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

service that

glittered curiously on the thick snow and some rolls of straw-coloured

silk that the Marquis had once seen hanging on the walls of M. de

Belleisle’s room in the Hradcany castle.

 

He winced at the bitter irony of it; yet the rolls of silk, when shaken

out, were some covering for the young Lieutenant, and the wagon was some

protection from the wind.

 

Beyond this he could do nothing; he knelt and took d’Espagnac’s head on

his knee for greater warmth, and waited.

 

It was little over a week since he had looked at the beautiful inspired

face turned upwards in the chapel of St. Wenceslas; he gazed down now at

the poor head on his lap, and the tears rose under his lids.

 

Georges d’Espagnac was wasted till his blue uniform, tarnished and torn,

hung on him loosely; his face was so thin that even the hollows in the

temples showed clearly and of a bluish tinge, while the lips were

strained and distorted; all powder and dressing had left his hair, which

hung in a mass of damp locks of a startling brightness about his

shoulders; his right cheek was bruised by the fall from the saddle when

his horse died, and his gloveless right hand was cracked and bleeding.

 

The Marquis felt his heart, and it was beating reluctantly and wearily.

 

There was no hope, he knew; at any moment the snow might begin again,

and this lovely life must go out as the other lives were going out,

unnoticed, unsweetened by any care, regret, or tenderness.

 

But it never occurred to M. de Vauvenargues to leave him, though he knew

that his own best, perhaps his only, chance of life lay in movement, in

pressing on.

 

The darkness fell slowly and with a certain dreadful heaviness; the

added ugliness of the distant bark of wolves completed the speechless

horror of the Marquis’s mood.

 

Still the army was trailing past him, bent figures supporting each

other, a few Generals still on horseback, a few wounded and women in

sledges or carts.

 

From an officer of the Black Musqueteers he begged a little wine that

brought a tinge of colour into d’Espagnac’s cheeks and proved how

pitifully easy it would have been to save him by warmth and care.

 

“There is only rough nursing here, Monsieur,” said the musqueteer

kindly; “leave him and save your own life, for I think the snow will

begin again.”

 

“Monsieur,” replied the Marquis gently, “he is so very young. And maybe

he will be conscious before he dies, and find himself alone and hear the

wolves. And it is such a little thing I do.”

 

And still the army went past like a procession in a dream of hell, and

every moment it became darker, until the fir trees and the rocks were

being lost in blackness and the howls of the wolves sounded nearer.

Presently came a woman walking with more energy than most, yet stumbling

under some burden that she held in her arms. At that moment d’Espagnac

suddenly recovered consciousness, and cried in a clear voice—

 

“Let us get on our way, my dear Marquis—we ought to be at Eger

to-morrow night.”

 

The words made the woman pause and look round. The Marquis gazed at her;

he had last seen her on a white horse beneath a silver fir; and though

he had forgotten her since, he had now a passionate desire that she

should stop and speak to him.

 

As if in answer to this wish, she crossed directly to the wagon. The

young Count had fallen into a weak swoon again, and she looked down on

him calmly.

 

“Your friend is dying,” she said. “My God, how many more!”

 

She sat down on a round grey stone and put her hand to her head; then

the Marquis saw that she carried, wrapped to her breast, a small sick

child.

 

“You must go on,” he said, with energy. “You must not stop for us,

Mademoiselle.”

 

“I cannot walk any more,” she answered. “I am very strong, but I cannot

walk farther.”

 

“Where is your brother?” he asked.

 

“Dead,” she replied.

 

“Dead!”

 

“The word seems to mean nothing. I have a child here, dying too. I

thought it might be happier dying in some one’s arms.”

 

It was exactly his own thought about Georges; he smiled with his

courteous, sad sweetness, and putting the lieutenant’s head gently on

one of the still rolled-up curtains, rose.

 

“We are on the heights, are we not?” asked Carola “I seem to have been

climbing all day.”

 

He approached her. “I think we are very high up,” he said gently. “Will

you give me the child, Mademoiselle?”

 

She resigned the pitiful burden without a word; the Marquis shuddered as

he felt the frail weight in his arms.

 

“So cold,” he murmured. “How could they bring children on such a march

as this! How far have you carried him?” he added.

 

“Since morning,” answered Carola; “and it is a girl, Monsieur.”

 

The Marquis looked down into the tiny crumpled white face in the folds

of the fur mantle, and laid the little creature down beside d’Espagnac.

 

“What can we do?” asked the Countess, in a broken voice.

 

“Nothing,” he answered gravely; “but if you have any strength at all,

you should join the march. It is your only chance, Mademoiselle.”

 

She shook her delicate head. “Please permit me to stay with you. We

might help each other. This is very terrible—the wolves are the worst.”

She set her lips, and her pinched face had a look of decided strength.

“Will the army be passing all night?” she added.

 

“I do not think so—surely there cannot be many more.”

 

“I was thinking when they go—perhaps the wolves—”

 

She paused.

 

He was unused to these severe latitudes; there were wolves in France,

but they had never troubled him.

 

“They might attack us,” she finished, seeing he did not comprehend.

 

He took his pistols from his belt and laid them on the ground beside

him.

 

“I am armed,” he answered.

 

The Countess rose stiffly; her thick fur-lined cloak fell apart and

showed the bright colours of her dress beneath, the tags and braids of

gold, the vermilion sash and ruffled laces. “It is strange that I

should live and my brother die, is it not?” she said wearily. “He fell

from his horse and struck his head on a broken gun. Then he died very

quickly.” There was dried blood on her fur gloves and on the bosom of

her shirt. She went to the unconscious child and knelt beside her, moved

the wrappings from the pallid, dead-coloured face, and touched the

cheek. “I think she will never wake again—but your friend?” She

glanced at the Marquis, who was standing looking down at M. d’Espagnac.

 

“I can only watch him die,” he said.

 

The Countess drew from her bosom the flask she had offered to M. de

Vauvenargues four days before.

 

“This was filled this morning,” she explained, “and I cannot take it for

it makes me giddy.” She moved to the side of M. d’Espagnac and raised

his head tenderly and forced the spirits between his teeth.

 

“I think there is a lantern in the wagon,” said the Marquis, and went to

find it. The dark was now so thick that they could scarcely see each

other’s features, but he found the lantern and flint and tinder and lit

it, and the long yellow beams were some comfort in the overwhelming

sadness of the night.

 

The effect of the brandy on M. d’Espagnac was sudden and almost

terrible: he sat up amid the tumbled rolls of silk, and his cheeks were

red with fever and his eyes open in a forced fashion. He appeared

clear-headed and master of his senses; his glance rested on the Polish

lady and then on the Marquis. “You should not have waited for me,” he

muttered. “On—on to Eger. I shall soon be well.” He raised his wasted,

bleeding hands to his brilliant hair. “I am sick from seeing people

die,” he said. “It could never have been meant. O God, what have we

done?” He crossed himself.

 

“This is war, Georges,” answered the Marquis. “Remember the chapel of

St. Wenceslas and the words we spoke there.”

 

M. d’Espagnac shuddered and fell back on to the cloaks the Marquis had

piled under his head. Carola took his poor torn hand.

 

“Rest a little longer,” she said, “and then we can continue on our way.”

 

Save for a few stragglers, the army had passed now, The isolation seemed

to increase with the dark, and the greedy howls of the wolves came

nearer.

 

The lieutenant struggled up again and cried impetuously, “I am not going

to die! That would be folly, for I have done nothing yet.”

 

“No, you shall not die,” answered Carola, and grasped his hand tighter.

The Marquis was on the other side of him. Georges d’Espagnac laughed.

 

“You must not wait for me, Monsieur.” Then he closed his eyes, and

shiver after shiver shook his limbs.

 

The baby stirred and wailed dismally; in a moment Carola had it caught

up and pressed to her heart. The sick man whispered and moaned, then

suddenly sat up in violent delirium.

 

“I will not see any more die!” he cried. “No more, do you hear? These

people might have done something—what were they born for? How much

farther? No food—no rest. How much farther? How far to Provence?”

 

The Marquis started; he was himself Provençal, and had not known M.

d’Espagnac came from his country; the word stirred agony in the heart he

controlled with such difficulty.

 

“Provence!” repeated the lieutenant. “They will want news of me, you

know, Monsieur. I must tell them—the quest of glory—”

 

Again the words stabbed M. de Vauvenargues. “Georges,” he murmured,

bending over him, “perhaps you have attained the quest.”

 

M. d’Espagnac laughed again.

 

“What a jest if I should die!” he muttered wildly. “My heart is quite

cold, it is freezing my blood. Perhaps I am in my grave, and this is

some one else speaking. How far to Eger?—how long to the Judgment Day?”

 

“I am with you, Georges d’Espagnac,” said the Marquis. “We are alive.”

 

He seemed to hear that.

 

“Where?” he demanded.

 

“On the heights,” said M. de Vauvenargues.

 

It was now quite dark save for the light of the wagon lamp that fell

over the straw-coloured silk hangings of M. de Belleisle, the beautiful

anguished face framed in the gorgeous hair, the woman in her barbaric

splendour clasping the feeble child, and the slender figure of the

Marquis in his blue and silver uniform; it glimmered, too, on the pieces

of the Maréchal’s dessert service, and the sparkle of them caught

Carola’s eye.

 

“Do you travel with such things?” she asked. “Our nobles sleep on the

ground, and drink from horn—”

 

“M. de Belleisle must travel as a Maréchal de France,” answered the

Marquis. “But these things seem foolish now.”

 

A great giddy sickness was on him, and a distaste of life that could be

so wretched; the spirit within him was weary of the miserable flesh that

suffered so pitifully.

 

“Give me my sword,” said M. d’Espagnac. “I am starting out on a quest.

Do you hear? Jesu, have mercy upon me!”

 

Carola rose and walked up and down with the child. “You are Catholic?”

she asked.

 

“No,” answered the Marquis.

 

“An atheist?” she questioned.

 

“An ugly word, Mademoiselle “—he gave a little