The Grey Cloak, Harold MacGrath [smart books to read TXT] 📗

hôtel was lighted cheerfully enough. Monsieur le Marquis's son entertained his noble friends and the officers from Fort Louis. There was wine in plenty and play ran high. The marquis, however, while he permitted these saturnalia, invariably held aloof. It was servants' hall gossip that the relations existing between father and son were based upon the coldest formalities. Conversation never went farther than "Good morning, Monsieur le Marquis" and "Good morning, Monsieur le Comte." The marquis pretended not to understand when any referred to his son as the "Chevalier du Cévennes." It was also gossiped that this noble house was drawing to its close; for the Chevalier had declined to marry, and was drinking and gaming heavily; and to add to the marquis's chagrin, the Chevalier had been dismissed from court, in disgrace,-a calamity which till now had never fallen upon the House of Périgny.


The marquis was growing old. As he sat before the fire in the grand salon, the flickering yellow light playing over his features, which had a background of moving, deep velvet-brown shadows, he might have been the theme of some melancholy whim by Rubens, a stanza by Dante. His face was furrowed like a frosty road. Veins sprawled over his hands which rested on the arms of his chair, and the knuckles shone like ivory through the drawn transparent skin. The long fingers drummed ceaselessly and the head teetered; for thus senility approaches. His lips, showing under a white mustache, were livid and fallen inward. The large Alexandrian nose had lost its military angle, and drooped slightly at the tip: which is to say, the marquis no longer acted, he thought; he was no longer the soldier, but the philosopher. The domineering, forceful chin had the essentials of a man of justice, but it was lacking in that quality of mercy which makes justice grand. Over the Henri IV ruff fell the loose flesh of his jaws. Altogether, it was the face of a man who was practically if not actually dead. But in the eyes, there lay the life of the man. From under jutting brows they peered as witnesses of a brain which had accumulated a rare knowledge of mankind, man's shallowness, servility, hypocrisy, his natural inability to obey the simplest laws of nature; a brain which was set in motion always by calculation, never by impulse. They were grey eyes, bold and fierce and liquid as a lion's. None among the great had ever beaten them down, for they were truthful eyes, almost an absolute denial of the life he had lived. But truth to the marquis was not a moral obligation. He was truthful as became a great noble who was too proud and fearless of consequences to lie. In his youth he had been called Antinous to Henri's Caesar; but there is a certain type of beauty which, if preyed upon by vices, becomes sardonic in old age.

At his elbow stood a small Turkish table on which were a Venetian bell and a light repast, consisting of a glass of weakened canary and a plate of biscuits spread sparingly with honey. Presently the marquis drank the wine and struck the bell. Jehan, the marquis's aged valet, entered soon after with a large candelabrum of wax candles. This he placed on the mantel. Even with this additional light, the other end of the salon remained in semi-darkness. Only the dim outline of the grand staircase could be seen.

Over the mantel the portrait of a woman stood out clearly and definitely. It represented Madame la Marquise at twenty-two, when Marie de Médicis had commanded the young Rubens to paint the portrait of one of the few women who had volunteered to share her exile. Madame lived to be only twenty-four, happily.

"Jehan, light the chandelier," said the marquis. His voice, if high, was still clear and strong. "Has Monsieur le Comte ventured forth in this storm?"

"Yes, Monsieur; but he left word that he would return later with a company of friends."

"Friends?" The marquis shrugged. "Is that what he calls them? When do these grasping Jesuits visit me?"

"At eight, Monsieur. They are due this moment, unless they have failed to make the harbor."

"And they bring the savage? Good. He will interest me, and I am dying of weariness. I shall see a man again. Arrange some chairs next to me, bring a bottle of claret, and a thousand livres from the steward's chest. And listen, Jehan, let Monsieur le Comte's servant give orders to the butler for his master. I forbid you to do it."

"Yes, Monsieur," and Jehan proceeded to light the chandelier, the illumination of which brought out distinctly the tarnished splendor of the salon. Jehan retired.

The marquis, to steady his teetering head, rested his chin on his hands, which were clasped over the top of his walking-stick. Occasionally his eyes roved to the portrait of his wife, and a melancholy, unreadable smile broke the severe line of his lips.

"A beautiful woman," he mused aloud, "though she did not inspire me with love. Beauty: that is the true religion, that is the shrine of worship, as the Greeks understood it; beauty of woman. Woman was born to express beauty, man to express strength. We detest weakness in a man, and a homely woman is a crime. And so De Brissac passed violently? And his oaths of vengeance were breaths on a mirror. Ah well, I had ceased to hate him these twenty years. Did he love yonder woman, or was his fancy like mine, ephemeral? And he married Mademoiselle de Montbazon? That is droll, a kind of tentative vengeance."

His eyes closed and he fell into a dreaming state. Like all men who have known eventful but useless lives, the marquis lived in the past. The future held for him nothing cut pain and death, and his thought seldom went forth to meet it. Day after day he sat alone with his souvenirs, unmindful of the progress about him, indifferent.

When the valet returned with the wine and the livres, he placed three chairs within easy distance of the marquis, and waited to learn what further orders his master had in mind.

The marquis opened his eyes. "When Messieurs the Jesuits come, show them in at once. The hypocrites come on a begging errand. After I have humiliated them, I shall give them money, and they will say, ' Absolvo te .' It is simple. And they will promise to pray for the repose of my soul when I am dead. My faith, how easy it is to gain Heaven! A thousand livres, a prayer mumbled in Latin, and look! Heaven is for the going. The thief and the murderer, the fool and the wise man, the rich and the beggared, how they must jostle one another in the matter of precedence! Poor Lucifer! Who will lend Lucifer a thousand livres and an ' Absolvo te '?"

Jehan crossed himself, for he was a pious Catholic.

"Hypocrite!" snarled the marquis; "Have I not forbidden you this mummery in my presence? Begone!"

The Swiss clock on the mantel had chimed the first quarter after eight ere the marquis was again disturbed. He turned in his seat to witness the entrance of his unwelcome guests. He smiled, but not pleasantly.

"Be seated, Messieurs," he said, waving his hand toward the chairs, and eying the Iroquois with that curiosity with which one eyes a new species of animal. Next his gaze fell upon Brother Jacques, whose look, burning and intense, aroused a sense of impatience in the marquis's breast. "Monsieur," he said peevishly, "have not the women told you that you are too handsome for a priest?"

"If so, Monsieur," imperturbably, "I have not heard." And while a shade of color grew in his cheeks, Brother Jacques's look was calm and undisturbed.

"And you are Father Chaumonot?" said the marquis turning to the elder. His glance discovered a finely modeled head, a high benevolent brow, eyes mild and intelligent, a face marred neither by greed nor by cunning; not handsome, rather plain, but wholesome, amiable, and with a touch of those human qualities which go toward making a man whole. There was even a suspicion of humor in the fine wrinkles gathered around the eyes. The marquis pictured this religious pioneer in the garb of a soldier. "You would be a man but for that robe," he said, when his scrutiny was brought to an end.

"I pray God that I may be a man for it."

The marquis laughed. He loved a man of quick reply. "What do you call him?" indicating the Indian, whose dark eyes were constantly roving.

"The Black Kettle is his Indian name; but I have baptized him as Dominique."

"Tell him for me that he is a man."

"My son," said Chaumonot, speaking slowly in French, "the white chief says that you are a man."

The Iroquois expanded under this flattery. "The white chief has the proud eye of the eagle."

"Devil take me!" cried the marquis; "but it seems that he talks very good French!"

"It took some labor," replied Chaumonot; "but he was quick to learn, and he is of great assistance to me."

"Is he a Catholic?" curiously.

"Aye, and proud to be."

The marquis signified his astonishment by wagging his head. "I should like to see this Indian at mass; it must be very droll."

"Monsieur," said Chaumonot, passing over the marquis's questionable irony, "will you permit me to tell you a short story before approaching the subject of my visit?"

"Rabelaisian?" maliciously.

"No; not a monstrous story, but one relative to an act of kindness which took place many years ago."

"Well, if I am not interested I shall interrupt you," said the marquis. He swept his hand toward the wine, but the priests and the Iroquois respectfully declined. "Proceed."

"Once upon a time," began Chaumonot, his eyes directed toward the bronze console which supported the mantel, "there lived a lad whose father was a humble vine-dresser. At the age of ten he was sent to Châtillon, where he lived with his uncle, a priest, who taught him Latin and Holy history. This did not prevent him from yielding to the persuasion of one of his companions to run off to Beaune, where the two proposed to study music under the Fathers of Oratory. To provide funds for the journey, he stole a dozen livres from his uncle, the priest. Arriving at Beaune, he became speedily destitute. He wrote home to his mother for money. She showed the letter to his father, who ordered him home. Stung by the thought of being branded a thief in his native town, he resolved not to return, but in expiation to set out forthwith on a pilgrimage to Rome. Tattered and penniless, he took the road to Rome. He was proud, this boy, and at first refused to beg; but misery finally forced his pride to its knees, and his hand stretched forth from door to door. He slept in open fields, in cowsheds, in haystacks, occasionally finding lodging in a convent. Thus, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of wandering vagabonds, he made his way through Savoy