Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini (important of reading books TXT) 📕
Infuriated by an act of tyranny so absolute and merciless, M. deVilmorin proposed to lay the matter before M. de Kercadiou. Mabeywas a vassal of Gavrillac, and Vilmorin hoped to move the Lord ofGavrillac to demand at least some measure of reparation for thewidow and the three orphans which that brutal deed had made.
But because Andre-Louis was Philippe's dearest friend - indeed, hisalmost brother - the young seminarist sought him out in the firstinstance. He found him at break
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“Do we?” said Binet, sourly. “You settle everything, my friend.”
“Read for yourself.” And he handed him the paper.
Moodily M. Binet read. He set the sheet down in silence, and turned his attention to his breakfast.
“Was I justified or not?” quoth Andre-Louis, who found M. Binet’s behaviour a thought intriguing.
“In what?”
“In coming to Nantes?”
“If I had not thought so, we should not have come,” said Binet, and he began to eat.
Andre-Louis dropped the subject, wondering.
After breakfast he and Climene sallied forth to take the air upon the quays. It was a day of brilliant sunshine and less cold than it had lately been. Columbine tactlessly joined them as they were setting out, though in this respect matters were improved a little when Harlequin came running after them, and attached himself to Columbine.
Andre-Louis, stepping out ahead with Climene, spoke of the thing that was uppermost in his mind at the moment.
“Your father is behaving very oddly towards me,” said he. “It is almost as if he had suddenly become hostile.”
“You imagine it,” said she. “My father is very grateful to you, as we all are.”
“He is anything but grateful. He is infuriated against me; and I think I know the reason. Don’t you? Can’t you guess?”
“I can’t, indeed.”
“If you were my daughter, Climene, which God be thanked you are not, I should feel aggrieved against the man who carried you away from me. Poor old Pantaloon! He called me a corsair when I told him that I intend to marry you.”
“He was right. You are a bold robber, Scaramouche.”
“It is in the character,” said he. “Your father believes in having his mimes play upon the stage the parts that suit their natural temperaments.”
“Yes, you take everything you want, don’t you?” She looked up at him, half adoringly, half shyly.
“If it is possible,” said he. “I took his consent to our marriage by main force from him. I never waited for him to give it. When, in fact, he refused it, I just snatched it from him, and I’ll defy him now to win it back from me. I think that is what he most resents.”
She laughed, and launched upon an animated answer. But he did not hear a word of it. Through the bustle of traffic on the quay a cabriolet, the upper half of which was almost entirely made of glass, had approached them. It was drawn by two magnificent bay horses and driven by a superbly livened coachman.
In the cabriolet alone sat a slight young girl wrapped in a lynx-fur pelisse, her face of a delicate loveliness. She was leaning forward, her lips parted, her eyes devouring Scaramouche until they drew his gaze. When that happened, the shock of it brought him abruptly to a dumfounded halt.
Climene, checking in the middle of a sentence, arrested by his own sudden stopping, plucked at his sleeve.
“What is it, Scaramouche?”
But he made no attempt to answer her, and at that moment the coachman, to whom the little lady had already signalled, brought the carriage to a standstill beside them. Seen in the gorgeous setting of that coach with its escutcheoned panels, its portly coachman and its white-stockinged footman - who swung instantly to earth as the vehicle stopped - its dainty occupant seemed to Climene a princess out of a fairy-tale. And this princess leaned forward, with eyes aglow and cheeks aflush, stretching out a choicely gloved hand to Scaramouche.
“Andre-Louis!” she called him.
And Scaramouche took the hand of that exalted being, just as he might have taken the hand of Climene herself, and with eyes that reflected the gladness of her own, in a voice that echoed the joyous surprise of hers, he addressed her familiarly by name, just as she had addressed him.
“Aline!”
“The door,” Aline commanded her footman, and “Mount here beside me,” she commanded Andre-Louis, in the same breath.
“A moment, Aline.”
He turned to his companion, who was all amazement, and to Harlequin and Columbine, who had that moment come up to share it. “You permit me, Climene?” said he, breathlessly. But it was more a statement than a question. “Fortunately you are not alone. Harlequin will take care of you. Au revoir, at dinner.”
With that he sprang into the cabriolet without waiting for a reply. The footman dosed the door, the coachman cracked his whip, and the regal equipage rolled away along the quay, leaving the three comedians staring after it, open-mouthed… Then Harlequin laughed.
“A prince in disguise, our Scaramouche!” said he.
Columbine clapped her hands and flashed her strong teeth. “But what a romance for you, Climene! How wonderful!”
The frown melted from Climene’s brow. Resentment changed to bewilderment.
“But who is she?”
“His sister, of course,” said Harlequin, quite definitely.
“His sister? How do you know?”
“I know what he will tell you on his return.”
“But why?”
“Because you wouldn’t believe him if he said she was his mother.”
Following the carriage with their glance, they wandered on in the direction it had taken. And in the carriage Aline was considering Andre-Louis with grave eyes, lips slightly compressed, and a tiny frown between her finely drawn eyebrows.
“You have taken to queer company, Andre,” was the first thing she said to him. “Or else I am mistaken in thinking that your companion was Mlle. Binet of the Theatre Feydau.”
“You are not mistaken. But I had not imagined Mlle. Binet so famous already.”
“Oh, as to that… ” mademoiselle shrugged, her tone quietly scornful. And she explained. “It is simply that I was at the play last night. I thought I recognized her.”
“You were at the Feydau last night? And I never saw you!”
“Were you there, too?”
“Was I there!” he cried. Then he checked, and abruptly changed his tone. “Oh, yes, I was there,” he said, as commonplace as he could, beset by a sudden reluctance to avow that he had so willingly descended to depths that she must account unworthy, and grateful that his disguise of face and voice should have proved impenetrable even to one who knew him so very well.
“I understand,” said she, and compressed her lips a little more tightly.
“But what do you understand?”
“The rare attractions of Mlle. Binet. Naturally you would be at the theatre. Your tone conveyed it very clearly. Do you know that you disappoint me, Andre? It is stupid of me, perhaps; it betrays, I suppose, my imperfect knowledge of your sex. I am aware that most young men of fashion find an irresistible attraction for creatures who parade themselves upon the stage. But I did not expect you to ape the ways of a man of fashion. I was foolish enough to imagine you to be different; rather above such trivial pursuits. I conceived you something of an idealist.”
“Sheer flattery.”
“So I perceive. But you misled me. You talked so much morality of a kind, you made philosophy so readily, that I came to be deceived. In fact, your hypocrisy was so consummate that I never suspected it. With your gift of acting I wonder that you haven’t joined Mlle. Binet’s troupe.”
“I have,” said he.
It had really become necessary to tell her, making choice of the lesser of the two evils with which she confronted him.
He saw first incredulity, then consternation, and lastly disgust overspread her face.
“Of course,” said she, after a long pause, “that would have the advantage of bringing you closer to your charmer.”
“That was only one of the inducements. There was another. Finding myself forced to choose between the stage and the gallows, I had the incredible weakness to prefer the former. It was utterly unworthy of a man of my lofty ideals, but - what would you? Like other ideologists, I find it easier to preach than to practise. Shall I stop the carriage and remove the contamination of my disgusting person? Or shall I tell you how it happened?”
“Tell me how it happened first. Then we will decide.”
He told her how he met the Binet Troupe, and how the men of the marechaussee forced upon him the discovery that in its bosom he could lie safely lost until the hue and cry had died down. The explanation dissolved her iciness.
“My poor Andre, why didn’t you tell me this at first?”
“For one thing, you didn’t give me time; for another, I feared to shock you with the spectacle of my degradation.”
She took him seriously. “But where was the need of it? And why did you not send us word as I required you of your whereabouts?”
“I was thinking of it only yesterday. I have hesitated for several reasons.”
“You thought it would offend us to know what you were doing?”
“I think that I preferred to surprise you by the magnitude of my ultimate achievements.”
“Oh, you are to become a great actor?” She was frankly scornful.
“That is not impossible. But I am more concerned to become a great author. There is no reason why you should sniff. The calling is an honourable one. All the world is proud to know such men as Beaumarchais and Chenier.”
“And you hope to equal them?”
“I hope to surpass them, whilst acknowledging that it was they who taught me how to walk. What did you think of the play last night?”
“It was amusing and well conceived.”
“Let me present you to the author.”
“You? But the company is one of the improvisers.”
“Even improvisers require an author to write their scenarios. That is all I write at present. Soon I shall be writing plays in the modern manner.”
“You deceive yourself, my poor Andre. The piece last night would have been nothing without the players. You are fortunate in your Scaramouche.”
“In confidence - I present you to him.”
“You - Scaramouche? You?” She turned to regard him fully. He smiled his close-lipped smile that made wrinkles like gashes in his cheeks. He nodded. “And I didn’t recognize you!”
“I thank you for the tribute. You imagined, of course, that I was a scene-shifter. And now that you know all about me, what of Gavrillac? What of my godfather?”
He was well, she told him, and still profoundly indignant with Andre-Louis for his defection, whilst secretly concerned on his behalf.
“I shall write to him to-day that I have seen you.”
“Do so. Tell him that I am well and prospering. But say no more. Do not tell him what I am doing. He has his prejudices too. Besides, it might not be prudent. And now the question I have been burning to ask ever since I entered your carriage. Why are you in Nantes, Aline?”
“I am on a visit to my aunt, Mme. de Sautron. It was with her that I came to the play yesterday. We have been dull at the chateau; but it will be different now. Madame my aunt is receiving several guests to-day. M. de La Tour d’Azyr is to be one of them.”
Andre-Louis frowned and sighed. “Did you ever hear, Aline, how poor Philippe de Vilmorin came by his end?”
“Yes; I was told, first by my uncle; then by M. de La Tour d’Azyr, himself.”
“Did not that help you to decide this marriage question?”
“How could it? You forget that I am but a woman. You don’t expect me to judge between men in matters such as these?”
“Why not? You are well able to do so. The more since you have heard two sides. For my godfather would tell you the truth. If you cannot judge, it is that you do not wish to judge.” His tone became harsh. “Wilfully you close
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