When she had borne her child, he meant of course to carry out his bargain with brown Janicot,—a bargain that Florian considered an entirely private matter, and an affair with which Hoprig could not meddle without exhibiting absolute ill breeding. Then Melior would disappear, Florian did not know whither, to be sure, but her destination would be none of his selecting or responsibility. A really logical ring would not call that contriving any harm against Melior. Even Holy Hoprig must be reasonable enough to see that much. So Florian for the while put aside his foreboding, and assured himself that, with anything like fair luck, he was on the point of getting rid of this dreadful woman forever. The reflection spurred him to eloquence and to the kindliness which Florian had always felt to be due his wives in their last hours.
22. The Wives of Florian
FLORIAN watched his Melior with a not unnatural care. She remained, to the eye, unperturbed, and was her usual maddening self throughout the evening: it seemed to him she must inevitably have noticed the changing of her ring; and in that event, he granted the woman’s duplicity at least to be rather magnificent.
For Melior talked, on and on and on,—with that quite insupportable air of commingled self-satisfaction and shrewdness,—about Monsieur du Belloc’s new liveries, which were the exact color, my dear, of Madame des Roches’ old wig, the one she was wearing that day she drove in here in all that rain; and about how that reminded Melior of what a thunderstorm had come up only last Thursday without the least warning; and about how Marie-Claire had been looking at Melior again in that peculiar way and ought not to be permitted to raise storms and cast spells that dried up people’s cows.
Even so, Melior continued, milk was fattening and was not really good for you in large quantities, and, for one, she meant to give it up, though if you were intended to be fat you had in the end simply to put up with it, just as some persons got bald sooner than others, and no hair-dresser could help you, not even if he was as airy and as pleased with himself as that high-and-mighty François over at Manneville. Oh, yes, but Florian must certainly remember! He was the very skinny one whom she had in two or three times last autumn, and who had turned out to be a Huguenot or a Jansenist or something of that sort, so that, people did say, the dear old Bishop was going to take the proper steps the very instant he was out again. That was the trouble, though, with colds at his age, you never knew what they might lead to at the moment you were least expecting it—
So her talking went, on and on and on, while Florian looked at the woman,—who was repulsive now even to the eye,—and he reflected: “And it was for this that I intrepidly assailed the high place, and slaughtered all those charming monsters! It was for this that I have sacrificed poor Philippe and my dear Raoul!”
Bed-time alone released him from listening to her; but not from prudent watchfulness.
That night he roused as Melior slipped from their bed. Through discreetly half-closed eyelids Florian saw her take from the closet that queer carved staff which had once belonged to her sister Melusine. Now Melior for a while regarded this staff dubiously. She replaced it in the closet. She took up the night-light from the green-covered table beside the bed, and she passed out of the room.
He lay still for a moment, then put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and followed her. Melior turned, with her lamp, at the second corridor, and went out into the enclosed Thoignet Courtyard, skirted the well, and so disappeared through the small porch into the Chapel. Florian followed, quite noiselessly. The paved court was chilly underfoot: as he went into the porch a spray of ivy brushed his cheek in the dark.
Inside the Chapel three hanging lamps burned before the altar, like red stars, but they gave virtually no illumination. Florian saw that Melior had carried her yellow lamp into the alcove where his earlier wives were buried. She knelt there. She was praying, no doubt, for the intercession of that meddlesome Hoprig. Florian was rather interested. Then his interest was redoubled, for of a sudden the place was flooded with a wan throbbing bluish luminousness. The effigies upon the tombs of Florian’s wives were changed; and the recumbent marble figures yawned and stretched themselves.
Thus, then, began the unimaginative working of Hoprig’s holy ring, with a revamping of the affliction put upon Komorre the Cursed in the old nursery tale, Florian decided; and these retributory resurrections were rather naive. He drew close his dressing-gown, and got well into the shadow of his great-grandfather’s tomb, the while that his four earlier wives sat erect and looked compassionately at Melior.
“Beware, poor lovely child,” said the likeness of Aurélie, “for it is apparent that Florian intends to murder you also.”
“I was beginning to think he had some such notion,” Melior replied, “for otherwise, of course, he would hardly be fetching home the sword Flamberge.”
She had arisen from her knees, and there was in the composure with which she now sat sociably beside the ghost of Carola, on top of Carola’s tomb, something that Florian found rather admirable. And he recalled too with admiration the innocence and the unconcern with which Melior had commented upon his having acquired such a delightfully quaint and old-fashioned looking sword. …
“Yes, for, my dear,” said Carola, “you have permitted him to get tired of you. It was for that oversight he murdered all of us.”
“But I have no time to put up with the man’s foolishness just now, when I am going to have a baby,” said Melior, with unconcealed vexation.
“Go seek protection of St. Hoprig,” advised Hortense.
“And how may she escape,” asked Marianne, “when Florian’s lackeys are everywhere, and Florian’s great wolfhounds guard the outer courts?”
“She can give them the sweet-scented poison which destroyed me,” said Carola. “But all the gates of Bellegarde are locked fast; and how could anyone climb down the unscalable high walls of the outer fortress?”
“By means of the strong silken cord which strangled me,” answered Marianne.
“But who would guide her through the dark to sorcerous Morven ?”
“The molten lead which was poured into my ear,” replied Aurélie, “will go before her glowing like a will-o’-the-wisp.”
“And how can she, in her condition, make so long a journey?”
“Let her take the fine ebony cane which broke my skull,” rejoined Hortense. “For now the cup of Florian’s iniquity runs over, and all the implements of his wickedness revolt against him.”
“Come now,” said Melior, “there has been a great deal of nonsense talked. But you have at last, poor ghost, suggested something really practical, and something that had occurred to me also. Yes, you are entirely right, and your suggestion is most sensible, though, to be sure, it can hardly be ebony: for now that I am quite certain about Florian I simply owe it to my self-respect to leave him before he murders me too, and the easiest way to do that of course is to use my unfortunate and misguided sister’s staff. But ebony, you know, is perfectly black—”
“Now of what staff can you be talking?”
“Why, but, my dear! As anybody at Brunbelois, even the veriest tidbits of children, could tell you, it was presented to Melusine by one of the most fearful and ruthless demons resident in the Red Sea. It was the staff the poor darling always rode on. I do not, of course, mean him: in fact, I only saw him once, on a Saturday, when I was the merest child. And with all those scales, he could hardly expect anybody to call him a darling, even if you overlooked his having a head like a cat. Only much more so, of course, on account of his being larger. No, I meant that Melusine rode on it—”