The Quest of Glory, Marjorie Bowen [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

lay across a

chair beneath the window.

 

Outside the birds were singing, and their flying shadows crossed and

recrossed the white corner of the hospice wall. Presently Luc raised

himself on one elbow.

 

“Jean!” he called.

 

The man came instantly.

 

“What time is it, Jean?”

 

“About half-past two, Monseigneur.”

 

“Thank you. I am going into the chapel for a little while. I shall be

back when Monsieur, my father, comes.”

 

He rose stiffly and feebly, and stood leaning against the end of the

bed.

 

“What is that which continually goes past the window, Jean?”

 

“Birds, Monseigneur—only little birds.”

 

Luc smiled.

 

“Indeed, I cannot see them, Jean.”

 

The servant waited, not looking at his master. Presently Luc gave a

little nod of dismissal, and Jean returned to the outer room.

 

Luc decided not to go to the chapel. He had thought that the dark, cool

spaces, the nuns behind their grille, the subdued singing might bring

him fortitude and peace; but now he rejected that idea as weakness.

 

He had also wished to inquire after Carola Koklinska before he left the

convent. Yet to what purpose? She was lost to the world, and her name

had not passed his lips once during the brief agony of his illness and

the long agony of his convalescence.

 

He recalled his last interview with her and his words, “If I am

stricken, pray that I may die.”

 

And now his worst horror had been realized, and he was cast back on life

to die slowly from day to day—an object of disgust and pity. He knew,

though no one else had been told, that he had not very long to live. The

doctor gave him a few years—five, or six, or seven.

 

Three days ago he had first seen himself in a mirror. Two days ago he

had written to M. Amelot saying that his health did not permit him to

take up the appointment at Madrid.

 

And to-day he had to see Clémence de Séguy.

 

He had gently told Jean to leave the mirror, and it hung against the

wall at the foot of his bed.

 

He turned to it now, took it down and brought it to the full light of

the window, held it between his hands, and gazed into it.

 

He could only see very imperfectly. Objects had lost their sharp

outlines, their true colours; things beyond the radius of his own

outstretched hand were dim and obscure. He peered into the mirror with

the stoop and concentration of gaze of an old man.

 

He saw, as behind a blur, his own face, chalk-white, scarred, and seamed

with a faint bluish colour; his eyes frayed, and swollen, yet sunk; his

mouth strained and distorted—a face without bloom, or youth, or

softness—a terrible face, from which all beauty, all expression had

been swept, for in the ruins of these pale features was not one trace of

the fair, mobile, spiritual countenance that had once shown to the world

the soul of Luc de Clapiers.

 

His fine hazel hair had gone. He wore a curled white peruke, which

further altered his appearance. He was so feeble he could not hold

himself erect; he stooped from the shoulders and was gauntly thin.

Presently he put the mirror on the bed, and two difficult tears forced

themselves out of his worn eyes and ran down his disfigured cheeks.

 

Outside the birds were flying to and fro, and the fragrant perfumes of

early spring swelled and receded on the full breeze.

 

The scent of earth, of flowers, of young trees came to Luc’s nostrils.

He shuddered like one struck on an open wound.

 

He went to the window, stood with his hands on the rough sill, looking

on to the little patch of herb garden and the whitewashed corner of the

building.

 

“Come, face it,” he said to himself. “You are young, full of energy, of

ardour, of ambition, of desire for glory; you can appreciate all that is

good and beautiful. Yet now, at the flower of your age, you are deprived

of everything that makes life desirable; you have only a few more years

to live, and they will be full of pain and suffering—then—an obscure

death. And all your gifts, your ardours, your hopes, your ambitions will

perish with you, leaving no glimmer behind. Face that, Luc de

Clapiers—face that!”

 

There was nothing left—nothing but the pitying love of those who would

smooth his way to death, and to a proud soldier’s soul such tenderness

was unendurable.

 

He picked up the sword he could never use again and buckled it on

slowly, then left the cottage and turned, after all, towards the chapel

attached to the convent. The service was nearly over. Luc seated himself

near the door in the shadows. The nuns were behind their grille; in the

body of the chapel were a few lay sisters.

 

Presently Luc went on his knees and prayed from a bitterly humbled

heart—prayed incoherently, passionately to the God of his forefathers—

 

“_God! O God! what have I done? What offence armed your wrath against

me? You have filled my life with bitterness. Pleasure, health, youth are

robbed from me glory that flattered so long the dream of an ambitious

soul—all is gone!_

 

“_I let my glance fall on the enchanting gifts of the world, and

suddenly they are all taken from me. Miseries, cares, regrets overwhelm

my soul!_”

 

The silent prayer beat in his brain. His heart swooned in his side. He

felt roof and walls vanish from about him and a sensation as if he were

surrounded by clear heavens and a multitude of swaying clouds. But the

murmur of the service was in his ears only a human thing. The God he

prayed to was foreign; he could not find help here.

 

“_O my soul, show thyself strong in these great trials, be patient,

trust in thyself; thy ills will end. Nothing is stable; the earth itself

and the skies vanish as a dream. The dawn of eternity will light the

bottom of the tomb, and death shall have no dark places left!_”

 

The service was over; the nuns departed from behind the grille, the lay

sisters moved away, but Luc remained on his knees.

 

Yet his thoughts had swept swiftly far from the God to whom this church

was consecrated. Out of his own soul he had drawn strength and

sweetness.

 

“_How can there be a struggle with misfortune and evil when man is

stronger than either?_” he asked himself. And at one bound his heart

leapt to life and energy.

 

He rose to his feet.

 

“_I dedicated my life to virtue and glory. What prevents me from using

the few years left to me in the service of the best things I know? I am

stronger than Fate. There is nothing mightier in creation than the soul

lodged in me. I and God are one. I need not fear anything, for I am the

highest tribunal and the most powerful law, and I can satisfy myself._”

 

His hand touched the smooth, cold pillar beside him. The feel of the

stone, the sting of the incense were repugnant to him. The heat and glow

in his heart warmed his frail body. He drew his thin, stooping shoulders

erect and left the chapel.

 

The image of Carola came fiercely to his mind. He trembled to think that

perhaps she had been one of those shrouded figures behind the grille.

Across the black gulf of his illness he beheld her figure beneath the

iron bell and the clusters of ash berries. He heard her words, and felt

her sobbing lips under his kiss and her cold hands in his.

 

A sister was crossing the courtyard, carrying a basket filled with

herbs. Luc turned on his heel and saluted her.

 

“I am leaving to-day, my sister. Before I go, may I ask you a question?”

 

“Yes, Monseigneur.”

 

“There was a lady came with me—Madame Koklinska.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It was her intention to enter your order.”

 

“She became a novice, Monseigneur, and helped for a while in the

hospice.”

 

“For a while?” The scent of the bruised and fainting herbs was borne on

him overpoweringly.

 

“She took the smallpox, Monseigneur, within a few days of you. She died,

I think, a month ago. We had only one other death from the plague.”

 

“Thank you, my sister,” answered Luc gravely.

 

The sister passed on, and Luc stood silent in the sunny courtyard.

 

Dead I In what faith, in what mood, in what repentance, remorse, or

fear? Dead without consolation, or love, among strangers—young and

beautiful, and, he knew, without fear.

 

For a moment he was shaken by a wild revulsion, a desperate revolt

against his own renewed triumphant exaltation and proud freedom. In that

moment he would have put on all the shackles of her creed in return for

the certain hope of seeing her again; he would have embraced any faith

that had promised him that they should meet once more—even for a few

minutes. A little while before and he had been prepared to believe that

he would never see her again—prepared even not to think of her. Now he

would have paid any price just to see her tired face and listen to her

low, precise voice. He went back to the gardener’s cottage, and his eyes

sought the little cheap plaster image of St. Joseph in the corner. If

one could believe. He shook off the temptation, the delusion—she was

gone. When he had seen her pass the white wall of the hospice she had

left him for ever—and he had known it even then.

 

“I—suppose—I—loved—her,” he said to himself; but he had no

understanding of any emotion outside confusion and loneliness. He did

not see the room or the sunshine, but a white, sparkling expanse of

snow, a great silver fir, and a woman on a white horse who leant from

the saddle and looked at him.

 

He found his father standing where she had stood when he had seen her

for the last time.

 

“I have come for you, Luc.”

 

The old Marquis stood erect and proud, handsomely dressed, composed.

 

“Clémence is waiting for you,” he continued. “She would have accompanied

me, but I thought you would rather meet her at home.”

 

The name hurt and startled Luc. He made an effort to think coherently.

He forced his thoughts on to the coming moments.

 

“Monseigneur,” he asked, “Mademoiselle de Séguy—knows?”

 

“Knows what?” demanded the Marquis in a still voice.

 

Luc’s dim eyes filled with tenderness. He answered very gently—

 

“Knows that she is free, my father.”

 

The old man gallantly kept his pose, his calm.

 

“You must not speak like that, Luc. Mademoiselle de Séguy loves

you—nothing makes any difference to her. She is eager—”

 

“Ah, hush!” said Luc sadly, yet serenely. “Look at me, Monseigneur—look

at me—think of her—of any woman. I have known a long while that it

could never be. Surely neither you nor she think I would ask this

sacrifice?”

 

“This is not the language of love,” said the Marquis firmly. “Do you not

recall how she wished to prove herself? how she wished to show what her

affection meant?”

 

Luc did remember, with a swift, sharp sense of longing and regret, the

brief days he had spent with his promised wife—her vows—her devotion.

 

“God bless her for her brave loyalty,” he said unsteadily; “but my life

is too broken now ever to be joined to another. She is a sweet woman. I

hope she will