The Quest of Glory, Marjorie Bowen [reading an ebook .txt] 📗
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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sparkling brown hair was tied with a blue velvet knot; his white
waistcoat was flourished with wreaths of flowers in many colours; his
face was slightly flushed under the eyes that were fixed on the man
before him, with a look of mingled humility, apprehension, and
self-confidence, only to be seen in the faces of the very youthful and
very happy.
Luc, with painful, laboured searching, made out these details. His grasp
tightened on the straight young fingers.
“I congratulate M. Marmontel from the depths of my heart,” he said. And
his voice was so soft, so sweet, so sincere that the man to whom he
spoke gave a slight start. He was expecting another voice from this
frail, ill creature.
“What does it feel like,” continued Luc, in the same warm ones, “to be
young and famous? To have achieved so soon?”
“Monseigneur, you overwhelm me,” answered the young author frankly.
Luc smiled. His scarred face—the delicate traits of which had been so
for ever ruined—changed with this smile in such a fashion—inexpressible,
but not to be ignored—that M. Marmontel, with a sense of shock, knew he
was in the presence of something very rare and beautiful, and his own
achievement seemed a crude thing.
“I have done nothing,” he said. “I hope some day—but at
present—nothing, Monsieur.”
He lowered his eyes, confused.
The low, sweet, aristocrats’s voice answered
“You must not undervalue yourself, nor your great rewards. I am grateful
you found time to come here.” He gave a little gesture round the
miserable room, a gesture that was the man of quality’s dismissal of his
surroundings. And indeed M. Marmontel, though used to the most splendid
hotels of Paris, had forgotten the garret from the moment Luc had
spoken.
M. de Voltaire began to talk: of the great world; of the world of
letters; of the world beyond Paris, beyond France; of the future, and
the great changes that were coming with a swiftness almost terrible. But
for once Luc was not listening to the speech of M. de Voltaire; he was
looking tenderly, lovingly, at the favourite of fortune, the man in the
flush of his youth and fame, the man who had won glory at the first
effort.
He thought of d’Espagnac and de Seytres—of how beautiful and ardent
they had been, and how forgotten they were in their foreign graves—and
his soul rushed back to his own early youth and his opening dreams. This
man had realized his—this man had everything gorgeous in the world
before him; he was modest and fine, but his extraordinary sense of
triumph was betrayed in his clear laugh. He laughed often at M. de
Voltaire’s remarks. No shade of envy or even of regret touched Luc. He
did not think of himself at all; only he felt a little wonder at the
thought of the two young officers whom he had so loved.
“Surely they too were worthy to be crowned,” he thought wistfully. And
his heart swelled as he recalled Hippolyte dying in the hospital, and
Georges in the snow.
When the two rose to take their leave, Luc, after his farewells to M. de
Voltaire, laid a wasted hand on the younger man’s soft satin sleeve.
“Monsieur,” he said, with his unconquerable air of the great gentleman,
“I have not held any roses in my hand since I came to Paris—seeing
yours reminded me. Might I ask them of you—to remember you by, when you
are gone?”
M. Marmontel unfastened the red blooms without a word, and held them
out.
“Thank you,” smiled Luc. “You have honoured me. I give you all my good
wishes—that your genius may make you happy as it has made you great.”
The young man did not answer. He seemed abashed. When they had gone, Luc
went to the table and put the flowers beside the proofs of his book.
The sun was near the setting, but the room was still brilliant with
ruddy light.
Luc stood quite still, his hands resting on the edge of the table. He
closed his eyes and bent his head.
“Is there no charm to bring any of you back?” he asked, in a low voice.
“For a moment? You know now. Come back to me, dear. There is nothing
in the way now, nothing. You know I am lonely, do you not?”
He swayed a little against the table, and set his teeth. “Come back;
come—_back_.”
He sank on his knees, and rested his face against the wand-bottomed
chair.
“I love you—is it not strong enough? Come—_back_.”
For a while he shivered in the summer silence of the dying afternoon,
and his blood ran passionately in his tired body.
Then he lifted his swimming head, and fumbled for the roses that had
been worn by the man who was happy, and loved, and young, and
famous,—the man who had everything he had hoped to have, and was
everything that he had hoped to be,—and he laid the petals to his lips,
and presently wept into their hearts, because he too was young, and some
things that were dead could not be forgotten, and some hopes that were
unfulfilled and some desires that were unsatisfied could not be for ever
silenced.
On a pale, bitter day in the following spring, Luc de Clapiers made his
way with a steady, purposeful slowness to a certain house in the Isle
where there was a garden. It was the hotel of some nobleman, neglected
and shut up. The garden was neglected too, but there was grass in it,
green now, and two trees, just beginning to be flushed with leaves that
crossed their boughs before the shuttered windows and closed doors.
In the centre of this garden was a fountain, broken and dried up. The
basin was grey with dead moss, and in the centre rose a defaced figure
with a pitying face and a bare bosom girdled beneath with drapery, in
the folds of which the little birds nested.
Luc, when he reached this spot, leant against the high rusty iron
railings, and stared at the grass and the two trees.
He was fatigued and hungry. A week ago his recent means of support had
been taken from him. During the winter he had earned his living as a
bookseller’s hack, by writing prefaces, by indexing, by correcting
proofs, even by copying letters and delivering books. The work
threatened him with utter blindness. He began to make many mistakes. At
last another man was put in his place, and Luc was at a loss indeed.
He had some time since taken a cheaper room, and he had sold everything
he could sell.
Yesterday, to pay the debt he owed for his poor lodging, he had parted
with what he would not have sold for bread—what he had hoarded
jealously so long—his sword: the sword his father had given him before
he went to the war; a beautiful weapon of Toledo steel, with shell and
quillons inlaid with gold.
Half the price of it lay in Luc’s pocket, and this money caused him the
first sensation of shame he had known in his life. He held on to the
railings to steady himself, and looked at the peaceful enclosure of the
ruined garden.
His great dread was that he might live long enough to become an object
of M. de Voltaire’s charity. He had winced from nothing yet, but he did
wince from that.
The second version of his book had been for long refused on account of
the ill success of the first. After many endeavours, a bookseller had
been at last persuaded to take it; but there remained a good deal to be
done before the sheets were ready for the press, and Luc was too ill to
write.
“I must finish that,” he kept saying to himself. “I must finish that.”
The fresh bare boughs, through which two little birds were flying, the
long blades of grass moving slightly to and fro in the wind, even the
noble lines of the empty house and the calm face of the broken statue,
soothed Luc.
“Why should I trouble about any of it?” he asked himself. “Once I am
dead, I shall so soon forget it all.”
He returned to the squalid little street, the miserable house where he
lodged, and climbed to his room, which was dark and scarcely furnished
at all. The narrow window looked blankly on the house opposite. There
was no view, even over roofs, and the sun only entered for a brief while
at early dawn.
Luc, coughing painfully, latched the door, and feebly made his way to
the table that stood beside the mattress on which he slept. He put his
hand in his pocket, took out the money, and laid it, a little pile of
silver pieces, on the table.
“Should I die to-night, I suppose that would be enough to bury me,” he
said to himself, with a little smile.
A cry filled the room as water fills a glass into which it is flung
suddenly—rang round and round walls and ceiling—
“Luc! Luc! Luc!”
The Marquis turned in slow bewilderment; he dimly saw the figure of a
man advancing from the window.
“I have been waiting for you,” said this person, in a terribly moved
voice.
“Who are you?” asked Luc. He knew nothing, save that this was not one of
his friends.
“Who am I? Do you not know me?”
“No—yet—”
“Can you not see me?”
“I can see very little—hardly at all. I know your voice.”
“I am Joseph de Clapiers.”
Luc made a step backward. His face, that had seemed utterly bloodless,
was suddenly stained with a great flush of colour.
“I am sorry you have come,” he said. His thought was that it would have
been better, far better, if he could have died before any of his family,
or indeed anyone connected with his old life, had seen him in what must
to them be degradation unspeakable.
“How did you find me?” he asked. He endeavoured, with the rising
yearning of old affection, to make out his brother’s face, but Joseph
stood too far from him. To Luc he was featureless.
“Some one I know heard a man called Marmontel speak of you. I traced you
through that They told me here that this was your room, and I waited for
you.” He spoke in a controlled, though harsh and strained voice. After
that first fierce cry he had gained command of himself.
“I am sorry you came,” repeated Luc, with quiet sweetness. “We had no
farewell in Aix, but you would have kept a more pleasant memory of me if
you had not come. Will you not sit down?” he added. He himself sank into
the rough wood chair by the table; indeed, his limbs were shaking so
that he could not stand.
Joseph came near enough for Luc to see his fresh comeliness; near enough
for them to touch each other, and for the elder to divine the wrath and
horror in the face of the younger. He suddenly saw himself as if a
mirror hung before him, and the blood again swept his face.
“Why did you come?” he asked under his breath.
Joseph stared at him cruelly. Luc no longer bore any sign or mark of a
gentleman. He wore a clumsy grey coat, worn, and a little frayed at the
cuffs; his waistcoat, which was of a dingy yellow
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