Poor Madame de Brèze! Yellow, forsooth! The more she pondered the more troubled she became. Her wrinkled old face was turning green. Was the abbé a monster or an angel? If only somebody would clear up this point. He made her blood run cold with his facetiousness, for is it not creepy to be openly informed by a person, that he wears a tail and hoofs, and to be more than half assured that it is true? He danced round her fears with elfin gambols, till she felt her frail wits tottering; and then, grown of a sudden serious, he would relate what he called facts, which only increased her terrors. Why had no one informed her before that Madame de Vaux hardly, and her daughter Angelique, were practically in a state of siege; that various chateaux in the neighbourhood had been demolished, their inhabitants drowned or strangled; that she had not been wrong on her way thither, as to the threatening attitude of the peasantry? Of course, she had been right--was she not always right though people would not believe her? She had been lured hither to this dismal fortalice to perish like a rat in a trap. Danger from without and from within. Goodness gracious! What if that story of the cakes were true? Gabrielle, strangely enough, seemed to consider that it was neither new nor surprising that her life should be in peril. What should they want to kill her for? Was it something connected with money? All evil springs from that. Then a thrill of horror surged over the selfish heart of the unlucky dame, when she remembered her daughter's will. To her, the old mother, the money was bequeathed--in trust, it is true; but to her. If they wished to compass Gabrielle's death, of course, her own would follow. What a silly will it was. She protested at the time, but had been overruled by M. Galland. It was an absurd thing for a young woman to bequeath a fortune to an old one--worse--it was a cruel and dastardly thing to do, if unscrupulous schemers were after it. Why must they mix up a harmless and venerable and justly respected lady in their plots and squabbles? Madame de Brèze worked herself up into a white heat of indignation, and set herself to see how she could get out of the trap with promptitude, and such decency as might be.
She propounded her views to Gabrielle, who gravely and calmly aquiesced. "Nothing detains you here, dear mother," she kept repeating, with monotonous persistency, "except your own fancy. I hoped you had taken to our quiet life; but if not, it is better you should go."
"I have so few years left to live, you know," apologetically whimpered the maréchale, "that I grudge the time away from entrancing Paris."
When her daughter elected courteously to consider that this was natural, her conscience pricked, and she was annoyed at feeling ashamed. Indeed, the excuse was of the lamest, since the beloved capital was, at this juncture, a prey to devils whose goddess was Mother Guillotine. In the retirement of her secluded dwelling, however, she could feel comparatively safe. She quite longed for the little house, which she was always complaining of as dismal. At all events, she could nibble a cake there without dread of poison.
"I will stay, of course, if you say you really wish it," she went on, plaintively, as salve to the inner monitor, "but the air of Touraine never did agree with me any more than with your blessed father; and if I were to be taken ill, I should only be an extra worry."
A smile flitted over the sad face of the marquise, as she took her mother's hands and kissed them. "My dear," she said, "I would not have you stay for worlds a moment longer than you fancy. Go back to Paris, and I will pray Heaven that your journey may be prosperous. I would like you to go at once, because I am sure it is for the best, since you are nervous, and at the same time I would beg of you a favour. Take the children with you, for I should feel happier if they were safe under your care. I will give orders now," she added, rising briskly, "in order that they may be ready by to-morrow."
The old lady ruefully rubbed her nose with her spectacles, being ashamed to speak her thoughts. It occurred to her that if the abbé really was nourishing designs of a nefarious nature, he might endeavour to prevent her from departing. If she proposed to remove the children, there would be extra inducement to interfere, considering the uncomfortable prominence given to all three by that deplorably ill-advised testament. Gabrielle had kept her lips sealed with regard to the second document. Indeed, she was unaccountably and provokingly reticent on most points in her dealings with the maréchale, who resented her silence hotly. She never could be got to talk of her affairs--to give an opinion as to the characters of Pharamond or of Phebus; declined to discuss the absence of her husband, or to explain the presence of the quondam governess, who, from time to time, was meteorically visible, hovering. Under the circumstances, what object would be gained by lingering at Lorge, since all seemed alike agreed to withhold from the sage their confidence? If she were allowed, she would gladly turn her back on the ill-omened place, and thank her stars when quit of it.
The marquise saved her from the trouble of displaying her own diplomacy by boldly announcing to the abbé that Madame la Maréchale de Brèze would return on the morrow to the capital, and, being lonely there, would borrow, for a period, the society of her grandchildren. The abbé glanced keenly in her face, but could read nothing there. What curious fancy was this? She who so adored the cherubs, had decided on a separation! Why? What motive could underly so unexpected a project? The more the abbé reflected, the less could he fathom it, but after looking at it from every point, he made up his mind that it was some feminine whim which concerned him not. And yet it did in this much. From the moment that the second will was executed, the children were safe from any machinations of the conspirators. What happened to them was of no importance. If Algaé chose to be burthened with them, she was welcome so to do, as far as her fellow-schemer was concerned. It would be a convenience, though, to have them out of the way just now. When it was over, and the family was comfortably established at Geneva, there would be plenty of time to consider what was to be done with the infants. Perhaps it would be a harmless sop to Clovis to have them with him there, in order that he might make up for the shadiness of his marital past by systematic parental indulgence. There certainly was no possible reason why they should not journey with their grandmother to Paris on a visit, and the heart of the latter, on finding there was no opposition to the plan, was relieved of a weight as ponderous as a nether millstone.
Long before the hasty preparations were complete, Madame la Maréchale had satisfactorily convinced herself that the abbé's place was among the angelic host. It must be mischievous fudge about those cakes; a silly tittle-tattle of ignorant servants, to which Gabrielle, mopish and morbid, had given too willing an ear. Far from throwing barriers in the way of an exodus, both brothers were almost too obliging. The chevalier, who was a past master in farriery, examined the horses' shoes with minute care, while his brother superintended the inner economy of the berline. In the boot were books, and a few bottles of the choicest wines and samples of comforting cordials, wherewith an elderly traveller might be sustained under fatigue. There were pillows and cushions galore, and cunning wraps deftly-stowed in corners.
"Our dear mother," he explained, laughingly, "shall carry away with her a favourable impression of Lorge, though she is so ungrateful as to leave us with too evident alacrity. Never mind. It becomes the Church to be forgiving, and, returned to the capital, she will reward us with remembrance in her prayers."