The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

When he reached the château, he thought he had never seen the old gray pile so lovely, so inviting, as in the dewy freshness of the morning. He stopped under Michelle’s window, and his aspiration was like a prayer. It was still so early that he thought he would snatch an hour’s sleep; he began to feel the fatigue which follows upon many hours of exhausting emotions, and going to his dingy little room, he threw himself, dressed, upon his bed and instantly fell into a delicious slumber. He thought he had slept but an hour, when he waked and tumbled out of bed. As he opened the door leading outward, sunshine flooded the room, and he saw that it was near noon. Cursing himself for a sluggard, he glanced involuntarily at Michelle’s window. It was closed, nor was the window in the bridge-room open.

A deadly presentiment struck his heart. Instead of going into the château and calling softly for Michelle, as he usually did when he did not see her, he called loudly for Marianne. The old woman was long in coming, but presently she appeared.

“Where is the Princess Michelle?” he asked.

“Gone,” coolly replied the old Marianne. “She left a letter for you, which, however, I am not to give you until to-night.”

Roger seized her roughly.

“Give me that letter instantly,” he shouted in her ear.

Old Marianne was obstinate.

“You may strike me if you like, but I will not give you the letter an hour before my lady told me,” she answered, doggedly.

And Roger Egremont, this honorable gentleman, whose creed was gentleness to women, who had gone to sleep a penitent man, resolving to do right even if it required the crucifixion of the soul, fell into the most unseemly passion imaginable. The devil in a man dies hard, and even after he is conquered he can give much trouble. Roger Egremont, this strong, weather-beaten man, was unnerved and unstrung by the strain of furious emotions from which he had suffered the whole night, and these words of Marianne’s seemed altogether unbearable to him. He began to storm and swear frightfully at her; he did everything, this chivalrous Captain Egremont, but strike the poor old woman. Nay, in his eagerness to find the letter, he rushed into her poverty-stricken room; he turned her poor belongings upside down, threw her few wretched sticks of furniture about, and behaved like a ruffian and a madman. Such is human nature at its worst, even in an honest man, when he is cruelly balked. But he could not find the letter. He then condescended to beg. He offered the old woman half the money he had, all of it, if only she would give him the letter. But his previous conduct had aroused all the doggedness in an obstinate nature. Marianne would not give him the letter.

And Pierre had gone, and the chaise and the post-horses. He easily tracked them to the front of the château. Yes, there was the very imprint of Michelle’s delicate feet in the mossy earth. She had got into the chaise at the foot of the terrace, and the wheel tracks passed through the park, and into the highroad, half a mile away. Then they were lost.