Book II Chapter 5 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
THE WARNING
Out of a gloomy absorption in which he sat plunged at the breakfast table on the following morning, Charlot startled him with the announcement that Mademoiselle de Chesnières was at Chavaray to see him.
She came in trimly vigorous in a long drab riding-coat à l'anglaise, a three-cornered hat jauntily surmounting her tight-coiled golden tresses.
To-day, there being no witnesses, he did not content himself with bending over her finger-tips, but folded her into an embrace to which she went with a tenderly laughing eagerness.
"How dear in you to seek me, Germaine. And so soon. How very dear!"
"It was so necessary, Quentin." Gently she disengaged herself from his arms.
His invitation to the hospitality of his table she waved aside. Perched on the arm of a chair, her riding-whip tucked under her arm, she began to peel off her gloves. "Why did you come yesterday to Grands Chesnes?"
"You'll suppose, of course, it was to see Madame de Chesnières and the dear, good Constant."
"It was so unwise. Had you forgotten the warning I gave you in London?"
"But I had to see you. It is for that I came to France. And as for danger . . ." He raised a shoulder. "If Constant means me mischief, I am here to be assailed. My visit to Grands Chesnes neither helps nor hinders that."
She smiled wistfully. "Yet it might have been wiser to have practised patience." And then she asked a curious question. "Do you set great store by Chavaray, Quentin?"
He looked at her in surprise. "It is to be your domain, Germaine."
"I do not covet it. Grands Chesnes is mine, and is enough for me. Whilst Chavaray . . . Quentin, it is not lucky to you. Your life has been in danger ever since you had a claim to this heritage. It terrifies me." She flung hat and whip on the table, and came to him. "Let it go, Quentin. Let them have it who covet it, who will do murder to possess it. Go back to England, to your academy. Do this if you love me, Quentin; for I can know no peace whilst you are here. Your calling is an honourable one and yields you abundance for your wants. Go back to it. Wait for me there in confidence, as I shall be content to wait until I can come to you."
He was aghast. "Abandon Chavaray? Surrender my rights because I am threatened? That is to advise me to play the coward," he expostulated. "Should you really respect me if I bowed before evil rather than stand to defend what is mine? What counsel is that, sweetheart?"
"The counsel of the woman who wants you spared to be her life's companion."
"You would account a coward a fit companion? Quiet your fears. The menace of our cousins leaves me calm. I shall know how to deal with it. If my existence is proving inopportune to Messieurs de Chesnières, it is an inopportuneness I shall study to maintain, and they'll attempt to overcome it at their peril."
"You consider only yourself and your pride, Quentin," she complained, "and me not at all."
"Is it merely pride to refuse to turn tail before a criminal greed?"
"It is not only criminal greed, as you call it, Quentin. There is something else." She hesitated, averting her glance.
"Well?" he demanded.
"They . . . they do not believe that your title is sound. Oh, they are sincere in that. I know."
"Not believe it!" There was anger in his laugh. "Not believe it, when it is established by every document that completes the chain."
"Legally, yes. But . . ."
"But what?"
"It is because they have no hope to prevail at law, because they cannot legally destroy your claim, that they will end by destroying you."
"That I can understand. But . . . ?" His puzzled glance was questioning her.
"Must I be plainer?" She was almost in anguish. "They do not believe that you are your father's son."
"That's to explain one riddle by another. Whose son else can a man be?" But the question was scarcely asked when the answer came to him. "God of Heaven!" he cried out.
"Ah, forgive me, Quentin. It hurts, I know. But I had to tell you."
"And I am grateful." Passion shook his voice. He swung with a wild gesture to the tall portrait of Bertrand de Morlaix de Chesnières, Marquis of Chavaray, that hung above a carved oak serving table. It had been painted by Boucher when Bertrand was little more than Quentin's present age. "They dare in the face of that! The same hooked nose, the same grey eyes, the same glint of red in the hair." He laughed fiercely. "Don't you see, Germaine?"
There was no such ready agreement as he invited. She met his look with a steady round-eyed stare, her face expressionless. Then, "Don't, my dear," she begged. "There is not the need for this."
"But there is, if my mother's sweet fame is to be smirched by these rascals so as to justify their thieving covetousness." He swung away from her to the window and back again, in long strides, his manner wild. "You could give me no better reason for standing firm against these villains, for dealing mercilessly with them and thwarting them in the end. It becomes a sacred duty. Let them beware the mistake that was made by their cut-throat Boisgelin. I am not so helpless as they may suppose, to their undoing."
Germaine, pale and scared before his passion, had sunk into a chair. When his ranting ceased, "God forgive me," she exclaimed. "I have only made matters worse. Yet, listen, Quentin. I have not told you all. You do not know to what you are exposed. St. Gilles might choose to fight you openly. But Constant never. He is sly and treacherous, and the more vindictive since I have allowed him to perceive my regard for you. His mother and he have hoped that I would one day marry him. There are all the lands of Grands Chesnes that will be mine one day, if ever order and justice are restored. They would make a fine property for the younger Chesnières when the elder is in possession of Chavaray. Constant will no more suffer you to interfere with that than with St. Gilles' succession. For you to remain here is to deliver yourself into his hands."
"So Boisgelin thought when he went out to measure swords with me behind the inn at Ploermel."
This merely increased her agitation. "Constant will never measure swords with you. He has other methods. It needs little to raise the peasantry against a buyer of national property. And that is what Constant is doing already, with the assistance of Lafont. One night soon, any night now, if you remain here, a mob of furious peasants will descend upon you, to drag you from your château and murder you. That is how Constant works."
She looked up piteously into his face and gathered hope from its startled expression. "What could you do against that?" she cried.
His lips grew set, the grey eyes were bright and hard as steel. "That they shall discover when they come. I shall know how to make them welcome."
She sprang up and came to clutch his arms. "Do not deceive yourself, my dear. For pity's sake!"
"Let Constant remember Boisgelin. He, too, accounted me a lamb to be led to the shambles."
"There is no parallel."
"You shall find that there is. Now that I am forewarned, let them come." On a quieter tone he strove to reassure her. "Had they taken me by surprise, it might have gone ill with me. But now, the surprise will be theirs. Thank you for warning me, Germaine."
"Do you want to mock me with your thanks? I come to persuade you to go. And I still beg you, for my sake . . ."
Abruptly she ceased, and started away from him, her eyes upon the door. From beyond it came a jingling ring of spurred steps on the marble of the hall and a sound of voices, one of which shouted, "Out of my way, my good man. I'll announce myself."
Her eyes dilated as she glanced at Quentin. "Constant!" she breathed.
Then the door opened, and Constant appeared upon the threshold. Pallor had turned his olive skin to a greenish hue, and his eyes were evil. Then a smile came like a mask to cover his countenance.
"You'll forgive the intrusion, Monsieur de Morlaix."
"Not readily," said Quentin, cool and haughty. His glance went beyond Constant, to Charlot, who stood flushed and angry behind him. "The times do not permit, perhaps, of great ceremony. Yet I am not so destitute of service that my visitors need come to me unannounced."
Constant advanced slowly, ever with that hateful smile on his thick lips, which Quentin promised himself that his glove should one day wipe off. "Ascribe it," he begged, "to my eagerness to return your so courteous visit. An eagerness which I am ashamed to see has been exceeded by my cousin Germaine." He turned to her, his manner blending mockery with deference. "My dear, in a censorious world this was scarcely prudent. Had you told me of the intention I should have been happy to accompany you. I have repaired matters by following at the earliest."
"To spy upon me?"
He laughed. "But no. To guard you."
"You are not required to be my guardian."
"I think so. Always. And the need is suggested at the present moment. Monsieur de Morlaix, I am sure, will agree. As a man of honour it must have distressed you that a lady should expose herself to criticism by a thoughtless intrusion here alone."
Quentin looked coldly upon that sardonic affability.
"You exaggerate. You forget that there is a degree of kinship to screen Mademoiselle de Chesnières."
"Degrees of kinship, even when they exist, are not adequate for so much."
"You say, 'even when they exist.' What does that mean?"
Constant affected surprise. "Just that." And then, as if becoming for the first time aware of the laden table, he turned the subject. "My faith! I perceive how inconvenient is the moment. You were at table. Then it must be ave atque vale. Let me beg you to forgive us an intrusion at so unreasonable an hour. We rustics have a notion of time that is different from that of you city-dwellers. We must choose some later occasion. Come, Germaine." He held the door for her.
"Willingly," she coldly answered him. "I have said what I came to say." She looked steadily at Quentin. "You will give it thought, my cousin."
He took her hand. "Be easy on that score." He bowed to kiss her fingers, whilst Constant watched them narrowly. "I shall provide."
When they had gone he sat lost in thought. Preoccupations on the score of Germaine alternated with shivers of anger at the thought of Constant. He was being too nice, he told himself, to stand upon a fencing-master's punctilio with a scoundrel who traded upon his trust in it. Let him strike Constant across his sneering face, and so compel him to come out and be killed before he wreaked his evil, treacherous will. Ah, but would Constant come? Even if Quentin could descend to that?
He shook off the thought, and turned to the portrait of that father whose tenderness was Quentin's earliest dim memory. "Faith, old gentleman, you may have been none too fortunate in your sons. But I can make you my compliments on your nephews."
After that, he took thought for the danger of which Germaine had warned him. He summoned Charlot, and told him that, regarded as an intruder by the peasantry, he had cause to fear a raid on Chavaray.
"A treacherous lot of dastards, these hinds of Anjou," the Breton pronounced them. "As for their raid, we've a dozen good Brittany lads here, our gates are strong, the walls are stout, and we're well armed. You may sleep in peace, Monsieur le Marquis."
But Monsieur le Marquis, if heartened, was not tranquillized. "They may overwhelm us with numbers. I must have reinforcements, and the nearest to whom I can appeal are the Chevalier de Tinténiac and St. Regent."
Charlot scratched his grizzled head, his seamy old face thoughtful.
"It's a long way to La Noué."
"A hundred miles, and we haven't a messenger to spare."
"There's my girl. Marianne's as strong as a man and she can travel as fast. But there's the time it'll take."
"Four days, at least, before her message would bring anyone. I've even thought of sending to Angers for a detachment."
"Of Blues!" cried Charlot in horror. "Mother of Heaven! That would set the country-side on fire against us. I doubt if even our lads would stand by you. Don't think of it, Monsieur le Marquis."
So in the end Marianne was sent to La Noué, and they remained to hope that no attack would come before her return. In the meantime, they fortified the house.