A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

IV

It meant another struggle against resentment and against pride. But, in any case, the present uncertainty was unendurable. Denise de Mortain felt that she would have gone on her knees to the devil himself if he brought her authentic news of Laurent. She went boldly to the door, and, opening it, she called:

"Mathurin! Are you there?"

"At your orders, Madame la Marquise," replied the man.

He came back into the room, reluctantly this time. He was a good fellow, with wife and children of his own. Temperamentally and traditionally he hated these Royalists—packs of rebels and intriguers, he called them—and he knew this haughty lady had plotted against her own son—M. le Maréchal—whom he adored; but there was something which he had yet to tell her, and in his own rough way he shrank from the task, feeling nothing but pity for her, because of what she was doomed to suffer.

"The prisoner tells me," began Madame la Marquise, as calmly as she could, "that you can give me news of M. le Marquis de Mortain, my son. Is that so?"

"Yes, Madame la Marquise," replied the man slowly.

"Well," she asked, "why did you not give me that news at once?"

Thus commanded, Mathurin could not help but obey as quickly as possible. He shifted from one foot to the other, and a look of real pity softened for a moment the rugged lines of his face.

"Well, Madame la Marquise," he began, "you must know that after the fight with M. de Puisaye's rearguard we had several prisoners in our hands. M. le Maréchal took the trouble to interrogate each one separately. When he had finished, he ordered me to accompany him, and together we went to the spot where the affray had taken place. It was on the edge of the wood. It was then about three o'clock in the morning and the dawn was breaking. The place was littered with dead. I counted over sixty myself, among them young M. de Fleurot, whom I knew."

"Yes?" said Madame la Marquise quietly, for the man had paused. She knew well enough what he was about to tell her. He looked her straight in the eyes. They expressed a query, and he nodded silently in reply. A low moan of pain broke from Madame's lips; she pressed her handkerchief to her lips to smother a louder cry.

"M. le Maréchal found M. le Marquis de Mortain lying amongst the dead," said Mathurin slowly after a while. "He told me to tell Madame la Marquise that M. Laurent must have died like a hero; he had a broken sword in his hand and three bullet wounds in his chest.... M. le Maréchal lifted him up in his arms and carried him to his horse. I helped to lift the body into the saddle, and M. le Maréchal ordered me to ride back to Mortain as fast as I could and to send out half a dozen men to him at once. 'When you have done that, Mathurin,' he said to me, 'go to La Frontenay as quickly as may be, take the prisoner Jean Blanchet with you, and see Madame la Marquise de Mortain and Mademoiselle de Courson. Tell them that I have conveyed M. le Marquis to the Château of Courson, and that there I will await their pleasure.' And that is all, Madame la Marquise," concluded Mathurin clumsily, for, indeed, he felt overawed by the look of hopeless grief which had spread over Madame's marble-like face. "M. le Maréchal ordered the carriole to be sent for Madame la Marquise. It should be here by now."

When he had finished speaking she gave him a stately nod.

"I thank you, good Mathurin," she said slowly. "I pray you go back to your master now and tell him that Mademoiselle Fernande and I will be at the Château of Courson within the hour."

She appeared like a statue, pale and unbending. One slender hand rested on the back of the chair to steady herself; the other closed tightly over her lace handkerchief. The kerchief round her shoulders looked less white than her cheeks: the golden light of a summer's morning crept in through the narrow window. A glorious sunshine followed on the storm of the night; the warm rays glinted on Madame's white hair, on her pale forehead and on the rings upon her fingers. Mathurin, who had been in Paris in the hot days of the Terror, remembered, as he looked on her, the martyred Queen going to her death.

He gave a sign to Jean Blanchet. He would not have dared to say another word; he felt the majesty of this overwhelming grief, and, having made a profound obeisance, he and the old Chouan went out of the room.