He cast a last look at Le Goffic, and, going to the door of the shed, went forth into the sunshine and the suffering outside.
CHAPTER XXVII
La Vireville breaks his Sword
(1)
The hour when their last defence should fail them was nearer even than any of the Royalists had imagined. All next day, and the next, while Sombreuil's contingent—the émigrés with the black cockade, the regiments who had fought side by side with the British in the Netherlands campaign of 1794-95, and had endured with them the terrible retreat of that winter—were being disembarked on to a shore which was all too likely to be their grave, the garrison of Fort Penthièvre was leaking away to the enemy. And on the night of the twentieth, a dark night of rain and tempest, three hundred of Hoche's grenadiers, led by one of these deserters, came creeping, knee-deep in water, round the base of the fort on the side of the 'mer sauvage,' and men of d'Hervilly's own regiment helped them over the parapet. . . .
At half-past one on the morning of the twenty-first of July the sound of a cannon, indistinctly heard amid the howling of the wind, came to the ears of the wounded Le Goffic, where he lay wakeful on his couch of seaweed in the lantern-light. He put out a feverish hand and touched his leader, stretched out in sleep beside him.
La Vireville started up instantly. "What is it, my boy? Do you need anything?"
"I heard a cannon-shot, Monsieur Augustin," replied the young man in his weak voice. "It must have been from the fort, I think."
"Then it is being attacked—or, more probably, surprised," said Fortuné, reaching for his pistols. Almost at the same moment Grain d'Orge, a lantern in his hand, appeared in the doorway.
"The Blues have got the upper part of the fort, Monsieur Augustin," he shouted. "They are killing everybody inside——"
"Get the men ready—those that are able-bodied," said La Vireville, snatching up his sword. "I will be with you in an instant."
"There is such a cursed wind!" grumbled the Chouan, disappearing with his lantern.
La Vireville knelt down by Le Goffic. "Good-bye, Charles! If the worst come to the worst, and if I do not return, there are plenty of slightly wounded men here in St. Pierre who can take you off to the English squadron. I have seen to that already."
The young man looked up at his leader with undimmed affection and trust shining out of his sunken eyes, and put his hot hands over La Vireville's right, that held the sheathed sword.
"If you do not come back, I would rather have died with you, Monsieur le Chevalier! Let me fasten on your sword for you . . . you cannot do it with your arm thus."
The feeble fingers fumbled with the buckle, but Fortuné, guessing what the rendering of that last service meant to his young lieutenant, waited patiently till they had accomplished their task. Then he stooped down and kissed him, French fashion, on both cheeks.
Outside was darkness, confusion, and violent wind. But his men were marshalling. Already Vauban's Chouans, in disorder and with recriminations, were setting out up the peninsula towards the scene of the fresh disaster.
"Are all here who should be?" shouted Fortuné in Grain d'Orge's ear.
The old Chouan held a half-cocked pistol in his other hand. He nodded. "All but Yannik. He said he would not go, so I——" He lifted the pistol.
La Vireville nodded. "Give me the lantern." And with it he went forward to the little ranks, now pitifully depleted. "Mes gars," he cried, holding the lantern high, and running his eyes over the rows of familiar faces, "this is our last chance. We must help retake the fort. If it is not retaken, all is finished. But listen now. If I think that to fight any further is useless I shall give the word—Every man for himself." And he explained, as he had explained to Grain d'Orge, his reason for this course. "Do you understand, mes enfants, and will you follow me till I give that word?"
He was not sure that they would. But they had known and trusted and somewhat feared him long before their recent unforgettable experiences of artillery outside Auray and at Ste. Barbe. They shouted back their acquiescence.
"And then," yelled Grain d'Orge, putting in his word, "if M. Augustin is pleased with you, he will come back to us at Kerdronan, and we can go on again with that kind of fighting——"
"I wish to God that I had never brought them away from Kerdronan," thought La Vireville, as he turned away and put himself at their head.
(2)
They never reached the fort. The way towards it was blocked with the fruit of past mistakes, with masses of fugitives—mainly the dispossessed Bretons of the mainland, that unpropitious flotsam which the events of July the sixth had swept on to the peninsula—pouring away from the scene of calamity. The difficulty of struggling with a handful of men through this flood, all setting in the opposite direction, was enormous. It was almost impossible to keep together. However, they fought their way on, their heads down, buffeted by the wind and by the bodies of the fugitives, physically and morally disheartened, till at last the light of the wet, cheerless dawn was strong enough to show, in the distance, the grey bulk of Fort Penthièvre, looking doubly massive and formidable now that it was no longer in their hands. For, as La Vireville realised with a pang no less keen because it was anticipated, the golden lilies floated there no more. In their stead, flaring defiantly out in the wind and rain over counterscarp and glacis, was the red, white, and blue of the Republic.
"Halt!" cried La Vireville, and remained a moment staring at that significant sight. Then he called for Grain d'Orge.
"Mon vieux, the moment has come," he said sadly. "I give the word to disband. It is not right to sacrifice the rest of the men uselessly. Remember what I told you about the mainland. Try to get them all taken off in the boats of the English squadron, which will be possible if the wind goes down."
"But you, Monsieur Augustin, what will you do?" asked the old Chouan, seizing him by the hand. His eyes were glistening in most unfamiliar fashion, while with his other hand he fumbled inside his embroidered vest, finally drawing out thence a long, reddish-brown, hairy object, somewhat shrivelled, and tufted at the end.
"Take this, Monsieur le Chevalier," he urged, pressing it into his leader's hand. "It will certainly bring you back safe to Kerdronan. The wise woman gave it to me."
"No, no, mon gars," said La Vireville, rather touched, but not altogether taken with the appearance of the gift. "Keep it to ensure your own safety. But . . . what the devil is it?"
"A cow's tail that has been offered to St. Herbot at his chapel in Finistère," replied the Breton. "You will not take it, Monsieur Augustin? It has great virtue."
But La Vireville was firm in his refusal, and Grain d'Orge, replacing his talisman, moved off to convey his orders to the already melting band of Chouans. He came back, however, in a moment or two to repeat his question.
"What will you do, Monsieur Augustin?"
"For the present," replied his leader composedly, "I am going to offer my sword to anyone here who will accept it."
(3)
And that was why the Chevalier de la Vireville found himself, half an hour later, under the command of the Comte de Contades, trying, with Loyal-Emigrant and the remnants of d'Hervilly's regiment, to stem the steady advance of Hoche's forces, that outnumbered the Royalists by three to one. But everything was against them. The little eminence on which they fell back might well have been defended had not the Blues already got possession of the park of artillery at Portivy, which, owing to lack of horses, had not been removed in time. So they fell back once more, in good order, not a man of them attempting to join the throngs at Port d'Orange, where the sick and wounded, and some of the regimental colours, were, despite the tempest, being embarked on the boats of the English flotilla.
It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and the rain had returned to mist. It was in this mist that, still retiring before the relentless pressure of the Blues, the two regiments came to the knoll by the hamlet of St. Julien, where the troops of the second division were quartered under their commander, the young Comte de Sombreuil, the brother of the heroine of the 'glass of blood.' Here, on his horse at their head, a gallant figure in his hussar's dolman of chamois colour faced with red, his high shako looped about with cords and decorated with the black cockade, was Sombreuil himself.
And La Vireville heard him say to Contades, his handsome young face contracted with pain, "Puisaye told me to remain here, and Puisaye himself has embarked!"
For some time Fortuné had been asking himself what had become of the general-in-chief, and yet the answer, now that it had come, seemed incredible. But it was confirmed by the lieutenant-colonel of the régiment de Rohan, when he came up with his men, who had been ordered to hold the little battery at Port d'Orange, and could not, because the battery consisted merely of one small cannon without ammunition or even a gun-carriage. La Vireville began to see why Puisaye, a moral if not a physical coward, had fled from a situation which he was incompetent to control, and disasters of his own making which it was too late to repair.
There was no time to do more than to curse this extraordinary defection. The mist was breaking before the full daylight, and turning once more to rain, as the Comte de Sombreuil took command, disposing his little force in line, from the régiment de Rohan on the extreme right, the side of the sea, to du Dresnay (de Flavigny's regiment) on the left, by the windmill. He threw out, too, a company of the newcomers in advance, and posted two regiments of them in the rear. But some of these just-landed corps had not more than three cartridges to a man; one of the rearguard regiments, in fact, had none at all until its neighbour shared with it. And they were not the only bodies either who had to share their ammunition. Cartridges there were in plenty for all, but their distribution had not been finished before the surprise of the fort. . . .
La Vireville, in the ranks of that veteran corps, Loyal-Emigrant, learnt this fact with a sort of resignation. And what were they waiting for now? he asked himself. With the brave and disciplined troops at Sombreuil's command he might well have attacked Humbert's cautiously advancing column with the bayonet. When he at last ordered the advance it was too late, for hardly had the émigrés begun to go forward when an officer, arriving in haste from the left wing, announced that the soldiers of du Dresnay and d'Hervilly, after killing some of their officers, had gone over to the enemy. The Republicans were in possession of the windmill height, and indeed their guns were already beginning a murderous cannonade from that eminence. The Royalists had therefore no choice but to beat a retreat. Word spread that Sombreuil intended to retire to the Fort Neuf, on the shore south-east of Port Haliguen, and there surrender upon terms. When La Vireville heard this he made a grimace, for he happened to know what the 'fort' was like.
So they began their last withdrawal, still slowly and in good order, but forced all the time by the lack of cartridges to go through the bitter farce of taking aim without firing; and were thus driven gradually down to the extremity of the peninsula and the sea. The shore was covered with fugitives, mostly peasants and Chouans, running towards the Fort Neuf or trying desperately to get a place in the overcrowded boats of the English squadron, which, despite the high sea that was running, had been hard at work, but were now being obliged to abandon their efforts. And it was now that La Vireville, sword in hand—for he could not use a musket—came suddenly on an officer lying, wrapped about in a cloak, in a little dip in the sandhills. Two soldiers stood near him, looking down at him. Fortuné had no time to wonder who it was, for he saw at once the drawn features of René de Flavigny.
He stopped and knelt down by him among the coarse grass and the sea-pinks. On the scarlet of the English tunic, with its black facings, no blood was visible, but the grey of the Marquis's face was evidence enough of what had happened. His eyes were closed, and La Vireville half thought him unconscious.
"Where are you hit, René?" he asked quietly.
De Flavigny opened his eyes. "Shot in the back," he said in a faint voice. "But . . . it would be of no account . . . if only . . . O my God! It was my own men!" He raised a trembling hand and put it over his eyes. "O my God!" he said again.
"You must be got off to the English fleet without delay," said La Vireville with decision, though his heart sank. "How did you come here?"
"We carried him, mon officier," replied one of the soldiers, coming forward and saluting, and La Vireville saw that he was a sergeant of du Dresnay. "We will try to get him into a boat—but it will be very difficult. They are nearly all gone back to the ships."
"For God's sake do your best, however!" urged the Chouan.
"It is useless, Fortuné," whispered de Flavigny. "You see I was right. Remember your promise. . . . Kiss me . . . and kiss Anne for me." And, as La Vireville bent and kissed him, he relapsed into unconsciousness.
There was not a moment to lose. Already the little group was isolated between the retiring Royalists and the oncoming Republicans. La Vireville hastily thrust some money into the soldiers' hands, saw them raise their insensible burden, picked up his sword, and ran back to the retreating ranks.
(4)
And by the crumbling, four-foot walls of the little fort—a veritable children's citadel of sand—with its one rusty cannon that pointed seawards, amid the roar of the waves, the cries of the drowning, and the persistent booming of the guns of the English corvette, the Lark (which, by firing steadily on the stretch of beach and sandhills between the defeated and the conquerors, was retarding rather than averting the inevitable), the last words were written on the fatal page of Quiberon.
First of all, from the grenadiers drawn up behind their artillery among the dunes, where the corvette's fire could not touch them, came Rouget de Lisle, his scarcely three-years-old immortality upon him, to parley with Sombreuil. When he went back, Hoche, for the first time, showed himself, and Sombreuil rode out of the fort to meet him.
From just within the low wall La Vireville watched the interview of the two young soldiers, the victor and the vanquished. No one of either force was near enough to hear what they said to each other. But reiterated shouts came from the Republican ranks: "Lay down your arms, comrades!" "Surrender, and you shall be safe!" The rain, falling, falling, seemed a fit pall for the broken hopes that were going down in night, the melancholy cry of the gulls that wheeled overhead a fit requiem. The golden lilies were in the dust, and all was vain—ardour and sacrifice and devotion—as vain as the fury and despair that saw them wither, watered though they were with the best blood of France.
Sombreuil came back from his brief interview. It went instantly through the lines of waiting Royalists that he had bargained with Hoche for their lives—for all their lives except his own—at the price of capitulation. And indeed he was heard to say to those who pressed round him, "My friends, save yourselves, or else surrender!"
But there was no possibility of saving themselves now. The English ships, having done all they could, had withdrawn into the middle of the bay; not a boat was visible. Only the corvette still continued her stubborn fire. . . . And suddenly the unfortunate young leader realised that the last door was closed, for La Vireville saw him, in a paroxysm of despair, strike spurs into his horse and try to force him over the rocks into the sea—not the only man there to prefer the Roman ending. But the animal, rearing violently, refused the leap, and in a moment or two his rider had regained his self-command, had dismounted, and was attempting, with his handkerchief, to signal the Lark to cease firing.
Evidently the signal was not seen, for the corvette's guns still thundered away at the beach, and Hoche, coming up with the two 'representatives of the people,' Tallien and Blad, in their plumed head-dresses, seemed to be expostulating with Sombreuil on the point.
"He says that if a man of his is killed——" reported a youth near enough to hear, and left the sentence significantly unfinished.
"A lieutenant of the régiment de la Marine is going to swim off to the corvette."
"Then he will be drowned for certain," muttered La Vireville, turning and looking at that wild sea which must have put an end to René's last faint chance of escape.
(But he was wrong about the swimmer, for Gesril du Papeu not only accomplished his mission, but swam back again—to another kind of death.)
And soon to those in the little fort, when the thud and reverberation of the Lark's cannon had ceased, came insistently that sound which in all this desperate business had never been absent from their ears—the great voice of the sea, counting out the hours that were left, till those ears should be deaf to tide and wind for ever. So, after all the hours of tension (for it was now nearly one o'clock in the afternoon), the supreme moment of humiliation and disaster came at last. Charles de Sombreuil slowly detached his sabre, half-drew the blade from its sheath, kissed it reverently, and gave it into Tallien's hands, and Tallien put it into those of Rouget de Lisle. Then the soldiers surrounded the young hussar, and he was lost to sight. The expedition to Quiberon was over.
And as the grenadiers in their blue and white came pouring into the enclosure of the fort, La Vireville (like not a few others) broke his sword under his heel and flung it over the wall into the sea.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Mr. Tollemache as an Archangel
(1)
"Grandpapa," said Anne-Hilarion, "please to tell me what is 'ven-al-ity'?"
Mr. Elphinstone looked up. "Eh, what, child?"
"I read in this great book," proceeded Anne-Hilarion, "This ven-al-ity co-in-cid-ing with the spirit of in-de-pend-ence and en-cro-ach-ment common to all the Pol-y-gars pro-cur-ed them——"
"God bless my soul, what book have you got hold of?" demanded the old man; but before he could pull himself out of his arm-chair to see, there was a knock at the library door, and Elspeth stood revealed.
"Maister Anne's bedtime," she observed severely, and stood waiting.
Almost at the same moment Baptiste appeared at her side, in his hands a salver, and on the salver a china bowl. "M. le Comte mangera-t-il avant de monter, ou dans sa chambre?" he inquired.
M. le Comte looked from his retainers to his grandfather. His preference was so clearly visible in his expression that Mr. Elphinstone, whipping off his spectacles, said:
"He will have his bread-and-milk down here to-night, Baptiste. I will ring for you, Elspeth, when he has finished."
Mrs. Saunders retired, with a tightening of her tight lips, and the old valet, advancing victoriously, placed the steaming bowl on the table beside the volume of Orme's British India which had been engaging the child's attention. Anne-Hilarion, who had screwed himself round in his chair, turned his dangling legs once more tablewards.
For a few minutes nothing was heard in the large, book-lined room, this July evening, but the noise of a spoon stirring the contents of a bowl, and the old gentleman by the fireless hearth went on with his reading. But presently the spoon grew slower in its rounds, and Mr. Elphinstone, looking up, beheld a large silent tear on its way to join the bread-and-milk.
"My child, what is the matter?" he exclaimed in dismay. "Is it too hot?"
The Comte de Flavigny produced a handkerchief, not too clean. "I think," he said falteringly, "that I want Papa to-night."
"My poor lamb!" murmured the old man. "I wish to God that I could give him to you. See now, my bairn, if you were to bring your bowl here and sit on Grandpapa's knee?" He held out his arms, and the small boy slipped from his chair, went to him, and, climbing to his lap, wept a little silently, while his bread-and-milk steamed neglected on the table, and the deep frilled muslin collar round his neck was crumpled, unregarded, against Mr. Elphinstone's breast.
"I wish I could go to France and see Papa!" said Anne-Hilarion presently.
"My lamb!" repeated Mr. Elphinstone, his cheek pressed against his grandson's head. He did not think it necessary to combat this aspiration.
"If M. le Chevalier were here he could find him, Grandpapa. M. le Chevalier is so clever at finding people, is he not?"
"Yes, indeed," assented the old man. "But you know, Anne, that M. le Chevalier too is fighting for the King over there." And he did not explain that, so far as he knew, it was hardly a question of 'finding' the Marquis de Flavigny.
Anne-Hilarion gave a great sigh. "Perhaps M. le Chevalier will come back with Papa," he suggested. "And I can show him my new goldfish."
"And your memoirs, my bairn, with all the pictures you have made of him!"
"Yes," agreed the artist. "But, Grandpapa, when will they come back?"
They! Mr. Elphinstone seemed to see a tall figure standing by the door, with a face full of grief—alone. Of the two men who shared, in different degrees, this child's heart, one might return, but it would not be the better loved. Why had he this conviction about René, if not to prepare him for the reality? He made a great effort over himself, and said, "They will come back when it pleases God to send them, my child. Now eat up your bread-and-milk."
Anne raised a doubtful face. "Perhaps," he objected, "it will not please God for a very long time."
"If He sends Papa back in the end, we should not mind waiting even a very long time, should we?"
"No-o-o," said the little boy, still dubiously. He got down from his grandfather's knee, and went slowly back to the table. Yet, as he gained his chair, by a means peculiar to himself, he murmured again, "But I should like to see Papa soon."
And, with his eyes fixed on some vision of his own, he resumed operations on the contents of his bowl, now somewhat cooled by time and tears.
(2)
It was not till next day that Anne-Hilarion, sitting on the window-seat of his nursery, revolving anew the question of seeing his father, hit upon the idea of consulting M. de Soucy. For M. de Soucy, lame, as always, from the wound he had received at Thionville when he fought in the army of the Princes three years ago, had not been able to join the expedition, and he was still in his lodgings in Golden Square eking out a living by teaching music. And it appeared to Anne that M. de Soucy, who had seemed so disappointed at having to remain behind, might be induced to go, privately as it were, and to take him, Anne-Hilarion, with him—not, of course, to fight, but merely to see Papa. They might even see M. le Chevalier as well. . . . Having already travelled on the Continent, Anne felt that the actual journey presented few difficulties; but it would, he supposed, cost money, and the Vicomte de Soucy, ruined by the Revolution, was very poor. Grandpapa said so, and indeed M. de Soucy himself, always with a laugh. But if he, Anne-Hilarion, proposed such an expedition, it was surely his duty to defray its cost. Could he do this? He had, in his money-box, a crown piece which would not go through the hole in the lid, and which Grandpapa had introduced by means less legitimate, means which had revealed the presence of many other coins in the receptacle. There might be as much as a guinea there by this time. This wealth was not exactly accessible to Anne-Hilarion, since he could not open the repository, but if he went to interview M. de Soucy he could take the box with him, and doubtless M. le Vicomte would unfasten it.
The preliminary step was certainly to consult M. de Soucy. But how was he to do that? How was he to get to Golden Square without the escort of Elspeth or of Baptiste? Elspeth in particular had, as he knew only too well, a wary eye and a watchful disposition. He looked at her now, as she sat not far from him mending a little tear in his coat, with so meditative an air that Mrs. Saunders asked him what he was thinking of—and was no wiser when he replied, truthfully enough, "M. le Vicomte de Soucy." Yet before he returned to his contemplation of the Duke of Cumberland's equestrian statue in the Square, Anne-Hilarion had come to the conclusion that the only way to evade Elspeth was to call in celestial intervention.
Little, however, did Elspeth Saunders, that staunch Calvinist, imagine, as she impatiently surveyed the child at his 'Popish exercises' that evening, what it was which caused their unusual prolongation, nor what forces were being invoked against her. Little did she realise to what heavenly interposition was due, at least to Anne-Hilarion's thinking, the fact that next afternoon, at half-past one precisely, she slipped on the stairs and twisted her ankle rather severely, so that she had to be conveyed to her room and Baptiste despatched to fetch the doctor. M. le Comte had not in his orisons specified the hour of the miracle—nor, of course, the form that it should take—but he was on the alert. Mr. Elphinstone was nowhere about, so his grandson slipped into the library, and penned, not without labour, the following note:
"DEAR GRANDPAPA,—I think to go to France with M. le Vte. de Soucy, if God permits and there is mony suffisant in my box, to see Papa. I will not be gone for long dere Grandpapa. I love you alwaies."
He stood upon a chair and put this communication on the library mantelpiece; then, clutching his money-box, he struggled successfully with the front door, and set out towards the hackney coaches standing for hire on the other side of the Square.
(3)
Anne-Hilarion met no dragons on his adventurous way—which, after all, was very short. The hackney-coachman—who may have had qualms about accepting so immature a passenger—was most agreeable, and willingly agreed to wait, on arrival at Golden Square, in case he should be wanted again. The only obstacle to progress was the purely physical barrier of a stout and slatternly woman who, at that unusual hour, was washing down the dingy staircase, and whom Anne-Hilarion was obliged to ask to let him pass.
"Bless my soul!" ejaculated she, turning in clumsy surprise. "And what are you doing here by yourself, my little gentleman?"
"I have come to see M. le Vicomte de Soucy," answered Anne-Hilarion. "He is above, is he not?"
"The French gentleman? Yes, he is. I'll go first, dearie; mind the pail, now. To come alone—I never did! And who shall I say?"
"The Comte de Flavigny," responded the little boy, with due gravity.
Strange to say, M. de Soucy, in his attic room, did not hear the announcement, nor even the shutting of the door. He was sitting at a table, with his back to the visitor, his head propped between his hands, a letter open before him. There was that in his attitude which gave Anne-Hilarion pause; but he finally advanced, and said in his clear little voice:
"M. le Vicomte!"
The émigré started, removed his hands, and turned round. "Grand Dieu, c'est toi, Anne!"
His worn face looked, thought Anne-Hilarion, as if he had been crying—if grown-up people ever did cry, about which he sometimes speculated. But he was too well bred to remark on this, and he merely said, in his native tongue, "I have come to ask you, M. le Vicomte, to take me to France to see my Papa."
M. de Soucy, putting his hand to his throat, stared at him a moment. Then he seemed to swallow something, and said, "I am afraid I cannot do that, my child."
Anne-Hilarion knew that grown-up people do not always fall in at once with your ideas, and he was prepared for a little opposition.
"Your health is perhaps not re-established?" he suggested politely (for he was master of longer words in French than in English). He did not like to refer to M. le Vicomte's lameness in so many words. But M. le Vicomte made a gesture signifying that his health was of no account, so Anne-Hilarion proceeded.
"I have brought my money-box," he said, with a very ingratiating smile, and, giving his treasury a shake, he laid it on the table at the Vicomte's elbow. "I do not know how much is in it. Will you open it for me?"
M. de Soucy snatched up the letter that was lying before him, got up from his chair, and limped to the window. He stood as if he were looking out over the chimney-pots, but as he had put his hand over his eyes he could not, thought Anne-Hilarion, have seen very much. And gradually it began to dawn upon the little boy that the Vicomte must be offended. He remembered having heard Grandpapa once say how impossible it was to offer to assist him with money, and he felt very hot all over. Had he, in merely mentioning the money-box, done something dreadful?
But M. de Soucy suddenly swung round from the window. His face was as white as paper.
"Anne," he said, in a queer voice, "money will not bring you to see your father. He . . . my God, I can't tell him. . . . Come here, child. Bring your money-box!"
Anne obeyed.
"First, we must see whether there is enough in it, must we not? It costs a great deal of money to go to France, and, as you know, I am poor."
"I think there is a great deal, but a great deal, in it," said Anne reassuringly, shaking his bank. "Will you not open it and see, M. le Vicomte?"
"Yes, I will open it," replied M. de Soucy. "And if there is enough, we will go to France. But if there is not enough, Anne—and I fear that there may not be—we cannot go. Will you abide by my decision?"
"Foi de Flavigny," promised the child gravely, giving him his hand.
How wonderful are grown-up people! M. le Vicomte had the strong-box open in no time. Together they counted its contents.
"Seventeen shillings and fourpence—no, fivepence," announced M. de Soucy. "I am afraid, Anne . . ."
M. le Comte drew a long breath. The muscles pulled at the corners of his mouth.
"It is not enough?" he inquired rather quaveringly.
"Not nearly. Anne, you are a soldier's son, and you must learn to bear disappointment—worse things perhaps. We cannot help your father in that way." Again M. de Soucy struggled with something in his speech. "I do not know, Anne, how we can help him."
It was, fortunately, not given to the Comte de Flavigny to read his friend's mind, but he perceived sufficiently from his manner that something was not right. He reflected a moment, and then, remembering the celestial intervention of the afternoon, said:
"Perhaps I had better ask la Très-Sainte Vierge to take care of him. I do ask her every day, but I mean especially."
"You could ask her," said de Soucy, bitter pain in his eyes.
"You have no picture of our Lady, no statue?"
"Not one."
"It does not matter," said the little boy. "Elspeth sometimes takes away my image of her too. They do not know her over here, but that," he added, with his courteous desire to excuse, "is because she is French. . . . M. le Vicomte, I think that after all I had better ask St. Michel, because he is a soldier. It would be more fitting for him, do you not think? Yes, I will pray St. Michel to take great care of my Papa, and then I shall not mind that the money is not enough and that I cannot go to France to see him."
So, standing where he was, his eyes tight shut, he besought the leader of the heavenly cohorts to that end, concluding politely if mysteriously, "Perhaps I ought to thank you about Elspeth."
"I had better go back to Grandpapa?" he then suggested.
M. de Soucy nodded. "I will come with you," he said.
(4)
Anne-Hilarion had been gone for so short a time that he had not even been missed, for the domestics were still occupied about Elspeth's accident, and Mr. Elphinstone, though returned to the library, had not found the farewell letter. The only surprise, therefore, which the old gentleman showed was that his grandson should be accompanied by M. de Soucy. He got up from a drawing of one of the gates of Delhi that he was making for his memoirs, and welcomed the intruders.
"Anne has been paying me a visit," said the Frenchman. "He wanted to go to France again, but I have persuaded him to put it off for a little. Can I have a word alone with you, sir?"
"Did you not get my letter, Grandpapa?" broke in Anne-Hilarion, clinging to Mr. Elphinstone's hand. "I left it on the mantelpiece, behind the little heathen god. I did not run away, foi de gentilhomme!"
"Send him out of the room!" signalled the émigré. But Anne-Hilarion, having perceived his grandfather's occupation, was now in great spirits. "Let me look at the livre des Indes, Grandpapa!" he exclaimed. "I so much love the pictures. Faites-moi voir les éléphants!" And he jumped up and down, holding on to the arm of his grandfather's chair.
But the old man had followed M. de Soucy to the window.
"What is it, Monsieur?" he whispered. "Bad news from France?"
"Read this," said the Vicomte, thrusting the letter into his hands. "It could hardly be worse. D'Hervilly attacked the Republican position at Ste. Barbe five days ago, and was beaten off with frightful loss. God knows what has happened by now, what has happened to René—the worst, I have small doubt. . . ."
Mr. Elphinstone unfolded the letter with shaking hands. But ere he had got to the bottom of the first page, Anne-Hilarion was at his side, pulling at his sleeve.
"Grandpapa, I want to tell you a secret!"
"In a moment, child," said Mr. Elphinstone, his eyes on the letter.
"But it is very important," persisted Anne. "It is about Papa—at least it is about Elspeth."
For once he was not to be put off. The old man yielded.
"Well, my bairn?"
"I want to whisper," said Anne.
So his grandfather bent down and received the following revelation, "I prayed to my ange gardien about Elspeth."
"To make her better, do you mean?"
"No—it was before she fell down—to make her let me go and see M. de Soucy."
"Well?" said Mr. Elphinstone, still more perplexed.
"Eh bien, he arranged it," said the successful petitioner, in a tone of satisfaction. "He pushed Elspeth, no doubt, that she slipped on the stairs, and so I was able to go. I did not ask him to make her slip, Grandpapa," he hastened to add.
But still the old man did not realise whither all this was tending. The Vicomte de Soucy also, his threadbare coat showing very greenish in the strong light near the window, was looking at the little boy with puzzled, unhappy eyes.
"So now," proceeded Anne, "since I have asked St. Michel himself to take care of Papa—did I not, M. le Vicomte?—he will be quite safe, and I do not want any more to go to France. That is the secret, Grandpapa—and when you have finished reading that letter will you show me the elephants?"
"If Elspeth can be disposed of by the heavenly powers, even the Blues are not beyond their control—is that it?" observed M. de Soucy with a grating laugh, half to Mr. Elphinstone and half to the child. "Good God, if only one could believe it!"
As Anne, his mind at ease, climbed up into his grandfather's chair by the table with a view to the elephants, Mr. Elphinstone finished and let fall the letter, his apple cheeks gone grey. Then he turned without a word to the window and stood there, his back to the room, while into the silence came, with a strange little effect of calamity, the sound of a scud of summer rain beating against the glass.
(5)
And the rain was falling steadily on the white sand of Quiberon Bay also, on the low dunes, on Hoche's triumphant grenadiers, on the little fort, now abandoned, on the useless English ships, and on the upturned face of René de Flavigny, who lay, wrapped in a cloak, a short stone's cast from the rising tide. All about him were the evidences of the great disaster, but he had never heeded them, lying where the two soldiers had left him, by a little spur of rock that had its extremity in the sea. It had proved impossible to get him off to a boat; there was no chance for an unconscious man when even good swimmers perished. So his bearers had laid him down by the rock; he was no worse off than hundreds of others, and neither the cries of the drowning nor the boom of the English cannon had wakened him.
But now he had drifted back to pain, and the thirst of the stricken, and the numbing remembrance of catastrophe. He had tried to raise his head, but desisted from the distress of the effort. The fingers of his left hand ploughed idly into the sand. As it dribbled through them, white as lime, he remembered everything. . . . His eyes, so like Anne-Hilarion's, darkened. Since there was no one to make an end of him, he would do it himself, not so much to ease the pain and to hasten an otherwise lingering death as because everything was lost. And he would go to Jeannette.
Yet his senses were playing him tricks again. One moment he was here, a piece of driftwood in the great wreck; the next, he was kneeling by Anne-Hilarion's bed, going again through that dreadful parting, promising that he would soon return, and the boy was clinging to him, swallowing his sobs. He could hear them now, blent with the plunge of the tide. He could not keep that promise. Better end it all, and go to Jeannette.
René thrust down a hand, tugged a pistol out of his belt, cocked it, and put it to his head.
But ere the cold rim touched his temple, sky and sea had gone black. Flashes of radiance shot through the humming darkness, steadying at last to a wide sunflower of light, and then . . . he saw distinctly Anne-Hilarion's terrified face, his little outstretched hands. His own sank powerless to the sand, and he was swept out again on the flood of unconsciousness.
(6)
"Not a single blessed patrol, by gad!" thought Mr. Francis Tollemache to himself. "That means they have got at the port wine and beer we landed at Fort Penthièvre: trust the sans-culottes for scenting it out! But, O gemini, what luck for us!"
For Mr. Tollemache was at that moment—midnight—steering a small boat along the shore of Quiberon. On his one hand were the lights of the English squadron, still in the bay; on the other, the Republican camp-fires among the sandhills. The files of Royalist prisoners had started hours ago on their march up the peninsula, but Sir John Warren was still hoping to pick up a fugitive or two under cover of darkness, and Mr. Tollemache's was not the only boat employed on this errand of mercy. But it was emphatically the most daring; nor had Sir John the least idea that Mr. Tollemache was hazarding his own, a midshipman's, and half a dozen other lives in the search for one particular Royalist. Mr. Tollemache, indeed, never intended that he should have.
A rescued Frenchman sat already in the sternsheets—the sergeant of du Dresnay, picked up earlier in the day, who had helped to carry de Flavigny down the beach. Truth to tell, Mr. Tollemache had smuggled him into the boat as a guide, for the task of finding the wounded man in the dark would otherwise have been hopeless. But the sergeant could direct them to the little rock by which his officer had been laid, and, rocks being uncommon on that long sandy shore, he did so direct them. Unfortunately, since Mr. Tollemache, no expert in tongues, could not always follow his meaning, they had not yet found it. Already, indeed, had they made hopefully for some dark object at the water's edge, only to ascertain that it was a dead horse, and Mr. Tollemache's flowers of speech at the discovery had not withered till the body of a drowned Royalist slid and bumped along the boat's side. But meanwhile, even though the shore was unguarded, it was getting momentarily more difficult to see, the tide was rising once again, the men were becoming impatient. After all, it was rather like looking for the proverbial needle.
The French soldier tugged suddenly at the Englishman's arm. "V'là, m'sieur!" he whispered. "There is the place—that is the rock!"
The young lieutenant peered through the gloom, gave a curt order or two, and then, lifted on the swell, the Pomone's boat greeted the sand of Quiberon Bay. Another moment, and Englishman and Frenchman had found what they sought. But only Mr. Dibdin's special maritime cherub averted the discharge of the cocked pistol which the Marquis de Flavigny still grasped in a senseless hand, and which Mr. Tollemache had some difficulty in disengaging before they got him into the boat.
The middy, now in charge of the tiller, desired, as they pulled away, to be informed why his superior officer had been so set on saving this particular poor devil.
"Oh, I met him once in England," replied Mr. Tollemache carelessly, and, as far as the bare statement went, quite truthfully. "Here, give me the tiller now! It makes a difference when you have actually known a man, you see."
For he was ashamed to avow the real motive power—his acquaintance, much more intimate and cogent, with a younger member of the family. At any rate, it was not a safe thing to let a midshipman know.
They were nearing the Pomone when the Marquis de Flavigny, his head in his compatriot's lap, began to mutter something. The middy bent down.
"The poor beggar thinks he's talking to his wife—or his sweetheart," said he, pleased at being able to recognise a word of French. "'Anne,' her name seems to be."
Mr. Tollemache, in the darkness and the sea-wind, turned away his head and smiled.
CHAPTER XXIX
Væ Victis!
(1)
All that night Fortuné de la Vireville sat in the desecrated church of St. Gildas at Auray, his back against a pillar. Hundreds of his comrades were there with him, so crowded together that it was difficult to find room to lie at length. He was fasting, as they all were, since the evening before, his wounded arm was inflamed and aching, but his thoughts were with René, stiff and stark by now, most probably, on the sandhills or the shore; with Le Goffic, helpless at St. Pierre; with his scattered and leaderless Bretons. Before his eyes, in that encumbered church, lit only by a single lamp, rushed in a stupefying panorama all the events of that long day of disaster, from his ominous waking in the early morning to the last scene in the little fort—and its aftermath. He remembered how, as the grenadiers drew up their long column of prisoners on the shore, the rain had ceased, and the sun had come out; even the wind, which had wrought them so much calamity, seemed, too late, to be abating. But by three o'clock in the afternoon, when, faint with hunger and fatigue, they arrived at Fort Penthièvre, the downpour had begun again, and it rained in torrents as they marched, for eight hours or more, towards Auray. At the head of the column walked Sombreuil, supporting the old Bishop of Dol, who, on account of his age and infirmities, had not been able to embark for the English fleet, and who, in any case, as he said, had made the sacrifice of his life. And because, before they started, every man had given his parole not to attempt escape, they marched for all those weary hours through a strongly Royalist countryside, half of the time in the friendly darkness, with an insufficient and fatigued escort, and not one broke his word. Thus, in the dead of night, they had reached Auray, and had been huddled into its various churches.
Here in St. Gildas were massed all ages and ranks, veterans and boys, officers and private soldiers alike, and the wounded, of whom there were not a few, lay in their rain-soaked clothes on the stone floor with no care but what their empty-handed companions could give them. Here was Gesril du Papeu, the brine scarcely dry in his hair, who had swum back again from safety to share the fate of his comrades; and Charles de Lamoignon, who had carried his wounded younger brother to a boat, himself forbearing to embark; and men with names like Salignac-Fénelon and Broglie, and the seventeen-year-old Louis de Talhouët, who had passed, a prisoner, through the estates of his own family on the way to Auray; and many another. . . .
Somewhere between three and four in the morning an émigré named de Manny, whom La Vireville had known some years previously, came past, and, finding a little vacant space by the Chouan leader, sat down, and recalled himself to his memory.
"You have been in Holland since then?" inquired Fortuné, looking at the faded sky-blue uniform with its orange cuffs. The fact was equally proclaimed by the black cockade which marked him as one of the second—Sombreuil's—contingent.
"Yes; I was—and am—in the Légion de Béon, and had the luck to escape when the Republicans massacred eighty of us as we marched out at the surrender of Bois-le-Duc. This time——" he shrugged his shoulders.
"We surrendered on terms, even if the capitulation was only verbal," said La Vireville, without much conviction. "There are plenty of witnesses to that."
"Yes," retorted de Manny; "and what are the chances of the capitulation being observed?"
La Vireville said nothing.
"There is one man who will not escape in any case," went on the lieutenant of Béon, looking towards the tombstone a little way off where Sombreuil sat talking to some of his officers. "He is exempt from the capitulation—he exempted himself. And do you know, La Vireville, that he was summoned by the English Admiralty to Portsmouth, to take command of us of the black cockade, on the very eve of his wedding day? The summons came at midnight, and he obeyed it instantly; but he was to have been married on the morrow to a lady whom he adored."
La Vireville made a sudden movement, as if his posture irked him.
"How very dramatic!" he observed drily. "Was the lady sorry or relieved, I wonder?"
De Manny looked at him, astonished at the tone, but the speaker's face was now in shadow from a neighbouring pillar.
"I understand that she was heart-broken—that they both were. But what makes you ask such a question? Have you anything against M. de Sombreuil?"
"Nothing whatever," replied the Chouan, shifting his wounded arm to a more comfortable position. "I pity him from the bottom of my heart. But the lady will marry someone else, you may be sure."
"Sombreuil will be difficult to replace, however," said de Manny meditatively, looking again at the young colonel of hussars, who had indeed every gift of mind and body to commend him both to man and woman.
La Vireville gave a smothered laugh. "Good heavens, man, have you not yet learnt that to a woman's heart no one is irreplaceable? She can always find somebody else . . . if she have not already found him," he added, almost inaudibly. "But it is half-past three; if you will excuse me I shall try to sleep a little." And, putting his head back against the stone, he closed his eyes.
The officer of Béon studied him for a moment, in the dim light, with a curiosity which even the desperate nature of their common situation could not blunt, before he, too, settled himself to snatch a little repose.
(2)
Next morning some charitable hand threw in a little bread through the ruined windows of St. Gildas. Later, the muster-roll was called, and the officers, separated from the men, were marched to the town prison, though some eighteen hundred émigrés were drafted off to Vannes and other places.
La Vireville was among those who remained at Auray, to witness the indefatigable devotion of the women of that town to the prisoners. These cooked for them, brought them food, running the gauntlet of the pleasantries of their guards, took messages for their families, and tried—in a few cases successfully—to smuggle them out of prison. The days passed. Time was punctuated by the summons to go before the military commission, by batches of twenty, every morning and evening. Few came back. Sombreuil, the old Bishop of Dol, and twenty priests were shot at Vannes on the twenty-eighth of July, just a week after the surrender, and it was abundantly clear that the capitulation, if it had ever existed save as a tragic misunderstanding, would not be observed. It was for this that they had given their paroles, that those who from fatigue had fallen out during the march from Quiberon had voluntarily come into Auray next morning and surrendered themselves. . . . Even before trial, therefore, they all prepared for death, and since, against all expectation, a priest was allowed them, they went to their last confessions in a little bare room at the top of the prison—the only room that could boast a chair.
One of the military commissions to try the prisoners sat over the market of Auray, that remarkable building with the great roof which La Vireville remembered well enough, having seen it when, at the head of his gars, he had helped to take the town a few short weeks before. But the other was in the little chapel of the Congrégation des Femmes, and it was here that he was tried, and condemned, as an émigré taken with arms in his hand. No reference was made by the tribunal to his exploits in the Chouannerie of Northern Brittany; it was not necessary.
There was still a picture over the altar in the other little chapel to which he was taken, with the rest of that day's condemned, for his last night. A few mattresses, even, had been put in the sacristy, but most of the prisoners were of the mind of the old Breton gentleman, M. de Kergariou, and needed nothing save a light to pray by. Scattered about the chapel was a pathetic flotsam, the possessions of former occupants who also had spent here their last night on earth; and La Vireville, picking up a little book of prayers marked with the name of a boy of fourteen, Paul Le Vaillant de la Ferrière, a volunteer in du Dresnay, who had been wounded, like him, at Ste. Barbe, knew by it that, despite his extreme youth, he too had been sent to the slaughter.
In this little place Fortuné lay down for his last living sleep. He had no desire to meet death with bravado; it was, he felt, more seemly to meet it with devotion, as so many had done, and were doing now. If he could not compass that he had been too long accustomed to the daily thought of it to fear it. Everything had ended for him on the morning when he broke his sword. He wished, it was true, that he could have left his mother in better circumstances, but before he quitted Jersey he had had the Prince de Bouillon's promise of a pension for her if he did not return. She would grieve for him, yes; but she would not have had him outlive his comrades. And she, too, would sleep soundly soon.
Poor little Anne-Hilarion! For him he was really sorry. The child loved his father so much; he would find it hard to believe that he would never see him again. (For he was certain now that René de Flavigny, even if he had survived, had never reached safety.) And there had been no chance of fulfilling his own promise; escape had never even looked his way. . . . After all, Providence had been merciful to him, just where it had seemed most merciless. . . . He had no son, and therefore no anguish of farewell.
And so, disturbed neither by thoughts of the morrow, by the low-voiced conversation of two friends near him, nor by the prayers of others, Fortuné de la Vireville slept soundly, as has happened to not a few in like circumstances.
(3)
He woke a little before four o'clock, and heard an old émigré, M. de Villavicencio, standing under one of the windows, read the prayers for the dying to two others, much younger. The old man was beginning the Profisceretur when the tramp of feet was heard outside. The chapel door was opened, letting in the air of the early morning; soldiers stood there with packets of cords. Just for one moment there was silence, and, in it, the rapturous song of a thrush; then M. de Villavicencio finished the prayer.
Fortuné got to his feet and tried to put some order into his attire. As he did this he cast a sudden keen glance at the captive who happened to be nearest to him, a man a good ten years younger than himself, fair-haired and slim, and pitiably nervous.
"I believe they have recently adopted the happy plan of tying us together two and two," he said to him quietly. "Might I have the honour of being your companion?"
The young émigré was obliged to put his hand over his mouth to steady its traitorous twitching before he could reply. Then he said, out of a dry throat:
"You are very good, Monsieur, but surely there is someone else you would rather . . . die with? . . ."
The Chouan shook his head with a little smile, and as they stood side by side waiting for the soldiers to tie them together, the younger man pulled out from his breast the miniature of a girl, and showed it to him without a word.
"Believe me, it will not hurt," said La Vireville in a low voice as their turn came. "I have seen men shot by a firing-party before now. It is over so quickly that they know nothing about it." (Perhaps the youth would have the luck never to find out that this statement was not always true.) "It is nothing near so painful as being tied up like this when one is winged.—De grâce, corporal, put that cord round my right arm instead, if my friend has no objection!"
The two changed places, and La Vireville restored his wounded arm to the sling. Before the cord was knotted the officer in charge of the party began to read out the names. Every man answered to his own.
"La Vireville, Fortuné."
"Present."
The officer looked up from the list. "You are not to go with this batch. Why the devil have you tied him up, corporal?"
"Not to . . . not to go . . ." stammered La Vireville, thinking he must be already dead—and dreaming. "It must be a mistake—you are confusing me with someone else!"
"Untie him!" said the officer briefly, offering no explanation; and the corporal, grumbling a little, obeyed.
"This is horrible!" said La Vireville to his comrade, a comrade no longer. "Dieu, why did I answer to my name! If I had had the least idea, you should have answered instead."
"You are wanted to give somebody else the courage you have given me," answered the young man with an attempt at a smile. "You permit, Monsieur?" And he kissed him.
A little later—it was still not much after sunrise—they were marched off, two and two, through the quiet streets of the little town towards the red meadow, the 'martyrs' field,' without him, and he sat alone in the deserted chapel, stunned, emptied of any conscious feeling, even of relief. And later still he heard, over the mile or so of distance, the volley which told him that they had reached their journey's end. Fortuné de la Vireville bowed his head and prayed for their souls as he had never prayed for his own—as he would not have prayed, perhaps, had he shared that volley.
CHAPTER XXX
Atropos
La Vireville reprieved was much less composed than La Vireville condemned. For about half an hour, it is true, he sat motionless on the steps of the desecrated altar in the little chapel-prison, a prey to the most acute feeling of loneliness he had ever known in his life. The place was so horribly empty now that it was unbearable. But after a while he rose and began to walk up and down. The harvest of relics which he had seen last night was this morning a little more plentiful, but most of this morning's victims had taken their last precious things with them to the place of death. That young man, his erstwhile comrade, with the miniature—who had that now? he wondered,—how had he, in the end, been able to face the levelled muskets? . . .
As Fortuné paced to and fro, he naturally came before long to the thought of escape. He had promised to try. . . . But a very cursory survey of the improvised jail, with its windows high up in the wall, quite out of reach, convinced him of its efficiency in that respect. And, Royalist in sentiment though the people of Auray were, had he succeeded in breaking out he would hardly find safety by broad daylight in its streets full of soldiers. These things needed some previous arrangement. It wanted someone ready to receive and hide him, someone to—yes, parbleu, someone to gallop up with a horse, unlock the door, and then . . . For his mind, by no very subtle ways, had leapt back to the captive of Porhoët, reversing the part he had played in that episode of deliverance. Now was the time for Mme. de Guéfontaine to appear and save him in her turn. It was, alas! a most unlikely consummation. Away in Guernsey, no doubt, she was quietly mending her brother Henri's uniform. But she would have made the attempt, had she been here; of that he was sure.
La Vireville sat down once more on the altar steps, and leant his head against the chipped and discoloured plaster rail upborne by its short, stout columns. Two instincts were beginning now to torment him, hunger and curiosity, and neither could he satisfy. From whatever angle he looked at the postponement of his fate—for he never judged it to be more than that—he was baffled. He had no friend in the ranks of the foe. The only thing that occurred to him was that, since his appearance before them, his judges had discovered his identity with that sought-for chief, Augustin of Kerdronan, and wished to question him further—a nuisance, if it were so, and a proceeding likely to be of advantage to neither party. He profoundly wished, however, that something would happen.
Yet he was half dozing against the rail when, about nine o'clock, he heard a key thrust into the chapel door, and beheld the entrance of a grizzled sergeant of grenadiers, with a couple of soldiers behind him. Others were visible in the sunlight outside. Fortuné got up and stretched himself.
"What the devil is the meaning of this, I should like to know?" he inquired. "Is the Citizen Hoche desirous of offering me a post under him? It is lost labour on his part; I shall not take it."
"It is orders, neither more nor less," replied the sergeant briefly. "All I know is—yes, you had better tie him up—that you are not going to join the others to-day. Afterwards, perhaps—I don't know. At present I am to take you to a house in the town."
And so, with his wrists lashed together behind his back—a posture which secretly caused him not a little pain—La Vireville set off in the midst of his escort. This could hardly mean release, still less escape. Besides, except that a natural revulsion had left him a little doubtful as to what he really did wish, he was not sure that his desire was towards release if he could have it. But why this house in the town, and who—or what—could be awaiting him there?
In Auray streets, where he had twice fought, and which were full this morning of sunshine and bright air, and of peasants with baskets, leading cows or driving pigs (for it was market-day), La Vireville was looked at with curiosity and pity. Probably, he thought, recognising the fact, because he was a solitary prisoner in the middle of his guards. They were used to batches at a time now in Auray. . . . And, passing once again by the Halles, he met the glance, brimming with a beautiful compassion, of a young countrywoman in a wonderful wide coif, who held a child in her arms. Indifferent though he was to his own fate, Fortuné felt that look like a benediction, and he wished that he could have kissed her hand. All he could do was to smile at the child, who was waving a small delighted arm to the soldiers.
Auray is a little town, and it was not long before the guard halted in front of a house taller than its elder neighbours, having a passionless female head in the Græco-Roman style and a frieze of acanthus leaves above the door. La Vireville particularly noticed them. In the large well-furnished room on the first floor, looking out on to the street, to which he was conducted, was a silver-haired old lady seated in an arm-chair, reading, whom he noticed with even more particularity. It was Mme. de Chaulnes.
He was hardly astonished, in a sense. After all, it was ridiculous to suppose that his escort would have conducted him to anything agreeable. But he could not conceive what she wanted with him.
On their entry Mme. de Chaulnes looked up, closing the book over her finger, for all the world like a woman suffering a trivial interruption which she also intends shall be brief.
"You can remove your men, sergeant," she said calmly. "I have a moment or two's private business with this gentleman, and I do not doubt the security of your knots."
The soldier had presumably no fears on that point either, and in another instant the former antagonists were alone. La Vireville had no difficulty in recalling their last meeting. Now he was a beaten man, wounded and fettered, but he stood before her very composedly, and waited. He had to wait some time, too, while Mme. de Chaulnes studied him. But there was no vulgar triumph visible in her look.
"You are wondering," she said at last, "why I have had you brought here?"
La Vireville assented.
"You are possibly thinking, Monsieur Augustin, that I am about to heap coals of fire on your head by putting the means of escape within your reach, like other charitable ladies of this place?"
"I am sorry if it disappoints you, Madame," returned the captive politely, "but that is the last idea that I should entertain."
"Or to offer you your life on terms, then?"
"They would undoubtedly be terms that I could not accept."
Mme. de Chaulnes smiled slightly, and laid down her book on a little table near her. "That is a good thing, then, for indeed I have no terms to offer to a person of your integrity, Monsieur. Though, if I had, perhaps you might find them tempting for the sake of the little boy—now, I presume, fatherless—for whom you once risked that life so successfully."
The émigré was silent.
"You are right to give me no answer," went on the old lady, "for really I have no proposition of any kind to make to you. I merely wish to ask you a question, which you will not, I think, find it inconsistent with your honour to answer. But I cannot force you to give me a reply, nor (as you see) do I seek to bribe you into doing so."
"I will answer your question if it be in my power, Madame," said La Vireville, outwardly unmoved and secretly curious.
"Thank you, Monsieur. It is merely this—did you, or did you not, bribe my agent Duchâtel when you took the child from him at Abbeville?"
"No," replied the Chouan on the instant, "most certainly I did not. The only intercourse of any moment that passed between us was a blow."
"Ah," said Mme. de Chaulnes, with an air, real or fictitious, of relief, "that interests me very much. I am greatly indebted to you for your frankness, Monsieur Augustin. Since you can have no motive in protecting Duchâtel—rather the reverse—I believe you unreservedly. He is a useful tool, but there have been moments when I was tempted to consider that transaction at Abbeville a farce. I am glad to learn, on the best authority, that it was not." And taking up a tablet that hung at her waist she scribbled something on it with a silver pencil.
"And it was in order to discover this," broke out the prisoner in spite of himself, "that you were barbarous enough to have me reprieved at the last moment, to——" He pulled himself up, for he had no wish to exhibit his emotions to this woman.
Mme. de Chaulnes finished writing. "And you would really have preferred to go with the rest this morning?" she asked.
La Vireville bowed. "Your occupation, Madame, has very naturally blunted your perception of what a French gentleman would prefer."
"On the contrary," retorted Mme. de Chaulnes, sitting up in her chair, her old eyes flashing, "it has greatly enlightened me as to his preferences. It has taught me that he considers it consistent with that honour of which he talks so much, to make war on his native land for the sake of his own class, and for a discredited dynasty—you see that I place these in the order in which they appeal to him—and that for his own ends he will not scruple even to call in the assistance of his country's enemies, the Prussians, and her hereditary foe of foes, England."
La Vireville shrugged his shoulders (thereby causing himself a violent twinge of pain). "On that point, Madame, we shall never agree. In return for the question I have answered, may I now ask one of you? . . . How do you reconcile your own position as a French gentlewoman with—the use to which you put it?"
Mme. de Chaulnes' smile was insolent. "Quite easily, Monsieur. I fight for my country—at the cost, I grant you, of my class; you, for your class, that degenerate, self-seeking class, at the expense of your country. To me it seems the more patriotic course to sacrifice the part to the whole, whatever it may cost one personally. I had a nephew in this morning's batch, but I would not have saved him if I could. Yes, it is rotten, this aristocracy of ours, and the sooner France is purged of it the better."
That smile had maddened La Vireville. She was a woman, and his hands were tied behind him, but he still had the means of striking. "Ah yes," he said, in his most careless voice. "And when your misguided father was shot by order of Montcalm for his treachery during the siege of Quebec, you approved even then, no doubt, of the process of purgation, and applauded its beginning. He also, if I have heard rightly, had the same fancy for the assistance of the English against his own country."
Not a muscle of Mme. de Chaulnes' face had quivered, but its faint colour had faded to grey, and La Vireville saw the small knotted hands in her lap gripping each other till the knuckles stood out white. And he was pleased.
"You think, Monsieur, that this forty years' old story is the reason for my present actions? It is not, I assure you." And, seeing the smile on his face, she added with more warmth, "No, you would never understand that a woman could have conviction, apart from personal animus, in a matter of this sort."
"You misjudge me, Madame," retorted the Chouan. "I am quite sure that Delilah, for instance, had convictions of the same kind. No doubt your unfortunate father had them too when he invited the English into Quebec. One may say, in fact, that it was a sort of family conviction that upheld you in your spider's web at Canterbury. But if the blood of those you have betrayed could speak, I think it would cry out less against a renegade who acted from revenge, than against one who made a trade of treachery from 'conviction'!"
Light and intentionally wounding as his tone had been at the beginning of this brief speech, a passion of loathing had slipped into it by the end. A flush crept into the grey old face opposite him, and the blue eyes hardened. But, a condemned man, La Vireville knew himself beyond any vengeance of hers. She could not touch him now.
"If our not very fruitful conversation is at an end, Madame . . ." he suggested.
There was a little bell on the table near her, and to this she put out a still shaking hand. But before she rang it she showed herself not unconscious of his thought.
"You owe me something, Monsieur, for your triumph over me in the matter of the child. I dare say you think that since this is to be your last day on earth you have paid me that debt. You are wrong." She rang the bell. "You have not paid it yet!"
As his guards took La Vireville away he saw that she had returned to her book, but one hand was pulling at the lace round her wasted throat, and she looked very old. He flattered himself that he had contributed something towards that effect of age.