Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

M Lescalle resolved in his own mind to make light of the
matter until more was known on the subject, MI with a shrug lie
said "My idea is that Madame Lescalle lias planned a little
practical joke in order to have the pleasure of assembling us nil
at Belbousquet, which she has been dying to show to .Madame
la ComtesM'. "
Madame dc Vedelles 1
face showed how little she could accept
that, supposition. The old Count's brow darkened, ami he sat
wuh a curled lip and an expression of deep displeasure, which
made Jacques ^b up to him and say, after reading Madame Les-
calle's note:
" I have no doubt as to what has happened. The young peo-
ple have had some little dispute. Madame Lescalle, naturally
enough, has taken her daughter's part and a tragical view of the
matter. Mothers fire up easily on such matters, don't they,
madamef " he said, going up to his mother, and putting his arm
round her
"
waist. Now, I really think the best thing will be to
accept. M id.im Lescalle.'s rendezvous, and post off as fast as we
can to-morrow to meet her and our young couple. Is not that
your opinion, M. Lescalle?"
'
Indeed, I quite agree with you, M. Jacques. My wife, in-
comparable as a wife and mother, has one only defect, and that
is to fly into a passion on trifling occasions. She goes off like a
rocket, and out again just as fast. I need not say,"added the lit-
tle man. drawing himself up, "that if M. George de Vedelles
"
kas insulted or ill-treated my daughter
"
If such were the case," the Count interrupted, " which I cannot
and will not believe, you could not be more indignant or more
ready to take her part than myself."
Drawing Jacques aside, he added in a low voice, "Would
to God I felt sure that such had not been the case. One can
never foresee
to do."
what that wretched boy may take it into his head
"I am not a bit alarmed," Jacques answered in the same tone.
"It is a child's quarrel, if quarrel there has been; and perhaps, af-
ter all, as Lescalle said, it may be only a bad joke."
Then he soothed his mother, and persuaded her to go to bed,
and arranged with M. Lescalle that a calcche and post horses
should be at the door at an early hour in the morning, that they
would go straight to Belbousquet, and thence late in the evening
to La Pinede. Then he smoked his cigar under the trees, and
said to himself:
"
If these foolish children should have quarreled, and a feud
arise in consequence between the de Vedelles and the Lescalles,
what a marvellous piece of luck it is that my election is an accom-
pliihed fact."
To return to Madame Lescalle. On that eventful day, when
she had sent by a special messenger a most unwonted piece of
extravagance, justified in her opinion by the necessity of speedy
action the two letters which were doomed to disturb the night's
repose of the travelers at Draguignan, she had undergone a
great revolution of mind.
Thereson, freed by her young mistress' absence from the domestif
duties at Belbousquet,
walked to La Ciotat. There,
had locked up the pavilion, and
at last, in the store-room, where
she found Madame Lescalle, she had been able to relieve her
heart by giving a free scope to her tongue. We need not repeat
all she said to that lady. It can be easily guessed in what high
colors she painted all she had heard and overheard during the
and how her hatred of George de Vedelles made her
describe his conduct not only as it must naturally have appeared
to her, odious, but positively brutal. If he was not mad, she
d be must be wicked, and if he was not wicked, he must
be mad. In any case, she could not keep silence any longer,
and now that he had abandoned his wife
lamloned Rose!
exclaimed.
What do you mean?" Madame Lescalle
"
Did not Mise Rose inform madame that M. le Baron left
lisquel
bi-t week, and that she has been there alone ever
'ha' is to say, she was alone till last Saturday, when .Mise
M Me came to \vii
staj
h her.
,d lieriveii-;' ;iiid \\Iiy was I not toUl of this? I shall go
THK XVTARY'U DAL'H UTKlt.
at once, and inquire into the matter. Get me my shawl and
bonnet, order the dunke\
"
.Madame must take the keys with her then. I brought them
with me. Mise .Mede and Mi-e Kci~i-%w-nl out at daylu
Dominique's mules. They said they should pe
day or two."
"My goodness! what does all this mean? Everybody!
mad, I think, Aunt Mede among the rest. Tin.
more or less insane. What is M. Lescalle about, I woi.derl
Since he has taken up the de Vedelles, I have had neither help
nor comfort from him nothing but running up mid down the
country to get that proud, impudent fellow Jacques elected a
Legitimist too a pretty sort of candidate for my husband to
put forward. Here is his letter; instead of coining home to
night, aa was expected, he stops at Drnguignan to meet the old
Count and Countess on their way back from Paris. I must write
to them all. Something must be done. Rose is as pood as un-
married now. Still she will always be the Baronne de Vedelles.
I wonder what has become of that /