(1)
How is it that the Fate who spins seems sometimes to take pleasure in falsifying, not only one's anticipations, but even one's apprehensions as to the pattern which her threads will weave? This reflection, or something like it, was Laurent de Courtomer's next afternoon at Sessignes, where he sat on the window-seat in Aymar's pleasant room. Things had proved so much less trying than he had feared; supper last night with the two ladies, for instance (Aymar was in his bed), had been punctuated only by questions such as he could answer. The ladies naturally wished to know the details of his friend's captivity and illness, but among these he had been able to exercise selection; and he was certainly not going to undeceive them when they jumped to the conclusion that it was on account of his health that Aymar had been "released." Details of the affair at Pont-aux-Rochers they could hardly expect from him, nor did Mme de la Rocheterie press for them, while her granddaughter, as he knew, had already been told enough by her cousin to avoid that subject, in public, like the plague.
In the second place, he and Aymar were not going to part immediately after all. Once again the Spinner had twisted the thread. The newspaper that morning, which confirmed the account of Napoleon's abdication, and told them that the King was on French soil again, apprised them also of the fact that Vendée had made peace two days before. There was, therefore, not the slightest need for Laurent to return thither, and he had yielded only too willingly to Aymar's solicitations to remain a little at Sessignes. Aymar himself had been examined that morning (considerably against his will) by the doctor whom Mme de la Rocheterie had summoned, and as a result, had been confined for the present to his room. Under a promise of secrecy he had also, to Laurent's relief, allowed the doctor to see and prescribe for the burnt arm.
He was lying at this moment on a chaise-longue, pulling the ears of the enraptured wolfhound, whose head lay on his breast.
"When are you going to ride Hirondelle, Laurent?" he asked, looking up. "She is at your disposal any time, you know. There are rods in the hall, and fish, though they are shy, in the stream; and if you want a gun, you have only to ask Célestin. And if this one-idea'd beast will go with you, perhaps you will take him for a walk some time?"
The word seemed to be familiar to Sarrasin, for he beat his tail upon the floor so vigorously that a light knock at the door was scarcely audible. A voice was then heard saying, "May I come in, Aymar?"
Laurent jumped up. It was Mme de la Rocheterie. L'Oiseleur also made instinctively to rise.
"Do not be foolish, Aymar; stay where you are," said his grandmother in her cold, gentle tones. "And do not let me disturb you, Monsieur de Courtomer. I have brought our invalid some peaches." She had indeed a shallow basket in her hand, and a scarf thrown over her brilliant white hair, as though she had been in the garden. "Ah, that incorrigible dog is up here again!"
"You mean that I am incorrigible, Grand'mère," said Aymar, good-humouredly, and he ordered Sarrasin to remove himself to a distance.
Meanwhile the Vicomtesse had accepted from Laurent a chair by the couch, and though she again besought the young man not to depart, he thereafter vanished, somewhat regretting that a gentleman could not listen at the keyhole.
Sitting there beside the chaise-longue Mme de la Rocheterie subjected its occupant to a long, quiet scrutiny. Little, however, of what she really felt or thought was to be seen on her face.
"Gellois does not give me a very good account of you, Aymar," she said at last. "But, from the look of you, I hardly expected it."
"You know that he is an alarmist, my dear grandmother," replied the invalid. "There is nothing the matter with me now except that I get tired rather easily."
"He says that your heart is impaired."
"Temporarily, I dare say. I suppose that is why he has condemned me to lie here in this ridiculous fashion."
"But, my dear boy, you have been very—by which I mean dangerously—ill, and you know it. It is of no use to deny it, for M. de Courtomer has admitted the fact."
"I hope that you are being very charming to M. de Courtomer," responded her grandson, shifting the ground a little. "If I have been as ill as you say, all the more credit and thanks to him that I am well now. He nursed me with a devotion for which there are no words."
"You consider, in short, that you owe your life to him?"
Aymar smiled a little. "If I cannot give him his due without making the admission which you are so anxious to wring out of me, Grand'mère yes, I do—to him and the doctor. So be kind to him—for he is not leaving us to-day after all, I am glad to say."
"No friend of yours shall have anything to complain of from me, Aymar," responded his grandmother, "particularly one to whom you are so much indebted. He seems a well-bred young man, for all his English upbringing. The name, of course, is good. I suppose he bears sinople, three lions argent?"
"I suppose so," said Aymar with a smile. "The one thing which I do know for certain that he bears is—a heart, or."
A smile flickered over Mme de la Rocheterie's face also. "What a pretty speech! M. de Courtomer ought to be here.—Now I will peel you a peach, and if it does not tire you to talk, you shall tell me of this unfortunate business of Pont-aux-Rochers. We have heard the most unpleasant rumours about it here."
The young man twisted a trifle in the chair. "Rumours of . . . treachery?"
"Yes," continued the Vicomtesse, selecting a peach from the basket. "And from all the details we could gather, from the completeness of the disaster—and from the fact that you were not there in person—it seems to me probable that they are true. But I should like to know." However, it was with a very undisturbed air that she began to peel the peach.
Aymar watched her for a moment. "I understand that the idea might have arisen," he said at last. "But it is a false one. There was no treachery over the business."
His grandmother raised her eyebrows. "My dear boy, what was there, then? A miracle, worked for the Bonapartists?"
"A miscalculation—a grave error of judgment."
"Ah, I think I can guess whose!"
"Can you? I fancy not!" He gave a rather wan, ironic smile. "It was my own, Grand'mère."
And at that Mme de la Rocheterie not only lifted her eyes from her occupation, but looked at him so piercingly that under her gaze the easily raised flush of convalescence ran across Aymar's own face for an instant.
"Your error in judgment, I suppose you imply, because you chose an incapable man for your subordinate," she remarked. "I warn you, mon fils, that I have no patience with that kind of quixotry. Our name, your reputation, shall not be used to shield a man who is a bungler, if no worse."
The flush came again, and deeper this time, but it left Aymar very pale. "If you mean M. de Fresne, he is in no need of shielding—shielding, my God!" he said under his breath. "I committed the . . . the mistake myself. But if you have no objection, we will not talk about it."
"As you please," said the Vicomtesse calmly. She had finished her task, and delicately wiped her fingers. "I have you back safe and comparatively sound, which is all I care about. The reputation of L'Oiseleur is strong enough to take care of itself. All the same, as I do not wish you to be under a misapprehension as to my intelligence, I must tell you that I do not believe you about M. de Fresne."
Her grandson gave almost a groan of irritation and anger. "You accuse me of lying, then?"
"I accuse you of having a bad memory. The evening that you were here in April—the evening before the ambuscade—you told me casually at supper that M. de Fresne, without awaiting your orders, was moving your men across the river next morning. I could see, though you did not say so, that you were a little annoyed. Late that evening you received news which made you rush off post-haste to them; the next thing we hear is that they have walked into a trap and been cut up. And then you say the blame is yours, and not your thick-headed lieutenant's! You see, my dear boy, that you cannot hoodwink me like that!"
Aymar, taken aback as he was for the moment, pulled himself higher on the couch. His eyes were bright, his mouth determined. "I absolutely refuse to have M. de Fresne made a scapegoat any more!" he said hotly. "I, and I alone, am responsible for what happened at Pont-aux-Rochers. I will not have another man's reputation sacrificed to save mine!"
"I was not aware," said his grandmother drily, "that M. de Fresne had any particular reputation to sacrifice. But if you are going to agitate yourself over it like this, you shall take all the blame you want. Lie down again, for Heaven's sake!" She got up and rearranged his cushions. "I begin to think that part of the reason why you look like a seven days' ghost is that you are taking this, your solitary reverse, so much au grand tragique. That comes, my dear Aymar, of being the favourite of fortune—and of being young. Well, time, unfortunately, will cure the latter——"
"And has already cured the first," finished Aymar with a queer little smile, shutting his eyes for a second. "Thank you, Bonne-maman." He opened them again and looked at her as she resumed her seat. "It is plain that you do not know how many men I lost over that affair."
"But what were your men for?" enquired the Vicomtesse. "I do not say that you exactly kept them in cotton-wool, but you have always been ridiculously sensitive about their welfare. One must break eggs to make an omelette, as the vulgar say.—Well, let us talk of something else. There is a much pleasanter subject to hand, is there not?" And her smile, though mischievous, was not unkind.
But Aymar looked away and said nothing.
"I have tired you so much that you cannot even talk about her?" asked his grandmother after a moment. "I shall have the young gentleman with the heart of gold taking me to task." She got up, putting the peach near him. "Another time, then; just now you can lie here and reflect how true it is that everything comes to him who waits. . . . Only, my dearest boy"—she bent and kissed him tenderly—"do try to see your late reverse in its proper proportions! I should like to point out—if you will not take the consolation amiss—that now, owing to the signal victory of mid-June, it is of small consequence what happened to your little force at the end of April!"
Of small consequence! Oh, if only it were! As the door closed behind her Aymar turned and lay motionless, his face hidden in one of his cushions.