style="font-size:15px;"> "Yes," said she; "yes, I know the clicking of those pattens! It is our excellent mother. M. le Vicomte, what a pity it is the window looks upon a stone pavement, and that fifty paces below it."
Raoul glanced at the balcony in despair. Louise seized his arm and held it tight.
"Oh, how silly I am!" said Montalais, "have I not the robe-of-ceremony closet? It looks as if it were made on purpose."
It was quite time to act; Madame de Saint-Remy was coming up at a quicker pace than usual. She gained the landing at the moment when Montalais, as in all scenes of surprises, shut the closet by leaning with her back against the door.
"Ah!" cried Madame de Saint-Remy, "you are here, are you, Louise?"
"Yes, madame," replied she, more pale than if she had committed a great crime.
"Well, well!"
"Pray be seated, madame," said Montalais, offering her a chair, which she placed so that the back was towards the closet.
"Thank you, Mademoiselle Aure – thank you. Come my child, be quick."
"Where do you wish me to go, madame?"
"Why, home, to be sure; have you not to prepare your toilette?"
"What did you say?" cried Montalais, hastening to affect surprise, so fearful was she that Louise would in some way commit herself.
"You don't know the news, then?" said Madame de Saint-Remy.
"What news, madame, is it possible for two girls to learn up in this dove-cote?"
"What! have you seen nobody?"
"Madame, you talk in enigmas, and you torment us at a slow fire!" cried Montalais, who, terrified at seeing Louise become paler and paler, did not know to what saint to put up her vows.
At length she caught an eloquent look of her companion's, one of those looks which would convey intelligence to a brick wall. Louise directed her attention to a hat – Raoul's unlucky hat, which was set out in all its feathery splendor upon the table.
Montalais sprang towards it, and, seizing it with her left hand, passed it behind her into the right, concealing it as she was speaking.
"Well," said Madame de Saint-Remy, "a courier has arrived, announcing the approach of the king. There, mesdemoiselles; there is something to make you put on your best looks."
"Quick, quick!" cried Montalais. "Follow Madame your mother, Louise; and leave me to get ready my dress of ceremony."
Louise arose; her mother took her by the hand, and led her out on to the landing.
"Come along," said she; then adding in a low voice, "When I forbid you to come to the apartment of Montalais, why do you do so?"
"Madame, she is my friend. Besides, I had but just come."
"Did you see nobody concealed while you were there?"
"Madame!"
"I saw a man's hat, I tell you – the hat of that fellow, that good-for-nothing!"
"Madame!" repeated Louise.
"Of that do-nothing De Malicorne! A maid of honor to have such company – fie! fie!" and their voices were lost in the depths of the narrow staircase.
Montalais had not missed a word of this conversation, which echo conveyed to her as if through a tunnel. She shrugged her shoulders on seeing Raoul, who had listened likewise, issue from the closet.
"Poor Montalais!" said she, "the victim of friendship! Poor Malicorne, the victim of love!"
She stopped on viewing the tragic-comic face of Raoul, who was vexed at having, in one day, surprised so many secrets.
"Oh, mademoiselle!" said he; "how can we repay your kindness?"
"Oh, we will balance accounts some day," said she. "For the present, begone, M. de Bragelonne, for Madame de Saint-Remy is not over indulgent; and any indiscretion on her part might bring hither a domiciliary visit, which would be disagreeable to all parties."
"But Louise – how shall I know – "
"Begone! begone! King Louis XI. knew very well what he was about when he invented the post."
"Alas!" sighed Raoul.
"And am I not here – I, who am worth all the posts in the kingdom? Quick, I say, to horse! so that if Madame de Saint-Remy should return for the purpose of preaching me a lesson on morality, she may not find you here."
"She would tell my father, would she not?" murmured Raoul.
"And you would be scolded. Ah, vicomte, it is very plain you come from court; you are as timid as the king. Peste! at Blois we contrive better than that to do without papa's consent. Ask Malicorne else!"
And at these words the girl pushed Raoul out of the room by the shoulders. He glided swiftly down to the porch, regained his horse, mounted, and set off as if he had had Monsieur's guards at his heels.
CHAPTER 4. Father and Son
Raoul followed the well-known road, so dear to his memory, which led from Blois to the residence of the Comte de la Fere.
The reader will dispense with a second description of that habitation: he, perhaps, has been with us there before, and knows it. Only, since our last journey thither, the walls had taken a grayer tint, and the brickwork assumed a more harmonious copper tone; the trees had grown, and many that then only stretched their slender branches along the tops of the hedges, now bushy, strong, and luxuriant, cast around, beneath boughs swollen with sap, great shadows of blossoms of fruit for the benefit of the traveler.
Raoul perceived, from a distance, the two little turrets, the dove-cote in the elms, and the flights of pigeons, which wheeled incessantly around that brick cone, seemingly without power to quit it, like the sweet memories which hover round a spirit at peace.
As he approached, he heard the noise of the pulleys which grated under the weight of the massy pails; he also fancied he heard the melancholy moaning of the water which falls back again into the wells – a sad, funereal, solemn sound, which strikes the ear of the child and the poet – both dreamers – which the English call splash; Arabian poets, gasgachau; and which we Frenchmen, who would be poets, can only translate by a paraphrase – the noise of water falling into water.
It was more than a year since Raoul had been to visit his father. He had passed the whole time in the household of M. le Prince. In fact, after all the commotions of the Fronde, of the early period of which we formerly attempted to give a sketch, Louis de Conde had made a public, solemn, and frank reconciliation with the court. During all the time that the rupture between the king and the prince had lasted, the prince, who had long entertained a great regard for Bragelonne, had in vain offered him advantages of the most dazzling kind for a young man. The Comte de la Fere, still faithful to his principles of loyalty and royalty, one day developed before his son in the vaults of Saint Denis, – the Comte de la Fere, in the name of his son, had always declined them. Moreover, instead of following M. de Conde in his rebellion, the vicomte had followed M. de Turenne, fighting for the king. Then when M. de Turenne, in his turn, had appeared to abandon the royal cause, he had quitted M. de Turenne, as he had quitted M. de Conde.
