"Rafael Sabatini. Scaramouche" - читать интересную книгу автора

The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might be claimed
for it to its dominant position above the village rather than to any feature
of its own. Built of granite, like all the rest of Gavrillac, though
mellowed by some three centuries of existence, it was a squat, flat-fronted
edifice of two stories, each lighted by four windows with external wooden
shutters, and flanked at either end by two square towers or pavilions under
extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in a garden, denuded now, but very
pleasant in summer, and immediately fronted by a fine sweep of balustraded
terrace, it looked, what indeed it was, and always had been, the residence
of unpretentious folk who found more interest in husbandry than in
adventure.
Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac - Seigneur de Gavrillac was all
the vague title that he bore, as his forefathers had borne before him,
derived no man knew whence or how - confirmed the impression that his house
conveyed. Rude as the granite itself, he had never sought the experience of
courts, had not even taken service in the armies of his King. He left it to
his younger brother, Etienne, to represent the family in those exalted
spheres. His own interests from earliest years had been centred in his woods
and pastures. He hunted, and he cultivated his acres, and superficially he
appeared to be little better than any of his rustic metayers. He kept no
state, or at least no state commensurate with his position or with the
tastes of his niece Aline de Kercadiou. Aline, having spent some two years
in the court atmosphere of Versailles under the aegis of her uncle Etienne,
had ideas very different from those of her uncle Quintin of what was
befitting seigneurial dignity. But though this only child of a third
Kercadiou had exercised, ever since she was left an orphan at the early age
of four, a tyrannical rule over the Lord of Gavrillac, who had been father
and mother to her, she had never yet succeeded in beating down his
stubbornness on that score. She did not yet despair - persistence being a
dominant note in her character - although she had been assiduously and
fruitlessly at work since her return from the great world of Versailles some
three months ago.
She was walking on the terrace when Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin
arrived. Her slight body was wrapped against the chill air in a white
pelisse; her head was encased in a close-fitting bonnet, edged with white
fur. It was caught tight in a knot of pale-blue ribbon on the right of her
chin; on the left a long ringlet of corn-coloured hair had been permitted to
escape. The keen air had whipped so much of her cheeks as was presented to
it, and seemed to have added sparkle to eyes that were of darkest blue.
Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin had been known to her from childhood.
The three had been playmates once, and Andre-Louis - in view of his
spiritual relationship with her uncle - she called her cousin. The cousinly
relations had persisted between these two long after Philippe de Vilmorin
had outgrown the earlier intimacy, and had become to her Monsieur de
Vilmorin.
She waved her hand to them in greeting as they advanced, and stood
- an entrancing picture, and fully conscious of it - to await them at
the end of the terrace nearest the short avenue by which they approached.
"If you come to see monsieur my uncle, you come inopportunely,
messieurs," she told them, a certain feverishness in her air. "He is closely