Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (mini ebook reader .txt) đź“•
And so they plagued him and bewildered him until his choice wasmade; and even then a couple of them held themselves in readinessbehind his chair to forestall his slightest want. Indeed, had hebeen the very King himself, no greater honour could we have shownhim at the Hotel de Bardelys.
But the restraint that his coming had brought with it hung stillupon the company, for Chatellerault was little loved, and hispresence there was much as that of the skull at an Egyptian banquet.
For of all these fair-weather friends that sat about my table -amongst whom there were few that had not felt his power - I fearedthere might be scarcely one would have the grace to dissemble hiscontempt of the fallen favourite. That he was fallen, as much hiswords as what
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for yesterday I had sworn that Saint-Eustache’s story of my betrothal
was a lie. To-day she had had assurance of the truth from the very
woman to whom Lesperon’s faith was plighted, and I could imagine
something of her shame.
“Yesterday, monsieur,” she answered contemptuously, “you lied in
many things.”
“Nay, I spoke the truth in all. Oh, God in heaven, mademoiselle,”
I exclaimed in sudden passion, “will you not believe me? Will you
not accept my word for what I say, and have a little patience until
I shall have discharged such obligations as will permit me to
explain?”
“Explain?” quoth she, with withering disdain.
“There is a hideous misunderstanding in all this. I am the victim
of a miserable chain of circumstances. Oh, I can say no more!
These Marsacs I shall easily pacify. I am to meet Monsieur de
Marsac at Grenade on the day after tomorrow. In my pocket I have
a letter from this living sword-blade, in which he tells me that he
will give himself the pleasure of killing me then. Yet—”
“I hope he does, monsieur!” she cut in, with a fierceness before
which I fell dumb and left my sentence unfinished. “I shall pray
God that he may!” she added. “You deserve it as no man deserved it
yet!”
For a moment I stood stricken, indeed, by her words. Then, my
reason grasping the motive of that fierceness, a sudden joy pervaded
me. It was a fierceness breathing that hatred that is a part of
love, than which, it is true, no hatred can be more deadly. And yet
so eloquently did it tell me of those very feelings which she sought
jealously to conceal, that, moved by a sudden impulse, I stepped
close up to her.
“Roxalanne,” I said fervently, “you do not hope for it. What would
your life be if I were dead? Child, child, you love me even as I
love you.” I caught her suddenly to me with infinite tenderness,
with reverence almost. “Can you lend no ear to the voice of this
love? Can you not have faith in me a little? Can you not think
that if I were quite as unworthy as you make-believe to your very
self, this love could have no place?”
“It has no place!” she cried. “You lie - as in all things else.
I do not love you. I hate you. Dieu! How I hate you!”
She had lain in my arms until then, with upturned face and piteous,
frightened eyes - like a bird that feels itself within the toils of
a snake, yet whose horror is blent with a certain fascination. Now,
as she spoke, her will seemed to reassert itself, and she struggled
to break from me. But as her fierceness of hatred grew, so did my
fierceness of resolve gain strength, and I held her tightly.
“Why do you hate me?” I asked steadily. “Ask yourself, Roxalanne,
and tell me what answer your heart makes. Does it not answer that
indeed you do not hate me - that you love me?”
“Oh, God, to be so insulted!” she cried out. “Will you not release
me, miserable? Must I call for help? Oh, you shall suffer for
this! As there is a Heaven, you shall be punished!”
But in my passion I held her, despite entreaties, threats, and
struggles. I was brutal, if you will. Yet think of what was in
my soul at being so misjudged, at finding myself in this position,
and deal not over harshly with me. The courage to confess which I
had lacked for days, came to me then. I must tell her. Let the
result be what it might, it could not be worse than this, and this
I could endure no longer.
“Listen, Roxalanne!”
“I will not listen! Enough of insults have I heard already. Let
me go!”
“Nay, but you shall hear me. I am not Rene de Lesperon. Had these
Marsacs been less impetuous and foolish, had they waited to have
seen me this morning, they would have told you so.”
She paused for a second in her struggles to regard me. Then, with
a sudden contemptuous laugh, she renewed her efforts more vigorously
than before.
“What fresh lies do you offer me? Release me, I will hear no more!”
“As Heaven is my witness, I have told you the truth. I know how
wild a sound it has, and that is partly why I did not tell you
earlier. But your disdain I cannot suffer. That you should deem
me a liar in professing to love you—”
Her struggles were grown so frantic that I was forced to relax
my grip. But this I did with a suddenness that threw her out of
balance, and she was in danger of falling backwards. To save
herself, she caught at my doublet, which was torn open under the
strain.
We stood some few feet apart, and, white and palpitating in her
anger, she confronted me. Her eyes lashed me with their scorn, but
under my steady, unflinching gaze they fell at last. When next she
raised them there was a smile of quiet but unutterable contempt
upon her lips.
“Will you swear,” said she, “that you are not Rene de Lesperon?
That Mademoiselle de Marsac is not your betrothed?”
“Yes - by my every hope of Heaven!” I cried passionately.
She continued to survey me with that quiet smile of mocking scorn.
“I have heard it said,” quoth she, “that the greatest liars are ever
those that are readiest to take oath.” Then, with a sudden gasp of
loathing, “I think you have dropped something, monsieur,” said she,
pointing to the ground. And without waiting for more, she swung
round and left me.
Face upwards at my feet lay the miniature that poor Lesperon had
entrusted to me in his dying moments. It had dropped from my doublet
in the struggle, and I never doubted now but that the picture it
contained was that of Mademoiselle de Marsac.
A NIGHT ALARM
I was returning that same afternoon from a long walk that I had
taken - for my mood was of that unenviable sort that impels a man
to be moving - when I found a travelling-chaise drawn up in the
quadrangle as if ready for a journey. As I mounted the steps of
the chateau I came face to face with mademoiselle, descending. I
drew aside that she might pass; and this she did with her chin in
the air, and her petticoat drawn to her that it might not touch me.
I would have spoken to her, but her eyes looked straight before her
with a glance that was too forbidding; besides which there was the
gaze of a half-dozen grooms upon us. So, bowing before her - the
plume of my doffed hat sweeping the ground - I let her go. Yet I
remained standing where she had passed me, and watched her enter
the coach. I looked after the vehicle as it wheeled round and
rattled out over the drawbridge, to raise a cloud of dust on the
white, dry road beyond.
In that hour I experienced a sense of desolation and a pain to which
I find it difficult to give expression. It seemed to me as if she
had gone out of my life for all time - as if no reparation that I
could ever make would suffice to win her back after what had passed
between us that morning. Already wounded in her pride by what
Mademoiselle de Marsac had told her of our relations, my behaviour
in the rose garden had completed the work of turning into hatred
the tender feelings that but yesterday she had all but confessed
for me. That she hated me now, I was well assured. My reflections
as I walked had borne it in upon me how rash, how mad had been my
desperate action, and with bitterness I realized that I had destroyed
the last chance of ever mending matters.
Not even the payment of my wager and my return in my true character
could avail me now. The payment of my wager, forsooth! Even that
lost what virtue it might have contained. Where was the heroism of
such an act? Had I not failed, indeed? And was not, therefore, the
payment of my wager become inevitable?
Fool! fool! Why had I not profited that gentle mood of hers when
we had drifted down the stream together? Why had I not told her
then of the whole business from its ugly inception down to the pass
to which things were come, adding that to repair the evil I was
going back to Paris to pay my wager, and that when that was done,
I would return to ask her to become my wife? That was the course
a man of sense would have adopted. He would have seen the dangers
that beset him in my false position, and would have been quick to
have forestalled them in the only manner possible.
Heigh-ho! It was done. The game was at an end, and I had bungled
my part of it like any fool. One task remained me - that of meeting
Marsac at Grenade and doing justice to the memory of poor Lesperon.
What might betide thereafter mattered little. I should be ruined
when I had settled with Chatellerault, and Marcel de Saint-Pol, de
Bardelys, that brilliant star in the firmament of the Court of
France, would suffer an abrupt eclipse, would be quenched for all
time. But this weighed little with me then. I had lost everything
that I might have valued - everything that might have brought fresh
zest to a jaded, satiated life.
Later that day I was told by the Vicomte that there was a rumour
current to the effect that the Marquis de Bardelys was dead. Idly
I inquired how the rumour had been spread, and he told me that a
riderless horse, which had been captured a few days ago by some
peasants, had been recognized by Monsieur de Bardelys’s servants as
belonging to their master, and that as nothing had been seen or
heard of him for a fortnight, it was believed that he must have met
with some mischance. Not even that piece of information served to
arouse my interest. Let them believe me dead if they would. To
him that is suffering worse than death to be accounted dead is a
small matter.
The next day passed without incident. Mademoiselle’s absence
continued and I would have questioned the Vicomte concerning it,
but a not unnatural hesitancy beset me, and I refrained.
On the morrow I was to leave Lavedan, but there were no preparations
to be made, no packing to be done, for during my sojourn there I
had been indebted to the generous hospitality of the Vicomte for my
very apparel. We supped quietly together that night the Vicomte
and I - for the Vicomtesse was keeping her room.
I withdrew early to my chamber, and long I lay awake, revolving a
gloomy future in my mind. I had given no thought to what I should
do after having offered my explanation to Monsieur de Marsac on the
morrow, nor could I now bring myself to consider it with any degree
of interest. I would communicate with Chatellerault to inform him
that I accounted my wager lost. I would send him my note of hand,
making over to him my Picardy estates, and I would request him to
pay off and disband my servants both in Paris and at Bardelys.
As for myself, I did not know, and, as
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