On this same afternoon when André
Vallon, still rebellious in spirit, followed M. le Curé
de Val-le-Roi up the wooded slopes that led to the château,
the picture that was revealed to his gaze when he came in sight
of the gorgeous old building, with its sumptuous gardens, its
marble terraces, its towers and battlements, its stately trees
and wealth of flowers, was one he never forgot. Vagually he had
heard the château spoken of by those who knew, as "magnificent";
vaguely he was aware that Monseigneur lived there in a state of
splendour of which he, a village lad, had no conception, even
in his dreams; and from the valley below, where on the outskirts
of Val-le-Roi his mother's cottage lay perdu, he had often
gazed upwards to the heights, where at sunset the pointed roofs
glistened like silver and the rows of windows sparkled like a
chain of rubies; but he had never been allowed to wander up the
slope and see all that magnificence at close quarters.
Heavy gilded iron gates shut off the precincts of the château
from prying eyes and vagabond footsteps; stern janitors warned
trespassers against daring to set foot inside the park; and thus
the place where dwelt those unapproachable personages, Monseigneur
and his friends, had hitherto appeared to André like fairyland,
or rather, like the ogre's castle of which he had read in the
storybooks of M. Perrault - the ogre who devoured all the good
things of this earth and always wanted more.
André was dazzled. The same enthusiasm that made him love
the moonlight, the cottontails, or the hedgerows caused him to
utter a cry of pleasure when he first caught sight of the château.
He came to a halt and allowed his eyes to feast themselves on
the picture. M. le Curé was delighted; he thought that
the boy was showing a nice spirit of reverence and of awe.
"It is beautiful, is it not, André?" he remarked
complacently.
But André's mood was not quite as serene as the worthy
priest had fondly hoped. He turned sharply on his heel and retorted
with a scowl:
"Of course it is beautiful, but why should it be his?"
"What in the world do you mean?"
"You call that man up there 'Monseigneur.' Why? This all
belongs to him. Why?"
"Because..."
The good Curé droned on. André certainly did not
listen; he stalked on once more, irritable and silent. He had
asked a question for which, in his own mind, there could not possibly
be an answer. True that something of the bitterness of intense
hatred had, as it were, flowed out of him with the tears which
he had shed on his mother's breast, but the spirit of inquiry,
of blind groping after mysteries which were incapable of solution
had, for good or ill, replaced the childish acceptance of things
as they were. To him henceforth his mother's penury and Monseigneur's
wealth were not preordained by God; they did not form a part of
the scheme of creation as God had originally decreed. They were
the result of man's incapacity to grapple with injustice; the
result, in fact, of the weakness of one section of humanity and
of the arrogant strength of the other.
Very wisely, M. le Curé had not pursued the contentious
subject. Together the two of them found their way across the wide,
paved forecourt and up the perron. Lackeys in gorgeous liveries
opened wide the gates of the château, and André,
feeling now as if he were in a dream, silent, subdued, all the
starch taken out of him, all the rebellion of his spirit overawed
by so much splendour, kept close to the Curé's heels.
They went through the endless rooms, across floors that were so
slippery that André, in his thick shoes, nearly measured
his length on them more than once. He caught sight of himself
in tall mirrors, full face, sideways, walking, sliding, pausing,
wide-eyed and scared, thinking that the figure he was coming towards
him was some strange boy whom he had never seen before. At length
the Curé came to a halt in what seemed to André
like a fairy's dwelling place, all azure and gold and crystal,
where more tall mirrors reflected a somewhat corpulent old man
in a long black soutane, and a tall, clumsy-looking boy in an
ill-fitting coat, with tousled hair and large hands and feet encased
in huge, thick buckled shoes.
On one side of the room there were three tall windows through
which André saw such pictures as he had never seen before.
At first he didn't think that they were real. There were marble
balustrades and pillars, parterrers of flowers and groups of trees,
and a fountain from whose sparkling waters the warm sunshine drew
innumerable diamonds. This fairy garden appeared peopled with
a whole bevy of brightly plumaged birds that darted in and out
among the bosquets and the parterres with flutelike calls and
rippling music. At least, so it seemed to André at first.
M. le Curé, tired out, hot and panting, had sunk down in
one of the gilded chairs and was mopping his streaming face; André,
attracted and intrigued by the picture of that garden and those
birds, ventured to go nearer to one of the tall windows in order
to have a closer look. The window was wide open. André,
leaning against the frame, stood quite still and watched.
A merry throng peopled the garden; ladies in light summer dresses,
some with large straw hats over their powdered hair, others with
fair or dark curls fluttering about their heads, men in silk embroidered
coats, with dainty buckled shoes and filmy lace at throat and
wrist, were chasing one another in and out of the leafy bosquets,
just like a lot of children, playing some puerile game of blindman's
bluff, which elicited many a little cry of mock alarm and silvery
peals of merry laughter. How gay they seemed! How happy! André
watched them, fascinated. He followed the various incidents of
the game with eyes that soon lost their abstraction and sparkled
with responsive delight. He nearly laughed aloud when an elegant
gentleman in plum-coloured satin cloth, his eyes bandaged, tripped
over a chair mischievously placed in his way by one of the ladies
- a girl whose pink silk panniers over a short skirt of delicate
green brocade made her look like a rosebud: so, at least, thought
André.
He quite forgot himself while he stood and watched. Like a child
at a show, he laughed when they laughed, gasped when capture was
imminent, rejoiced when a narrow escape was successful. M. le
Curé, overcome by the heat, had gone fast asleep in his
chair.
André, absorbed in watching, did not even notice that the
crowd of merrymakers had invaded the terrace immediately in front
of the window against which he stood. "Blindman" now
was the young girl with the fair hair, free from powder, whose
dress made her look like a rosebud. With arms outstretched she
groped, after the clumsy fashion peculiar to a genuine blindman,
and her playmates darted around her, giving her a little push
here, another there, all of them unheedful of the silent, motionless
watcher by the open window. And suddenly "Blindman,"
still with arms outstretched, lost her bearings, tripped against
the narrow window sill and wound have fallen headlong into the
room had not André instinctively put out his arms. She
fell, laughing, panting, and with a little cry of alarm, straight
into him.
There was a sudden gasp of surprise on the part of the others,
a second or two of silence, and then a loud and prolonged outburst
of laughter. André held on with both arms. Never in his
life had he felt anything as sweet, as fragrant, so close to him.
The most delicious odour of roses and violets came to his nostrils,
while the downiest, softest little curls tickled his nose and
lips. As to moving, he could not have stirred a muscle had his
life depended on it.
But at the prolonged laughter of her friends the girl at once
began to struggle; also, she felt the rough cloth beneath her
touch, while to her delicate nostrils there came, instead of the
sweet perfumes that always pervaded the clothes of her friends,
a scent of earth and hay and of damp cloth. She wanted to snatch
away the bandage from her eyes, but strong, muscular arms were
round her shoulders, and she could not move.
"Let me go!" she called out. "Let me go! Who is
it? Madeleine - Edith, who is it?"
The next moment a firm step resounded on the marble floor of the
terrace, a peremptory voice called out: "You young muckworm,
how dare you?" and the hold round her shoulders relaxed.
André received a resounding smack on the side the face,
while the girl, suddenly freed, staggered slightly backward even
while she snatched the handkerchief from her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a dark young face with a heavy chestnut
curl falling over a frowning brow, a pair of eyes dark as aloes
flashing with hatred and rage. She heard the voice of her cousin,
the Comte de Mauléon, saying hoarsely:
"Get out! Get out, I say!" And then calling louder still:
"Here! Léon! Henri! Some of you kick this garbage
out."
It was all terrible. The ladies crowded round her and helped to
put her pretty dress straight again, but the girl was too frightened
to think of them or her clothes. Why she should have been frightened
she didn't know, for Aurore de Marigny had never been frightened
in her life before: she was a fearless little rider and a regular
tomboy at climbing or getting into dangerous scrapes; but there
was something in that motionless figure in the rough clothes,
in those flashing eyes and hard, set mouth which puzzled the child
and terrified her. Here was something that she had never met before,
something that seemed to emit evil, cruelty, hatred, none of his
had ever come within sight of her sheltered, happy life.
Pierre de Mauléon was obviously in a fury and kept calling
for the lackeys, who, fortunately, were not within hearing, for
heaven alone knew what would happen if anyone dared lay hands
on that incarnation of fury. The boy - Aurore saw that he was
only a boy, not much older than herself - looked now like a fierce
animal making ready for a spring; he had thrust one hand into
his breeches' pocket and brought out a knife - a miserable, futile
kind of pocketknife, but still a knife; and his teeth - sharp
and white as those of a young wolf - were drawing blood out of
his full red lips.
Some of the laidies screamed; others giggled nervously. The men
laughed, but no one thought of interfering. Inside the room, M.
le Curé, roused from his slumbers, had obviously not yet
made up his mind whether he was awake or dreaming.
Just then the two lackeys, Léon and Henri, came hurrying
along the terrace. A catastrophe appeared imminent, for the boy
had seen them; knew, probably, what it would mean to him and all
these bedizened puppets if those men dared to touch him. He was
seeing red; for the first time in his life he felt the desire
to see a human creature's blood. With jerky movements he grasped
the flimsy, gimcrack pocketknife with which he meant to defend
himself to the death. He met the girl's eyes with their frightened,
half-shy glance and exulted in the thought that in a few seconds,
perhaps, she would see one of her lackeys lying dead at her feet.
Not even on that fatal day when he had tasted the very dregs of
humiliation had his young soul been such a complete prey to rebellion
and hatred. Why, oh, why had he allowed his heart to melt at sight
of his mother's wretchedness? Why had he ever set good across
this cursed threshold? Pay! Pay! Pay! Those were once his mother's
words. "Pay, while these marionettes laughed and played;
pay, so that their bellies might be full, their pillows downy,
their hair powdered and perfumed. He hated them all. Oh, how he
hated them!
These riotous thoughts were tumbling about in André's brain,
chasing one another with lightning speed while he was contemplating
murder and hurling defiant glances at the pretty child, the cause
of this new - this terrible catastrophe.
Ever afterwards he was ready to swear that not by a quiver of
an eyelid had he betrayed fear or asked for protection. Asked?
Heaveans above! He would sooner have fallen dead across this window
sill than have asked help from any of these gaudy nincompoops.
Be that as it may, there is no doubt that it was the girl's piping,
childish voice which broke the uncomfortable spell that had fallen
over the entire lively throng.
"Ohé!" she cried, with a ripple of laughter.
"How solemn you all look! Pierre, it is your turn. Come,
Véronique, you hold him while I do the blindfolding; don't
let him go - it is his turn."
Her friend to whom she called was close by and ready enough to
resume the game. Before Pierre de Mauléon had the chance
to resist she had him by the hand, while Aurore tied the handkerchief
over his eyes. A scream of delight went up all round. All seriousness,
puzzlement, was forgotten. Pierre tried to snatch the handkerchief
away, but two of them held onto his hands; the others pushed and
pinched and teased. They dragged him along the terrace; they vaulted
over the marble balusters; they were children, in fact, once more,
tomboys, madcaps, running about among the bosquets and the flowers,
irresponsible and irrepressed, while André, without another
word, another look, turned on his heel and fled out of this cursed
château, leaving M. le Curé to call and to gasp and
to explain to Monseigneur, as best he could, what, in point of
fact, had actually happened.