The Trampling of the Lilies. Rafael Sabatini

CHAPTER II. LORDS OF LIFE AND DEATH

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      One friend did La Boulaye count in the village of Bellecour. This was old Duhamel, the schoolmaster, an eccentric pedant and a fellow-worshipper of the immortal Jean Jacques. It was to him that La Boulaye now repaired intent upon seeking counsel touching a future that wore that morning a singularly gloomy outlook.

      He found Duhamel's door open, and he stepped across the threshold into the chief room of the house. But there he paused, and hesitated. The chamber was crowded with people in holiday attire, and the centre of attraction was a well-set-up peasant with a happy, sun-tanned face, whose golden locks were covered by a huge round hat decked with a score of gaily-coloured ribbons.

      At sight of him La Boulaye remembered that it was Charlot's wedding-day. Popular amongst the women by virtue of his comeliness, and respected by the men by virtue of his strength, Charlot Tardivet was a general favourite of the countryside, and here, in the room of old Duhamel, the schoolmaster, was half the village gathered to do him honour upon his wedding morn. It was like Duhamel, who, in fatherliness towards the villagers, went near out-rivalling M. le Cure, to throw open his house for the assembling of Charlot's friends, and La Boulaye was touched by this fresh sign of kindliness from a man whose good heart he had not lacked occasion to observe and appreciate. But it came to the secretary that there was no place for him in this happy assemblage. His advent would, probably, but serve to cast a gloom upon them, considering the conditions under which he came, with the signs of violence upon his face to remind them of the lords of life and death who dwelt at the Chateau up yonder. And such a reminder must fall upon them as does the reminder of some overhanging evil clutch suddenly at our hearts in happy moments of forgetfulness. To let them be happy that day, to leave their feasts free of a death's head, La Boulaye would have withdrawn had he not already been too late. Duhamel had espied him, and the little, wizened old man came hurrying forward, his horn-rimmed spectacles perched on the very end of his nose, his keen little eyes beaming with delight and welcome.

      “Ah, Caron, you are very choicely come,” he cried, holding out both hands to La Boulaye. “You shall embrace our happy Hercules yonder, and wish him joy of the wedded life he has the audacity to exploit.” Then, as he espied the crimson ridge across the secretary's countenance, “Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed, “what have you done to yourself, Caron?”

      “Pish! It is nothing,” answered La Boulaye hurriedly, and would have had the subject dismissed, but that one of the onlooking peasants swore by the memory of some long-dead saint that it was the cut of a whip. Duhamel's eyes kindled and his parchment-like skin was puckered into a hundred evil wrinkles.

      “Who did it, Caron?” he demanded.

      “Since you insist, old master,” answered the secretary, still endeavouring to make light of it, “learn that is the lord Marquis's signature to his order of my dismissal from his service.”

      “The dog!” ejaculated the school-master.

      “Sh! let it be. Perhaps I braved him overmuch. I will tell you of it when these good folks have gone. Do not let us cast a gloom over their happiness, old master. And now to embrace this good Charlot.”

      Though inwardly burning with curiosity and boiling with indignation, Duhamel permitted himself to be guided by La Boulaye, and for the moment allowed the matter to rest. La Boulaye himself laughingly set aside the many questions with which they pressed him. He drank the health of the bride-elect—who was not yet of the party—and he pledged the happiness of the pair. He embraced Charlot, and even went so far as to urge upon him, out of his own scanty store, a louis d'or with which to buy Marie a trinket in memory of him.

      Then presently came one with the announcement that M. le Cure was waiting, and in answer to that reminder that there was a ceremony to be gone through, Charlot and his friends flung out of the house in joyous confusion, and went their way with laughter and jest to the little church of St. Ildefonse.

      “We will follow presently—M. la Boulaye and I—Charlot,” Duhamel had said, as the sturdy bridegroom was departing. “We shall be there to shake Madame by the hand and wish her joy of you.”

      When at last they were alone in the schoolmaster's room, the old man turned to La Boulaye, the very embodiment of a note of interrogation. The secretary told him all that had passed. He reddened slightly when it came to speaking of his love for Mlle. de Bellecour, but he realised that if he would have guidance he must withhold nothing from his friend.

      Duhamel's face grew dark as the young man spoke, and his eyes became sad and very thoughtful.

      “Alas!” he sighed, when La Boulaye had ended. “What shall I say to you, my friend? The time is not yet for such as we—you and I—to speak of love for a daughter of the Seigneurie. It is coming, I doubt it not. All things have their climax, and France is tending swiftly to the climax of her serfdom. Very soon we shall have the crisis, this fire that is already smouldering, will leap into a great blaze, that shall lick the old regime as completely from the face of history as though it had never been. A new condition of things will spring up, of that I am convinced. Does not history afford us many instances? And what is history but the repetition of events under similar circumstances with different peoples. It will come in France, and it will come soon, for it is very direly needed.”

      “I know, I know, old master,” broke in La Boulaye; “but how shall all this help me? For all that I have the welfare of France at heart, it weighs little with me at the moment by comparison with my own affairs. What am I to do, Duhamel? How am I to take payment for this?” And he pressed his finger to his seared cheek.

      “Wait,” said the old man impressively. “That is the moral you might have drawn from what I have said. Be patient. I promise you your patience shall not be overtaxed. To-day they say that you presume; that you are not one of them—although, by my soul, you have as good an air as any nobleman in France.” And he eyed the lean height of the secretary with a glance of such pride as a father might take in a well-grown son.

      Elegant of figure, La Boulaye was no less elegant in dress, for all that, from head to foot—saving the silver buckles on his shoes and the unpretentious lace at throat and wrists—he was dressed in the black that his office demanded. His countenance, too, though cast in a mould of thoughtfulness that bordered on the melancholy, bore a lofty stamp that might have passed for birth and breeding, and this was enhanced by the careful dressing of his black unpowdered hair, gathered into a club by a broad ribbon of black silk.

      “But what shall waiting avail me?” cried the young man, with some impatience. “What am I to do in the meantime?”

      “Go to Amiens,” said the other. “You have learning, you have eloquence, you have a presence and an excellent address. For success no better attributes could be yours.” He approached the secretary, and instinctively lowered his voice. “We have a little club there—a sort of succursal to the Jacobins. We are numerous, but we have no very shining member yet. Come with me, and I will nominate you. Beginning thus, I promise you that you shall presently become a man of prominence in Picardy. Anon we may send you to Paris to represent us in the States-General. Then, when the change comes, who shall say to what heights it may not be yours to leap?”

      “I will think of it,” answered La Boulaye cordially, “and not a doubt of it but that I will come. I did not know that you had gone so far—”

      “Sh! You know now. Let that suffice. It is not good to talk of these things just yet.”

      “But in the meantime,” La Boulaye persisted, “what of this?” And again he pointed to his cheek.

      “Why, let it heal, boy.”

      “I promised the Marquis that I would demand satisfaction of his son, and I am tempted to do so and risk the consequences.”

      “I am afraid the consequences will be the only satisfaction that you will get. In fact,