Angelique - Part 7. Versailles Chapter 5 - Read online

WHEN MADAME MORENS presented herself at the house in the rue Saint-Antoine the following evening, she had recovered a litde of her self-esteem. She was resolved not to let belated scruples jeopardise the con-sequences of a deed that had been so hard to accomplish. ‘The wine is drawn, it must be drunk/ as Maitre Bourjus would have said.
So, holding her head high, she walked into a large drawing-room which was lit only by die fire in the hearth. There was no one in the room. She had time to remove her cloak and her mask, and to hold her fingers out to the flames. Although not allowing herself to show any apprehension, she felt that her hands were cold and her heart was beating fast.
A few moments later, a door-curtain was raised and an old man, modesdy dressed in black, came up to her and bowed deeply. Angclique had not for a moment imagined that the Plessis-Bellieres’s steward would still be Monsieur Molines. As she recognised him, she uttered a cry of surprise and spontaneously gripped his two hands.
“Monsieur Molines! ... Is it possible? What a ... oh, how glad I am to see you again!”
“You do me much honour, Madame,” he replied, bowing again. “Will you please be seated in this arm-chair.”
He himself sat down near the hearth, in front of a small table on which writing-tablets, an ink-stand and a cup with sand had been placed.
While he was sharpening a pen, Angelique scrutinised him, still amazed by this apparition. He had grown older, but his features remained firm and his eyes sharp and inquisitive. His hair, worn under a black cloth cap, had turned completely white. Angelique could not help visualising at his side the robust figure of her father, who had so often sat down by the fireside of the Huguenot steward to discuss and prepare the future of his nestful of offspring.
“Can you give me news of my father, Monsieur Molines?”
The steward blew away the parings of his goose-quill.
“His lordship the Baron is in good health, Madame.”
“And the mules?”
“Those of the last season are coming on well. I believe this little business is giving his lordship satisfaction.”
Angelique sat at Molincs’s side, just as she used to when she was a pure young girl, a little intransigent but very upright. Molines had been the one who had arranged her marriage with the Comte de Peyrac. And now she saw him reappear, but this time on behalf of Philippe. Like a spider patiently weaving its web, Molines had always been mixed up in the fabric of her life. It was reassuring to find him again. Was it not a sign that the present was linked again with the past? The peace of her birth¬place, the strength drawn from the depths of her family heritage, but also the worries of childhood, the poor Baron s efforts to set up his progeny, steward Molines’s disquieting generosities. . . .
“Do you remember?” she asked dreamily. “You were there, on the night of my wedding at Monteloup. I bore you such a grudge. And yet I have been wonderfully happy, thanks to you.”
The old man glanced at her above his big tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles.
“Are we here to indulge in moving considerations about your first marriage or to discuss the agreement concerning your second,one?”
Angelique's cheeks went crimson.
“You are hard, Molines.”
“You too are hard, Madame, if I judge by the means you employed to persuade my young master to marry you.”
Ang6lique took a deep breath, but her eyes did not flinch. She felt the time was no more when, first as an intimidated child, then as a poor young girl, she had looked with fear at the almighty steward Molines who held her family’s fate in his hands. She was a business woman, whom Monsieur Colbert did not disdain talking to. Her lucid arguments dumbfounded Pennautier, the banker.
“Molines, you once said to me: ‘If one wants to reach a goal, one must be prepared to make some sacrifices’. In this case, I am sacrificing some¬thing that is rather precious to me: my self-respect. . . . But no matter! I have a goal to reach.”
A thin smile drew the old man’s stem lips apart.
“If my humble approval can be of any comfort to you, Madame, I give it to you.”
It was Angelique’s turn to smile. She would always come to an under-standing with Molines. This certainty gave her the courage to face discussing the contract.
“Madame,” he went on, “let’s be precise. The Marquis gave me to understand that grave things are at stake. That’s why I shall expound to you the few conditions to which you will have to subscribe. You will then name your conditions. I shall then draw up the contract and read it out before the two parties. First of all, Madame, you undertake to swear on the crucifix that you know the hiding-place of a certain casket, of which his lordship desires to obtain possession. Only after this oath has been taken will the document have any validity.”
“I am ready to do so,” Angeliquc affirmed, holding out her hand.
“In a few moments, Monsieur du Plessis will present himself with his chaplain. Meanwhile, let us clarify the position. Being convinced that Madame Morens is the owner of a secret which interests him to a high degree, his lordship the Marquis du Plessis-Belliere agrees to marry Madame Morens, nee Angclique de Sance de Monteloup, against the following considerations: upon the marriage being performed, that is to say immediately after the nuptial blessing, you promise to part with the said casket in the presence of two witnesses, who will probably be the chaplain who will have blessed die marriage and myself, your humble servant. Furthermore, his lordship demands that he be able freely to dispose of your fortune.”
“Oh! Just a moment!” Angeliquc said quickly. “The Marquis will have at his disposal all the money he wants and I am prepared to fix the amount of the allowance I shall pay him annually. But I shall be the sole owner and manager of my assets. I refuse to grant him any share whatso¬ever in the management of my affairs, for I have no intention, after work¬ing so hard, of finding myself reduced to beggary. I know the spendthrift genius of those great lords!”
Molincs crossed out a few lines and wrote others above them. He then asked Angelique to give him as detailed a statement as possible of the various business affairs she was engaged in. Rather proudly, she informed the steward of her affairs, glad to be able to hold her own in an argument with the old fox and to mention the important personages with whom he could check her statements. This precaution did not shock the young woman, for she had learned, in fighting her way through the intricate maze of finance and commerce, that words are good only in so far as they are supported by verifiable facts. She noticed a glint of admiration in his eyes when she explained to him her position and how she had attained it.
“Admit that I have not done too badly, Monsieur Molines,” she concluded.
He nodded his head.
“You are not without merit. I admit that your affairs do not seem to me unskilful. It all depends, of course, on how much you had at your disposal at the outset/’
Angelique gave a brief, bitter laugh.
“At the outset? ... I had nothing, Molincs, less than nothing. The poverty in which we lived at Monteloup was as nothing compared to that which I knew after the death of Monsieur dc Peyrac/’
At the mention of that name, they fell silent for a long while. As the fire was going down, Angelique took a log from the wood-box standing near the hearth and put it on the andirons.
“I’ll have to talk to you of your mine at Argcnticrc,” said Molincs at last, in the same equable tone. “It has greatly helped to support your family these last years, but it is only right that, from now on, you should be able, you and your children, to derive a benefit from this output.’’
“So the mine wasn’t impounded and handed over to others, like all the other estates of the Comte de Peyrac?”
“It escaped the greed of the royal inspectors. At the time, it had represented your dowry. Its legal ownership remained somewhat ambiguous. . . .”
“Like all the things you take a hand in, Maitrc Molines,” said Angelique, laughing. “You have a genius for serving several masters.”
“Certainly not!” protested the steward. “I have not several masters, Madame. I have several business affairs.”
“I grasp the subtle difference, Maitre Molincs. So let’s talk of the business of du Plessis-Belliere the younger. I sign the undertakings I am asked for concerning the casket. I am prepared to examine the necessary amount for his lordship’s allowance. In consideration of these ad¬vantages, I demand the marriage and to be recognised as the Marquise and sovereign of the estates and titles that appertain to my husband. I also demand to be presented to his relatives and friends as his legitimate wife. I further demand that my two sons find welcome and protection in their stepfather’s house. In conclusion, I wish to be informed of the value of the assets he owns.”
“Humph! . . . I am afraid you won’t find much to comfort you there, Madame. I won’t conceal the fact that my young master is deep in debt. Apart from this town house, he owns two castles, one in Touraine which has come down to him from his mother, the other in Poitou. But the estates of both castles are mortgaged.”
“Can you possibly have mismanaged your master’s affairs, Monsieur Molincs?”
“Alas, Madame! Monsieur Colbert himself, who works fifteen hours a day, cannot do anything against the King’s wastefulness, which puts all his Minister’s calculations at nought. Similarly, the Marquis squanders his revenues, already much decreased by his father’s sumptuous style of living, in campaigns of war or Court frivolities. The King has several times made him a present of official appointments of substance which could have pro¬duced financial profit. But he hastened to sell them again to pay a gambling debt or to buy a carriage. No, Madame, the du Plessis-Belliere business is not an interesting one for me. I attend to it out of . . . senti¬mental habit. Allow me to draw up your propositions, Madame.”
For a few moments, all that could be heard in the room was the scratching of his pen.
‘When I am married,’ Angeliquc reflected, ‘Molines will become my manager. How odd! I had never thought of that. He’ll certainly try to poke his long fingers into my affairs. I’ll have to look out. But, in a way, that’ll be fine. I’ll have an excellent adviser in him.’
“May I take the liberty to suggest a supplementary clause?” asked Molincs, raising his head.
“To my advantage, or to your master’s?”
To yours.
“I thought you were representing the interests of Monsieur du Plcssis?”
The old man smiled without answering, and removed his glasses. Then he leaned against die back of his arm-chair and fixed Angelique widi that lively, piercing gaze which he had fastened on her ten years ago when he said: “I think I know you, Angflique, and I shall talk to you differently than to your father. . . .”
“I think,” he said, “that your marrying my master is a very good thing.
I did not believe I’d ever see you again. But you are here, in defiance of all probability, and Monsieur du Plessis finds himself under obligation to marry you. Do me the justice to admit, Madame, that I have had nothing to do with the circumstances that have brought about this union. But now it’s a question of that union being a success: and this in my master’s interests, in yours and, in fact, in mine, for the master’s happiness ensures that of the servants.”
“I most certainly agree, Molines. So what is this new clause?”
“That you should exact the consummation of the marriage.”
“The consummation of the marriage?” repeated Angeliquc, opening her eyes wide, like a schoolgirl fresh from the convent.
“Why, eh, Madame ... I hoped you’d gather my meaning.”
“Yes ... I do,” stammered Angeliquc, recovering her wits. “But you’ve surprised me. It’s obvious that in marrying Monsieur du Plessis . . .”
“It’s not obvious at all, Madame. In marrying you, Monsieur du Plessis does not make a love match. I might even say he makes a forced marriage. Would it be a great surprise to you if I told you that the feelings you inspire in Monsieur du Plessis, far from resembling love, rather approach a feeling of anger and even of rage?”
“I can imagine,” Angelique murmured, shrugging her shoulders in a way that she hoped was casual.
But at the same time she was filled with pain. She cried vehemently:
“What then? ... Why should I care whether he loves me or not! All I’m asking is his name, his rank. I don’t care about the rest. He can despise me and go to bed with farm wenches if he wants to. I won’t run after him!”
“You’d be wrong, Madame. I believe you don’t know the man you are about to marry very well. Your position, for the time being, is very strong, that’s why you think he is weak. But afterwards, you will have to dominate him in some way or other. Otherwise . . .”
“Otherwise? . . .”
“You’ll be horribly unhappy.”
The young woman’s face hardened, and she said through clenched teeth:
“I have already been horribly unhappy, Molines. I have no^ntention of starting all over again.”
“That’s why I am suggesting a means of defending yourself. Listen to me, Ang£lique, I am old enough to talk to you plainly. After your marriage, you will have no more power over Philippe du Plessis. The money, the casket, all will be his. Appeals to his heart have no effect on him. You must therefore dominate him by the senses.”
“That’s a dangerous power, Monsieur Molines, and a very vulnerable one.”
“It is a power. It will be for you to render it invulnerable.”
Angelique was deeply troubled. She did not dream of being shocked by this advice from the lips of an austere Huguenot. Molines’s entire per¬sonality was pervaded by a crafty shrewdness which had never taken principles into account but only the fluctuations of human nature in the service of material ends. Molines was sure to be right once again. In a flash, Angelique remembered those fits of fear which Philippe had inspired in her, and that feeling of helplessness in face of his indifference, his frozen calm. She knew that, deep within herself, she had already counted on the wedding night to enslave him. After all, when a woman holds a man in her arms, she is very powerful. There is always a moment when the man’s self-defence yields before the lure of sensual rapture. A clever woman knows how to turn that moment to advantage. Later the man will return to this source of pleasure, even despite himself. Angelique knew that, once Philippe’s magnificent body was joined to hers, once that fresh, resilient mouth would drop like a fruit on hers, she herself would become the most responsive and skilful mistress. In the anonymous struggle or love, they would develop an understanding which Philippe would per¬haps pretend to forget once morning had come, but which would link them more surely to one another than the most fiery declarations.
Her somewhat vacant gaze returned to Molines. He must have followed the thread of her thoughts on her face, for he gave a little ironic smile and said:
“I also think you are beautiful enough to stand a chance of winning. But to win the match requires . . . first having a chance to play it. Which does not mean, incidentally, that you’ll necessarily win the first round.”
“What do you mean?”
“My master does not like women. He’s had affairs, of course, but women are a bitter, nauseating fruit for him.”
“And yet he’s credited with resounding love affairs. And those famous orgies during his foreign campaigns, at Norgen . . .”
“Those are the reflexes of a soldier intoxicated by war. He takes women in the way he sets fire to a house or runs his sword through a child’s belly . . . to do evil.”
“Molines, you are saying frightening things!”
“I don’t want to frighten you, but only to warn you. You are of a noble but healthy and rustic family. You seem to know nothing of the kind of education to which a young gentleman is subjected, one whose parents are rich and fashionable. From the days of his childhood, he is the plaything of maidservants and lackeys, then of noblemen with whom he
is placed as a page. In the Italian practices he is taught ’ ’
“Oh! Be silent. All this is most unpleasant,” muttered Angelique, gazing away into the fire with embarrassment.
Molines did not persist, and put his glasses on again.
“Am I to add that clause?”
“Add anything you like, Molines. I ” .
She broke off as she heard the door open. In the semi-darkness of the drawing-room, the outline of Philippe, clothed in light satins, first appeared like a snowy statue, then gradually became more distinct. White and fair, covered with gold, the young man seemed about to leave for a ball. He greeted Angelique with indifferent arrogance.
“How far have you got, Molines, with your negotiations?”
“Madame Morens is perfectly willing to give the proposed under¬takings.”
“You are ready to swear on the crucifix that you really know the hiding-place of the casket?”
“I can swear it,” said Angelique.
“In that case, you may approach, Monsieur Carette. . . .”
A chaplain, whose lean, black figure had remained invisible behind his master’s, now stepped forward. He was holding a crucifix, on which Angelique swore that she knew the hiding-place of the casket and that she bound herself to hand it to Monsieur du Plessis after their marriage. Then Molines announced the amount of the allowance which Angelique would later grant her husband. It was a handsome figure. Angelique pulled a little grimace, but did not wince: if her business affairs continued to be sound and flourishing, she would have no difficulty in carrying out her undertakings. On the other hand, once she was the Marquise du Plessis, she would see to it that Philippe’s two estates would yield the maximum profit.
Philippe raised no objections. He affected an air of profound boredom. “Very well, Molines,” he said, concealing a yawn. “Try to settle this unpleasant affair as quickly as possible.”
The steward coughed and rubbed his hands with embarrassment.
“There is one more clause, Your Lordship, which Madame Morens, here present, has asked me to include in the contract. It’s this: the financial
conditions will take effect only if the marriage is consummated."
It seemed to take Philippe a few moments to understand, then his face flushed crimson.
“Oh, really!" he said, “oh, really! . . ."
He seemed at such a loss for words that Angelique had that strange feel¬ing of pity and tenderness for him which he sometimes inspired in her.
“That is the last straw!" he breathed at last. “Immodesty joined to impudence!"
He was now white with rage.
“And can you tell me, Molines, how I am to prove to the world that I have honoured the couch of this person? By damaging the maidenhood of a harlot who has already two children and who has dragged herself through the beds of all the musketeers and financiers of the kingdom? . . . By presenting myself before a court of law like that fool Langey who had to try to prove his virility in the presence of ten witnesses?1 Has Madame Morens notified the witnesses who are to attend the ceremony?"
Molines made a pacifying gesture with both hands.
“I cannot see, Your Lordship, why this clause should put you in such a state. In fact, the clause is, if I may be allowed to say so, as . . . interest¬ing for you as it is for your future spouse. Consider that if, in a fit of ill- temper or out of an understandable grievance, you were to neglect your conjugal duties, Madame Morens would be entitled to claim, in a few months* time, the annulment of the marriage and drag you into a ridiculous and costly lawsuit. I am a member of the Reformed religion, but I think I know that the non-consummation of a marriage is one of the causes of annulment recognised by the Church. Is that not so, Monsieur le Cure?**
“Quite so, Monsieur Molines, the Christian and Catholic marriage has but a single aim: procreation.**
“So there!** the steward said softly. Angelique, who knew him well, was the only one who detected his irony. “As for proof of your good intentions,** he went on with a slyly ingratiating manner, “I think the best proof will be for your wife to present you quickly with an heir.*’
Philippe turned towards Angelique, who, during this conversation, had tried to remain impassive. However, when he looked at her, she could not help raising her eyes towards him. The hard expression on the beautiful face caused her an involuntary shiver, which was not one of pleasure.
“All right, it*s agreed,** Philippe said slowly, while a cruel smile stretched his lips. “We shall do the necessary, Molines, we shall do the necessary. . . .**
• • • • •
1 An allusion to a divorce-court action of the period.
761
At the outset, Philippe had told her that the wedding would take place at Plessis. He did not care to surround the ceremony with any pomp. This suited Angelique perfectly, for it enabled her to retrieve the famous casket without having to take any steps that might have attracted attention. At times she felt a sudden cold sweat at the thought that the casket might perhaps no longer be in the same spot, in the sham turret of the chateau. Someone might have discovered it. But the thing was unlikely. Who would have thought of crawling along an eave hardly wide enough for a child for the purpose of peeping inside such an insignificant-looking little turret? She also knew that during the past years the Chateau du Plessis had not been rebuilt in any way. There was every chance, therefore, d ;t she could retrieve the stake of her triumph. At the very hour of her wedding she would be able to hand it to Philippe.
The preparations for the departure for Poitou were frantic. Florimond and Cantor would be taken along, as well as the whole household: Barbe, Flipot, the dogs, the monkey and the parrots. Philippe’s suite would follow separately.
Philippe himself affected an air of aloofness from all this to-do. He continued to rush to all the fetes and Court receptions. When anybody alluded to his impending marriage, he would raise his eyebrows with an air of astonishment, and then exclaim in a disdainful, supercilious tone: “Why, yes! Indeed!”
During the past week Angelique had not seen him once. In brief notes, transmitted by Molines, he dictated his orders to her. She was to leave on such and such a date. He would meet her on such and such a day. He would arrive with the abbe and Molines. The wedding would take place at once.
Angelique obeyed like a docile wife. She’d see later about making this greenhorn change his tone. After all, she was bringing him a fortune and she had not broken his heart by separating him from that Lamoignon girl. She would make him see that, even though she had been obliged to act somewhat brutally, this business none the less suited the interests of both of them and that his continued sulking was ridiculous.
At once relieved and disappointed at not seeing him, Angelique tried hard not to think too much of her ‘fiance’. The ‘Philippe problem’ was a thorn-prick amidst her happiness, and when she thought of it, she realised that she was afraid. So it was better not to think of it.
In less than three days the carriages covered the distance between Paris and Poitiers. The roads were quite bad, hollowed out by the spring rains, but there were no accidents, except for a broken axle just outside Poitiers.
The travellers stayed in the city for twenty-four hours. Two days later, in the morning, Ang£lique began to recognise her whereabouts. They were not far from Monteloup. She had to make an effort not to run straight home, but the children were tired and dirty. They had slept the night before in a filthy inn, infested with fleas and rats. To find the least com¬fort, they had to reach Plessis.
With one arm around the shoulders of her two little boys, Ang£lique breathed with delight the pure air of the flowering countryside. She wondered how she could have lived for so many years in a city like Paris. She gave shouts of joy and named the hamlets they were passing through, а Л of which recalled to her mind some incident from her childhood. For days, she had been giving her sons detailed descriptions of Monteloup and the wonderful games one could play there. Florimond and Cantor knew all about the underground passage which used to serve her as a witch’s cave, and about the loft with its enchanted nooks and crannies.
At last Plessis looked up in the distance, white and mysterious on the edge of its pool. To Angelique, who had meanwhile known the sumptuous abodes and palaces of Paris, it seemed smaller than the image engraved in her memory. A few servants presented themselves. Despite the abandon in which the lords of Plessis had left their distant country chateau, it was, thanks to Molines’s care, in a good state of repair. A courier, dispatched a week before, had had the windows opened, and the fresh smell of wax polish vied with the mustiness lurking in the tapestries. But Angelique did not experience the pleasure she had counted on. Her sensations seemed dulled. What she needed, perhaps, was to burst into tears or begin to dance, and shout, and kiss Florimond and Cantor. Unable to indulge in any such frenzy, she felt as if her heart were dead. Unable to bear the excessive emotion of this return, she was so overwhelmed that she failed to have any reaction whatever.
She inquired about the quarters where her children could rest, attended to their settling-in herself and left them only after having seen them washed and clothed in clean, quilted jackets and seated before a light meal of milk and cakes.
Then she asked to be shown to the room in the north wing which she had ordered to be prepared for her, the room of the Prince de СоЫё.
She had still to accept Javotte’s services and to reply to the greetings of the two footmen who were bringing tubs of boiling water into the adjacent bathroom. Absent-mindedly, she replied to their poor French in their dialect. They gaped with surprise on hearing this great lady from Paris, whose clothes must have seemed to them extravagant, express herself in their tongue as if she had learned it in her cradle.
“But I have!” Angflique told them, laughing. “Don’t you recognise me? I am Ang£lique de Sance. And you, Guillot, I remember that you are from the village of Maubuis, near Monteloup.”
The man called Guillot, with whom she had formerly gone on black¬berry- and sour-cherry-picking sprees on lovely summer days, gave an ecstatic smile.
“So it’s you, Madame, who married our master?”
“It is indeed.”
“Well, that will give great pleasure all round. We were rather wondering about who was the new mistress.”
So the village people hadn’t even been informed. Or rather they had been misinformed, for they thought she was already married.
“Pity you didn’t wait till you got here,” Guillot continued, nodding his hairy head. “There’d have been such a fine wedding!”
Angelique dared not give Philippe the lie by telling this clumsy oaf Guillot that the wedding would indeed be held at Plessis and that she, for her part, was looking forward to celebrations which would enable her to meet the whole countryside again.
“There’ll be feasts all the same,” she promised.
Then she rather hurried Javotte in undressing her. When the little lady’s-maid had retired, Angelique, wrapped in her silken dressing-gown, went to stand in the middle of the room.
The setting had not changed in over ten years. But Angelique no longer saw it with the dazzled eyes of a little girl. She thought the heavy, blackwood furniture of Dutch style and the massive four-poster fright¬fully old-fashioned.
The young woman walked over to the window and opened it. She stood appalled when she perceived how narrow the sill was on which she had once climbed so nimbly.
eI have become too fat, I’ll never be able to crawl to the turret,’ she thought with distress.
Generally, people raved of her slender figure. . . . Angelique that evening realised with bitterness the relentless march of time. Not only was she no longer light enough, but she lacked the agility and simply ran the risk of breaking her neck. Finally she made up her mind to call Javotte back.
“Javotte, my child, you are slim, small and as supple as a reed. Try to climb on to this sill and get to that comer turret. And try not to fall!” >
“Yes, Madame,” answered Javotte, who would have squeezed through the eye of a needle to please her mistress.
Leaning out of the window, Ang61ique anxiously followed the girl’s progress along the eaves-gutter.
“Look inside the turret. Do you see something there?”
“I see something dark, a box,” Javotte promptly replied.
Ang^ique closed her eyes and had to lean against die casement.
“That’s right. Take it and bring it back to me carefully.”
A few moments later, Angelique held in her hands the casket of the monk Exili. A layer of earth caked by the dampness covered it. But it was of sandalwood, and neither animals nor mould had been able to invade it.
“Go now,” said AngHique to Javotte in a toneless voice. “And don’t talk to anyone of what you’ve just done. If you hold your tongue, I’ll give you a bonnet and a new dress.”
“Oh, Madame! Who do you think I’d talk to?” Javotte protested. “I don’t even understand the language of these people.”
Angelique cleaned the casket. She had some difficulty in working the rusty spring-lock. At last the lid sprang open, and on the bed of leaves appeared the emerald-hued poison-phial. After gazing at it, she closed the casket again. Where was she going to hide it pending Philippe’s arrival and the moment of handing it to him in exchange for the wedding-ring? She slipped it into the writing-desk from which she had removed it so irresponsibly fifteen years before. ‘If only I’d known !* she said to herself.
When the key to the desk was well concealed inside her bodice, she looked around with despair. This place had caused her nothing but grief. On account of the petty theft she had committed, Joffrey, her only love, had been condemned, and their life destroyed! . . .
She forced herself to lie down. But as soon as the chirruping of young voices on the lawns had told her that her children were up, she went down to them and, together with Barbe, Javotte, and Flipot, bundled them into an old cart, which she drove herself. And they were all gaily off to Monteloup.
The sun was setting and shedding saffron beams on the wide green fields where the mules were grazing. The draining of the moors had transformed the landscape. The realm of the waterways under their verdant arches seemed to have shrunk back farther to the west.
But as they passed over the drawbridge, where the turkeys were preen¬ing themselves as in the old days, Angёlique could see that the castle of her childhood had not changed. The Baron de Sance, despite the relative affluence he now enjoyed, had not made all the repairs that the decrepit old building needed. The dungeon, and the ramparts with their battlements, were still crumbling under their coat of ivy, and the main entrance still passed through the kitchen.
They found the old Baron beside Fantine, who was peeling onions. The nurse was still as tall and lively as ever, but she had lost her teeth, and her snow-white hair made her face look as brown as that of a Moorish woman.
Was it a delusion? It seemed to Angclique as if there was something a little constrained in the joy with which her father and the old woman welcomed her. They had grieved for her, no doubt, but the fabric of life had gone on weaving without her, and now room had to be made for her afresh.
The presence of Florimond and Cantor dispelled the awkwardness. The nurse wept as she clasped ‘those beautiful darlings’ against her heart. Three minutes had not passed before the children had red cheeks from her kisses, and their hands full of apples and nuts. Cantor, who had climbed on to the table, was singing his entire repertoire.
“Does the little old lady of Monteloup, the ghost, still walk?” asked Angclique.
“I haven’t seen her for a long time,” said the nurse, shaking her head. “Ever since Jean-Marie, the last of the family, went away to college, she has not appeared again. I always thought she was looking for a child. . . .”
In the dark hall Aunt Jeanne still reigned in front of her tapestry- loom, like a fat, black spider in the centre of her web.
“She can’t hear any more and her brain is unhinged,” the Baron explained.
However, after staring at Angclique, the old woman asked in a croak¬ing voice:
“Has the Lame Man come back, too? I thought he’d been burned?”
That was the only allusion anyone made at Monteloup to Angclique’s first marriage. They seemed to prefer to leave that part of her life in shadow. For that matter, the old Baron did not seem to be asking himself many questions. As his children went away, got married, came back or didn’t, he got them a little mixed up in his mind. He talked a lot of Denis, the officer, and of Jean-Marie, the last-bom. He did not give any thought to Hortense and manifestly had no idea what had become of Gontran. As a matter of fact, his chief topic of conversation was still his mules.
When Angelique had been all through the castle, she felt more cheerful. Monteloup had stayed as it was. Everything there was still a little melan-choly, a little shabby, but so cordial! *
She exulted to see her children settle down in the kitchen just as if they had been bom there amid the steam of cabbage soup and Fantine’s tales.
They begged to be allowed to stay for supper and to sleep there. But Angelique took them back to Plessis, for she feared Philippe’s arrival and wanted to be there to receive him.
Next day, as no courier had yet come to announce him, she returned alone to her father’s. She walked all over the estate with him, and he showed her all his new arrangements.
It was a lovely, fragrant afternoon. Angelique felt like singing. When they had finished their stroll, the Baron suddenly stopped and began to look at his daughter attentively. Then he gave a sigh.
“So you’ve come back, Angelique?” he said.
He put his hand on the young woman’s shoulder and repeated over and over again, with eyes wet with tears:
“Angflique, my daughter Angelique! . .
She answered, deeply moved:
“I have come back, Father, and we’ll be able to see each other often. You know that there’s going to be my wedding with Philippe du Plessis- ВсШёге, for which you have sent me your consent.”
“But I thought the wedding had already taken place?” he said, astonished.
Angelique compressed her lips and said nothing further. What were Philippe’s intentions in making the village people and even her own family believe that the marriage had been celebrated in Paris? . . .