“When Love comes tapping ???On the pane,
Let not his summons
???Be in vain;
—‘Enter, Sweet, bring thou
???Sun or rain!’?”
sang Marthe de la Vergne to the harpsichord in her light sweet voice. The strains floated through the open salon window to Valentine de Trélan as she sat outside in the September sunshine. The music changed:
“Should the King honour
???My poor door;
—‘Take, Sire, my sword-arm
???And my store!’
So spake my fathers
???Long before.”
There was a thrill in the young voice. Yes, thought Mme de Trélan, Marthe, if she had been a man, would certainly have given her sword-arm and her store to-day; in fact she had given them, in her brother, and—another.
The chords ceased; somebody had come into the room, and Valentine recognised her hostess’s voice, though she could not hear what she said. She resumed the embroidery which she had put down to listen to Mlle de la Vergne’s singing, but in a moment or two that had slipped to her lap, and her thoughts were miles away—back at the Allée des Vieilles, at the Clos-aux-Grives. Once more she rode into the courtyard of Gaston’s headquarters on Gaston’s horse, once more she renewed her acquaintance with Roland and the Abbé Chassin; once more she lay in the little room which her husband had given up to her—a soldier’s wife, in a soldier’s bare environment. And once more she was arranging Gaston’s sling for him—that sling for which she could not learn the reason, since he evaded her questions about his wound—and he suddenly caught sight of her hands, not quite the white and exquisite hands he remembered, and she perceived that the slight transformation brought home to him almost intolerably the years of which he could not bear her to speak. He had broken down at the sight, and before she could quiet him the palms of those hands, kissed over and over again, were wet with his tears. Yes, the lover she had never known she had now, and in those short five days together at the Clos-aux-Grives, interrupted though their companionship necessarily was, she had lived the only part of all her years that was worth the living.
Yet, lover though he were, Gaston de Trélan had almost instantly to sacrifice his happiness and hers. Even with a woman to wait on her he would not have it said that the chief of Finistère had his wife with him at his headquarters; would not at any rate permit himself a privilege he would not have accorded to any of his officers. He sent Artamène to ask Mme de la Vergne if she would receive his wife for a while—and so the brief idyll came to an end. For nearly a fortnight now the Duchesse de Trélan—her identity was no secret here—had been living, for the first time in seven years, with women of her own class, of whom the younger was already her slave. And she was happy here, where she was made so gladly welcome; but her thoughts had an incorrigible habit, as now, of flying away.
For besides those hours with Gaston there had been conversations with the Abbé Chassin, in which she learnt what had at first puzzled her, why her husband had changed his name; and to her Pierre Chassin revealed, saying he thought he owed it to her as well as to his foster-brother, something of the utter despair and grief of seven years ago, and its sequel. He told her indeed, in so many words, that the profound change in Gaston was due to her—to her memory; but Valentine had both combated this and said that there was no change—it was but the fruition of what had been there all the time. . . .
Fruition, yes—fruition of character, fruition of prayer. She had prayed and longed, and lo, after years, here was the answer! Its symbol lay across her very knees—the white silk of which she was making a scarf for the general commanding for the King in Finistère. And that general was her husband—her husband who loved her.
Could a heart, not very young, break with excess of happiness and gratitude? Spring’s joy was not like this—not so secure, not so blest. Surely this, the joy of autumn, was better!
Her eyes were full of tears as she looked at the golden tranquillity before her, the still trees whence floated the murmur of Marthe’s pigeons, the late flowers, the windless blue sky behind the poplars. But they did not fall; and after sitting a moment longer gazing before her she rose, and going to the window, looked in. Marthe, alone once more, was still seated at the harpsichord.
“What a charming little song, my child,” said Valentine, “and what a fresh voice you have!”
Mlle de la Vergne rose and, smiling, made her a curtsey. “Chère Madame, it is a little song that Artamène unearthed somewhere; we used to sing it when he was here in the spring recovering of his wound, M. de Céligny and he and I. There is another verse.”
“Will you not sing it then? Sing it all again, if you will, to please me?”
She sat down in the room this time, and once more Marthe sang the words, to the light tripping measure of the first stanza, and the martial rhythm of the second. For the third, the music changed yet again to more solemn harmonies:
“Then, when Death batters
???At my gate,
One boon, I pray thee,
???Grant me, Fate—
Instant to open
???Ere he wait!”
The chords ended in the minor.
Looking up, Marthe saw that Mme de Trélan had leant her head on one hand. She rose, stood a moment irresolute, and then darted to her, and flinging herself on her knees beside her seized her other hand.
“Madame! Madame! I should not have sung the last verse! You are thinking—forgive me, but I can guess—that, when the fighting begins——”
Valentine put her arm round her. “My child, you shame me! You have more courage than I! Have you not given your brother to the same danger, and more than your brother?”
Marthe hid her face on the elder woman’s shoulder, and thus, the dark head and the golden-grey together, they were when the door at the end of the great salon opened. Mlle de la Vergne drew away at the sound, and both ladies looked up. On the threshold stood the tall figure of the Duc de Trélan, with two aides-de-camp behind him; and the aides-de-camp were Roland and Artamène.
A moment the three invaders stood there, smiling, all three of them; then the sun-barred parquet rang under a spurred tread as Gaston came forward to kiss his wife’s hand, and afterwards her cheek. His arm was no longer in a sling; he was wearing the Cross of Maria Theresa. As he lifted Marthe’s fingers to his lips she thought—though she had never been to a court which had ceased to exist by the time she was of an age to be presented—“One sees, just by his manner of doing this, what a great gentleman he is. And I wonder if, in all those brilliant ceremonies at Versailles, in the days when he was first gentleman of the bedchamber to the King, whether Mme de Trélan ever saw him to such advantage as here in our drawing-room, in that plain, dark uniform, with his sword and that air of purpose.”
And the young girl’s reflection was near enough to Valentine’s inmost thought as, clinging to her husband’s arm, she went with him through the long window into the sunshine outside, which was so filled with her thoughts of him. Out there, his arms round her, her hands on his breast, her eyes closed, she took and gave on the lips a kiss at once grave and passionate, a kiss like the first kiss of lovers—a salute which had no special affinity with courts.
“O Gaston, how I have dreamed of this!”
“Not more, my heart of hearts, than I! But I could not well have come, had I not been leaving my headquarters for a few days in any case.”
“To fight? Not yet, surely?”
“No—to talk!” said he with a little rueful look. “But it will end in fighting, I trust. I am bound for the chateau of La Jonchère, near Pouancé—just over the border in Anjou—where all the chiefs are to meet on the fifteenth, to take a final decision.”
“And you think it will be war?”
“I hope so. Circumstances have never been so favourable. But you are standing all this while; let us go and sit down in the arbour.”
They were seated under the linden arch, as yet untouched by autumn, when she said, “A rumour came yesterday, Gaston, that Vendée had already risen. But we are so out-of-the-way here; is it true?”
Her husband’s face darkened. “Valentine, it is true. Risen, and risen unsuccessfu............