A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

I

De Maurel stood waiting for her in the pillared hall. In accordance with the custom which he himself had established during his last visits to Courson, he was in uniform without his sword and mantle. Madame la Marquise had already fully recovered her self-possession; her short progress across the hall restored to her the full measure of her habitual sang-froid. With a well-schooled smile upon her lips she came forward eagerly to greet him.

"Ah! my dear Ronnay," she said, as she extended a gracious hand to him, "this is indeed a surprise—none the less joyous as it was so wholly unexpected. Indeed, we here at La Frontenay had come to believe that you had wholly forgotten us."

He bowed low over the gracious hand, and even touched the finger-tips with his lips.

"You look more bronzed than ever, M. le Maréchal," added Madame with an arch smile, "and your numerous new dignities and the added gorgeousness of your uniform will play sadder havoc than ever before in the hearts of our impressionable young girls. You have come to pay me a long visit, I hope. Come to my boudoir, my dear Ronnay, the room which your generosity hath furnished with such lavish care for your old mother. We can talk undisturbed there."

"Within a few moments, Madame," he said quietly, "I will be entirely at your service. But, first of all, may I, with your gracious permission, speak a few words with my overseer Leroux?"

The abruptness of the attack nearly caused Madame to lose countenance then and there. Of a truth, the danger was more real and more immediate than she had foreseen. For the space of a few brief seconds she debated in her mind whether she would deny Leroux' presence in the house altogether—feign ignorance of it, and risk an exposure which might prove disastrous and certainly would be humiliating. It all depended on how much Ronnay really knew. If he had actually seen Leroux entering the château, denial would be positively fatal; if his attitude at this moment only rested on surmise, then it might prove a good card to play. Unfortunately time pressed, and she was forced to decide on a course of action in the space of a few seconds while de Maurel kept dark, inquiring eyes fixed composedly upon her face. In any case, a little procrastination was imperative, and Madame, with a certain vague fear gnawing at her heart-strings, at last contrived to say with a complacent smile and an affectation of great surprise:

"Your overseer, my son? I do not understand.... Why should you seek your overseer in this house?"

"Because I happen to have seen him enter it, half an hour ago," he replied curtly, "in spite of my strict prohibition which I enjoined upon him yesterday."

"He comes courting one of my maids, perhaps."

"Perhaps. But my prohibition is none the less binding on him. So with your leave, Madame ..." he added, as he made a movement in the direction of the door whence Madame la Marquise had just emerged in order to greet him.

"My dear Ronnay," rejoined Madame, with all the haughtiness which she could command, "I trust that you will not inflict a scene upon me here in this house, which would be extremely unpleasant for us all. If you wish to speak with your overseer, surely you can wait till he has returned to your works. A factory or a workshop, or even the high road, are fitter places for a wrangle with a refractory workman than in your mother's private room."

"It is neither my fault nor my wish," retorted de Maurel dryly, "that a refractory workman in my employ happens to be in my mother's private room. Nor would I care to wait until the man chooses to return to his duties in order to give him the trouncing which he deserves. I have no time to waste in waiting on his good pleasure, and I specially desire to speak with him here—in this house—and in your presence, Madame, an you will grant me leave."

"In my presence!" exclaimed Madame, with a forced laugh which was intended to hide an ever-increasing terror. "My dear Ronnay, meseems that you have taken leave of your senses. What in the world have I got to do with your overseer and with your quarrels with your men?"

"That is just what I desire to ascertain, Madame," rejoined de Maurel quietly.

"Well, you cannot do it," said Madame testily, "either here or now. You will not, I presume, have the effrontery of forcing your way into my private apartments."

"Your presumption is correct, Madame. I would not for the world intrude upon your privacy. But let me not, on the other hand, detain you here. I can wait your gracious pleasure, until you deign to turn my overseer out of your private apartments, and send him hither to speak with me."

For a moment Madame looked round her in hopeless bewilderment. The situation had developed in a manner wherewith she was unable to cope. For the first time in her life she would have given much to have someone else's support or counsel in this crisis which she began seriously to fear would culminate in disaster. But there was no one near to help her out of her difficulty. Fernande had not left her room, M. de Courson and Laurent were far away, and even old Matthieu had very discreetly retired as soon as he saw Madame la Marquise in close conversation with "M. le Maréchal."

There was silence in the vast pillared hall for a second or two while these two equally firm wills stood up in bitter conflict one against the other. There was never a doubt for a moment as to who would be forced to yield. Madame even now felt like some bird whose strong wings were in the hands of a ruthless tamer, who already was busy in clipping them. She tried to brave that tamer or else to defy him; but he, armed with a determination no less firm than her own and with a tenacity that nothing could conquer, was waging a war of attrition, and was calmly biding his time while Madame, torn between genuine fear and outraged dignity, was seeking in vain for a means of extricating herself from this harrowing position.

Ronnay de Maurel, in fact, was leaning against one of the marble pillars of the hall with a smile round his firm lips which, had not the situation been quite so tense, might almost have been interpreted as one of keen, if somewhat grim, amusement, whilst Madame stood before him, hot and defiant, her small foot tapping the ground in order to ease the exacerbation of her nerves.

"Very well," she said abruptly, and she deliberately turned on her heel and made for the door of the library, where Leroux no doubt was still standing, quaking in his shoes like the miserable craven that he was. "Very well! An you are determined to put this insult on your mother in the presence of such an oaf, I can do naught to prevent you. Go and speak with your overseer an you have a mind."

"And will you deign to be present at the interview, Madame?" he asked.

"If you wish it," she replied curtly.

Of a truth, she would not have trusted Leroux to speak alone with de Maurel; the man was three parts a coward, and it was more than doubtful whether under stress of fear he would remain true to his bargain with de Puisaye; whilst the part of him that was base and criminal might lead him to an attack of violence, which, whatever its results might be, was certainly not within the scope of Madame's reckonings.

Therefore she chose to make a virtue of necessity and, walking rapidly across the hall, she called curtly to de Maurel to follow her into the library.