Francezka Part 36

"Presently, I saw Gaston approach. He seated himself by me; he took my hand; he begged my pardon a thousand times over; he swore to me it was solely for love of me he had it done--that the dog might have turned against me as against him, and that apprehension had made him have the poor creature drowned; and knowing I would object, he had it done secretly--and much more of the same kind. He was so affectionate to me that my heart was melted. He told me he would have the dog buried anywhere I wished and see it decently done himself. I said I would have my poor friend buried under the statue of Petrarch--and it was done that very afternoon. We left the garden, hand in hand, like lovers. I never felt more in love with my husband than at that moment--and yet--and yet--there was a concealed fear of something--I know not what--in the very depths of my soul. To think that he should cherish such a design and that I should not know it; that he should be so utterly indifferent as he had been, ever since his return, to a creature once so dear to him as his dog! This is one of the mysterious and unexplored places in Gaston's nature since his return, that gives me the strangest, the most terrifying sense of unfamiliarity with him--and he, the tenderest, the most devoted husband--a man I should admire even if I did not love him."

This story, told with Francezka's dramatic fire, impressed me more than I would have admitted to her; and however wildly fanciful her idea was that Regnard's soul had got into Gaston's body, yet, had not I, myself, felt that strangeness she described toward the man I had lived with as a brother for more than seven years? But I was not guilty of the folly of encouraging her in the unfortunate notions of which she was already possessed.

"It is a pity, Madame," I said, coolly, "that you seem to attach more consequence to a dead dog than to a living husband, whom you admit you would admire even if you did not love. There is a troublesome old dog who shows malice. You are inordinately fond of this old dog. Your husband, tenderly anxious for you, has the brute drowned without your knowledge. For that you call yourself the most miserable creature on earth."

Francezka's face turned scarlet with wrath. She half arose from her chair, looking at me in surprise and anger. I bore her scrutiny calmly, my heart reproaching me somewhat for speaking as I had done of my old friend Bold.

Francezka seated herself in her old pensive att.i.tude, her cheek upon her hand, and there was a long silence, broken only by the dropping of the embers, and occasionally a faint cry from afar. The hunting party had returned, and the chase was proceeding merrily in the great corridors below.

"Babache," she said presently. "One of the chief joys of love is the living over of past delights. But Gaston and I live together as having no past. One of the cruelest things about the wound in his head is that he had long periods of forgetfulness, and certain parts of his life are absolutely blotted from his mind. And one of those great gaps is everything that pertained to our courts.h.i.+p and marriage. He remembers the summer in which we were married, but could not recall the date until I told him. He also remembers that we were secretly married and why. By some strange misfortune--perhaps because his mind was always groping after me in those sad days of wandering, both in mind and body--all else--those days when we were boy and girl traveling through Courland; those evenings on the island in the lake--all, all that pertains to our love is lost to him. He does not even remember why _O Richard, O mon roi_ was so dear to us. It was not strange that he should lose his voice for singing, but it is so sad that he can not remember any of those songs which interpreted our hearts to each other.

"I tried at first to bring it all back to his mind, telling him the whole sweet story so deeply written on my heart, but it only distressed him with the sense of his lapse of memory. He told me it was his chief agony when he was recovering, in those intolerable days in the isles of the East, when he knew not how or why he came there, trying to recall this lost happiness; he never forgot me, but he could not remember, for a long time, whether we were married or not."

"Those cases are common enough," I said. "I once knew a soldier--a common man--who was shot as he was in the act of demanding the countersign. He lingered months between life and death, but lived, with just such an impaired memory as you describe. At last a surgeon, experimenting on him, raised a piece of broken bone from his skull--straightway he recovered memory and understanding, remembered the countersign--remembered everything, except what had occurred from the time he was shot until he was finally cured. Of that time, he was confused and inaccurate, just as Gaston Cheverny is. And, Madame, those risks are taken by all soldiers alike, and if you can not accept this you should have married one of the gentlemen of the long robe, who stay at home and never risk their carca.s.ses in battle."

I thought Francezka would truly have scratched my eyes out at that, so did her own dark and eloquent eyes blaze. But she said nothing, for, at bottom, there was in her, as in Madame Riano, as I have often said, a strong good sense that always had the last word. Nothing--nothing could make her disbelieve in the true and hearty devotion I bore her--so much was plain. Presently she spoke again.

"It is hard--is it not--that I should see so much of Regnard, whom I ever hated, in Gaston whom I ever loved? I see, as I tell you, Regnard's soul s.h.i.+ning out of Gaston's eyes; I see Regnard's nature speaking in Gaston's words and acts. Brothers often grow the more alike as time goes on, but why could not Regnard have grown like Gaston, instead of Gaston like Regnard?"

"Has anything been heard of Monsieur Regnard lately?" I asked.

Francezka shook her head.

"I have asked Gaston repeatedly why he did not contrive to communicate with his brother; an officer in the army of the East India Company can not be lost, as my Aunt Peggy says, like a needle in a haystack. But Gaston shows a strange indifference that is unlike his nature. He was ever the most affectionate of brothers, nor was Regnard wanting in love for him--yet, Gaston does not like me to mention Regnard to him--except--"

I saw she wished to tell me all--all these painful things that preyed upon her heart in secret, and that might be dispersed by letting daylight in upon them.

"Except what, Madame?"

"You remember, Babache, that Regnard paid me great court the year of my marriage, when he knew nothing of it. I think the most painful interview of my whole life was when I was forced to tell Regnard that I was his brother's wife; and most painful it must forever be to Regnard. Well, I thought it my duty to tell Gaston about it--and--and--"

She hesitated and then went on, her face coloring warmly.

"He laughed at it--he made me tell it him twice running. It was mortifying to me and cruel to his absent brother; but he roared with laughter, and referred to it more than once, until I asked him not to speak of it again."

"And he has not again spoken of it?"

"Oh, no. He always respects my wishes, when he knows them. But he does not seem to have any instinctive knowledge of them. He often troubles me by not knowing what I wish."

"In short, Madame, Gaston Cheverny has not second sight, as the Kirkpatricks have."

Francezka smiled a little at this, but I saw that her uneasiness was deeply rooted, and I had not succeeded in tearing it away.

Just then there was a shout of laughter, the winding of a hunting horn, echoing afar, a sound of scurrying feet up the great stairway.

Involuntarily we both turned toward the window looking out upon it, which the reddening sun made bright. Madame Fontange, one of the beauties of the court, rushed up the stairway laughing and disheveled, her hoop awry, and her satin robe half torn off her back by a rascal of a little page, who had seized her and who was calling loudly for Monsieur Cheverny. Gaston Cheverny, wearing his hunting dress, his horn in his hand, was close behind, covering the great steps two at a time. As he dashed past the window and his laughing face flashed by in the blaze of the setting sun, I saw, as I am a living man, Regnard Cheverny's soul s.h.i.+ning out of Gaston Cheverny's eyes. Francezka so expressed it, and I can not express it any better or any differently.

I drew back from the window into the room, and avoided Francezka's searching glance.

"You have seen it, I see," she said calmly. "Do you wonder that I am a wretched woman?"

I gathered my wits about me, dismissed the strange impression I had got, and said, rising:

"Madame, you have, after long waiting, had the husband of your first youth restored to you. He is not precisely what he was when you lost him. All men change, and most women. You, perhaps, are the same, but Gaston Cheverny is not. He is, however, devoted to you, high-minded, honorable, of the same strong intelligence, but with seven years of hards.h.i.+p and adventure behind him. All that you have told me is fanciful. Dismiss it, I beg of you, from your mind. Let not a dead dog and a look of your husband's eye, and an inconsiderate fit of laughter wreck your happiness."

"Do you believe all you say, Babache?" she asked, coming up to me with a world of entreaty in her eyes.

I am not a gallant, but I am enough of a gentleman to tell a lie, if necessary, to a lady, and to swear to it until I am black in the face; so I said:

"I swear it to you, Madame, on my sacred honor." And all the time I saw and knew that Francezka had reason to be wretched with Gaston Cheverny as he now was.

I left the room, and did not again see Francezka until that evening when there was a masked ball for the king.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE BOAR HUNT

It was bruited about the castle that Madame Cheverny was ill and could not appear, which did not in the least surprise me, after our interview that afternoon. In the midst of the ball, however, Francezka appeared, perfectly radiant, and repeated her triumphs of the night before. I hoped from this that our conversation had dissipated all those strange ideas concerning Gaston which had lodged in her mind.

If Francezka was admired by the men, Gaston certainly succeeded in captivating the ladies. Many of them declared that any woman could have been faithful to a man as charming, as witty, as gallant, as Gaston Cheverny. The king retired from the ball at midnight; he had grown lazy by that time, but the gentlemen and the "flying squadrons"

kept going for two hours more, although they had to rise at daylight, to go upon a great boar hunt, and this was the second day and night they had been pleasure-driven. Francezka was among the last to leave the ball room, and if a sparkling face and smiles and laughter are any indication of a heart at ease, Francezka was a happy woman. But she was, also, a consummate actress.

Next morning, daybreak saw us a.s.sembled in the courtyard. The hunting of the wild boar is serious business. There is a song about the

--firm seat and eagle eye He must acquire who would aspire To see the wild boar die.

For my part, I dread to see many men and any woman take part in this dangerous sport. I especially wished that Gaston Cheverny, with his infirm right arm, and Francezka, with her adventurous spirit, should not be of the hunting party; but I had no doubt they would be, and my apprehension was verified; for both of them were in the great courtyard when the company was mustered.

The king, being lazy and brave--for most lazy men are brave--frankly declared he meant only to be a spectator of it. So did the old Marshal de Noailles. There are some men who have attained the highest form of courage in being able to refuse danger. There are others who fear to refuse it; others again, who despise it; and a small remnant by whom the zest of danger can no more be resisted than the drunkard can resist wine. These last are always found in a boar hunt.

The preparation for this sport shows that it is seriously regarded.

All who take part in it must eat lightly on that morning. The host, before starting, gives such instructions as he thinks necessary, especially to listen for a shout of "Take care!" Also, he warns all present against the boar when he seems to be dying or even dead, for the brute is capable of doing great damage in the very article of death. The final words spoken on these occasions are always solemn--

"And may G.o.d have us in His keeping."

Although ladies were allowed upon this hunt, and were even armed with hunting knives, it was not expected, nor indeed permitted, that they should take an active part in it, being mostly spectators, and especially keeping at a safe distance when the final tussle with the boar is on. A full-grown boar, luckily, is bulky and noisy and not swift of foot, as reckoned with other animals, so it is quite possible to see the sport without being in actual danger. I was in hopes that this was Gaston Cheverny's plan, but found I was mistaken. He had acquired considerable dexterity with his left arm, and carried his boar spear in his left hand with both ease and strength. But the command of a left arm gained by a man after he is thirty years of age is not to be depended upon in an encounter with the most savage animal of which we have any record.

We set out as soon as the king appeared, and proceeded to a place in the forest, about two leagues away, in which the beaters had found for us a _marca.s.sin_, or wild pig, which would afford very good sport, and not so dangerous as a full-grown boar. But the lovers of danger in our party--and there were many--I knew, would never be satisfied with hunting the pig, and there would probably be some dangerous business before we returned to the castle. We had dogs of the ancient boar-hound breed, black marked with tan, as large as mastiffs, and with prodigious ears. Our _piqueurs_ were especially trained to hunt the boar, and it was inspiring to see how both men and dogs took to their work. We reached the forest before the sun was high. The woods had already been beaten by boys with kiaki--a kind of wooden clapper, of which the name describes the noise. The _marca.s.sin_ had been found, and the dogs put in at once. The whole thing could have been over in fifteen minutes, but the piqueurs, with great skill, managed to make a whole morning's amus.e.m.e.nt out of it, and it was noon before the joyous _hallili_ of the huntsman's horn proclaimed that the wild pig was dead.

All the ceremonies of presenting the boar's head were gone through with before the king, in an open glade in the forest. Although it was December, the day was mild and the sun warmed the brown earth and the crystal-clear air. A great fire was built, and from it a royal dinner was served by a regiment of cooks. The rude tables were covered with embroidered cloths, and gold and silver plate abounded. It was a feast worthy of Francis the First. Monsieur Voltaire was at the dinner, along with others of the guests who did not take part in the hunt; and the notary's son kept the whole company in a roar with his witticisms.

Francezka was in high spirits, and had the honor of much notice by the king, by Count Saxe, and Monsieur Voltaire, to say nothing of the Dukes of Bourbon and Richelieu.

It was two o'clock before the dinner was over, and then the major part of the company made ready to return to the castle. The word was quietly pa.s.sed around, however, that for those who wished real work, there was an old "solitary" which had been placed, and those who liked might go after him. The ladies were not informed of this, and when Count Saxe, and half a dozen others remained, it was supposed that they would have nothing more dangerous or exciting than another chase after a _marca.s.sin_. When the cavalcade, including the king, were riding off, Francezka turned in her saddle, and, looking toward Gaston, who remained behind, cried:

"Remember, you have but one good arm and part of another one--so, having so lately got you back, let me not lose you now."

"I promise to take all care," Gaston answered. The look they exchanged, full of genuine affection, made yesterday's interview seem dreamlike to me.