“In my time they didn’t admit women to the family councils.”
“It isn’t a woman that’s compromised the family, however,” came the brisk reply from the depths of an armchair, where sat a rather vigorous, well-matured lady dressed in black.
But it was purely a discussion of principles with both of them, for they promptly made truce and welcomed the girl with a good grace. Margaret greeted each member of the family circle in turn. First came her great-uncle Stephen Roquevillard, who, though older than Mr. Hamel, carried the burden of his eighty years quite lightly; then her aunt by marriage, Mrs. Camille Roquevillard; then her cousin Leo, the latter’s son, a young manufacturer at Pontcharra in Dauphiné; and finally Charles Marcellaz, who had arrived that morning from Lyons.
Outside the windows a heavy sky, charged with snow, seemed to hang low above the castle, almost crushing it. Already the clouds swung round the turret, and the leafless trees stretched their supplicating branches upward. Only the ivy on the tower of the archives preserved its tint of eternal spring. The room, in spite of its four windows, seemed filled with the bitterness of the day. The book-cases, the portraits, the landscape by Hugard, seemed to wear a look of sadness. The latest law reports, piled on a stand, had not been bound, like those of the preceding years. The big table, covered with briefs, one of them still open, displaying its citations and extracts from the statutes, showed a continuity of work which even the gravest cares had not interrupted; while a fresh bunch of chrysanthemums, placed before a photograph of Mrs. Valentine Roquevillard, revealed the daily care given it by a woman’s hand.
The lawyer begged his guests to be seated. He seemed to reflect a moment, his head bent. He had aged greatly in the past year. The hair of his head and his short, stiff moustache were turning grey. Two lines appeared around his mouth; his neck beneath his collar was thin and hollow. His cheeks were more dull in tint and the flesh less firm. All these signs of physical failing Margaret never saw without an aching at her heart. What a difference there was between the man who sat there now at his table, lost in his thoughts, and that other form robustly erect and joyful outlined against the sky on the hilltop at last summer’s vintage.
When he stood up, with a single gesture he was himself again. Beneath the deep arch of his eyebrows his gaze shone out imperiously as of old, difficult to withstand, fixing itself on the faces of his hearers with an embarrassing precision. The moment he began to speak his new attitude showed that he was the head and front of the family, not easily put down or overborne by many trials.
“I have called you together,” he began, “because our family is in danger. Now, we all bear the same name, excepting Charles Marcellaz, who stands in the place of a son to me because he represents my daughter Germaine. Felicie and Hubert are too far away to be consulted, but their lives testify to such self-sacrifice that their opinions need not be asked. I know they are disinterested.”
“You have good news of the captain?” inquired Mrs. Camille Roquevillard. Her nephew’s uniform had always impressed her favourably, and she was incapable of thinking of more than one person at a time.
Margaret answered her.
“No news for some time, and the last was not very good. He had come down with fever.”