distance, the faithful toiled quietly on, that the name of their master might be exalted.
So matters progressed in humdrum fashion for several years, and Clovis was placidly content; but as the procession of the months went by, a gradual change came over the societies, which, when he became aware of it, filled the unmilitant soul of the marquis with dread. Bold philanthropists, at midnight meetings, would sometimes give vent to new and startling views, affecting not health, but politics. A few presumed openly to declare that the evil spirits had got into the ministers, from whom they must be quickly expelled. Considering that ministries fell and rose just now at brief intervals, it was shocking to think how many bad spirits must be at work. M. Necker and Turgot, and brilliantly fertile Calonne, were all occupied by fiends who entered in and made themselves comfortable, as the hermit-crab invades the shell of the creature he has devoured. This theorem being established, it became the duty of the philanthropists to busy themselves on behalf of their country, which needed special as well as prompt doctoring. Then uprose speakers whose discourse smacked little of philanthropy, but savoured rather of iconoclasm. The Marquis de Gange, noble and wealthy, would make a splendid figure-head for the budding movement. Ere he could recover breath, or gather the scattered strands of his scared wits, Clovis found himself on the point of becoming an important political personage, and at a moment when prominence and personal peril marched hand in hand abreast. He prudently took to shunning the places of meeting, which but the other day had been his favourite resorts, for he had a horror of politics, and objected to being made a hero; but the agitators declined to let him escape so easily. They pursued him to his home, strove to convince him that he was a patriot; by turns threatened and cajoled, till the dreamer in an agony beheld no safety but in flight. A pretty state of things! Was not his wife the favourite of the queen; his father-in-law esteemed by the king? What would the verdict of his class be, were he to turn round and bite the hands that had caressed him? He would be ostracised, undone, held up to merited obloquy. He had no ambition to become another Lafayette, and declined to be convinced by argument. To avoid being mixed in complications fraught with danger, it would be prudent to vanish for a time, but whither to retire was the rub. He wished to stay 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,