Читать книгу High Towers - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 15

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While Charles and the man from France discussed the future the two youngest brothers had been circulating among the guests. Gabriel made no effort to conceal the fact that he was annoyed at the way the tenants and their families were invading the interior of the château. He called the attention of Little Antoine, the baby of the family, who would be fourteen in a few days and was already close to six feet tall, to the fact that they had taken possession of the puits-de-margelle in the center of the grass plot and were hauling up buckets of water from it to quench their thirst and lave their faces.

“Something should be done about this,” he grumbled.

Little Antoine did not share his brother’s feeling. “I see nothing wrong in what they’re doing,” he declared. “They’re here to welcome Pierre and they are guests of the house. Pierre will thump all of them on the back and call them by their first names. They’ll worship him more than ever. See how happy they are, D’Assigny,” giving Gabriel his title, a formality on which the latter sternly and unbendingly insisted. “They are all dressed up for the occasion.”

They were indeed all dressed up. The men were wearing their long-tailed blue coats, which marked them as being of the Montreal district (in Quebec men wore red and in Three Rivers white), and they had hats of straw instead of the habitual brimless bonnets of their working-days. The women were even more festive. Their usual cloth bodices and short skirts had been replaced by light gowns of gay colors with Basque bodices. Their hair showed signs of the hasty use of curling irons and on the cheeks of all the young women could be detected a furtive dash of rouge.

“Why do they ape their betters in this way?” demanded Gabriel in an indignant undertone.

He himself had spared no pains to look well for the occasion. He had donned a long coat (not for him the old-fashioned pourpoint or doublet) of light blue with turned-up cuffs. Under it he wore brelettes, as the first suspenders were called, of a violent purple shade, to hold his buff breeches in place. His hat was made of goat-hair felt, with ribbon around the brim, a kind which had been all the rage in Paris for some years and had at last reached the colony. He kept his hand on his hip in the approved manner as he scornfully surveyed the people milling about the central yard. On the point of indulging in more criticism, his eyes (which were quite handsome and could be good-natured when he forgot how important it was to be a Le Moyne) lighted up suddenly and his upper lip curled in amusement.

“Look at Babette Carré!” he said to his brother with a splutter of amusement. “That little dondon has certainly grown herself a well-rounded behind! Look at the swing she gives herself. Donc-donc! She even has a beauty patch at the corner of her eye. That’s called enflammé, but of course you’re too young to know about such things.”

Little Antoine took no interest whatever in such matters. “Have you heard, D’Assigny,” he asked, “that Jean-Baptiste’s widow is being sent back to France?”

Gabriel swung around with a gleam of the most intense interest in his eyes. “St. Fiacre!” he exclaimed. “I can see the work of the Machiavellian head of the family in this. Charles, the archconniver, has been up to his tricks. But tell me, Antoine, how does the Ulysses of the family, the wise and talented Jean-Baptiste, take it?”

The youngest member of the family was taking the news in a more sympathetic frame of mind. “I’m afraid he’s very unhappy about it. And yet I saw him just a few minutes ago and he didn’t seem to be concerned then. I heard a great noise coming from that empty room in the south-east tower and I thought a quarrel was going on. I ran up the stairs to see what it was. It was Jean-Baptiste, and he was all alone! He had taken Father’s sword—the one with the silver hilt, no less—and he was making passes at the wall. He’d stripped off everything but his shirt and hose and he was jumping about as though he had a dozen Indians in front of him.”

Gabriel’s face became very angry. “I understand about this——” he began.

“I asked him what he was doing and he stopped and said he was getting his hand in. He seemed excited about something.”

“I know what he was excited about!” exclaimed Gabriel sharply. “Charles has given in. He’s promised De Bienville he can go on this expedition. It’s to make up to him for losing his lovely young widow. That’s it, or may my scalp hang at an Iroquois belt! And what did Charles say to me when I told him I wanted to go? He said—and I’m giving you his exact words—he said I was a mere boy!”

“I’m glad Jean-Baptiste is to go with Pierre,” said Antoine. “His heart has been set on it ever since he came back from the navy.”

“There’s Old Moneybags now,” said Gabriel in a sulky tone. “Apparently he’s through conspiring for this and that with the great Monsieur de Mariat. I wonder what they were talking about so long? Antoine, who’s that little shive Charles is talking to?”

“That’s Philippe. The builder’s apprentice. He’s a nice boy.”

“But why is Charles talking to him? Is he just playing the gracious seigneur and having a kind word to say to each and every one? Let’s go over, Little Antoine.”

When the two younger brothers arrived within earshot Charles was asking, “Won’t your master be here today?”

The boy shook his head uneasily. “He felt he shouldn’t spare the time, M’sieur Charles. We’re behind with the sawmill.”

The seigneur looked surprised and very much displeased. “Do you mean it won’t be finished at the promised time?”

Philippe swallowed nervously. “It’s not for me to say, M’sieur Charles. But—there’s no chance of that.”

Charles le Moyne flushed angrily. “Then I’m not surprised the old poltron was afraid to show his face here. Well, I’ll pay a visit to this elusive M’sieur Girard and I doubt if he’ll ever forget the things I’ll say to him!”

The boy swallowed again, with mounting nervousness. “If you saw my master he might tell you the mill would be finished on time. But, M’sieur Charles, that’s impossible.”

“Then why would your master say so?”

“Because he——” The boy stopped. He was far beyond his depth now and reluctant to go further. Then he flushed and said in a resolute tone: “He will be angry enough to skin me alive for saying this but—it’s the truth, M’sieur Charles, that my master’s afraid of you. When he talks to you he always says, ‘Yes, M’sieur Charles, yes, M’sieur Charles,’ when what he should be saying is, ‘No, M’sieur Charles.’ He would say the mill would be finished on time because he wouldn’t want you to be disappointed.”

The seigneur began to laugh. “Why in the name of the good St. Joseph won’t it be finished?”

“Because, m’sieur, you’re not often at the château. Advantage is taken of my master. Always there are things for him to do. He must fix this, he must drop everything and do something else. And then the supplies we need never come.”

“Is it my fault that what we write for does not always come out in the ships?”

“No, M’sieur Charles, but it isn’t my master’s fault that he can’t finish the mill without them.”

Charles shook his head. “You should be training for a lawyer instead of a carpenter. How well you plead the cause of that master of yours!” His manner changed suddenly and he started to frown. “I should go to that doddering old rack of senility and give him the dandling he deserves but because you’ve spoken up so manfully for him I’ll be patient with him. At the same time you’ve set a toad of remorse hopping in my own conscience. I should be here oftener. There’s a saying in Normandy, ‘When the owner’s away, the crops are poor.’ ” He looked down at Philippe and smiled. “Do you like the building trade?”

“Yes, M’sieur Charles. But I’m afraid I learn very slowly. My master isn’t pleased with me.”

“Don’t allow that to disturb you. Your master has been dissatisfied all his life. The world is a persimmon and it has set his teeth on edge. And now, Philippe, you may tell your master this. There will be no more demands on his time from my servants here. I shall endeavor to locate supplies for him in Montreal. I’ll give him a month more to finish the mill and if he doesn’t succeed he had better pick out a high tree to hang himself on!”

“I will tell him, M’sieur Charles.”

“Tell him this also, that if he blames you for letting me have the truth, or because you left your work today, he had better find that tall tree. You must stay all day, Philippe, on my special invitation.”

The two younger brothers, who had hovered on the edge of the conversation, began to follow the seigneur to another part of the grounds. “Charles,” said Gabriel, “that’s a very impudent boy.”

Charles stopped and smiled at the dignified young Sieur d’Assigny. “Is that your considered opinion, Gabriel? You’re such a good judge that I like to know what you think.”

This pleased Gabriel very much. “He has no right to be here without his master’s consent,” he stated. “And he talked to you like an equal. He needs to be taught some lessons, that one.”

The seigneur then asked the youngest of the family, “And what do you think, Antoine?”

Antoine spoke up stoutly. “I like Philippe. And I think it was brave of him to speak to you like that.”

The seigneur nodded his head emphatically. “That’s what I hoped you would say. Gabriel, you’re quite wrong about this boy. He’s a good boy. He showed spirit and a great deal of intelligence. I’m going to keep an eye on that young fellow from now on.”