And when he had heard the whole tale and realised what a sensitive pride and what a singularly tender affection his cousin's action had outraged, La Vireville was certainly in no mind to rescind his half-jesting condonation of Raymonde de Guéfontaine's attempt at vengeance. Rather, he ratified it.
"Madame," he said when she had ended, "perhaps you can extend some measure of forgiveness to my unhappy cousin when you learn that he gave his life, after all, for the same cause as your brother has done. He died of his wounds after the battle of Charleroi last year."
"But that does not undo what he did," she said quite simply. "It does not give André back his honour; it makes no difference at all."
"No," answered La Vireville, after a pause, "that is true. It does not."
There was a silence. Then she said, leaning forward and looking at him very directly—there was more light now, "M. le Chevalier, I think there are some who love better than they hate, and some who hate better than they love. Could you forgive a mortal injury so readily? . . . But perhaps you have none to forgive?"
La Vireville abruptly put his locked hands over his eyes. "Madame," he replied after a moment, "I have had a mortal injury to forgive these ten years—and I have not forgiven it."
She was startled, no doubt, at the hard intensity of his tone, and drew back, as one who has stumbled on a grave.
"I beg your pardon," she said in a very low voice. "That was impertinent. I ought not to have asked such a question."
And it was a proof of the measure in which they had both already passed into a region of intimacy sufficiently remote from the somewhat unfortunate circumstances of their first meeting, that it struck neither of them at the moment, least of all the man, that it was a strange question to put to him, considering those circumstances. His recent treatment of an at least attempted mortal injury could hardly be termed rancorous. But this reflection did not occur to Mme. de Guéfontaine till she had, a little later, resumed her efforts at slumber, and to Fortuné it did not occur at all.
(2)
It was something of a surprise to the Chevalier de la Vireville to learn, next morning, how near the manoir of L'Estournel stood to the sea. Henri du Coudrais had, it appeared, made all the necessary arrangements for conveying his sister to Guernsey that evening, and they were to embark, as soon as dusk fell, from a tiny cove not a mile distant from the old house, and, when they had sailed to a certain point, were to be picked up by a fishing smack, and so to St. Peter Port.
But La Vireville himself, as the brother and sister assured him, could lie very conveniently hidden at L'Estournel for another day or two, to permit his foot a further chance of recovery. This, however, was not a course which commended itself to the invalid. He declared that he also should leave that evening for Carhoët, taking the sole means of locomotion open to him, namely, Grain d'Orge's horse, which, having conveyed its double burden safely to the manoir, was now secretly tethered in one of the tumble-down stalls, nourished on handfuls of grass. If Grain d'Orge could not somehow procure another steed for his own use (which was improbable) he must go on foot, leading this beast, and his master upon it, under cover of night, and by ways known to himself, to Carhoët. Moreover, La Vireville proposed, since the coast was so conveniently near, to accompany Mme. de Guéfontaine and her brother thither, and speed their departure before himself turning inland for his own destination. And in these two resolutions he persisted all day, despite every effort to dissuade him.
But all morning and afternoon he obediently lay, or rather sat propped up, on his settle, his swathed foot extended in front of him, and conversed with the two émigrés, or watched the lady preparing the somewhat exiguous meals necessitated by the absence of fire, which they dared not light for fear of the betraying smoke. During the afternoon they held a solemn conclave, he and she, and she gave him a fresh quantity of valuable information about his new command, of which he took cypher notes.
"How am I going to replace you, Madame?" he said at the end, putting the notes away in his breast, and looking at her with a certain admiration and wonder.
"Shall I come back?" she suggested, smiling. And though he knew that she did not for a moment mean the offer to be accepted, and she had told him that the place, from its memories of the lost André, was hateful to her, he guessed at some lingering traces of regret, even of poignant regret, in her mind.
"You could not take up your quarters at Porhoët again, I fear," said he, smiling too. "I wonder if the Citizen Botidoux has got over his interview with the Commissary! Why did you so providentially keep that tricolour sash in your press, Madame? It is true that I have not felt my own man since I had it round me, but it certainly lent a most convincing—perhaps the convincing—touch to the whole affair."
"How amazingly you carried it off!" she exclaimed, her eyes glowing. "Oh, I kept the sash because . . . well, one never knew when it would prove useful—to an émigré embarking, for instance. It came off a dead Blue. But, as you can imagine, I could have bitten my tongue out afterwards for having screamed as I did. Yet I—yes, it seemed like a nightmare to recognise your voice. I thought for a moment, you see, that all the time you must have been a Government spy. I could hardly be expected, could I," she inquired, with the glimmer of a smile, "to grasp in a moment such unequalled magnanimity?"
"Madame," said La Vireville hardily, "I am getting somewhat tired of that word. You know, to be quite frank, I have not so much claim to it as you might think. In the first place, I rather admired you for . . . for that business with my hunting-knife—save that if you really want to stab a man you must not hesitate like that about it, and you must know just where to strike (I can show you if you wish); and secondly——"
"Monsieur," said his Jael, looking down and biting her lip, with a heightened colour, "either you are laughing at me, or you are trying to avenge yourself. I think it is true . . . you are not so magnanimous after all."
"Just as I told you!" cried Fortuné. "But I swear that I am not laughing at you. It is the truth, as I live, that when I knew the provocation you had received I thought not less of you, but more, for trying to rid yourself of me—I mean of my cousin Gaspard. But—there is one thing I am dying to know, though I do not feel certain that you can tell me."
She looked warily at his half-mocking expression.
"I suppose, Monsieur Augustin, that you have earned the right to any information I can give you."
La Vireville lazily put his clasped hands behind his head and kept his eyes on her. "Would you really have inserted that knife into me if I had not . . . waked?"
Mme. de Guéfontaine parried. "I will tell you," she said, no more than a little perturbed, "if you will tell me something. At what moment exactly did you wake?"
He held her a second or two under his amused gaze before he would answer. "That, Madame," he said at length, "is too vital a secret to be revealed. I cannot tell you."
"Then I cannot answer your question either," retorted she.
La Vireville made her a bow. "So be it. I shall always cherish the hope that you meant to make a good job of it, like Mlle. de Corday with the late Citizen Marat. Your opportunity, par exemple, was something better. And you, Madame, if it gives you any pleasure, need not know whether I was not awake and watching you all the time." He smiled mischievously. "But let me proceed to the second reason why I am not so magnanimous—what a mouthful of a word it is!—as you think. It is this—that the advent of the patriots of Porhoët followed so soon on your threatening departure that I felt tolerably sure you had not had time, even if you had the will, to summon them. And I remembered that you had warned me of certain suspicious spirits."
This time Mme. de Guéfontaine confessed to emotion, drawing a great breath of relief. "M. le Chevalier, you believe me then—that I did not send for them, that I never should have done!"
"Madame, naturally I believe you. Have you not already told me so? Yet consider—you told me here, after it was all over, while my point is, that the idea had already occurred to me at the time, and that when I had the honour of carrying you off I was pretty sure that you had not, in the event, betrayed me."
She winced at the word, and dropped her head. "I do not know how I could even have threatened it," she said earnestly. "But I was mad."
"You cannot think, Madame," went on La Vireville, the mischief gone out of his face, "how much that thought comforted me. It was difficult for me to connect the idea of you and . . . treachery. The knife—well and good, I could understand that, but not the other."
Mme. de Guéfontaine lifted her head and met his eyes.
"The difficulty is," she said quietly, "to be sure that I have convinced you that I did not betray you even in intention; that when they rushed in, my idea of vengeance was already dead."
"I am content to take your word for that, Madame," said La Vireville, and, bending forward, he lightly took one of her hands and lifted it to his lips.
She flushed and sighed. "It is no use for you to deny it, M. le Chevalier. You are what you refuse to be called."
At that moment Grain d'Orge stumbled past, bearing an armful of herbage for the horse, and casting at the pair as he went, out of his quick little eyes, a glance at once solicitous and discontented. Mme. de Guéfontaine seemed fully conscious of it.
"Poor Grain d'Orge," she said musingly, as soon as he was out of hearing. "He was half beside himself with anxiety about you. I do not know to what saints he did not pray. I am sure he will never be able to pay for all the candles he has promised to St. Yves alone. How was it, Monsieur Augustin, you who repudiate . . . that word . . . that you had never given him even an inkling that I was responsible (as you had every reason to think) for the appearance of the National Guard?"
"Because in that case, Madame," responded La Vireville promptly, "I should never have got him to help me in my little plan. He would never have gone near the lock-up. He was sufficiently insubordinate as it was. And, as events turned out," he added gravely, "it was a good thing that I never even hinted at it. He would have been quite capable of cutting your throat when he got you alone."
"He did not seem very much pleased with me as it was," remarked Mme. de Guéfontaine pensively. "He accused me of having——" She stopped abruptly.
"He made the same remark to me in the cottage," observed La Vireville gravely, but with laughter in his eyes. "I trust that, like me, you were quick to acknowledge its justice. I told him that you had done it with a—knife."
If he had wished to put an end to their conversation La Vireville certainly succeeded, for at that Mme. de Guéfontaine, murmuring something about Henri and a meal, arose and left him. She had, for the time being, quite lost her beautiful pallor.
(3)
La Vireville had his way in the end, and rode with them at dusk to the sea, and Mme. de Guéfontaine walked beside the grey horse, throwing a glance now and then at the bandaged foot, which his rider could not get into the stirrup.
"It was all my fault," she said, when they had gone a little way, and L'Estournel, place of refuge and memories, was a memory once more.
"Pardon me, Madame," objected La Vireville from above her, "it was not you who dropped a barrel on my toes."
She gave a rather impatient sigh. "Do you always jest about yourself, M. le Chevalier?"
"Madame, what else would you have me to do? Does it not strike you as humorous, you who know the conditions of our warfare in Brittany, that when fighting begins again I should have, for a time at least, to lead my men over hedges and through the broom in a litter, which is the only method of conveyance that I can think of at the moment?" He laughed under his breath. "At any rate, my foot is a change of site for an injury. Last time, not so long ago, it was a knock on the head that I acquired."
"And in whose cause, pray, did you receive that?"
"But in the usual—no, parbleu, when I come to think of it, it was an extra. It was for—a child, a small boy."
"And what, if one may ask, were you doing that you got knocked on the head for a small boy?"
"I was trying to convey him back to England. He had come to France by—mistake. I had some trouble over it."
"And is he back in England?"
The rider nodded. "Safely back in Cavendish Square by now, I trust."
"Cavendish Square?" said she, surprised, for she knew London. "Then he was an English boy?"
"No, French, the son of a friend of mine, the Marquis de Flavigny, who lives with his Scotch father-in-law there. And I think I may count the child himself as a friend, if it comes to that."
"Ah, it was not for a person unknown, then, that time—or for one who had tried to do you an injury?"
"What do you mean?" asked La Vireville. And he added quickly, "Madame, I beseech you never to refer to that episode again, or I——" But here the grey stumbled badly, and he never finished his threat.
"Hold up, Rosinante!" adjured Mme. de Guéfontaine below her breath.
"You learnt this beast's name the other night, I suppose," suggested La Vireville innocently, for he had not clearly heard what name she used.
She looked up at him with dancing eyes which held a suspicion of moisture.
"Did you not recognise the animal the moment you saw it, M. le Chevalier?"
"But I never set eyes on it before in my life," objected he.
"Yet it certainly comes out of the illustrations—by Coypel, if I remember right, they were. But perhaps when you read it in your childhood you had not an illustrated edition?"
"An edition of what?" asked La Vireville, now completely at sea.
"Of an old Spanish book called The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha," she said, sparkling, having, as was evident, so timed this thrust that their overtaking her brother and Grain d'Orge at that very moment should prevent his answering her.
Since neither of them could assist in getting ready the little sailing-boat, already at her moorings below them, they had, afterwards, a few moments' more converse. La Vireville had dismounted, and now sat upon the short sea turf at the head of the steep little sandy track that plunged down into the cove. For all the circumstances of escape and danger and caution there was a certain feeling of security, almost of holiday. No patrol was out that night, so much had been previously ascertained. The offshore breeze of evening was blowing; although the sun was down there were rosy wisps in the sky, and the tide drew in upon the little sandy beach like a lover.
"Madame," said La Vireville, looking up at her, for she was still standing, "some time hence, when I come to Jersey, I shall make an excuse to visit Guernsey and see if you are tired of domesticity, and ready to undertake the post of agent de la correspondance again."
"So it is not in the Carhoët division," answered she, looking out to sea.
"Would you come to Kerdronan then?"
The breeze had loosened a strand of her hair, and she put it back before she replied, turning to him with a half-smile, "I am afraid that Grain d'Orge—I should say Sancho Panza—would not approve."
"True," responded La Vireville, but before he had time to suggest a means of getting round this difficulty, Henri du Coudrais appeared up the sandy path.
"Come, Raymonde," he said, "we should be off." To M. de la Vireville he had already made his grateful adieux, and seeing that gentleman's evident desire to escape any further testimonies of gratitude he did not repeat them now.
But for her leave-taking Raymonde de Guéfontaine waited till her brother had run down the slope once more.
"I forbid you to stand up!" she said to the Chouan, and, slipping to her knees beside him, she held out her hand. When, however, he thought to carry it to his lips, she seized his right hand strongly in both of hers and pressed her own lips upon it. "I wish André had known you!" she murmured, with something that sounded like a sob. Then she got up and ran down the sandy path.
And the Chevalier de la Vireville was left in some stupefaction, staring after her and then at his just-saluted hand. . . . After a moment he got to his knees and made a grab for the trailing bridle of his horse, now deriving a hasty nourishment from the coarse grass, intending by this means to support himself on one foot. In clutching at the reins—the grey naturally moving on precisely at the moment of capture—his hand, that hand which had recently been so unexpectedly hallowed, came into contact with something prickly. It was a young plant of sea-holly.
"Peste!" ejaculated the sufferer, but he caught the bridle and scrambled to his feet—or foot. Once again he looked curiously at his right hand. But the tingling sensation which was running over it now was not due entirely to its contact with a woman's lips. There was a little blood on it, for the sharp, bloomless sea-holly had scratched him. Blood on his hand and a kiss; the sea-holly's wound and a woman kneeling beside him by the sea—these things were all to come back to him afterwards. . . . Now he stood with his arm over the saddle, and watched the embarkation.
"I am glad the witch has gone," observed Grain d'Orge with simple thankfulness as he in his turn came up the slope. "She has caused a great deal of trouble. Are you ready, Monsieur Augustin, to start for Carhoët?"
Monsieur Augustin came out of his momentary reverie. "Quite ready," he replied. "Turn the animal round. I must mount on the wrong side as before with your kind assistance. By the way, Grain d'Orge, do you know what this creature's name is?"
He was in the saddle before the Breton, with a grunt, replied in a conclusive tone that it had no name.
"There you are wrong, mon gars," retorted his leader, settling his damaged foot as comfortably as he could. "Very wrong. We all have names—you included. Heigh-ho . . . and so this interlude comes to an end! Let us hope that we shall succeed in getting to Carhoët this time."
He gathered up the reins, and, with the old Chouan at the horse's head, set his face inland. Not very far out from shore, in the dwindling light, a little sail was bobbing to the waves.
CHAPTER XXI
How Anne-Hilarion fed the Ducks
(1)
It may be judged whether Anne-Hilarion kept silence on his adventures, either to his grandfather or to his admiring audience of servants. The chief rôle in his recitals, however, was always assigned to M. le Chevalier, and endless were the tales of his kindness, his cleverness, and his strength. Mr. Elphinstone, though he would not for anything check these outpourings, found means sometimes to avoid them by diverting his grandson's attention to other subjects, partly because he did not think it good for the child to dwell too much on his recent past, partly because he himself found them so painful. He had latterly lived through a time that he could never forget, nor would he ever be able to forgive himself for letting Anne go to Canterbury. But he would not now, thank God, have to greet his son-in-law, on his return from Verona, with the terrible news of Anne's disappearance.
As it happened it was Anne himself who conveyed to his father the first intimation of what had happened during his absence.
The Marquis arrived unexpectedly one afternoon when Mr. Elphinstone was closeted with his lawyer in the library. Nothing, therefore, passed between them, for the moment, beyond the usual very cordial greetings, and de Flavigny had the fancy to surprise his son unannounced. He went up to the nursery, and, opening the door noiselessly, became a surprised witness of Anne's powers of narration. Baptiste was sitting rapt upon a stool, and Anne, perched upon a window seat, was describing the midnight flight from Abbeville. To his father, of course, this was merely an exercise in fiction.
"And then we came to water and ships, and M. le Chevalier said I must be his nephew, and we would go in one of the ships, and the captain said Yes, though at first I think he said No, and he gave me that shell I have downstairs, and after quite a long time we came to—where did I tell you yesterday, Baptiste, that we came to?"
"It would be Caen, I think, M. le Comte," replied the ancient retainer, devouring the small narrator with his doglike gaze.
("What game is this they are playing?" thought the unseen listener.)
"Yes, that was the name. I liked Caen; it is a fine town, with many churches. But you know, Baptiste, I think the country of France round that place, Abbeville, not so pretty as England."
"And pray what do you know of Abbeville, little romancer?" interrupted his father, coming forward. "Or, for that matter, of any part of France?"
"M. le Marquis!" exclaimed Baptiste, jumping up from his stool.
"Papa!" screamed Anne-Hilarion, and was off the seat like a flash and had flung himself at him.
But, embraces over, and Baptiste discreetly vanished, de Flavigny repeated his question. "What do you know of France, baby?"
"But—a great deal!" responded Anne-Hilarion with dignity. "I have just been there—did Grandpapa not tell you? I went from the house of the little old ladies at Canterbury; a horrid man took me away in the middle of the night, but M. le Chevalier de la Vireville came after me, and he—well, I do not know what he did to that man, but we went away in the middle of the night again from Abbeville, and were in a ship, and a postchaise, and a small boat, and it was very cold, and a shot hit M. le Chevalier on the head, and we hid in a cave, and then we were in a forest in Brittany—there they wear such strange clothes, Papa—and then in another ship, and at Jersey, and after that——"
"Good God!" exclaimed the Marquis, rather pale. And he sat down in a chair with the traveller still in his arms. "Now tell me everything from the beginning, Anne, and not so fast. . . ."
M. de Flavigny heard it all again that evening from a narrator much more moved than the first had been—principal actor though that narrator was as well. Mr. Elphinstone was indeed so overcome with self-condemnation for having allowed himself to be duped, and the child to depart, that it was his son-in-law who had to comfort him. In the end the old gentleman registered a firm vow never to take any more French lads into his household from motives of charity.
"But I felt so sure that I had heard you mention the name of de Chaulnes, René," he said in justification. "And she seemed, that old she-devil, really to have known your family. For you say that the incident of your being lost in a quarry as a boy is true?"
His son-in-law nodded thoughtfully. "She must have got hold of it somehow—though one would have thought that some fictitious adventure of my youth would have served as well. But I never remember to have heard my parents mention the name."
"M. de la Vireville implied that it was not their own," murmured the old man.
"I think he knows more about them than I do," said René.
"They were gone, at any rate, by the time I got a warrant out against them, as he prophesied in his letter that they would be."
"You have heard from him then!" ejaculated the Marquis. "Where is he, sir? Have I no chance of thanking him in person?"
"I am afraid not," said Mr. Elphinstone. "I would give a thousand pounds to do it. But, after all, what are thanks?"
"All that Fortuné would accept," said the Marquis quickly. "On my soul, I don't know which has moved me more, Anne's danger or his courage, address, and uncalled-for devotion. . . . But where is he, and what of this letter?"
"I believe," said Mr. Elphinstone, taking a paper from his desk, "that he is either in Jersey or back among his Chouans in Brittany. The letter, such as it is, he sent by Mr. Tollemache."
"'I herewith return to you, sir,'" read René de Flavigny, "'my charming travelling-companion, by the hand of a young man who is, I suspect, as unused to acting the nursemaid as I was myself a few days ago. I fear that Anne's apparel is not as Mme. Saunders would wish to find it, but there was not time for my mother completely to repair it, as I could see that she was aching to do. I think that the child is mercifully none the worse for his experiences, and I, for my part, am eternally your debtor for allowing me to go after him.
"'I return also, by the kindness of the same gentleman, the residue of the sum which you entrusted to me for my mission—not so large a balance as I could wish, but it was not possible to conduct our tour on less expensive lines.
"'Tell René, when he returns, that I hope to meet him, at no distant date, with a contingent of the persons whose appearance and attire has, I believe, made a deep impression upon Anne.
"'I wager that you have already found the nest at Canterbury empty.—Believe me, sir, yours—and particularly Anne's—always to command,
"'C. M. TH. F. DE LA VIREVILLE.'"
"I shall meet him, as he says," said René de Flavigny, laying down the letter, "in France, when the sword is drawn. I went to see Mr. Windham directly I got back to London this morning. Preparations for the expedition are already advancing, and it will start in a few weeks' time."
Mr. Elphinstone looked at the enthusiasm in his face. Once again, then, that fatal shore was going to take a member of his family from him. And would it, this time, yield up its prey?
"You are going to enlist in it, I suppose?" he said sadly.
"I have already done so," replied the young man, his eyes shining. "At least, I have this morning given in my name to the Comte de Puisaye as a volunteer."
(2)
A few days after his father's return from a mission which did not seem to have had any very tangible results, Anne-Hilarion, following the example of his grandfather, definitely decided to write his memoirs—a project which had been in his head since his own homecoming. And since Mr. Elphinstone, a good draughtsman, was embellishing his reminiscences with delicate sepia drawings of Indian scenes and monuments, from sketches made on the spot, Anne-Hilarion resolved that his too should have pictures—reconstructed in this case entirely from memory.
There were other difficult points to be settled. As, were these annals to be written in a copy-book or upon loose sheets of paper? The former was finally chosen, owing to the necessity of lines to one whose pen did not always move in a uniform direction. Then, were the records to be couched in French or English? After much thought and discussion the diarist came to the conclusion, probably unique in the history of autobiography, that the portion dealing with his adventures in France was to be written in the Gallic tongue, his doings in England in the English.
Mr. Elphinstone had done all in his power to encourage his small imitator, and had bought him a box of paints for the purposes of illustration which, in the first onset of delirious joy, had caused the child entirely to forsake, for the time being, the more laborious travail of the pen, and to cover his grandfather's table with drawings of ships of no known rig, and renderings of La Vireville's person which his worst enemy would not have recognised. Mr. Elphinstone's reasons for this course were not far to seek. The dark day of his son-in-law's departure for the shores of France was drawing nearer more quickly than the former had at first anticipated, and the old man hoped that when it had become an accomplished fact, the new occupation would serve in a measure to absorb and distract Anne-Hilarion. He and the Marquis alike had forborne to cast a shadow on the child, so recently restored to them, by telling him how short a time was his with his father. For René de Flavigny was to join his regiment on the twelfth of June, and May was now half over.
And so, as late as June the sixth, a fine warm afternoon, the diarist, who had not yet been told, was walking in St. James's Park with his father, discussing the project which, near though it was to his heart, had not as yet greatly advanced. It was their last walk together, but only one of them guessed that.
They stood a moment by the lake, where, later on, Anne proposed to feed the wildfowl. At present literary cares were too absorbing.
"I wish that M. le Chevalier were here, Papa," he observed. "You see, I cannot remember the days of the month in France."
"Yes," said the Marquis rather absently, "it is a pity he is not here to help you." For of La Vireville, since the day when he and Anne had parted at St. Helier, not a sign.
"And then there is another thing, Papa," resumed Anne. "I cannot remember anything about the time when I was born."
"That is not expected in a memoir, mon enfant," replied his father. "You state the fact, that is all. You know when your birthday comes."
"Yes," assented Anne. "And that part must be in French, because I was born in France. 'Je suis né le 14 juillet 1789, au château de Flavigny.' You will tell me about that, Papa—about the château?"
The young Frenchman did not answer for a moment. In place of the ordered verdure of the London park, the lake, and the wildfowl, there rose before his eyes the pointed roofs over the sea, the fountains, the terraces, and Janet with the sunlight on her hair. . . .
"Yes, I will tell you . . . some day," he said quietly. "Meanwhile you could begin, could you not? with what you remember in England. And for the present, don't you think, Anne, that you would like to feed the ducks?"
Rummaging in a pocket, his small son produced a paper of crumbs, which, even before he could open it, was espied and loudly commented upon by one of the denizens of the lake.
"Oh, there's one coming already!" ejaculated Anne. "Do not be in such a hurry, duck! Papa, I can't get this open. Please!" He tendered the packet to his father.
However, the expectant Muscovy drake at the edge of the water was destined to disappointment, for just as de Flavigny took the little parcel, Anne's attention was diverted to something widely different. He gave a sudden exclamation of pleasure and surprise.
"Papa, there is M. le Lieutenant coming—who brought me home from Jersey, you know!" It was so. Along the path, the sun glinting on his gold lace, accompanied by a fair damsel in cherry-coloured muslin with a white Leghorn bonnet, Mr. Francis Tollemache of H.M.S. Pomone advanced towards the same goal.
"May I speak to him, Papa?" inquired Anne earnestly.
"Do, mon fils, and make me acquainted with him," said the Marquis. "I have much to thank him for."
"Hallo, young 'un!" exclaimed the sailor, as Anne ran towards the pair. He gravely stooped and shook hands. "Where did you spring from? Cecilia, let me present the Comte de Flavigny."
Miss Cecilia, with a smile which was advantageous to her dimples, followed the example of her escort. "I have heard a great deal about you," she said to the little boy.
"You are M. le Lieutenant's sister?" suggested Anne-Hilarion. But Miss Cecilia, with a laugh and a blush, shook her head, and before Mr. Tollemache could define her relationship the Marquis had come up.
"I must introduce myself," he said with a bow, in English. "I am Anne's father, Mr. Tollemache, and very glad to have this opportunity of thanking you for your care of my boy."
"There is really nothing whatever to thank me for, sir," returned the young man. "Somebody else did the work and I got the credit—that is what it amounts to."
"On the contrary," said Rene de Flavigny courteously. "I have cause to be deeply grateful to you for your escort and for your interest in the child. I can assure you," he added, with a smile, "that he amply returns the latter. I have learnt much in these last few weeks about life on board a British frigate."
Mr. Tollemache laughed, and looked at his admirer, to whom his betrothed was talking a few paces away.
"You will shortly have the opportunity, I fancy, sir, of making a more personal acquaintance yourself with the frigate in question. I don't know anything exactly official, and perhaps I should not even refer to the rumour, but I think we shall leave Portsmouth in company very soon."
The Marquis, lowering his tone, so that his son should not hear, asked the sailor a few questions. Meanwhile Anne and Cecilia, laughing together, threw bread liberally upon the waters, and caused a hasty navigation of wildfowl from all parts.
A little more conversation, and Mr. Tollemache and his fair one agreed that they must be going. A dish of tea, it appeared, awaited their drinking at the house of some elderly aunt in St. James's Square, and they dared not be late.
"Good-bye, Anne," said Francis Tollemache. "You and I must be shipmates again some day." And he was, not very wisely, inspired to add, "I will take good care of your father in France."
"What did M. le Lieutenant mean by saying that he would take care of you in France, Papa?" came the inevitable question, as de Flavigny knew it would, directly the pair were out of earshot. "You are not going away again, are you?"
Perhaps, after all, this was as good a moment as another for telling the child.
"Yes, my pigeon," he replied, trying to keep the sadness in his heart out of his voice. "Look, you have dropped a large crumb on the path, and that duck wants it."
But Anne had no thought for ducks now. "Are you going soon?" he queried, seizing hold of his father's hand.
"Yes, I am afraid so," said René, gripping his fingers.
"Oh, Papa, why?"
De Flavigny went down on one knee and put an arm round him. A flotilla of disgusted argonauts watched his movements. "Because it is my duty, Anne. You know that the little King is in prison, and that wicked men have taken the throne away from him. But we owe him allegiance just the same. You remember, when you were at the meeting in April in Grandpapa's dining-room, where you sat on M. de la Vireville's knee, how we talked about an expedition to France? This is the expedition, and I must go with it, to fight for the King—a little boy like you, Anne—and you must let me go." His voice shook a trifle.
The slow tears gathered in Anne-Hilarion's eyes and coursed down his cheeks. Dropping his last bit of bread, he laid his head against his father's breast, as the latter knelt there by the lake. "Je ne peux pas le supporter," he said.
The Marquis thought that they could both bear it better if he carried him home, and did so—at least, to nearly the top of Bond Street.
(3)
"I have had to tell the child," he said to his father-in-law when they got back.
"I thought you had done so," returned the old gentleman with melancholy. "Perhaps it is as well. I have a feeling that you may be summoned even earlier than you think."
He was right. About seven o'clock that evening his son-in-law came to him in the library, an open missive in his hand.
"It is obvious that you possess the gift of second-sight, sir," he said, with a rather forced gaiety. "It has come, as you predicted, earlier than I expected."
"What, the summons already!" exclaimed Mr. Elphinstone, starting from his chair.
René nodded. "I must go immediately—to-night, directly I can get my valise packed. It is almost in readiness," he added.
"But why so suddenly?"
"I look to you, sir, with your gift of prophecy, to tell me that," said René, with a smile. "There is no reason given; but I must be at Southampton to-morrow afternoon."
"You will have time for supper?" queried the old man, his hand on the bell-pull.
It was a sad, hurried little meal on which Janet Elphinstone and her deerhound looked down. Neither of the men spoke much, or ate much either. At last the Marquis, looking at his watch, got up.
"If you will excuse me, sir, I will go and say goodbye to Anne now."
At the sound of his carefully-controlled voice Mr. Elphinstone almost broke down. "Oh, René, René, if only you need not!"
Very erect, at the other end of the table, the young man wore a look which was doubtless on the faces of those of his kin who had mounted the guillotine, as they went to death. He had, indeed, for what he was about to do, almost as much need of courage as they.
"God knows," he answered, "that I would give everything in the world not to leave him." He looked up for a moment at the child-portrait on the wall. "I think Jeannette too knows that. He is all I have—except my honour."
"And you must sacrifice him to that?"
"Would you have it the other way round, sir?"
"No—no! I don't think so . . ." gulped the old man. "Go, then. . . ."
But as the door shut behind his son-in-law he sank back in his chair and put his hand over his eyes. First Janet, then Anne-Hilarion, then René—France had taken them all, and only the child had been given back. René, he felt sure, would never return.
The night-light was already burning, though there was yet daylight in the room, when the Marquis came in to take farewell of all he loved best on earth. He drew back the gay chintz curtains and stood looking down on the treasure above all treasures which Jeannette had committed to him, and which now he was going to forsake. For, like his father-in-law, he felt that he should not return.
Anne-Hilarion was sound asleep, one flushed cheek on his hand, after his custom, his hair tumbled, and his lips parted in the utter abandonment of childish slumber. What a pity to wake him! De Flavigny all but yielded to the impulse just to kiss him and to steal quietly out of the room. But he knew that the boy would fret afterwards if he went away without farewell. So with a heavy heart he stooped over him and spoke his name.
"Is it you, M. le Chevalier?" murmured Anne sleepily. "Oh, I was dreaming that I was in France. . . . What is it, Papa?"
"Shall I take a message from you to the Chevalier?" suggested René, catching at this opening and trying to smile.
Anne was still only partially awake. "Yes," he said drowsily. "Tell him that I want to show him my new goldfish . . . and tell him to come back soon to England. . . ." The words began to tail off into sleep again. So much the better. The Marquis knelt down and gave him a long kiss.
"Good-bye, my darling, my darling!" he whispered.
And instantly Anne was fully aroused. "Papa! you are not going now—to-night?"
"Yes," said his father. "I start for Southampton to-night. Kiss me, my son, and be a good boy while I am away—and a brave one now!"
But really it was he—as he felt—who had need of courage then, for next moment, releasing his hold of the child, as he knelt there, he himself had buried his face in the coverlet.
BOOK THREE
THE ROAD THAT FEW RETURNED ON
Thomas the Rhymer.
CHAPTER XXII
"To Noroway, To Noroway"
(1)
From the quarterdeck of His Britannic Majesty's frigate Pomone, which had recently come to anchor in the wide and placid bay of Quiberon, Mr. Francis Tollemache gazed with interest on that portion of the southern coast of Brittany which lay before him. The June evening was calm and foggy, but not sufficiently so as to obscure the nearer land. In front of the observer was the low, sandy shore of Carnac; to the right the deeply indented coast, scarcely seen, broke into inlets and islands till, passing the narrow mouth of that surprising inland sea, the Morbihan, which gave its name to the department, it swept round into the peninsula of Rhuis. But on Mr. Tollemache's left hand, much nearer, curved the long, thin, sickle-blade of the peninsula of Quiberon, with its tiny villages, its meagre stone-walled fields, and its abundant windmills. About two-thirds of the way up, at the narrowest part of the blade, the threatening mass of Fort Penthièvre looked out on the one side over the tranquil waters of the bay, on the other over the tormented open sea, the 'mer sauvage,' that broke against the very rocks on which the fortress was built. And to this long natural breakwater was due the shelter of that ample beach at Carnac, indeed the spacious harbourage of the bay itself, where now the present squadron and its transports rode in comfort this twenty-fifth of June.
For the long-talked-of Government expedition had really sailed, and the surmise made by Mr. Tollemache to the Marquis de Flavigny that afternoon in St. James's Park had proved entirely correct. Not only did his ship, the Pomone, form part of the convoying force, but she flew the flag of the commodore himself, that sterling sailor and gentleman, Sir John Borlase Warren. Under his command there had left Southampton on the sixteenth of the month a squadron comprising two seventy-fours, the Thunderer and the Robust, and seven vessels of lesser armament, which flotilla had the task of convoying transports containing three thousand five hundred French Royalists, all kinds of stores and uniforms, muskets to the number of twenty-seven thousand, and ammunition to match. And it was in vain that the Brest fleet, under Villaret-Joyeuse, had tried to cut them off from the coast of France.
As Mr. Tollemache, his telescope under his arm, thus gazed at their destination—for he understood that the landing, which the British would cover, but in which they would not participate, was to take place on the easy sands of Carnac—it occurred to him, tolerably free though he was from the curse of imagination, that the unfortunate devils of Frenchies whom they were convoying must feel rather queerish at seeing their native shores again. They were in fact crowded now on the decks of the transports, gazing at the coast through the mist and the failing daylight. M. de Flavigny, for instance, that little boy's father, he was probably there, doing the same, poor beggar . . . just like the two leaders of the expedition here on the quarterdeck of the flagship. Out of the corner of his eye the young lieutenant could see them, talking to the commodore; the strutting, self-important, irascible little man in the uniform of the troops in English pay, the Comte d'Hervilly, and the would-be organiser of the Chouannerie, the Comte de Puisaye, tall, awkward, and enigmatic. From what Francis Tollemache had seen of these individuals during the voyage he had not formed a very high opinion of their capacity. There did not seem to be much harmony between them either, and their authority was strangely divided, for d'Hervilly, who held an English commission, was supposed to be in command when the troops were at sea, and Puisaye when they were landed. For this extraordinary arrangement Mr. Tollemache had heard that My Lords of the Admiralty were to blame, and he thought the plan very foolish.
He was to be confirmed in this opinion. That night it fell to him, as officer of the watch, to witness the arrival up the side of the Pomone, from a tiny boat, of two Chouan chiefs, the Chevalier de Tinténiac and the Comte du Boisberthelot, gentlemen of title arrayed in dirty Breton costumes. As a matter of fact the young man had seen them before, for they had boarded the frigate at Southampton before she sailed, but he hardly recognised them now. They brought, so he later understood, good accounts of the disposition of the countryside, where all the peasantry were ready to rise, undertook to 'sweep' the coast, and strongly pressed an immediate disembarkation. And immediately the fruits of the divided command were made manifest: the Comte de Puisaye and Sir John Warren were for following this advice, but, since d'Hervilly objected, they had to give way to the needless precaution of a reconnaissance, on which he insisted. So next morning, at daybreak, the young sailor saw him embark in a cutter and make a majestic tour of the bay—a proceeding which had no effect save that of delaying the landing for twenty-four hours.
"And," as Mr. Tollemache observed later in the wardroom to a friend, "why give the beggars on shore longer warning of our arrival than we need? They are not blind, I suppose; this little collection can hardly be invisible to the crew in the fort over there, for instance! Land 'em at once, say I!"
The friend drew at his pipe. "Wish we were landing a party too eh, Tollemache?"
"Well, we aren't getting any fun for our money! I confess I would rather like to have a smack at the sans-culottes before we leave. Do you think the fellows we are landing have much of a chance, Carleton?"
"Devilish little, I should say," replied his laconic companion, and knocked out his pipe.
(2)
"Surely it must be a good omen!" thought René de Flavigny that night, where he sat, with the other officers of the regiment to which he was attached—du Dresnay's—in the flat-bottomed boat approaching Carnac beach. For everything to-night—or rather, this morning, since it was two o'clock—was made resplendent by the glorious moon which seemed to be riding the heavens on purpose to welcome these exiles in arms to the land of their birth. Behind the steadily advancing boats the hulls of the English squadron lay almost motionless on the breast of an unrippled sea of argent, in front the wide, pale sands of Carnac stretched like a magic band of silver. Yes, surely it was a good omen!
Oh, if only some day his little son too could come back to the land of his fathers, in no hostile or furtive fashion, but openly, as of right—and if he might be with him too! Or might his own death avail, if need were, to bring Anne there before he grew old! Such was René de Flavigny's prayer in that speaking radiance. And the sight of that shore and the beauty of the night itself made him think also. If only one were not coming with a sword against one's mother! There stole back to him too the remembrance of the day when he had pointed out the oncoming shores of France to Jeannette—a bride—and then of the day when they had left them behind in their flight—the last time she was ever to see them. Yes, when last he had looked on France she had been in his arms, and Anne in hers. . . .
De Flavigny's meditations were suddenly checked. Orders were being shouted; the boats came to a standstill on the silver tide. And, peering forward, René could make out the cause.
Drawn up on the beach in the moonlight was a small body of Republican troops. Their white breeches and facings and cross-belts were clearly visible. Between the shore and the now stationary craft with their load were slipping the flotilla's half-dozen gunboats.
"Oh, why are we not there!" sighed a young officer sitting by the Marquis, bringing his hand sharply down on his knee.
But before the English sailors could fire a shot the Blues began to draw off in haste, and from the mainland behind them came the rattle of musketry. The Chouans there were evidently driving out the small Republican garrisons before them—sweeping the coast, in short, as they had undertaken.
"First blood to the Bretons!" said the young officer, with envy in his tones. René felt some consolation in reflecting that La Vireville had probably had a share in that honour.
He began to talk to his companion as the boats resumed their shoreward course. There was time enough indeed for any amount of conversation before either of them set foot on the beach, for the régiment du Dresnay was in the second detachment, and the first had yet to be landed—the regiment of Loyal-Emigrant, mostly veterans from Flanders, and d'Hervilly's own regiment, once Royal-Louis, the numbers of which had been made up, most unwisely, by drafts from the French Republican prisoners in England.
But at last their turn came, and to cries of "Vive le Roi" and the roll of drums du Dresnay's colours were unfurled, and, when they were near enough, many an émigré jumped into the water and waded to land. In du Dresnay many were actually Bretons, and for them the shore in front of them was not only France, but their own sacred corner of France, and several of them, when they reached it, dropped on their knees and kissed the wet sand.
René de Flavigny did not do that, but it was not for want of emotion, for his heart was swelling painfully as he stood at last on the earth that had borne him. "It is France, France!" he said to himself, hardly believing it. And then he was swallowed up in the intense excitement reigning on the beach, where two or three bands of the victorious Chouans had suddenly streamed down upon the regiments of the first detachment, embracing their compatriots and declaring that the whole countryside was theirs—and filling some of the correctly uniformed newcomers with surprise at their strange appearance. Even their officers were little better clad. De Flavigny's eyes lit upon one of these—a French gentleman from Jersey—and beheld a figure attired in a little green vest, short breeches of the same, with bare legs covered with mud, burst shoes, a three months' beard, and a perfect armoury of weapons. But where was Fortuné? Had he been delayed, or met with some mishap?
And the scene became still more confused and further charged with emotions, for there were now arriving not Chouans, but the peaceful inhabitants of the districts round, bringing cattle, and carts loaded with provisions, and all eager to help disembark the ammunition and the cannon, and insisting on carrying through the water, on their shoulders, those émigrés who had not yet reached shore. The noise and tumult were indescribable, and at last, to complete the reception, there advanced on to the beach, singing as they came, a procession of priests preceded by crosses and the banners of their parishes.
It was at these last that the Marquis was gazing, wondering for the first time why the saintly old Bishop of Dol, Monseigneur de Hercé, whom they had brought with them, had not been landed with his ecclesiastics, when a hand fell on his shoulder, and he found himself looking into the face of La Vireville, bronzed and not overclean, his hair falling loose on his shoulders in the Breton manner—differentiated indeed from his men only by his high boots and the white scarf that crossed his breast.
De Flavigny seized him by the wrists. "At last, at last, I am able to thank you, Fortuné!"
But the Chouan wrenched a hand free and put it over the Marquis's mouth.
"Don't speak of that now, as you love me, René! It is past history, and we have more important matters to occupy us. And as for thanks, it is I who owe them to you, as responsible for the child's existence. . . . Is he well?"
If the young man was not allowed to speak his thanks, he could look them, there on the sandy beach amid the excited throng, the east on fire with the coming day, and his friend's hand in his. "I was to tell you, if I had the chance to meet you, that he had got a new goldfish in place of the one he left at Canterbury, and that he hopes to show it to you—some day."
La Vireville smiled. "He shall bring it to France."
"And show it to the little King at Versailles," interposed de Flavigny, "when we have put him into his own again!"
All the amusement died out of the Chouan's face. "You have not heard then?"
"What!" asked Rene in alarm.
La Vireville took off his shabby, wide-brimmed hat. "Louis XVII. is dead . . . he died before you sailed, on the eighth of June. I have not long known it—my men do not know it yet. The Comte de Provence will have to be proclaimed here. The Bretons, who know nothing of him, will probably murmur. That poor child was often spoken of amongst them, whereas the Regent—Bon Dieu, what is happening!"
They both turned. At a little distance, where the new muskets were being distributed to the Chouans, a sergeant of d'Hervilly's regiment was having an argument of more than words with two or three Bretons who had evidently precipitated themselves on to these new possessions more quickly than he liked. Into the disturbance there now entered a Chouan of Herculean proportions, presumably a leader, who, seconded in his efforts by a young man of twenty with the face of a girl, began driving off the excited gars with the butt-end of a musket.
"That is Georges Cadoudal and his friend Mercier la Vendée," observed La Vireville. "Those must be his own Morbihannais that he is disciplining!"
He looked on rather amused, but suddenly his face clouded. The Comte d'Hervilly had unfortunately hurried to the scene, and began to rate the two Chouan leaders in no measured terms. The gigantic Cadoudal—brutal, adored, and bravest of the brave—restrained himself with evident difficulty, and finally went off, the little figure of d'Hervilly following him with gesticulations. Meanwhile, amid shouts of laughter, the sergeant and the too impetuous Bretons were suddenly reconciled.
La Vireville shrugged his shoulders.
"I cannot congratulate you, René, on your leaders! That man d'Hervilly is incompetent and ridiculous; Heaven send he do not make a mess of everything! And as for Puisaye, who fancies himself the man to stand in La Rouërie's shoes and to head the Chouannerie—I know something of him and of his intrigues in Jersey. Well, I must be getting back to my men over there, lest Grain d'Orge is letting them also acquire firearms too quickly. Au revoir, my friend; I trust not to be away more than a few days."
"You are going then—but where?"
"I am going to help Tinténiac and du Boisberthelot drive the Blues out of Auray and Landévant. When I return I hope to see the fleur-de-lys on Fort Penthièvre over there. Au revoir!"
He wrung the Marquis's hand and departed, and René watched his tall figure making its way through the scarlet-clad ranks of émigrés (whose uniforms seemed to many of them to smack too much of English patronage) ere he himself turned away.
CHAPTER XXIII
Displeasure of "Monsieur Augustin"
In a little wood to the south of Auray, and in an exceedingly bad temper, the Chevalier de la Vireville sat on a fallen tree and surveyed his small band of Chouans, who, lying, seated or crouched round him on their heels, looked at him with the expression of dogs who know that they deserve a beating—though wearing, indeed, the appearance of dogs who have already received one.
It was the evening of the third of July, six days after the landing at Carnac. During those days Auray and Landévant had already been taken by the Chouans and abandoned again for lack of support. Last night had come peremptory orders from Carnac that they were to be retaken; so the Comte du Boisberthelot and La Vireville had set out at eleven that morning, without a single piece of artillery, to recapture Auray, which was garrisoned by a thousand men under the Republican adjutant-general Mermet. At the same time Tinténiac, although he knew the task to be impossible, had attacked Landévant.
Mermet's sentries were not on the alert, and so the Comte du Boisberthelot, who was a sailor, came charging in at the head of his men by the route de l'Eglise, and drove out the Republicans. But outside the town was Hoche himself, who ordered them to retake it at any price. Mermet, in obeying this order, fell into the neat ambush which La Vireville had prepared for him in a copse by the Faubourg St. Goustan, and his column was on the point of breaking up in disorder when Hoche came quickly up with his grenadiers and two pieces of artillery. To stop his advance—a hopeless attempt it was—La Vireville transferred himself and his Bretons to the bridge into the town, cast up a barricade with carts and casks and beams, and could probably have held this obstacle for a long time against hand-to-hand fighting, or if he had possessed the smallest piece of artillery. It was the want of that which had caused him to grind his teeth as his men fired and reloaded and fired behind the rapidly vanishing barricade, their own numbers dwindling in proportion. For it was Hoche who had the cannon.
So he and his Chouans were driven from their position, and, penned into the square by the church, were mown down by grapeshot till he got them out of the town, when, in order to cover the wounded du Boisberthelot's retreat to Locmaria, they returned to the guerrilla fighting to which they were most accustomed, lying hidden in the broom and picking off their men with the skill of poachers. Unfortunately the Republican artillery discovered them there also. . . . Nothing that La Vireville could say or do would stop them this time; their abandonment of the position became a rout, whose track was strewn with discarded sabots and knapsacks and even with muskets. The émigré himself, swearing and furious, was swept away on the flood, and finally, at dusk, fugitives and leader found themselves in this little wood, not much more than a coppice, but safe enough from pursuit, where the former had time to draw breath and to reflect, and the latter to get rid of some of the bitter anger and disgust which had prompted him, at first, to leave them to their own devices and return alone to sell his life at Auray.
He took another look round his dejected followers, and propped his head between his fists, his elbows on his knees, to think. He knew that he could get these fierce and childlike natures in hand again—that, ashamed and penitent, they were, in fact, already in the desired condition. He had no right, after all, to be hard on them for the shortcomings of others. It was not their fault that they had no artillery, and that help had not been sent from the émigré regiments at Carnac. Moreover, his men had done no worse than the rest, for a rumour was already afoot that Tinténiac, the reckless and irresistible, had been beaten back from Landévant, and that Vauban with his supporting force of Chouans had fared no better.
Seeing his chief's attitude, Grain d'Orge, looking more than ever ruffianly by reason of the filthy rag round his head, rose from the ground and softly approached him.
"Monsieur Augustin is not wounded?"
"Si," retorted La Vireville without moving. "In my pride."
An uncomfortable silence. Grain d'Orge rubbed his bristly chin.
"If only the general had helped us a little," he grumbled. "If some of those fine uniforms we saw at Carnac——"
"If only we had had a gun——" said another.
"Perhaps if we had prayed more to Ste. Anne," suggested a third, thinking of the famous shrine of that saint so dear to all Bretons, just outside Auray.
La Vireville heard the last remark. He lifted his head.
"On the contrary," he observed bitingly, "I should recommend a little less rosary and a little more attention to simple military duties. Where is the sentry I posted by that hedge a short time ago?—Tudieu, this is a shooting matter!"
Springing to his feet, he went over to the hedge in question, where indeed no sentry was visible. But he was there for all that . . . only the shooting seemed to have been done already.
"He was hit at the barricade," said the croaking voice of Grain d'Orge in La Vireville's ear as he stooped over the prostrate man.
"Then why the devil didn't he say so!" retorted his leader. "Give me a hand, someone, and let us find out what is the matter with him. Ah, I see; fortunately nothing very serious."
And having duly played the part of surgeon—a part to which he was not unaccustomed—set another man at the fallen sentry's post, and made some further dispositions, La Vireville stood a moment looking through the tree-trunks towards Carnac, a little south of the dying sunset, wondering what was happening in the peninsula of Quiberon.
"And what shall we do next, Monsieur Augustin?" asked a voice rather timidly, the voice of Le Goffic.
La Vireville turned round. "I suppose, my children," he said, more kindly, "that unless M. d'Allègre holds Locmaria we shall have to go back to Carnac and tell the general that we have not been able to do what we were told to do. For the present, we will wait here till morning."
"If Monsieur Augustin would sleep a little . . .?" One or two of them had spread an old cloak under a tree, and now with gestures invited him to repose. They were like children; it was impossible to be long angry with them. So he went and lay down on the cloak, to find that in spite of disgust and anxiety he was ready to sleep. His new sentinel by the hedge, his musket leaning against him, was telling his beads, and all his men, directly he lay down, lowered their voices. He was drowsy, and floated away on a half-dream to Jersey. . . . Why on earth were they talking of Anne-Hilarion?
"The little one, thou seest, when he was with us at Kerdronan, how he was like the little Jesus Himself!"
"Yes, one looked to see His Mother round every corner."
"And as for him," said the first speaker, indicating his recumbent leader, "he might have been St. Joseph!" But at this comparison La Vireville was shaken with irreverent mirth.
He began to be more drowsy. Grain d'Orge was saying something about Carhoët—he could not catch what. But the mention of the name brought back the swarm of little memories that clung round it, that had had their birth in so small a space of hours. His foot was healed, the business of leader of that division passed on, at his request, to someone else, but he had not forgotten Mme. de Guéfontaine. On the contrary, he had found himself often thinking of her during the few weeks that had elapsed since she had made her somewhat sensational entry into his experience. He was aware now of the sleepy conviction that she ought to have had some part in this adventure—not indeed in the present sorry episode of defeat, but in the landing the other night under the moon. Or she might have stood, at daybreak, holding aloft the banner with the lilies on the prow of one of those incoming boats. . . . She would, surely, have been in her element. . . .
Then, with the rattle of beads and the murmur of the Ave Maria in his ears, La Vireville went off into slumber, and dreamt that Mr. Tollemache, whom he believed to be in the English flotilla, was telling Mr. Elphinstone (the latter in a cocked hat and epaulettes) by the barricade at Auray, that it had been arranged for the English soldiers to land, and the Frenchmen to man the English ships. But, Anne-Hilarion appearing suddenly in a boat, and signifying that he wished to have Grain d'Orge for a nurse instead of Elspeth, the conversation became entirely occupied with this startling proposal—which did not, however, strike La Vireville in his dream as being anything out of the common.
CHAPTER XXIV
Creeping Fate
(1)
"Mon cher beaupère," wrote the Marquis de Flavigny, "my former letter (if you ever get it, which I should think doubtful) will have told you of the incidents of our landing at Carnac. I have now to inform you that we are in complete possession of the peninsula of Quiberon, the fort which commands it having surrendered, on being summoned, three days ago. In consequence all the émigré regiments have left their temporary quarters on the mainland, round Carnac, and are bivouacked in the peninsula itself. I myself write actually in Fort Penthièvre, and at this very moment I hear the sound of pick and spade, for the engineers, who have hopes, they say, of making it into another Gibraltar, are hard at work this morning throwing up fresh entrenchments."
The young man broke off, and looked down from the embrasure of the surrendered fort, where he was sitting, at the work to which he had just referred. For three days, as he had said, the fleur-de-lys had floated over Fort Penthièvre, having been hoisted there, in fact, on the very day of the failure of the Chouan attack on Auray. What wonder if the enheartened Royalists had toasted the future that night, in the poor little villages scattered among the stone-encircled fields, or that they saw in a bright vision not only the restored splendours of Versailles—the triumph of a cause—but the tourelles of the château or the little manoir, long in alien hands, which they had left for poverty and exile . . . recovered homes where now, after all, their children and their children's children might play.
But to-day the white and gold standard hung in heavy, listless folds from the flagstaff, for it was a hot, close morning, of the kind that saps the energies and is tinged besides with a suggestion of unpleasant auguries, the sensation of waiting for something to happen, one knows not what. . . . A scarcely visible sun sent down a surprising heat, and haze lay over the sea on either side. Even the throb of the Atlantic sounded sullen and remote, for all its nearness.
René de Flavigny, who was sensible to atmospheric conditions, felt a fresh welling up within him of a vague uneasiness that had been his all morning, an uneasiness which the two or three other little groups of officers, mostly engineers, on the platform of the fort did not appear to be sharing. Instead of going on with his letter to his father-in-law he allowed himself to wander off into speculations and apprehensions which could scarcely with prudence have been committed to paper. He thought bitterly, regretfully, of the insane jealousies and incompetence of the Comtes de Puisaye and d'Hervilly, which, during the past days of inaction, had been growing more manifest every hour. And why had there been those days of inaction? Why was he, an officer in an émigré regiment, sitting idly here in safety on the peninsula writing a letter, when they all knew that the Chouans whom they had not been allowed to support had been beaten off from Auray, and were, if reports were to be trusted, faring none too well in other portions of the mainland? What madness possessed the generals to keep them, regiments in the main of trained men, doing nothing, while the irregular peasant levies were pitted against the now reinforced Republican garrisons of the interior? It was surely all too probable that these, gathering in force, would utterly crush the brave but undisciplined guerrilla troops. In that case, what of Fortuné de la Vireville, who had gone off so gaily with his Bretons ten days ago?
The Marquis got up from the embrasure, and, despite the heat, began to pace up and down. Surely the proper course was to push on into the interior, while the dismay which their coming had undoubtedly spread amongst the Blues was still fresh, and before the latter had time to discover that the Royalist invaders were numerically not so strong as they had imagined. Puisaye indeed was credited with the desire for such a course, but, owing to the equivocal instructions of the English Government, his will was not paramount. It was quite true that their present position was strong; this very fortress on whose upper works he now meditated formed an almost impregnable defence to the amazingly narrow entrance of the lower part of the peninsula, and out there, half seen in the haze, was the friendly English squadron to protect them against any attack by sea on their rear. But René and his friends were all impatient to do something more than merely create, in this favourable position, a dépôt for supplies with which to replenish the Royalists of the interior. Why, in God's name, did they not press on, and strike while the iron was hot . . . and why also had they not with them a French prince of the blood? Of what use to say that the Comte d'Artois was following? He was wanted now!
M. de Flavigny tried to put a term to his impatient thoughts, and, sitting down again, attempted to go on with his letter to Mr. Elphinstone, keeping it free of indiscreet criticisms. But his head was too full of these inopportune questionings; they threatened to find an outlet by means of his fingers, and that would never do. So he took a fresh sheet of paper, and began a letter to his son, telling him under what circumstances he had met his friend the Chevalier, how he had even, he believed, set eyes on the famous Grain d'Orge of whom the child had talked so much, how——
He had got so far when he heard a sudden violent exclamation burst simultaneously from a couple of officers talking near him. Jumping up, he, like them, looked hastily over the nearest parapet.
The sandy waste between the fort and the mainland had miraculously become alive with quickly moving figures, groups of people running towards the fort in the greatest disorder. René could hardly believe his eyes. Children, women, old men, cattle, carts laden with household goods, on they came, a confused horde streaming down the top of the peninsula like affrighted locusts. It was only too clear what had happened—the Chouans, left without support, had been driven from their untenable positions, and were even now falling back on Quiberon, while before them poured the panic-struck inhabitants of the villages round, terrified at the prospect of being left at the mercy of the victorious Blues. As they came nearer, it was obvious that there were flying Chouans also in that advancing flood.