CHAPTER V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
For the second time that day Andre-Louis set out for the chateau,walking briskly, and heeding not at all the curious eyes that followedhim through the village, and the whisperings that marked his passagethrough the people, all agog by now with that day's event in which hehad been an actor.
He was ushered by Benoit, the elderly body-servant, rathergrandiloquently called the seneschal, into the ground-floor room knowntraditionally as the library. It still contained several shelves ofneglected volumes, from which it derived its title, but implementsof the chase--fowling-pieces, powder-horns, hunting-bags,sheath-knives--obtruded far more prominently than those of study. Thefurniture was massive, of oak richly carved, and belonging to anotherage. Great massive oak beams crossed the rather lofty whitewashedceiling.
Here the squat Seigneur de Gavrillac was restlessly pacing whenAndre-Louis was introduced. He was already informed, as he announced atonce, of what had taken place at the Breton arme. M. de Chabrillanehad just left him, and he confessed himself deeply grieved and deeplyperplexed.
"The pity of it!" he said. "The pity of it!" He bowed his enormous head."So estimable a young man, and so full of promise. Ah, this La Tourd'Azyr is a hard man, and he feels very strongly in these matters.He may be right. I don't know. I have never killed a man for holdingdifferent views from mine. In fact, I have never killed a man at all.It isn't in my nature. I shouldn't sleep of nights if I did. But men aredifferently made."
"The question, monsieur my godfather," said Andre-Louis, "is what is tobe done." He was quite calm and self-possessed, but very white.
M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale eyes.
"Why, what the devil is there to do? From what I am told, Vilmorin wentso far as to strike M. le Marquis."
"Under the very grossest provocation."
"Which he himself provoked by his revolutionary language. The poorlad's head was full of this encyclopaedist trash. It comes of too muchreading. I have never set much store by books, Andre; and I have neverknown anything but trouble to come out of learning. It unsettles a man.It complicates his views of life, destroys the simplicity which makesfor peace of mind and happiness. Let this miserable affair be a warningto you, Andre. You are, yourself, too prone to these new-fashionedspeculations upon a different constitution of the social order. Yousee what comes of it. A fine, estimable young man, the only prop ofhis widowed mother too, forgets himself, his position, his duty to thatmother--everything; and goes and gets himself killed like this. It isinfernally sad. On my soul it is sad." He produced a handkerchief, andblew his nose with vehemence.
Andre-Louis felt a tightening of his heart, a lessening of the hopes,never too sanguine, which he had founded upon his godfather.
"Your criticisms," he said, "are all for the conduct of the dead, andnone for that of the murderer. It does not seem possible that you shouldbe in sympathy with such a crime."
"Crime?" shrilled M. de Kercadiou. "My God, boy, you are speaking of M.de La Tour d'Azyr."
"I am, and of the abominable murder he has committed..."
"Stop!" M. de Kercadiou was very emphatic. "I cannot permit that youapply such terms to him. I cannot permit it. M. le Marquis is my friend,and is likely very soon to stand in a still closer relationship."
"Notwithstanding this?" asked Andre-Louis.
M. de Kercadiou was frankly impatient.
"Why, what has this to do with it? I may deplore it. But I have noright to condemn it. It is a common way of adjusting differences betweengentlemen."
"You really believe that?"
"What the devil do you imply, Andre? Should I say a thing that I don'tbelieve? You begin to make me angry."
"'Thou shalt not kill,' is the King's law as well as God's."
"You are determined to quarrel with me, I think. It was a duel..."
Andre-Louis interrupted him. "It is no more a duel than if it had beenfought with pistols of which only M. le Marquis's was loaded. He invitedPhilippe to discuss the matter further, with the deliberate intent offorcing a quarrel upon him and killing him. Be patient with me, monsieurmy god-father. I am not telling you of what I imagine but what M. leMarquis himself admitted to me."
Dominated a little by the young man's earnestness, M. de Kercadiou'spale eyes fell away. He turned with a shrug, and sauntered over to thewindow.
"It would need a court of honour to decide such an issue. And we have nocourts of honour," he said.
"But we have courts of justice."
With returning testiness the seigneur swung round to face him again."And what court of justice, do you think, would listen to such a plea asyou appear to have in mind?"
"There is the court of the King's Lieutenant at Rennes."
"And do you think the King's Lieutenant would listen to you?"
"Not to me, perhaps, Monsieur. But if you were to bring the plaint..."
"I bring the plaint?" M. de Kercadiou's pale eyes were wide with horrorof the suggestion.
"The thing happened here on your domain."
"I bring a plaint against M. de La Tour d'Azyr! You are out of yoursenses, I think. Oh, you are mad; as mad as that poor friend of yourswho has come to this end through meddling in what did not concern him.The language he used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey wasof the most offensive. Perhaps you didn't know that. It does not at allsurprise me that the Marquis should have desired satisfaction."
"I see," said Andre-Louis, on a note of hopelessness.
"You see? What the devil do you see?"
"That I shall have to depend upon myself alone."
"And what the devil do you propose to do, if you please?"
"I shall go to Rennes, and lay the facts before the King's Lieutenant."
"He'll be too busy to see you." And M. de Kercadiou's mind swung atrifle inconsequently, as weak minds will. "There is trouble enough inRennes already on the score of these crazy States General, with whichthe wonderful M. Necker is to repair the finances of the kingdom. Asif a peddling Swiss bank-clerk, who is also a damned Protestant, couldsucceed where such men as Calonne and Brienne have failed."
"Good-afternoon, monsieur my godfather," said Andre-Louis.
"Where are you going?" was the querulous demand.
"Home at present. To Rennes in the morning."
"Wait, boy, wait!" The squat little man rolled forward, affectionateconcern on his great ugly face, and he set one of his podgy hands onhis godson's shoulder. "Now listen to me, Andre," he reasoned. "This issheer knight-errantry--moonshine, lunacy. You'll come to no good by it ifyou persist. You've read 'Don Quixote,' and what happened to him whenhe went tilting against windmills. It's what will happen to you, neithermore nor less. Leave things as they are, my boy. I wouldn't have amischief happen to you."
Andre-Louis looked at him, smiling wanly.
"I swore an oath to-day which it would damn my soul to break."
"You mean that you'll go in spite of anything that I may say?" Impetuousas he was inconsequent, M. de Kercadiou was bristling again. "Very well,then, go... Go to the devil!"
"I will begin with the King's Lieutenant."
"And if you get into the trouble you are seeking, don't come whimperingto me for assistance," the seigneur stormed. He was very angry now."Since you choose to disobey me, you can break your empty head againstthe windmill, and be damned to you."
Andre-Louis bowed with a touch of irony, and reached the door.
"If the windmill should prove too formidable," said he, from thethreshold, "I may see what can be done with the wind. Good-bye, monsieurmy godfather."
He was gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face, puzzlingout that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in his mind,either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He wasdisposed to be angry with them both. He found these headstrong, wilfulmen who relentlessly followed their own impulses very disturbing andirritating. Himself he loved his ease, and to be at peace with hisneighbours; and
that seemed to him so obviously the supreme good of lifethat he was disposed to brand them as fools who troubled to seek otherthings.