The Maid of Honour: A Tale of the Dark Days of France. Volume 3 of 3

"We must frighten them away," Pharamond observed, quietly peeling a pear.

Mademoiselle snorted in scorn, while the abbé sat wrapped in thought. Why was the maréchale 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 abbé'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 abbé 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 analysed, it might transpire that the quantity 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 Maréchale; 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 amusement of the assembled 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 attitude 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.

"The abbé-how nice it must be to have him," she went off at a tangent. "A most engaging man. I remember that when he visited us in Paris I said to your dear father-ah, deary me-he's with the blessed-that it was a miracle to find such breeding in a provincial. You must excuse me, pet, if I seem rude to your husband's brother, but he was brought up in the south somewhere, he told me, where they cannot be expected to assume the polish of the capital. Well, well-he must be a very clever and cultivated man as well as a most delightful one!"

How could the marquise divulge what she knew of the abbé to this garrulous and purblind old woman? Toinon, who hung about the room and knew more than did her mistress could scarce contain herself. Had it been worth while to summon such a silly harridan? Her contingent of domestics, however, was a safeguard, during whose stay a taster could be dispensed with. Suffice it, she was here, and must be detained as long as possible, though she always detested Lorge. Toinon had made up her mind what steps she intended to take-the very steps which the abbé had guessed. She intended formally to impeach the abbé and Mademoiselle Brunelle; to unveil the past and the present for the shocked old lady's benefit, and solemnly adjure her on her return to the capital, to take steps for her daughter's safety, or make up her mind till her dying day to be persecuted by vengeful ghosts. In face of such an impeachment, and on the production of the cakes, the guilty abbé would quail. At any rate, his claws would be cut, so far as extreme measures were concerned.

The reception of the brothers by the maréchale was most cordial. The chevalier quite won her heart, for his watery gaze would remain fixed on her for hours, while, knitting in hand, she furbished up for him the legends of the chateau. He was like a wistful eyed, cosy, lapdog-with an ever-wagging tail. If he spoke little, he was an excellent listener, and when she grew weary of chattering, the abbé could talk enough for both. On the whole, much as she disliked the place, she was quite glad to have come, for the house in the suburbs of Paris was deadly dull; there was no society at present, since her old friends were in prison or had emigrated.

It was charming, too, with Gabrielle and the cherubs, to forget the hurly-burly of the Revolution. The perfect peace and majestic repose of the chateau were soothing to the nerves, while there was sufficient liveliness to prevent boredom. There never was so attentive a cavalier as that delightful abbé who seemed to guess everything by intuition. Was she chilly, the devoted soul was sure to come round the corner in answer to a wish, armed with a wrap and an umbrella. For her he selected the choicest pears and apples at breakfast, indited complimentary sonnets-as though she were not silver-haired and wrinkled. As the evenings were drawing in he would improvise games and pastimes to pass the hours in which the children could join, and made himself so agreeable to all that the guest was enchanted. "Really, pet, it is quite arcadian," the worthy dame would remark to her daughter. "I'd no notion this horrid place could be made so nice. I can imagine myself at Trianon again in the good old days. Ah, well, well, well!" And then with a big sigh she would burst into tears, remembering what had been and what was.

The individual who did not at all appreciate the sudden volte-face was, as may be imagined, Mademoiselle Brunelle. Fortune was in an elfish mood. For her mother's sake the marquise had tacitly permitted the brothers to resume the place they had once occupied, promising herself-when the visit was over-to hold them at arms' length again; but with Algaé it was different. On no pretence could she be permitted to join the circle. Indeed, it was hinted to her in a politely worded note that she was delaying her departure over long.

The abbé had declared that the marplot must be frightened away, and yet he was sparing no pains to make the visit pleasant. It was evident that he and his brother avoided their ally lest she should fall on them with just upbraiding. If she beheld them in the distance, it was but to see them whisking round a corner. Oblivious of feelings she was left alone to brood and mope; her meals were served apart as though she were infectious; and now she had received the curtest of summonses to make herself scarce forthwith. Oh! how she hated the lot of them!

In truth she was in a dilemma, and did not know what to do. Clovis had been got rid of while something was being done which might revolt his squeamish nature; and though he said nothing, she was certain that he had more than a vague suspicion of what was going forward. But supposing that nothing were to take place after all? Supposing that when he had raised the necessary sum, and called on the others to join him, they were to do so, and cross the frontier, leaving Gabrielle behind? What he was able to raise could not be very much, and one cannot live in luxury at Geneva or elsewhere on expectations. They would have to report that the marquise was charming well, instead of dead, and that, unmolested, she might live on for years. Why should she not, in their absence, make another will, or a dozen others, whereby even the shadowy expectations would be reduced to thinnest air?

Was the abbé scheming to gain time? It struck Algaé with a gush of impotent wrath that perchance the coming of the maréchale had been his own device, arranged so as to tide over the days until mademoiselle should have no excuse for lingering, that he might then have the heiress to himself! Perhaps his recently developed hatred of her was a snare to deceive the governess? If it turned out that this was so, what course would it behove her to pursue? Should she seem to accept her fate, drive quietly away, and joining Clovis, unfold the machinations of his brother? Would Clovis believe, and if he did, how would he act-he who had fullest confidence in his brother? Were the suspicions that racked her justified or not? Meanwhile, she was treated like a social Pariah, and the precious hours waned.

The abbé guessed her thoughts, and laughed. Women are so nimble witted that when they enter the labyrinth of scheming they frequently wander too far and lose themselves. Pharamond was quite as anxious to be rid of the old lady as the younger one could be, but he was far-seeing and cautious, while his coadjutor was culpably impatient.

It was one night when the family sat at supper in the boudoir that Toinon struck her blow. There had been a splendid bout of blind man's buff in the grand saloon. The cherubs had been seized by Toinon and carried off to bed, flushed, out of breath, and happy. The pursy chevalier, who had been very active, puffed and blew, and looked like to have a fit. Madame la Maréchale had been frisking after a fashion that surprised herself. The abbé mopped his face with a dainty kerchief, and flung himself at Gabrielle's feet, as in the departed days.

"You are our prisoner, maréchale," he cried gaily-"a prisoner for life in this ancient fortress, and shall never go hence alive. You add such a charm to our circle that we positively can't do without you. Is it not so, dear Gabrielle? Tell our mother that she is here for good."

Pharamond glanced up, with a yellow light glinting through half-closed lids, and lips drawn tightly over teeth: attitude and expression recalled vividly scenes she would gladly have forgotten, and Gabrielle, she knew not why, was frightened.

Toinon, re-entering, marked his familiar gesture and her lady's fear, and her gorge rose till she felt choking. A venomous, slimy snake was coiling itself about the feet of the marquise, fouling her with its tainted breath. The abnormal, loathsome reptile! Was he slowly to enwrap her in his glittering coils and crush her bones, while Toinon stood by, unaiding? Her brain in a whirl of indignation, the abigail blurted out, "For good or evil, which? You dare not poison her-that is a comfort-lest her domestics should report the fact."

The suddenness of the attack startled even Pharamond, while the maréchale stared bewildered, and Gabrielle turned a shade more pale. With anxious and surprised inquiry the marquise gazed at her foster-sister. What was this? Full well she knew of what the abbé was capable, and that her maid would not bring false charges.

The ice broken, Toinon felt better, refreshed as by a douche of water. Leaning against the door, hands firmly planted upon hips, she turned to the amazed maréchale and plainly told her tale. She told of the marquise's symptoms, of her own suspicion but too soon verified; of how she had found Jean's dog stretched dead upon the floor, with a green liquor running from its mouth; how by prompt action she had saved her mistress, who had luckily taken but a mouthful; how she had found the abbé in perfect health some hours after (if his tale were true), he had swallowed a strong dose of poison; how she, Toinon, had then sent for Madame de Brèze, that in the future she might shield her daughter.

Never in her whole life before had the poor old woman been placed in a position of responsibility, and she could only murmur in angry fear-"Why me-why send for me?" Indeed she was a ludicrous example of the broken reed, and the abbé waved airy thanks to Toinon with white fingers, in that she was so kindly playing into his hands.

"Why, indeed," he echoed, "if half were true of what that naughty minx accuses me. I poison our darling Gabrielle! The idea would be intensely comic if it were not offensive. It is a fact, madame, of which Gabrielle is well aware, that an accident occurred, owing to a scullion's carelessness. I myself nearly succumbed, for I had a desperate battle for life, and when I recovered, sent up a hymn of thanks to Heaven in that Gabrielle should have but suffered slightly."

"You knew so little of your poison that you assumed wrong symptoms!" remarked Toinon, in disdain.

"Not so. It is you who know not the poison," retorted Pharamond, with a malignant flash that was instantly suppressed. "Spite and fatuous ignorance misled you. The symptoms vary according to quantity imbibed. I unluckily ate a cake and half before I was aware of anything peculiar, and any doctor will tell you that whereas a small dose of subacetate of copper will produce coma, a large one will bring about griping pains and tetanic convulsions, which, without aid from above, lead to paralysis and death."

"A large dose acts on the system quickly-within an hour," scoffed the abigail. "When I told you that the cakes were poisoned you were in perfect health."

"I had but just partaken-"

"A clumsy liar! I asked Bertrand if he had more of his confectionery, and he answered with a searching look of suspicious inquiry that all he had made were served to the marquise."

"Upon my word, the wench is very erudite," laughed the abbé, lightly. "How come you to know so much?"

"There was an ancient book on poisons in the library. I turned up the article 'Copper,' and studied it."

"Was?"

"Yes, was. The book is hidden now where you will never find it."

There was a pause, during which the combatants studied each other warily. Then the abbé, shrugging his shoulders, in disgust drawled out, "Have we not had enough of this low comedy?"

"I ascertained," pursued the undaunted maiden, "that the necessary quantity of verdigris so to affect one little cake out of many as almost to produce coma in one who had taken a single bite must be so large that a copper cooking-plate would have to be thickly buttered with it. Now Bertrand excused himself on the plea that the plate in use was found to be 'not quite clean.' If he had buttered it then was your 'accident' not due to inadvertence."

"What proof have you that the cakes were so heavily loaded?"

"The fact that the dog died within half-an-hour; that I retained two which I intend presenting to madame that she may have them analysed in Paris."

"A pretty story, ingenious as wicked. No one saw the dog perish but yourself. What evidence is there, except your own, that the cakes in your possession are in the same condition as when placed on the table? Are you sure you have any cakes at all?"

There was such an air of mischievous satisfaction underlying the tone of banter that Toinon's heart stood still. "How are you sure-" she began, then sped swiftly from the room, to return in a few moments white as a sheet and breathless.

"They are gone," she panted, "gone! You discovered where they were concealed, you wicked man, and have destroyed them!"

The abbé rose leisurely from the floor and broke into a shout of laughter. "Dear ladies," he apologised, "you must forgive so vulgar a display of merriment, but the jest is too, too good. What subtle forms, nowadays, will not the malice of the enemy assume! Unfortunate noblesse! Unjust and cruel age! The inscrutable powers permit us to be hauled to prison, conducted to the shambles, but allow us to leave the world with characters unstained. The mob would trump up charges against us now to justify their deeds; but the charges are so shallow and so foolish that they defeat their ends. Poisoned cakes! Pah! Unhappy girl, you who have received a superior education should have soared above such folly. It was the rumour that spread from Paris about the king and queen and the poisoned food at the Tuileries that put this absurd notion in your head. Madame de Brèze, I grieve that so untoward an incident as this should have occurred during your stay among us, which we have all striven to make a pleasant one. We have kept it from you, but it is true, to our misfortune, that the spirit of the province is menacing. There is nothing that the peasants will not believe against an aristo. If you sallied forth and announced that I, the Abbé Pharamond, am specially partial to boiled baby, served aux choux, there is not one who would not believe you. This girl is betrothed to Jean Boulot, the gamekeeper, who deliberately left a respectable service to make himself notorious at Blois as the most rabid of all the Jacobins, and it is obvious that she acts now under his influence, regardless of long service under the marquise and of the many benefits received. Alack! the ingratitude of those who rend the hand that caresses them is very hard to bear."

"Madame, you do not believe him?" cried Toinon, throwing herself at Gabrielle's feet and anxiously searching her face. "You know that the man is lying!"

"Yes, I know," Gabrielle whispered as she bent to kiss her brow. "I know you have spoken truth, but we are powerless."

She leaned back, supporting her head wearily upon her arm, perfectly composed in demeanour, while Toinon, her face buried in her lap, sobbed as if her heart were breaking.

The aged Madame de Brèze turned from one to the other of the group, utterly mystified, with a growing grudge against some one, at present she could not tell whom. A gulf had suddenly yawned in front, and from its depths arose a faint sickening fume of death. Although she had a foot in the grave she mightily objected to the smell of death. Which of these two spoke truth? The dear delightful abbé could not have-oh, no, that was absurd and ridiculous, and yet why should Gabrielle sit so stonily with that woful look of pain? It was plainly her place to rise up and take his part, exonerate him at once from even the slightest shadow of this dreadful thing; at least to declare her conviction that the abigail was mad, was suffering from some unhealthy fancy. It was not the poor girl's fault. Were not current events a more than sufficient excuse for any amount of hysteria? And yet, Gabrielle was plainly not of her opinion. There was the accuser nestling her head upon her lap, and the gentle hand was stroking it in caress and not in chiding. Did Gabrielle-could Gabrielle be keeping secrets from her parent? Was it the old story of the unappreciated mentor?

The blessed maréchal, who was to be congratulated as out of the turmoil, had established a deplorable precedent in the matter of Madame de Brèze as an oracle. One of the pleasantest points of the present séjour was the consideration in which her words were held. Her views and opinions were treasured up, as they should be, like flies in amber. Could it-oh, no, horrid thought, it could not be-that Virginie, Maréchale de Brèze, aged, never mind how much, was deliberately being made a fool of? Much as she was disinclined to believe anything so preposterous, it did look extremely like it. The husband away, the brother-in-law was openly accused of attempting to murder his brother's wife, and that lady being present, made no sign except by affectionately caressing the accuser. Madame de Brèze did not like this new complexion of things at all. How she did and always had hated mysteries! Why will people be mysterious? Unless conscious of guilt, there is no cause for crawling in shadow. There could not be anything between Gabrielle and the abbé? Shocking idea! And yet in Paris such things often were. Could there also be something between the abbé and Toinon which rendered the latter jealous? Just like a woman, Madame de Brèze ambled off into the labyrinth of conjecture. growing each moment more involved in prickly briars, plunging about and tumbling down in pursuit of Will-o'-the-wisp.

When-Toinon's agitation calmed-everybody went to bed, and Gabrielle impressed on her mother's brow the chilly kiss of a statue, the maréchale shivered, and there and then resolved that Lorge was a hateful place fit only for owls and ghouls.

CHAPTER XXIV.

MADAME DE BRÈZE IS NERVOUS

That night Gabrielle and her foster-sister slept together, or rather lay in the same bed, for Toinon had much to tell and Gabrielle to hear. In the morning, the chatelaine looked much the same as usual, but for the circle of bistre round her eyes, which had grown deeper, giving an air of lassitude.

Virginie, Maréchale de Brèze, never slept a wink; but groaned and tossed in a fever, mumbling Ave Marias, and when she appeared at déjeuner, the abbé shook a reproachful finger at her. "Yellow!" he declared, mournfully, "absolutely and undeniably yellow! How dare you, after all our care, look so jaded, when yesterday you were as blooming as a rose? I know what it is. Try this pear-it absolutely melts in the mouth. No. I won't offer it, for I am afraid it smells of copper. Or is it brimstone? How provoking! I have tucked my hoofs and tail under my chair, but I cannot conceal the brimstone! Look at your lovely daughter. She knows better than to believe cancans, and has slept the sleep of the angels. Alas-dearest mother-you have permitted me to call you mother-I shall have to administer a severe and terrible lecture. I told you last night you were our prisoner, but I won't have birds that injure their delightful plumage. If you beat your wings against the bars I shall open the cage-door, I warn you, and dismiss you into space!"

Turned out into space among the ravening wolves without, or kept in the gilded cage to be slowly done to death? What an alternative! Why could not somebody tell her what to do, instead of leaving her all night stretched upon the rack of her uncertainty? Evidently, unless candidates for an asylum, they must all have some motive for acting in the odd way they did, but what was it? It was so rude and inconsiderate to be plotting, and scheming, and lying, and charging each other with all kinds of horrible offences, under the nose of an innocent stranger, of whom they were making a butt. Madame made up her mind to upbraid Gabrielle severely for her inhuman and unfilial conduct. If there was any nasty skeleton about, she had no business to summon an aged parent to contemplate it.

Toinon, plunged into a slough of anguish, could only wring her hands and moan. It is not every David who can get the better of Goliath; and is it not wiser to flee before the great towering monster, instead of hurling our puny stone at him-only to be trodden in a trice under his ponderous splay foot?

The abigail had got the worst of the encounter, her proofs as well as her accusation were rendered ridiculous, even in her own eyes, although she knew the accusation to be true. She was held up to obloquy as a Jacobin, one of the anarchists steeped to the lips in crime, ready to destroy by false witness the family to which she owed everything. Next, she would develop into a tricoteuse, sitting under shadow of the guillotine. It was intolerable. Toinon was not meek and lowly as some of her betters were. On the contrary, there ran through her veins a current of pugnacity of which honest Jean had tasted. She was not prepared to sit down like Gabrielle, wearing a crown of thorns and bearing a cross, the while pretending to enjoy them. Certainly not. She was one of those who have no respect for crowns of thorns, and consider crosses irksome wear. But what could she do to unwind her mistress and herself from the present tangle? The maréchale was an imbecile old doll. The abject terror of her mien last night had something about it that was full of pathos. It is pitiful to see so battered and helpless a thing as that in the bubbling whirlpool of our world. Jean-Jean Boulot was the one rock to which the two women might cling in their danger. Jean must leave his Jacobin clubs and come to them. Would it be well for Toinon herself to proceed to Blois, seek him out, and explain? He would not think her forward and unmaidenly, for she would find words to convince him as she had her mistress. No. The maréchale having proved herself to be a broken reed, it would not do to go to Blois, for her mistress would be left with no rampart, however unsatisfactory and weak, between herself and the insidious foe. What if, on her return, she were to find that the deed was accomplished? Jean must be written to, and implored by the past to come to the rescue of two women in grievous peril. And they were in extreme danger; he would see that for himself when he arrived. Toinon knew it full well. She had read the abbé's eyes last night, and was as much aware as Gabrielle, that for those who stood athwart his path, there was no more mercy within his breast than conscience or religion.