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It was eleven years almost to a day
since M. l'Abbé de Rosemonde, Curé de Val-le-Roi,
had toiled up the slope to the Château de Marigny with his
young protégé, André Vallon. Then, as now,
a hot July sun flooded the pointed roofs with silvery lights.
Only a few white fleecy clouds flitted across the cobalt sky.
The birds sang in the forest trees; the branches of walnut and
sycamore quivered under the breath of a gentle summer breeze.
In the valley below, the Allier gurgled softly among the reeds,
and the weeping willows along its banks set forth their sweet,
sad sighing through the noonday air.
Nature, lovely and impersonal, seemed by her serene beauty to
mock at all the turmoil, the hideousness created by men. "Look
at me," she seemed to say. "My laws are immutable. I
destroy nothing without cause. Death in my infinite wisdom is
only the maker of life."
M. le Curé looked about him and sighed. He could almost
have wished that God's world would cease to be beautiful since
men no longer had eyes to see the glory of His creations. He was
an old man now. These last few years had put a heavy burden upon
him. Torn between his hatred of the present godless regime and
his desire to do what little good he could among these poor misguided
folk to whom he had ministered for more than thirty years, he
had at last decided to take the oath of allegiance to this impious
government which he abhorred, simply because he did not wish to
leave Val-le-Roi to its fate. In spite of threats, in spite of
persecution, he had managed so far to keep his church open, to
hold occasional services, to visit the sick, and to administer
the sacraments.
On this beautiful morning in mid-July when he came in sight of
the château, he experienced the same heartache which assailed
him every time he noted the slow but sure ravages of neglect upon
the magnificent pile. It was many years now since flowers had
graced the parterres of the garden and thrown their gay note of
brilliance against the subdued colouring of the age-old stonework.
The bosquest now were withered; the fountains still; marble balustrades
and terraces were covered with the soil and litter of years.
The Abbé sighed again and wearily made his way up the
perron. The monumental gates opened at a touch; the cracked bell
which he pulled echoed weirdly through the silent halls. There
were no servants in gorgeous liveries now to wait on visitors;
no sound of gaiety or laughter came reverberating through this
silence, which seemed as solemn as that of a tomb. The old priest
crossed the vast hall and made his way up the great marble staircase
and through the length of the gorgeous apartments, which stretched
en enfilade to the farthest angle of the château.
Here he came to a halt and knocked at the door that faced him.
A woman's voice called, "Entrez!" and he stepped
into the room.
At sight of him a young girl jumped up from the low stool whereon
she had been sitting, threw down a book, and came to greet him
with hands outstretched.
"M. l'Abbé!" she cried. "How kind of you
to come, and in this heat, too! Do sit down. You must be tired.
Papa and I were just saying that perhaps you would not come till
later in the day."
The good Curé took the two soft white hands that were
so eagerly tendered him and then turned to pay his respects to
Monseigneur. Like the Curé himself, Monseigneur le Duc
de Marigny had in the past few years become a very old man. Misfortune
and anxiety had put a quarter of a century onto his years. Like
so many men of his generation and caste, he had made a splendid
effort to bear with outward fortitude the terrible calamities
that well-nigh overwhelmed him, but obviously the fortitude had
only been on the surface. Every line on his face showed that he
had suffered and was suffering terribly. He had the appearance
of a martyr, conscious of his martyrdom. He had see his friends,
his relatives, one by one, either driven to exile or to death,
and calmly awaited the hour when he would be called to share their
fate. Were it not for his daughter he would have welcomed that
hour, nay! even have gone forward boldly to meet it. But there
was Aurore, his child, the darling of his shrivelled heart. Because
of her he was willing to shelter beneath the protection which
his near relationship with that infamous Duc d'Orléans,
who had cast his vote in favour of the death sentence on his cousin
and King, had so far given him. Because of his cousinship with
that man he had escaped persecution at the hands of the Committee
of Public Safety: his name had not as yet appeared on the list
of the "suspect." He accepted this slur upon it for
Aurore's sake, but had suffered agonies of humiliation for this
immunity. In his eyes to-day, dimmed not so much with age as with
unshed tears, there smouldered the fire of bitter resentment.
not even to his daughter, not even to the kindly priest, his one
remaining friend, did he open out his innermost thoughts, his
desperate longing for revenge.
On this occasion, as indeed always, he greeted the Curé
with the greatest friendliness. Cut off from all his friends and
all his kindred, the Abbé de Rosemonde seemed like a last
link with the happy past. They had become like two old cronies,
these two, not talking much to each other, because there were
so few pleasant things to talk about, but they often had friendly
bouts at chess or piquet, and instinctively the old Duke felt
the soothing influence of his friend's Christian philosophy.
Aurore had put a chair in a convenient position, and the Abbé
fell into it, panting and blowing, for the day was hot and the
climb up the hill steep.
"I wish I could offer you a glass of wine," Monseigneur
said with a fretful little sigh, "but I have not a bottle
left in the cellar."
Aurore poured out a glass of water for the old priest, who drank
it eagerly, and then set to with great energy to mop his streaming
face and neck.
"The best wine in the world, monseigneur," he said
cheerfully, "is this fresh water from the well. I am not
tired, I assure you, my dear little Aurore, and even if I were,
your smile would comfort me more thoroughly than the finest bottle
of Burgundy."
Monseigneur gave a significant grunt and turned his head away.
"Well!" the priest went on after a moment or two. "What
news?"
"The every best," Aurore de Marigny said eagerly. "I
found the box I told you about, and, oh! M. l'Abbé, it
is full, full of lovely things - stockings and shirts and petticoats.
they will be so useful for many of the poor mothers this winter."
She chattered away in great excitement, her eyes sparkling and
her cheeks flushed.
"And they won't as much as say 'Thank you!' for them,"
Monseigneur put in drily.
"Oh, yes, they will!" the girl asserted. "And
even if they don't..."
She gave a little shrug. What cared she if she got thanks or
no, so long as she could find something to do, something in which
to interest herself, to make time slip by a little more swiftly?
The days were so long and so dreary! Nothing to do, nothing to
think of or to hope for, save to bring now and again the ghost
of a smile on Papa's face. To help M. l'Abbé in his charitable
work was a perfect godsend, now that she saw her youth slipping
by before she had begun to understand the true and inner meaning
of such things as happiness and love. She was barely nineteen
when her world began to crash about her feet, when she first came
face to face with ill-will, malevolence, even hatred. Until that
hour the world had been one great thing of beauty. Loveliness
was the very essence of her young life. She inhaled love and adulation
with every breath she drew. When she took her walks abroad people
got out of her way to allow her to pass. Glances of admiration
accompanied her all the way she went. Gentle expressions of respect,
often a murmured blessing, were the words that most often rang
in her ears.
Then suddenly came the crash: an awful cataclysm seemed to sweep
the whole of her past into an immeasurable abyss. Glowering looks,
sullen glances, objurgations, even insults were cast at her, until
she no longer dared to set foot beyond the precincts of the castle.
One by one the servants, who she thought loved her, who had seen
her grow up from babyhood, fled from the château as from
a plague-ridden spot. And slowly her childlike mind began to unfold:
it had been closed hitherto to outward things as is a flower bud
sheltered beneath a canopy of leaves. But soon her quick intelligence
grasped the true significance of what was going on around her,
and the Abbé de Rosemonde, with the utmost gentleness and
care, helped in the development of her understanding.
Aurore de Marigny never took a gloomy view of life. She accepted
a great deal which was rousing her father's bitter resentment
as inevitable; as she was very young, she never gave up hope.
These years of indigence and anxiety were only transitory: of
this she was sure. But while she did her best to infuse some of
that hope into her father's soul, she would in the lineliness
of her little bedroom shed many a bitter tear over her lost youth.
Better times might come presently - they certainly would come,
she knew they would - but she would be old by then; her beauty
would be gone along with her youth; she would no longer be desirable;
she would never learn the great lesson of life, the lesson of
Love.
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