She had a presentiment, she explained, which pointed to a life cut off by violent means before its prime, and expressed in the most distinct and emphatic manner words could express, her desire that the testament just executed should alone be regarded as authentic.
"Dear me! A presentiment?" laughed M. Sardeigne, "as well consult with lawyers about ghosts! To set your mind at rest in this peculiar matter," proceeded the magistrate, perceiving that his mirth was ill-timed, "let it be understood that a cross after the signature on any subsequent testament will be considered to convey that it was signed under coercion."
The business accomplished, Gabrielle breathed more freely, and the abbé, observing at dinner how serene she looked, grew suspicious. Such calm after their recent stormy interview, seemed to suggest that she had been doing something underhand, on which she plumed herself. What could it be? Something that boded him no good. In the imminent war, which was to be declared so soon as the party were back in Touraine, it would clearly be perilous and rash to take the field alone.[[1]]
CHAPTER XVIII.
[A SURPRISE.]
The quartet that journeyed back to solitude was not a lively one, for each of the four occupants of the travelling berline was fully engrossed by private speculations. The chevalier was nervous and uneasy, having received severe mental castigations at the hands of brother Pharamond. The marquis avoided his wife's eye, and glanced wistfully now and again at his Mentor, as though to crave support in some matter of which his conscience was afraid. The abbé smiled and nodded encouragement at intervals, and then grew grave again, for he knew that he was on the point of playing a trump card, and players miscalculate sometimes as to what remains in the adversary's hand. Gabrielle, gazing calmly from the windows, seemed scarcely aware of flitting trees and passing villages, or the constantly recurring jerky stoppages for the change of steaming horses. She did not remark the altered attitude of the rustics, who scowled at the emblazoned carriage panels, with hat on head, pipe in mouth, and arms crossed tightly over chest. A party of fugitive aristos, fleeing from the sinking ship like other rodents. Well, let them go. France was well rid of such vermin that were not worth the rope and lantern. As they approached their destination, some recognized the coronet and coat, and made furtive awkward bows. The Gange family were not so bad as others, report said, and as for the lady, sure no wickedness could lurk in her mild angel's face.
She was about to see her darlings, and her spirits rose, for the sojourn in the capital had been a long one. Of course they were safe in Toinon's care, but the mother had been weaving ingenious plans for their advantage, which she longed to execute forthwith. And then she fell a wondering as to how, under fresh auspices, they would all get on at Lorge. So far as the fortune was concerned there was naught to dread. Were her secret fears due, indeed, as had been suggested, to morbid fancy? No. Life would be far from easy; but a sturdy heart armoured in love's panoply can surmount difficulties. She knew too well now that, at best, the brothers looked on her existence as a necessary evil. She could see it in the lack-lustre eyes even of the chevalier, who, doubtless, had been well tutored and taught to believe false tales. The poor drivelling chevalier! What his hazy views might be on any subject was of little consequence. As friend or foe he was equally harmless. It was well to have been undeceived as to the abbé, and to know him for what he was--plausible, cunning, double-faced, vindictive. Why should she, Gabrielle, fear him? Forewarned, forearmed. If she placed no trust in her smooth brother-in-law--held studiously aloof from him--he could not betray or do her injury. Yet was this so? What of the horoscope and her own presentiment? To remain unmolested was overmuch to hope for. And then the marquise found herself marvelling what form his too certain malevolence would take. He would, of course, misconstrue all her acts and read them awry to Clovis. Alas! as things were, even that no longer mattered. For the future, so long as they lived, husband and wife would each go their ways, tacitly agreeing not to annoy each other, and in the ancient chateau there was so much room that the pair need never meet. A sad condition of affairs to have arrived at, and yet--is it not best to save painful fretting of soul and futile nerve friction by boldly confronting and accepting the inevitable in all its ugliness?
When we have given up crying for the moon, we can coldly contemplate the once-desired prize, critically examine each blemish, and shall probably be surprised at ourselves for having yearned after so spotty an object. The Marquis de Gange, deprived of glamour robes, was but a commonplace mortal, after all. Not good; not particularly bad. Unpractical, lazy, given to useless theorizing. Sure, in a previous life, he must have been a comely ox, fond of swishing its tail in the sunshine and blinkingly chewing the cud, with its legs to the knees in a puddle. Reflexion brought conviction that the diabolical woman who, happily, was gone for ever, had, out of sheer spitefulness, smirched her own fair fame without a cause. She had avowed herself the marquis's mistress merely to irritate his wife, just as she had threatened to warp the children's minds to frighten the mother into rashness. Poor distracted wife and mother. What could have possessed her--Gabrielle marvelled--to have gone through that performance in the water? Could she really and seriously have been so acutely affected by the idea that Mademoiselle Brunelle had succeeded in occupying the place within her husband's heart for which she had herself unsuccessfully longed? What a foolish and unnecessary fraying of heart strings! Was she so blinded as to have been unable to realize that the thing he called his heart was so full of selfishness that there lacked room for any other feeling? No. Even though she loved him then, it was not wholly on his account that she had suffered. It was the loss of her children, apparently complete and irrevocable, that had goaded her to mad despair. Well, well, Heaven had been merciful. The woman had been driven forth--her baleful shadow would cross her path no more. The darlings were her own again. The future was not so black after all. She would, on arrival at the chateau, place things on an entirely new footing; would take up her quarters in the wing erst occupied by the objectionable Aglaé, and, by aid from without, continue the education of Victor and Camille, which, during the last year, had been sorely neglected. As for the rest of the chateau, the three brothers might have it to themselves, and what they did and how their time was spent, so long as they did not tease her, should be no concern of hers.
Thus, I daresay, has the ingenuous lamb, clothed in the white wool of its simplicity, thought to cope, with success, against the hovering wolf and snarling panther. There is room enough for all of us, it has bleated. Let me gambol on this square of sward, and do you frolic as you choose beyond. The artless thing cannot discern the smacking chops of wolf or hungry leer of panther, or perceive that it is its own quivering pink limbs that the two are after, and which they are preparing presently to rend. If Gabrielle could have read the thoughts that were working in two busy skulls within that rumbling berline she might have, perhaps, gazed out of the window with less hopeful equanimity.
Clovis, touched on his rawest points, was burning with exasperation. As Pharamond had truly declared it was absolutely monstrous of the old donkey who was dead to have placed a noble of ancient race and lofty lineage in so ridiculous a predicament; and it was just one shade more shocking that his never-sufficiently-to-be-execrated daughter should have so meanly taken advantage of the situation. She had actually dared, with an innocent simper which set all his nerves twanging, to tell him one morning to his face that he was to live on an allowance! He, her lord and master! Whether the allowance was to be large or small was beside the question. He was firmly resolved, and supported therein by Pharamond, utterly to repudiate the allowance. She had humiliated him once, and was bent on doing so again and again--was unwise enough, having planted a dagger, to turn it in the wound, thereby rousing the victim out of sheer pain to make a desperate effort of retaliation. By the terms of a will which she had been sufficiently insolent to make, her fortune was to pass over his head for the behoof of his own children, who would be thus emancipated from any control on his part. If she could act so outrageously and show so clearly how little she respected his feelings, she could not expect him to consider hers. And with it all there was a sham veneer of deference that was but added insult. "Clovis," she had said, when composedly making the announcement, "I have thought it all over carefully, and am acting for the best according to my lights. I should like you to feel assured that the revenues I hand to you for your own use are, indeed, your own; I mean that however ill you may behave to me I will never withdraw them, for I do not wish you to feel, on your good behaviour, at the mercy of your wife."