Such was not, however, altogether the aspect of the little auberge at Bourgoin. The village was too small to have a regular inn, or gîte, and the homely symbol of a bush, suspended from a long pole, thrust forth horizontally from the front of the building, was the only sign that it could boast. The landlord and landlady were in their green old age, and were what they term in France bonasse, though that word has been applied to a beast who, if one may judge by his look, is of a very opposite sort of disposition to that which I wish to describe. They were, in short, good-humoured, honest country-people; and when the landlady beheld a considerable company of horsemen draw in their bridles at her door, with a young lady and her maid in a litter in the midst, her first thought was really not of self-interest, but of what she could best do to make her fair guest happy and comfortable during the time that she was about to stay in her dwelling.
The Count de Meyrand sprang to the side of the litter which contained Isabel de Brienne; and, as if with an instinctive insight into their lord's wishes, all his attendants but one, who was holding back the curtain, and one at the head of the nearest horse, kept aloof while the lady descended.
"Monsieur de Meyrand," said Isabel de Brienne, as she quitted the litter, "I cannot help repeating again that it is much against my inclination I have come hither. If you did not choose to conduct me, as I asked you, on the direct road to Grenoble, you might, at least, have suffered me to remain for the night at Latour."
"Indeed, dear lady," replied the count, still with an air of perfect deference, "it would have been dangerous for you to do so. There, but a few leagues from Chambery, and still less from Beauvoisin, we should have been entirely at the mercy of the enemy. In regard to Grenoble, I only besought you to pause till you could hear my reasons. You are too much fatigued to attend to them now; but, ere you set out to-morrow, you shall hear them at full."
"Your politeness, my good lord," replied Isabel de Brienne, with an air of grief and vexation, "is somewhat compulsory." Thus saying, she advanced towards the landlady, who had kept back at a sign from one of the count's attendants, but not so far as to prevent her from noting all that had passed; the ears of aubergistes and aubergistes' wives acquiring by long and peculiar practice a facility of hearing everything and not hearing anything, according to circumstances, which is truly astonishing.
The Count de Meyrand bowed low, and, following to the door, he ordered apartments immediately to be prepared for his fair charge, and then took leave of her for the night, while a slight smile played upon his lip as he turned away, and he said in his heart, "If I could trust this man of Masseran, I would humour the girl, and see what might be done by softness. She smiled upon me this morning, and made me almost forget her former insolence. It were as well, however, to bring down this high temper; and, now the storm is somewhat roused, it may as well go on. No one can say I do her wrong in using some gentle force to bring her to Paris to the presence of her lawful king, who will soon judge whether that ring be to remain upon her finger or not."
As he thus thought, he pictured to his own imagination the marriage of fair Isabel de Brienne with Bernard de Rohan annulled by the royal authority. He fancied his own claim to her hand heard and conceded. He thought of how her travelling alone with him by slow journeys across the whole of France might render her own consent a matter more of necessity than choice; and, with inward satisfaction, he revolved the air of cool indifference with which he would treat the whole proceedings, as if there were absolutely nothing on earth worth the attention of so high a gentleman.
In the mean while Isabel de Brienne was led to her chamber by the hostess, who asked many a kindly question, not directly pertinent to the conversation which she had overheard, but tending to elicit the cause of that anxiety and distress of mind which she witnessed. Isabel did not satisfy her, it is true; but she replied so sweetly and gently, that the good woman went away with her mind made up that she was the most amiable young lady she had ever seen, and that she was, moreover, very much ill used by some one. Who that was she could not very well satisfy herself; but, nevertheless, she looked with no very favourable eye upon the Count de Meyrand, and made but short replies to the various questions which he asked her when she came down again.
After giving various directions to the soubrette, to which that taciturn person replied less than ever, Isabel seated herself near the window in melancholy thought. Removed almost by force from Latour, where the good priest, Father Willand, expected to find her, and having been now fully convinced, by the conduct of this Count de Meyrand, that she was little better than a prisoner in his hands, she knew not whence to hope for succour or deliverance. There was many a dark and painful point in her situation on which we must not dwell; many a present and many a future danger to herself, to him she loved, and to their mutual happiness. The thoughts connected with these points mingled with the chief strain of her reflections, and rendered them, bitter as they were, still more bitter and grievous to be borne.
As she thus sat and gazed out of the window—at some distance from it, indeed, so that those who were immediately beneath did not see where she was placed—she suddenly saw a small body of horsemen come over the brow of the gentle hill opposite, and ride down into the village. Isabel instinctively drew back; for, though her actual situation was painful in no slight degree, yet among those horsemen she recognised the colours of the Lord of Masseran, and it seemed to her that it would be even more terrible to fall into his power than to remain in that of the Count de Meyrand. The men came on at a quick rate, some four or five in number, and were passing by the door of the little auberge without pausing, when she heard the voice of the Count de Meyrand call to them, and bid them stop to speak with him. The first questions which he asked were put in a low voice, but the man whom he addressed spoke louder in reply, and Isabel heard the latter say distinctly, "Yes, my lord, he is gone on with all speed to Paris, and we are following him as fast as we can. We hope to come up with him at Lyons."