St. Martin's Summer. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ paid no heed to him. He stepped to the girl, and roughly raised her chin with his hand so that she was forced to look him in the face.

      “What is your name, wench?” he asked her.

      “Margot,” she blubbered, bursting into tears.

      He dropped her chin, and turned away with a gesture of disgust.

      “Get you gone,” he bade her harshly. “Get you back to the kitchen or the onion-field from which they took you.”

      And the girl, scarce believing her good fortune, departed with a speed that bordered on the ludicrous. Tressan had naught to say, no word to stay her with; pretence, he realized, was vain.

      “Now, my Lord Seneschal,” quoth Garnache, arms akimbo, feet planted wide, and eyes upon the wretched man’s countenance, “what may you have to say to me?”

      Tressan shifted his position; he avoided the other’s glance; he was visibly trembling, and when presently he spoke it was in faltering accents.

      “It—it—seems, monsieur, that—ah—that I have been the victim of some imposture.”

      “It had rather seemed to me that the victim chosen was myself.”

      “Clearly we were both victims,” the Seneschal rejoined. Then he proceeded to explain. “I went to Condillac yesterday as you desired me, and after a stormy interview with the Marquise I obtained from her—as I believed—the person of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. You see I was not myself acquainted with the lady.”

      Garnache looked at him. He did not believe him. He regretted almost that he had not further questioned the girl. But, after all, perhaps it might be easier and more expedient if he were to appear to accept the Seneschal’s statement. But he must provide against further fraud.

      “Monsieur le Seneschal,” said he in calmer tones, putting his anger from him, “at the best you are a blunderer and an ass, at the worst a traitor. I will inquire no further at present; I’ll not seek to discriminate too finely.”

      “Monsieur, these insults—” began the Seneschal, summoning dignity to his aid. But Garnache broke in:

      “La, la! I speak in the Queen’s name. If you have thought to aid the Dowager of Condillac in this resistance of Her Majesty’s mandate, let me enjoin you, as you value your seneschalship—as you value your very neck—to harbour that thought no longer.

      “It seems that, after all, I must deal myself with the situation. I must go myself to Condillac. If they should resist me, I shall look to you for the necessary means to overcome that resistance.

      “And bear you this in mind: I have chosen to leave it an open question whether you were a party to the trick it has been sought to put upon the Queen, through me, her representative. But it is a question that I have it in my power to resolve at any moment—to resolve as I choose. Unless, monsieur, I find you hereafter—as I trust—actuated by the most unswerving loyalty, I shall resolve that question by proclaiming you a traitor; and as a traitor I shall arrest you and carry you to Paris. Monsieur le Seneschal, I have the honour to give you good-day!”

      When he was gone, Monsieur de Tressan flung off his wig, and mopped the perspiration from his brow. He went white as snow and red as fire by turns, as he paced the apartment in a frenzy. Never in the fifteen years that were sped since he had been raised to the governorship of the province had any man taken such a tone with him and harangued him in such terms.

      A liar and a traitor had he been called that morning, a knave and a fool; he had been browbeaten and threatened; and he had swallowed it all, and almost turned to lick the hand that administered the dose. Dame! What manner of cur was he become? And the man who had done all this—a vulgar upstart out of Paris, reeking of leather and the barrack-room still lived!

      Bloodshed was in his mind; murder beckoned him alluringly to take her as his ally. But he put the thought from him, frenzied though he might be. He must fight this knave with other weapons; frustrate his mission, and send him back to Paris and the Queen’s scorn, beaten and empty-handed.

      “Babylas!” he shouted.

      Immediately the secretary appeared.

      “Have you given thought to the matter of Captain d’Aubran?” he asked, his voice an impatient snarl.

      “Yes, monsieur, I have pondered it all morning.”

      “Well? And what have you concluded?”

      “Helas! monsieur, nothing.”

      Tressan smote the table before him a blow that shook some of the dust out of the papers that cumbered it. “Ventregris! How am I served? For what do I pay you, and feed you, and house you, good-for-naught, if you are to fail me whenever I need the things you call your brains? Have you no intelligence, no thought, no imagination? Can you invent no plausible business, no likely rising, no possible disturbances that shall justify my sending Aubran and his men to Montelimar—to the very devil, if need be.”

      The secretary trembled in his every limb; his eyes shunned his master’s as his master’s had shunned Garnache’s awhile ago. The Seneschal was enjoying himself. If he had been bullied and browbeaten, here, at least, was one upon whom he, in his turn, might taste the joys of bullying and browbeating.

      “You lazy, miserable calf,” he stormed, “I might be better served by a wooden image. Go! It seems I must rely upon myself. It is always so. Wait!” he thundered; for the secretary, only too glad to obey his last order, had already reached the door. “Tell Anselme to bid the Captain attend me here at once.”

      Babylas’s bowed and went his errand.

      A certain amount of his ill-humour vented, Tressan made an effort to regain his self-control. He passed his handkerchief for the last time over face and head, and resumed his wig.

      When d’Aubran entered, the Seneschal was composed and in his wonted habit of ponderous dignity. “Ah, d’Aubran,” said he, “your men are ready?”

      “They have been ready these four-and-twenty hours, monsieur.”

      “Good. You are a brisk soldier, d’Aubran. You are a man to be relied upon.”

      D’Aubran bowed. He was a tall, active young fellow with a pleasant face and a pair of fine black eyes.

      “Monsieur le Seneschal is very good.”

      With a wave of the hand the Seneschal belittled his own goodness.

      “You will march out of Grenoble within the hour, Captain, and you will lead your men to Montelimar. There you will quarter them, and await my further orders. Babylas will give you a letter to the authorities, charging them to find you suitable quarters. While there, d’Aubran, and until my further orders reach you, you will employ your time in probing the feeling in the hill district. You understand?”

      “Imperfectly,” d’Aubran confessed.

      “You will understand better when you have been in Montelimar a week or so. It may, of course, be a false alarm. Still, we must safeguard the King’s interests and be prepared. Perhaps we may afterwards be charged with starting at shadows; but it is better to be СКАЧАТЬ