“Gilbert did his duty in going to Louis’ assistance, Madame,” said the priest gently. “It is not for us to lament over the consequences. Moreover, you have had no bad news.”
“No,” said the Marquise, not noticing that he used the second person plural where the first would have seemed more natural. “No, there has been nothing but silence. But that is enough. None, I suppose, but a mother can understand a mother’s anxieties.” She bit her lip. . . . “Are you going immediately, Father? Ask Mère Blandin if she would like me to send her some soup. . . . He is remarkably unconcerned,” thought the Marquise to herself, as the priest passed out into the sunlight. “And yet I am sure that, in his own way, he is very fond of Gilbert.”
For more than a fortnight the two had lived together, and it spoke well for the restraint of Madame de Château-Foix that not until the last two or three days had she allowed herself to betray how overwrought she was becoming. The unsettled state of the country was not in itself sufficient to account for the entire absence of a letter or message of any kind from Gilbert, and the news of the temporary popularity of the King since the events of the 20th of June, which had filtered through to the provinces, was more puzzling than reassuring. On one count at least—that of Lucienne—the Marquise quite realised the need of her son’s journey to Paris, but her anxiety caused her to feel that even for that necessity there must be blame somewhere, and who was so near at hand to bear this as M. des Graves? There was no fault to find with him, and sometimes she wished that there had been. Moreover, his personal safety was beginning to be a care to her. She watched him now as he went down the steps to the terrace. Supposing that he met some official from Chantonnay?
There lay open on her table a copy of Saint François de Sales, which her duty caused her to study. La Vie Dévote was a favorite book with M. des Graves, and one which he usually carried in his pocket—a fact well known in the household since the celebrated day, years ago, when Louis, having obtained possession of his copy, had cut out its contents and, neatly substituting for them Manon Lescaut, had restored the metamorphosed volume to the priest’s cassock. The Marquise turned the pages at random and read: “La conduite la plus parfaite est celle qui est pleine de tranquillité, de quiétude et de repos.” She did not proceed any further, but glanced at the clock and shut the book with something like a snap. It was as if M. des Graves himself had spoken, and there were some things which M. des Graves did not understand, one of them being, she suspected, the heart of a mother. Madame de Château-Foix was a good woman and a dutiful daughter of the Church, but her piety was cast in the mould of action rather than of contemplation. Some women would have passed the hours of suspense in prayer, but with her to pray was to work. She spent the afternoon in a tour of inspection of all the living-rooms in the château, and it was nearly six o’clock when she returned to her boudoir, having satisfied herself that Gilbert’s bed was thoroughly aired. This gave her a feeling of his imminent arrival.
About the same time M. des Graves was walking slowly homewards, his head and shoulders bent with the weight of care he carried. He was horribly anxious. Two days ago the newspaper had contained a somewhat veiled and evidently delayed account of the discovery of a Royalist conspiracy, followed by a number of arrests. There were no names given, and the Marquise, if she had even seen the announcement, had mercifully not connected it with Louis’ political escapade nor, consequently, with Gilbert’s errand. But the priest had every word of it by heart. Moreover, he knew what Madame de Château-Foix did not know—that Gilbert’s name had once figured, by accident or design, on the list of conspirators. For two days he had kept silence, but he was beginning to feel that he could bear the suspense no longer, that it was not right to let slip any more time in waiting for news. But what could he do? He was himself a proscribed man. “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord,” he murmured, “he will not be afraid of any evil tidings.” No, not for himself, perhaps, but when disaster threatened another, how hard to say that! . . . And all the way up the avenue, where the shadow of the elm trunks lay long and barrier-like in the setting sun, he thought of the two boys who used to run to meet him there, and to escort him on his way with laughter. Of these he had perhaps helped to send the better-loved to his death.
The Marquise was not on the terrace, as he had somehow expected. He went slowly up the steps to the salon window, which was open. The room was empty, but from behind the folding-doors which led into the hall came the sound of voices, a laugh which rang impossible in his ears, and a smothered sob. M. des Graves hurriedly pushed open the doors.
In the hall, with his back to him, stood a dusty and travel-stained figure on whose breast Madame de Château-Foix was laughing and crying. Another, not at once recognisable as Louis, in an exceedingly old coat drawn all awry over an invisible left arm, leant rather wearily against the tall cabinet which enshrined the penultimate Marquis’ collection of Chinese porcelain. Gilbert turned his head, and the Vicomte sprang forward.
The most poignant moments of life are always liable to be impinged upon by the commonplace. Perhaps if the travellers had not been so palpably tired and dirty the scene might have prolonged itself, but the Marquise, drying her eyes, soon disengaged herself from her son’s arms, and declared that she would ask no questions until the two were rested and fed. Neither the Marquis nor Louis demurred at this fiat; only the latter turned for a moment with his foot on the bottom stair.
“You didn’t expect us at all—ever!” he whispered to the priest. “I saw that you didn’t.”