"Can you blame them?" She made a light gesture. "Obligations, _mon pere_, are so tiresome!"
"Well, well," hastily, "have your own way!" Although he spoke rather shortly, on the whole he was not displeased with his daughter; her betrothal with the Marquis de Beauvillers, a n.o.bleman of large estates,--arranged while she was yet a child!--promised a brilliant marriage and in a measure offered to his Excellency some compensation for that old and long-cherished disappointment--the birth of a girl when his ambition had looked so strongly for an heir to his name as well as to his estate.
And so my lady and her guests danced and made merry on the sands below, and the people came out from the mainland, or down from the houses in the town at the base of the rock, to watch. A varied a.s.semblage of gaunt-looking men and bent, low-browed women, for the most part they stood sullen and silent; though exchanging meaning glances now and then as if to say: "Do you note all this ostentation--all this glitter and display? Yes; and some day--" Upon brooding brows, in deep-set eyes, on furrowed faces a question and an answer seemed to gleam and pa.s.s.
Endowed with natural optimism and a vivacity somewhat heedless, my lady appeared unconscious of all this latent enmity until an unlooked-for incident, justifying in a measure the Governor"s demur, broke in upon the evening"s festivities and claimed her attention.
On the beach, lighted by torches, a dainty minuet was proceeding gaily, when through the throng of onlookers, a young man with dark head set on a frame tall and powerful, worked his way carefully to a point where he was afforded at least a restricted view of the animated spectacle.
Absorbed each in his or her way in the scene before them, no one noticed him, and, with hat drawn over his brow, and standing in the shadow of the towering head-dresses of several peasant women, he seemed content to attract as little attention to himself as possible. His look, at first quick and alert, that of a man taking stock of his surroundings, suddenly became intent and piercing, as, pa.s.sing in survey over the lowly spectators to the glittering company, it centered itself on the young mistress of festivities.
In costume white and shining, the Lady Elise moved through the graceful numbers, her slender supple figure now poised, now swaying, from head to foot responsive to the rhythm of that "pastime of little steps."
Her lips, too, were busy, but such was the witchery of her motion--all fire and life!--the silk-stockinged cavaliers whom she thus regaled with wit, mockery, or jest, could, for the most part, respond only with admiring glances or weakly protesting words.
"That pretty fellow, her partner," with a contemptuous accent on the adjective, "is the Marquis de Beauvillers, a kinsman of the King!" said one of the women in the throng.
"_Ma foi_! They"re well matched. A dancing doll for a popinjay!"
The young man behind the head-dresses, now nodding viciously, moved nearer the front. Dressed in the rough though not unpicturesque fashion of the northern fisherman, a touch of color in his apparel lent to his bearing a note of romance the bold expression of his swarthy face did not belie. For a few moments he watched the girl; the changing eyes and lips, shadowed by hair that shone and flashed like bright burnished gold; then catching her gaze, the black eyes gleamed.
An instant their eyes lingered; hers startled, puzzled.
"Where have I seen him?" My lady, in turning, paused to swing over her shoulders a glance.
"Whom?" asked her companion in the dance--a fair, handsome n.o.bleman of slim figure and elegant bearing.
"That"s just what I can"t tell you," she answered, sweeping a courtesy that fitted the rhythm of the music. "Only a face I should remember!"
"Should?" The Marquis" look followed hers.
But the subject of their conversation, as if divining the trend of their talk, had drawn back.
"Oh, he is gone now," she answered.
"A malcontent, perhaps! One meets them nowadays."
"No, no! He did not look--"
"Some poor fellow, then, your beauty has entrapped?" he insinuated.
"Humble admirer!"
"Then I would remember him!" she laughed as the dance came to an end.
Now in a tented pavilion, servants, richly garbed in festal costume, pa.s.sed among the guests, circulating trays, bright with golden dishes and goblets, stamped with the ancient insignia of the Mount, and once the property of the affluent monks, early rulers of the place. Other attendants followed, bearing light delicacies, confections and marvelous frosted towers and structures from the castle kitchen.
"The patron saint in sugar!" Merry exclamations greeted these examples of skill and cunning. "Are we to devour the saint?"
"Ah, no; he is only to look at!"
"But the Mount in cake--?"
"You may cut into that--though beware!--not so deep as the dungeons!"
"A piece of the cloister!"
"A bit of the abbey!"
"And you, Elise?"
The girl reached gaily. "A little of the froth of the sea!"
Meanwhile, not far distant, a barrel had been broached and wine was being circulated among the people. There, master of ceremonies, Beppo dispensed advice with the beverage, his grumbling talk heard above the light laughter and chatter of the lords and ladies.
"Drink to his Excellency!" As he spoke, the Governor"s man, from the elevated stand upon which he stood, gazed arrogantly around him.
"Clods! Sponges that sop without a word of thanks! Who only think of your stomachs! Drink to the Governor, I say!"
"To the Governor!" exclaimed a few, but it might have been noticed they were men from the town, directly beneath the shadow of his Excellency"s castle, and now close within reach of the fat factotum"s arm.
"Once more! Had I the ordering of wine, the barrels would all be empty ones, but her ladyship would be generous, and--"
Beppo broke abruptly off, his wandering glance, on a sudden, arrested.
"_Hein!_" he exclaimed, with eyes protruding.
A moment he stammered a few words of surprise and incredulity, the while he continued to search eagerly--but now in vain! The object of his startled attention, illumined, for an instant, on the outskirts of the throng, by the glare of a torch, was no more to be descried. As questioning the reality of a fleeting impression, his gaze fixed itself again near the edge of flickering lights; shifted uncertainly to the pavilion where servants from the Mount hurried to and fro; then back to the people around him. His jaw which had dropped grew suddenly firm.
"Clear a s.p.a.ce for the dance!" he called out in tones impatient, excited. "It is her ladyship"s command--so see you step blithely! And you fellows there, with the _tambourin_ and _hautbois_, come forward!"
Two men, clad in sheepskin and carrying rude instruments, obediently advanced, and at once, in marked contrast to the recent tinkling measures of the orchestra, a wild, half-barbaric concord rang out.
But the Governor"s man, having thus far executed the orders he had received, did not linger to see whether or not his own injunction, "to step blithely," was observed; some concern, remote from _gaillarde_, _gavotte_ or _bourree_ of the people, caused him hastily to dismount from his stand and make his way from the throng. As he started at a rapid pace across the sands, his eyes, now shining with antic.i.p.ation, looked back.
"What could have brought him here? Him!" he repeated. "Ah, my fine fellow, this should prove a lucky stroke for me!" And quickening his step, until he almost ran, Beppo hurried toward the tower gate of the Mount.
CHAPTER V
AN INTERRUPTION
"They seem not to appreciate your _fete champetre_, my Lady!" At the verge of the group of peasant dancers, the Lady Elise and the Marquis de Beauvillers, who had left the other guests to the enjoyment of fresh culinary surprises, paused to survey a scene, intended, yet failing, to be festal. For whether these people were too sodden to avail themselves of the opportunity for merrymaking, or liked not the notion of tripping together at Beppo"s command, their movements, which should have been free and untrammeled as the vigorous swing of the music, were characterized only by painful monotony and lagging. In the half-gloom they came together like shadows; separated aimlessly and cast misshapen silhouettes--caricatures of frolicking peasants--on the broad surface of the sands beyond. These bobbing, black spots my lady disapprovingly regarded.
"They seem not in the mood, truly!" tapping her foot on the beach.
"Here--and elsewhere!" he laughed.
But the Governor"s daughter made an impatient movement; memories of the dance, as she had often seen it, when she was a child at the Mount, recurred to her. "They seem to have forgotten!" Her eyes flashed. "I should like to show them."
"You? My Lady!"