"Yes," said Anne. "Yes, there is a mark there. Oh, do you know him?"
"No," said Mme. de Chaulnes, "but I have heard of him. And your Chevalier will be 'Monsieur Augustin.' Well, that is the answer to your question, and you see it is quite simple. Now, do you not think it is time for you to go to bed, Anne? First, however, I think you should write a little letter to Grandpapa—quite a short letter, to say that you have arrived safely. Do you not think that would please him?"
And Anne, assenting, was shortly installed at an escritoire, where, perched upon a chair heightened by a cushion, he slowly and laboriously penned a brief epistle to Mr. Elphinstone. And at the table in the middle of the little hall Mme. de Chaulnes was writing too.
Elspeth was very glum as she put the little boy to bed in the delightful room where there was no place for her.
"At ony rate," she remarked, when the operation was concluded, "A'll no leave ye till A please, and gif ane of these madams comes A'll e'en gar her turn me oot."
"They are very kind ladies," said Anne-Hilarion, who was excited. "I think Mme. de Chaulnes is a beautiful old lady like afée marraine—yes, like the Queen of Elfland. Elspeth, say the 'Queen of Elfland'!" he added coaxingly.
And, much more because she thought it would enable her to stay longer in her charge's room than to please him, Elspeth embarked on the tale of 'True Thomas,' which she had proffered in vain in London a few nights ago. Her favourite passage was rendered with even more emphasis than usual:
"'O see ye not yon narrow road,So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?That is the Path of Righteousness,Though after it but few enquires.'And see ye not yon braid braid road,That lies across the lily leven?That is the Path of Wickedness,Though some call it the Road to Heaven.'And see ye not yon bonny road,That winds about the fernie brae?That is the road to fair Elfland,Where thou and I this night maun gae.'"
"'O see ye not yon narrow road,So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?That is the Path of Righteousness,Though after it but few enquires.'And see ye not yon braid braid road,That lies across the lily leven?That is the Path of Wickedness,Though some call it the Road to Heaven.'And see ye not yon bonny road,That winds about the fernie brae?That is the road to fair Elfland,Where thou and I this night maun gae.'"
"'O see ye not yon narrow road,So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?That is the Path of Righteousness,Though after it but few enquires.
"'O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few enquires.
'And see ye not yon braid braid road,That lies across the lily leven?That is the Path of Wickedness,Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
'And see ye not yon braid braid road,
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
'And see ye not yon bonny road,That winds about the fernie brae?That is the road to fair Elfland,Where thou and I this night maun gae.'"
'And see ye not yon bonny road,
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.'"
"This is Elfland, then," put in Anne-Hilarion contentedly.
"'But, Thomas, ye sall haud yer tongueWhatever ye may hear or see;For speak ye word in Elflyn-land,Ye'l ne'er win back to your ain countrie.'"
"'But, Thomas, ye sall haud yer tongueWhatever ye may hear or see;For speak ye word in Elflyn-land,Ye'l ne'er win back to your ain countrie.'"
"'But, Thomas, ye sall haud yer tongueWhatever ye may hear or see;For speak ye word in Elflyn-land,Ye'l ne'er win back to your ain countrie.'"
"'But, Thomas, ye sall haud yer tongue
Whatever ye may hear or see;
For speak ye word in Elflyn-land,
Ye'l ne'er win back to your ain countrie.'"
She paused a second. "Go on!" commanded Anne-Hilarion.
"'Syne they came to a garden green,And she pu'd an apple——'"
"'Syne they came to a garden green,And she pu'd an apple——'"
"'Syne they came to a garden green,And she pu'd an apple——'"
"'Syne they came to a garden green,
And she pu'd an apple——'"
"You have missed some out!" exclaimed the listener. "Do not miss any, Elspeth! Say about the rivers abune the knee and all the blood that's shed on the earth——"
"Fie, Maister Anne!" said Mrs. Saunders reprovingly. "Yon verses are no' fittin' for a bairn, and A did wrang ever tae tell them tae ye." However, to get them over as quickly as possible, she went back and repeated them.
"'O they rade on and farther on,And they waded rivers abune the knee;And they saw neither sun nor moon,But they heard the roaring of the sea.'"
"'O they rade on and farther on,And they waded rivers abune the knee;And they saw neither sun nor moon,But they heard the roaring of the sea.'"
"'O they rade on and farther on,And they waded rivers abune the knee;And they saw neither sun nor moon,But they heard the roaring of the sea.'"
"'O they rade on and farther on,
And they waded rivers abune the knee;
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.'"
"I like that!" murmured the Comte de Flavigny, with a shudder.
"'It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,They waded through red blude to the knee;For a' the blude that's shed on the earthRins through the springs o' that countrie.'"
"'It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,They waded through red blude to the knee;For a' the blude that's shed on the earthRins through the springs o' that countrie.'"
"'It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,They waded through red blude to the knee;For a' the blude that's shed on the earthRins through the springs o' that countrie.'"
"'It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,
They waded through red blude to the knee;
For a' the blude that's shed on the earth
Rins through the springs o' that countrie.'"
"But what does that mean?" asked the child, captured by a delicious horror. "How could——"
"It's a' silly havers, child—it's poetry, and nae sense in it," replied Elspeth crossly. "Noo harken aboot the apple.
'Syne they came to a garden green——'"
'Syne they came to a garden green——'"
'Syne they came to a garden green——'"
'Syne they came to a garden green——'"
But at the second attempt to pluck the apple the door opened and Mlle. Angèle came in.
"My sister desires that you will go now," she said to Elspeth. "Mrs. Barnes is waiting to take you to her house. We shall expect you to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."
Though she had a pleasant smile on her face there was no resisting the quiet authority of her tone. Mrs. Saunders rose with much reluctance, bent over her charge and gave him a kiss—by no means the ritual of every night—and with a very high head left the room. Mlle. de Chaulnes came over to the bed.
"Are you comfortable, little one?" she asked kindly. "You will not be frightened? My sister sleeps next door, and if you want anything, you have only to call her."
"Yes, thank you, Madame," said Anne-Hilarion a little shyly, and she too kissed him and went away.
But the mere absence of alarm is not in itself sufficient to induce sleep. M. le Comte de Flavigny had seen too much that day for ready slumber, and now he began to see it all over again: the busy road from Rochester, the stage-coach and its passengers—the fat traveller in a shawl, the thin one who had, to Elspeth's intense indignation, offered him a sip of rum—and everything in Rose Cottage, down to the grey cat. The last object of which he thought was his goldfish, on the dressing-table, for just as he was making up his mind to get up and look at it, he fell fast asleep.
In his sleep he had a curious dream. He was in a little boat on the sea, he and a lady with a crown on her head. By that he knew that she was the Queen of Elfland, though she had not, as the ballad said, a skirt of grass-green silk and a velvet mantle, and he wondered why she was in a boat, and what she had done with her horse and all its silver bells. Then suddenly she changed to Mme. de Chaulnes, and, bending over him where he lay in the boat, shook him slightly and said, "Anne, Anne, do you remember now the name of the place at which the expedition was to land?" And he tried hard to remember it, while the boat rocked under him and the water was full of goldfish, but all that he could recall was the name of the shop where the goldfish had been bought yesterday—Hardman. "Think!" said the Queen. "Are you sure you cannot remember it?" Then the sea began to get very rough and dark, and Anne saw that on it were floating feather-beds and shoes with cork heels, as it said in 'Noroway-over-the-foam,' and so he looked over the side of the boat, and down, very far down at the bottom, he could see Sir Patrick Spens lying drowned on the seaweed, with a great many other people . . . and somehow Sir Patrick Spens was also M. le Chevalier de la Vireville. And as he looked he became aware that in some way it was his, Anne-Hilarion's, fault that they were all drowned—or at least that it would be his fault if he did something or other, but the dreadful thing was that he could not find out what that something was which he must avoid. And the Queen—or Mme. de Chaulnes—who was still in the boat, said, laughing:
"'Speak ye word in Elflyn-landYe'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie,'"
"'Speak ye word in Elflyn-landYe'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie,'"
"'Speak ye word in Elflyn-landYe'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie,'"
"'Speak ye word in Elflyn-land
Ye'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie,'"
and then he understood—hehadspoken, and that was why M. le Chevalier and all the rest were down at the bottom of the sea. And he began to cry bitterly, begging M. le Chevalier not to be drowned; and because he was so unhappy and so sorry he said boldly to the lady, "No, I cannot remember the name of the place, and if I could I would not tell you!" But with that he woke, and found himself, not in a boat, but in his own bed.
It was still dark, and the light was burning, and there was no one in the room. But as he looked anxiously to be sure that this was the case,—anxiously and a little dimly, for there were real tears in his eyes,—he heard the door very gently close.
And that, joined to his dream, really terrified Anne-Hilarion, so that he took instinctively to the natural refuge of those of tender years oppressed with terrors in the night, and burying his head under the clothes, lay there quaking with fear, his heart thudding like a live thing in his small body. Who had gone out—or who . . . what . . . had come in? What was in the room with him? . . .
A long, long time passed; it was difficult to breathe under the clothes, and he was hot and cold alternately with fear. But nothing happened; no animal leapt on to the bed, no spectral hand shook him by the shoulder. He remembered how Papa had told him that he need never be frightened of anything unless he were doing wrong; that the angels were there to take care of him, though he could not see them. So, a little wondering whether it would penetrate through the bedclothes, he put up a small prayer for protection to his own guardian angel, and, finding some solace in this effort, ventured after a while cautiously to remove some blanket and peep out. And he found, to his inexpressible joy, that while he had been thus concealed a miracle had happened—doubtless due to his orisons—and that shafts of the dawn were making their way round the window-curtains. So night was nearly over, and it would soon be the blessed day.
The next thing that happened was the sun peering in and waking him. Anne-Hilarion got up immediately to look at his goldfish, and wondered if it had been swimming round and round tirelessly all the time in the dark. In these speculations he forgot the terrors of the night and was comforted, though when Elspeth came to dress him he looked rather pale and tired, and did not trouble her, as he sometimes did, by skipping about during his toilet. It was against Mrs. Saunders' principles to 'cocker' him by asking him, even on an unusual occasion, if he had had a good night, and so she made no inquiries. Perhaps it was as well, for already the memory of the actual dream was beginning to fade.
The Comte de Flavigny breakfasted downstairs with the old ladies, who had conformed in this respect to English custom, then he played for a while in the garden with the fat grey cat, who would not, indeed, play in the proper sense of the word, looking without any interest at a piece of string when it was dangled before her, but who was very willing to be stroked, and followed him round, purring and rubbing herself against his legs. But he was uneasy in his mind because of the goldfish, whose bowl he had caused Elspeth to hang on the branch of a tree, tormenting her with inquiries as to whether the cat could jump so high, or crawl out so far, till Elspeth at last crossly said, "Why didna ye leave the fush bide in yer bedroom, child?" To which Anne-Hilarion responded, with a sudden little dignity that he had at times, "Because I do not wish to, and because I mean always to have it with me,always, Elspeth!" But then there came a sudden April shower, and he and his 'fush' had to be conveyed indoors again.
When Anne got into the house, he found a gentleman talking in the hall to the two old ladies. They all turned round at his entrance.
"Etienne, this is our little visitor," said Mme. de Chaulnes. "Anne, this is an old friend of ours, M. du Châtel, who is an émigré, like your father."
Anne put his hand into M. du Châtel's, thinking that he could hardly be an old friend of the fairy godmothers; he looked so much younger than they. M. du Châtel was neatly dressed in black, and he had also very black hair; there was about him nothing remarkable save his particularly light eyes, which, besides looking strange under so dark a thatch, reminded Anne of a goat he had once seen.
It soon appeared that the émigré had come on a visit and was staying the night.
"Then A'd like fine tae ken," said Elspeth indignantly, when she had gathered this piece of information, "hoo it comes that these madams hae a room for him in their hoose and nane for me!" And she brushed Anne-Hilarion's hair as though he were responsible for it, while he, wincing, assured her that he did not know why.
"Mebbe," communed Mrs. Saunders, "they kenned he was comin', and keepit the room for him. Aweel, it's nane o' ma business, nae doot, and A canna get a worrd oot o' that auld witch in the kitchen, but A'll see yon room, or ma name's no' Elspeth Saunders."
And see it she did, at three o'clock that afternoon, when the inmates of Rose Cottage and their visitors were at dinner. She was in no wise rewarded for her investigation of the small apartment—so small, indeed, as hardly to be more than a cupboard—except by the fact, which puzzled her, that the guest who had already occupied it for some hours had made not the least attempt to unpack his little valise. It stood untouched on a chair by the bed, and if Elspeth had pursued her researches a little further she would have made a discovery of real interest—that the bed prepared by those very particular old ladies for M. du Châtel's repose had no sheets on it.
Downstairs, at the same time, the newcomer was being most friendly and agreeable to Anne-Hilarion over the roast lamb and salad, and suggesting that his little compatriot might like to see something of Canterbury if ces dames would permit, and that, with their approval, he would take him that afternoon to see the great Cathedral, in whose crypt French people—though, to be sure, Huguenots—had worshipped for over a hundred years. Anne replied, politely as ever, but without enthusiasm, that he should be very pleased to accompany him. He was not drawn to M. du Châtel of the goat's eyes. Nor, as he wandered with him later in that lofty nave, was he at all communicative, as he had been to the old ladies on the previous evening, for, after all, M. du Châtel was no friend of his father's, and though his dream was now so dim that he could hardly remember it at all, it had left behind a vague discomfort. He was sorry, somehow, that the émigré had come to Rose Cottage, and when a rather earlier bedtime than usual was suggested to him by Mme. de Chaulnes, who said that he looked tired, he had no objections to offer.
And, being really sleepy, he had no apprehensions as to the night, and did not want the hot posset which Mlle. Angèle was kind enough to bring up to him after he was in bed and Elspeth had left him, though for politeness' sake he sat up and sipped it, while Mlle. Angèle waited and smiled at him, encouraging him to finish it to the last drop. It had a flavour which Anne did not much relish, but having been taught that it was rude to make remarks on the food which was put before him, he said nothing on this point. Yet he was glad when he had finished, and when Mlle. Angèle, kissing him, went away and left him, with only the night-light and his goldfish for company, to that very sound sleep which was stretching out inviting arms to him.
In a cheap little room, not much more than a garret, at the top of a house off Tottenham Court Road, the Chevalier de la Vireville was shaving himself before a cracked mirror. As he did so he hummed, experimentally, the 'Marseillaise,' which it amused him at times to render, fitting to it, however, when he actually sang it, the burlesque words of Royalist invention, 'le jour de boire est arrivé,' 'c'est pour nous que le boudin grille,' and the rest. The light filtered through the dirty, uncurtained window on to his strong, aquiline features, the bold chin with a cleft in it, the mouth with its lines of recklessness and humour; and threw up too the marks of stress of some kind—it was difficult to tell of what kind—which had bitten into it too deeply for it to be altogether a handsome or an attractive countenance. Even as it was, when Fortuné de la Vireville's smile was merely devil-may-care and not cynical, it had its charm. Yet something had marred his expression, though neither women nor wine held any attraction for him. He followed danger, a commerce which no doubt has purifying effects on some characters, but which in others is apt to breed consequences not altogether commendable; and he followed it intemperately, as though life had very little value for him. With life indeed he possessed only one enduring tie—his mother in Jersey—and, so his friends whispered, the remembrance of another, most untimely snapped. Yet for all this he certainly seemed to find a relish in an existence of the most constant and varied peril, and envisaged his hazards with an unfailing and sometimes inconvenient humour.
The ways in which he 'lived dangerously' were these: He was, first and foremost, a Chouan chief, leading, in a ceaseless guerrilla warfare of sudden attacks and ambushes, among the broom and hedgerows of Brittany, those stubborn little long-haired men of an elder race whose devotion to their religion and their King was almost fanaticism. Secondly, he was intermittently an 'agent de la correspondance'—that is to say, he was in constant personal communication with Jersey, the centre whence set forth all the small Royalist descents on the coast of Brittany and Normandy. Here Captain Philip d'Auvergne, the Jerseyman, titular Prince de Bouillon and captain in His Britannic Majesty's Navy, watched over the interests of the Frenchémigrésand directed the various gun-running expeditions to France. When, therefore, as at the present time, La Vireville was not risking his life amongst Republican bullets, he was venturing it in a little boat, crossing to and fro from Jersey to the Breton coast, liable to be shot at sight by a patrol as he landed, liable to be wrecked on his passage, because secrecy demanded so small a vessel. It was true that the 'Jersey correspondence' had three luggers and a brig of its own, but these were generally used for transporting whole parties of returningémigrés, and in any case they never came right in to shore.
And always, in whatever capacity La Vireville trod his native soil, his head was forfeit, since he was an émigré, and in his own person, as the Chevalier Charles-Marie-Thérèse-Fortuné de la Vireville, liable to summary execution. It really needed not that a couple of months ago the Convention had also issued the large reward of five thousand francs for the body, dead or alive, of 'Augustin, ci-devant noble, chef de Chouans'; for 'Augustin' and he had but one body between them. Like most of the Chouan leaders, La Vireville had anom de guerre, and many even of his followers knew him by no other. Little, however, did the reward for his person trouble him, since he knew his Bretons incapable of betraying him for money, and was very sensibly persuaded that, his head being forfeit in any case, it did not concern him whether, when he had parted with it, any other person were to reap pecuniary benefit by the separation. Only, as a sacrifice to prudence—about the only one he ever made, and that more for the sake of the cause he served than for his own—he strove to keep apart as much as he could these two selves, and, so far, he had reason to believe the Republican Government ignorant of their identity.
When he had finished his shaving operations, La Vireville, still humming, looked round the scantily appointed dressing-table for something upon which to wipe his razor. On the threadbare dimity lay, in tempting proximity, a folded paper with worn and soiled edges, but this he refrained from using. It was, in fact, the proclamation in question for the person of 'Monsieur Augustin,' and, as it possessed the merit of being very inaccurate in its description of that person, he had the habit of carrying it upon him—partly, he declared, as an amulet. The Republic one and indivisible had not, he averred, the wits to conceive that a man would voluntarily carry about with him his own death-warrant.
"Head of a ci-devant!" he observed now, wiping the razor upon a piece of newspaper, and making a grimace at his image in the glass. "No, Augustin, my friend, you will get a bullet through your heart before ever that ornament rolls into the basket and is shown to an admiring crowd." And indeed this was highly probable.
He was about to put down the razor when the tarnished mirror suddenly revealed to him a tiny trickle of blood on his left cheek, just below the short furrowed scar that ran across it. He had cut himself in shaving—the most infinitesimal injury, yet, after standing a moment staring at the glass, he gave a violent exclamation, dabbed at the place with a hasty handkerchief, and threw the scarcely flecked linen from him as though it were a thing accursed. For a Chouan, of all men, the action, with its suggestion of repugnance, was strange.
However, in another minute his brow cleared and he proceeded with his toilet. Then once more humming the 'Marseillaise,' he sat down upon the bed and looked over the contents of a letter-case which he drew from his pocket. A missive in a fine large flourishing hand signed "Bouillon" informed him that the writer was eagerly expecting his arrival to confer with him as to the landing of a cargo of arms and ammunition near Cap Fréhel on the Breton coast. And, in fact, it was M. de la Vireville's intention to set out this morning for Southampton, thence to Jersey, on this matter. Another letter was there, from Jersey also, in a feminine hand. The smile which was not cynical came about the émigré's lips as he re-read it, and, being a Frenchman, he lifted and kissed his mother's letter. A third was the several days' old note from the Marquis de Flavigny, telling him of the time of the conference which he had already attended in Mr. Elphinstone's house.
"Tudieu!" exclaimed M. de la Vireville as he came upon this. "And I promised to say good-bye to the baby. I wonder have I the time?"
He sprang up to put together his few effects, and in a very short space was making his way westwards.
Mr. Elphinstone got up from his memoirs when the Chevalier de la Vireville was shown in to him in the library.
"I am afraid that I am interrupting you, sir," said the émigré. "If so, it shall only be for a moment."
"You are not interrupting me at all," returned the old gentleman pleasantly. "I am very glad to see you, M. de la Vireville; pray sit down. But I thought you had started for Jersey."
"I am just about to do so, sir," said La Vireville, obeying him. "I came to take my leave of you and of Anne."
"The child will indeed be sorry to miss you," observed his grandfather. "He was afraid that he might. He has gone away, quite unexpectedly, upon a visit."
"Tiens!" said La Vireville, surprised; "Anne on a visit! That is something new. May one ask where he is gone?"
"He has gone to compatriots—some old friends of his father's at Canterbury. I am glad that the child should have a change of air, for he has been looking a trifle pale lately, so when my son-in-law's letter came I was glad to pack him off—under Elspeth's charge, of course."
But the Frenchman did not seem to be sharing Mr. Elphinstone's pleasure at the change of air. "Canterbury!" he reiterated sharply. "Canterbury!I did not know that René had friends at Canterbury."
"Nor did I, to tell the truth," confessed Mr. Elphinstone. "I do not think, in fact, that he was aware of it himself till he came across them on his way through Canterbury to Dover the other day."
"On his way to Dover!" repeated the émigré. "But, Mr. Elphinstone, René did not go to Dover! He crossed from Harwich to Germany, of course."
"I think you must be mistaken, sir," replied the old gentleman mildly. "His letter came from Canterbury, at all events. It bears the postmark. But what is wrong then?"
For La Vireville was on his feet, looking very grave. "Have you the letter here?"
Considerably astonished, Mr. Elphinstone took it out of his pocket. "This is what he says: 'I have just met, by chance, two very old friends of my family, who have been living here, it appears, for a couple of years or so—Mme. and Mlle. de Chaulnes. They are very anxious to make Anne's acquaintance, and I have promised them that they should do so as soon as possible. If, therefore, you would send him to Canterbury with Elspeth for a few days on receipt of this, I should be greatly obliged. He would be well looked after.' And enclosed was an invitation from the French lady herself."
La Vireville gave a cry. "It wanted only this! Good God, sir, what have you done? Mme. de Chaulnes—the poor child!" He almost snatched the letter from the old man's astonished hand and took it to the window. "Yes, a very good imitation, though—pardon me—you ought to know your son-in-law's handwriting better . . . Mon Dieu, what a disaster! When did the boy go?"
"Last Wednesday," answered Mr. Elphinstone, looking dazed. "But what in God's name do you mean, M. de la Vireville? He got there safely. I have even had a letter from him to-day in which he speaks of the two kind ladies—see, 'The two old ladies who are very gentle to me'—he means kind,gentil; he often uses that expression—'and their grey cat.' So it is all true, and he is there. . . . I do not understand you."
"Of course he got there safely—would to God he had not!" exclaimed La Vireville in a sort of desperation. "But, all the same, those two kind old ladies are spies in the pay of the Convention. We have only recently discovered it, to our cost. And clever! . . . How did they get their information—know that René was leaving England just at this time, even know the name of Anne's nurse?"
"It must be all right," reiterated Mr. Elphinstone piteously. "No one could have told them but René himself."
"Mr. Elphinstone, I repeat, René never went to Canterbury! I myself set him a mile or two on his way to Harwich. That is the one mistake these women have made, or, it may be, a risk that they deliberately ran, trusting that you would not know the route your son-in-law took—as you did not. As for the rest, there has been treachery somewhere—in the house, almost certainly. . . . I warned René. . . . However, time is too valuable to spend in finding out who sold them information. The more pressing matter is to get the child back before it is too late."
Mr. Elphinstone put his hand to his head. "Too late! . . . I still do not understand. What could they do to him?"
"Anne knows a good many things it were better he did not know, sir. I fear that I am responsible for some of his knowledge. That is no doubt why they wanted him."
"You mean they——"
"They will try to get information out of him. Oh, they will not do him any bodily harm; it would not advantage them; but they may frighten him, le pauvre petit! He will come back to you, sir, never fear"—for the old man had sunk into a chair and had hidden his face—"but I am very much afraid he will leave something behind. They will wheedle secrets out of him, for he knows things—he cannot help but know them."
"What is to be done?" asked Mr. Elphinstone hoarsely, his head still between his hands.
"I think I had best post off to Canterbury instantly. Give me your written authority to bring the child back at once."
"But you—you were going to Jersey . . . and ought you, M. de la Vireville, of all people, to run your head into a nest of spies, as you say they are?"
La Vireville gave a shrug. "That cannot be helped," said he. "Believe me, it will be much more difficult if you send an Englishman. Moreover, it is very necessary that I should discover, if I can, how much they have got out of Anne. Do not set the law in motion unless I neither return to-morrow nor send you news. And—you must pardon me—but I shall want money, possibly a good deal of money."
Mr. Elphinstone pulled himself out of his chair and, going to a safe, began with trembling hands to unlock it.
"I cannot believe that you are right," he said brokenly. "And he had Elspeth—he even took his new goldfish with him."
"Neither Elspeth nor a goldfish, I fear, will serve as a talisman," returned the Frenchman rather grimly, pocketing the notes and gold that the old man pushed into his hands. "These two years that Mme. and Mlle. de Chaulnes, as they call themselves, have lived on the Dover road, professedly as sympathisers with the Royalist cause, they have been the reason of more of our plans miscarrying, more of our agents being betrayed, than any half-dozen of the Convention's male spies put together. You see, they are really of noble birth."
"René says in his letter that they are old friends—but I forget, you say his letter is a forgery."
"As to their having known his family in the past I cannot say," replied La Vireville. "It is possible, since they are renegades. The mischief is, that we have only just found out their treachery. This, I suppose, is a last effort before giving up their trade—in Canterbury at least. Now a line, sir, to authorise me to bring the child back."
Mr. Elphinstone wrote it, scarcely able to control his pen. "God grant you are successful!" he said, as he gave it to the Chouan.
"I will do my best, sir," returned the latter. "I do not want to alarm you unduly, and, on my soul, I think they only wanted Anne for what they could get out of him in the way of information.Weshall be the losers by that, not you; and so I hope to bring him back safely in a couple of days at most. In any case, I will write to you from Canterbury to-night. Au revoir!"
He wrung the old man's hand and departed.
If there were any room in any house in London which held at that hour more anguish of soul than Mr. Elphinstone's study, it would have been hard to find it.
When the Chevalier de la Vireville, wet and draggled from his long ride, flung himself off his horse at the gate, and knocked on the door of the little house at Canterbury, that door was not very speedily opened. Yet the occupants of Rose Cottage were not engaged in anything visibly nefarious: Mme. de Chaulnes was merely copying a paper, in her regular pointed writing, at the table in the little hall, and, after exchanging a glance with her sister-in-law, she quite unhurriedly sanded over what she had written and, putting it away in a drawer, took up some embroidery. Mlle. Angèle, equally unhurried, rose and opened.
So La Vireville saw, through the frame of the door, an idyllic picture of a beautiful and serene old age bent over fine needlework. His mouth tightened a little as he took off his dripping hat to Mlle. de Chaulnes.
"Mesdames will permit that I enter?" he asked in his own tongue.
"If you have business with us, certainly, Monsieur," replied Mlle. Angèle, standing back, and the very steadiness of her tone, its absence of surprise, seemed to hint that she knew what he had come about. He threw a look down the path at his horse, standing, too spent to move, at the gate, and stepped in, uttering apologies for his wet and muddy condition.
"Monsieur appears indeed to have ridden far, and in haste," remarked Mme. de Chaulnes, responding to his salute with an inclination of the head, but still continuing her embroidery. "Pray give yourself the trouble to hang your cloak by the fire. Angèle, perhaps Monsieur will partake of some refreshment?"
But Monsieur declined. "I am in haste, Mesdames. I think you can guess why. I have come, on the part of his grandfather, to take away the little boy whom you have with you—Anne-Hilarion de Flavigny."
Mme. de Chaulnes raised her still beautifully-marked eyebrows. "What a singular hour to arrive, Monsieur! But you are forestalled. The little boy went back with his nurse this afternoon—no, not by the stage-coach, in a postchaise. They must be at Rochester by now; you will have passed them on the road."
The émigré's face grew dark. "Madame, would not truth be better? I am not a very credulous person. It will be quite easy for me to procure a magistrate's warrant against you. I have the written authority of the boy's grandfather."
Mme. de Chaulnes looked at him with a very finished composure. "I am afraid that I do not quite follow you, Monsieur. I have already had the honour to tell you that the child was sent back this afternoon. . . . Ah, I see—you do not believe me! Well, it will no doubt be quite easy to procure a warrant; we are only two women in a strange country; but I think it would advantage you very little, since no amount of search warrants—if that is what you are threatening—will produce what is not there. Pray examine our poor house yourself, if that will give you satisfaction; you are at perfect liberty to do so. Angèle, light a candle and conduct Monsieur."
It was on the tip of La Vireville's tongue to refuse, for he was convinced that the offer would never have been made if the boy were still there. In that respect at least the truth had probably been spoken. But the operation would give him time for thought. "Yes, if you please, I will do so," he said, and while the younger lady lighted a candle, stood silent, looking at the elder, as she calmly threaded a needle. Of how many lives like his had not those fragile old fingers lately held and twisted the thread!
Mlle. Angèle preceded him up the stairs.
"See," she said, throwing open a door, "here is my sister's bedroom; pray do not hesitate to enter! There is a cupboard on that side; he might be hidden there, might he not? Here is my own room; let me light the candles for you. There is no cupboard in this room—one of its disadvantages. And this is the room the child had; as you see, it could hardly be emptier."
The exquisitely-ordered room certainly bore no sign of recent occupation nor of hurried flight. The spotless bed, new clothed, looked as if no one had ever slept therein; every chair was in its place, and the dimity-hung dressing-table, whose glass had reflected—how short a time ago?—Anne's childish countenance, seemed primly to reproach the intruder for his suspicions. Yet a chill despair invaded the Frenchman's heart. All had been indeed well planned!
Mlle. Angèle stood regarding him with a curious smile on her round, comfortable face as he walked mechanically to the bow-window in which, with a little space round it, stood the dressing-table. And La Vireville was there almost a score of seconds, looking down at the polished boards at something half hidden by the folds of dimity, before he realised at what he was staring—at a goldfish slowly swimming round and round in a glass bowl.
He stooped and picked it up, and, without speaking, faced Mlle. de Chaulnes, holding it out a little towards her. Then, still silent, he went past her and downstairs, the glass dangling from his hand, and water and fish swinging violently in their prison. Mme. de Chaulnes was still bent over her needlework as he set his discovery down in front of her.
"A sign of a somewhat hurried departure, Madame, I think," he said quietly. "I conceive the child would hardly be likely to leave this willingly behind, nor would there be any reason why he should—if he were returning to his grandfather's house, as you allege."
"You should be in the secret service, Monsieur,' was all that Mme. de Chaulnes vouchsafed, but she looked at the little captive and compressed her lips.
"Thank you, Madame," retorted the émigré, seating himself at a little distance. "I leave that trade henceforward to your sex. It is only recently that one has become aware of your talents in that direction—talents rather unusual in one of your birth."
The old lady was quite unruffled. "If it is your intention, Monsieur, to remain here to insult us, of course you can do so with impunity. We cannot eject you. Otherwise I would suggest your returning to London, if you wish to see the little boy . . . or else continuing your interrupted journey to Jersey, and relieving the impatience of the Prince de Bouillon."
La Vireville, though he received this stroke with a steady bearing, had nevertheless a somewhat numb sensation, for of course her knowledge of his destination almost certainly meant that Anne had been talking.
"Ah, you know me?" he asked carelessly.
"You could not expect our little visitor to be tongue-tied, especially on a subject so interesting to him as M. le Chevalier de la Vireville."
Probably the worst was coming now. But, at all events, it was something that she should let him see how much she knew.
"Yes," went on Mme. de Chaulnes, "he gave us a very agreeable and lifelike picture of his doings in Cavendish Square, and of his many French friends, so that it was not hard to recognise you, Monsieur . . .Augustin!"
The name was merely breathed. La Vireville was only just able to check an exclamation. Anne had indeed, poor innocent, betrayed him! But how did he know hisnom de guerre? Then he remembered that it had been used in the child's presence when he sat on his lap that night in Mr. Elphinstone's dining-room. . . . Well, it was his own doing, for it was he who had retained him there. Perhaps it did not very much matter after all; it was quite conceivable that these old plotters, with the sources of information which had in the past been only too open to them, had found out his identity by other means. But, remembering that meeting, a very disquieting fear suddenly came over him. How much of another matter had Anne heard and understood?
Mme. de Chaulnes looked at his face and openly laughed.
"You are wondering. M. le Chevalier . . . M. Augustin—which do you prefer?—how much the child remembered of the conversation you held about the proposed Government expedition? But, you see, we know all about that—from other sources. Only the place—the suggested place of landing. . . . Unfortunately, Anne was not able at first to recall the name."
"Why do you say 'at first'?" broke in La Vireville.
"Because it is the truth. By now he may have remembered."
"Where is he?" demanded the Chouan, who was holding himself in with difficulty.
Mme. de Chaulnes shrugged her shoulders. "I have told you. Somewhere between here and Rochester."
"Madame, you are lying!" said La Vireville. "Between here and Paris would be nearer the mark. You have sent him over to France because you think he knows a thing which, if he did know it, is not of the slightest importance."
"Your assurance on that point, Monsieur, is naturally most valuable! What he told us about yourself, for instance, was of so little moment, was it not?"
"Of very little," returned La Vireville hardily. "You probably knew it already. . . . Come, Madame, let us play with our cards on the table. I know yours, even if you do not display them, and you, I fancy, know mine now. Do not think to keep up any longer this farce of having sent the child home. You have shipped him over to France. God knows of what use the revelations of a child of five or six can be to the Committee of Public Safety, even if he do reveal anything to them, and that I am certain he would never do unless he were tricked into it, as you tricked him."
"Ah, Monsieur," said the old lady, smiling, "you speak as a man, and a strong man. It is not so difficult to make a small boy speak—or remember!"
A thrill of fear and abhorrence ran down La Vireville's spine, and he drew back from the table on which he was leaning.
"No, no!" said Mme. de Chaulnes, putting up a delicate mittened hand. "No, nothing of that sort was necessary. Angèle here can testify to that. We were old friends of his father's, devoted Royalists—what need for more? But if he were obstinate, I could not answer . . ."
The mask was off now. Theyhadsent him to France, then.
"Madame, where is he?" asked La Vireville sternly. "It is I who can put force in motion here, remember!"
"You threaten us with those same repugnant methods, then, Monsieur?"
"God forbid! I merely want to come to terms. If the child has already reached France——"
"Then neither you, Monsieur, whatever power you may command here, nor his grandfather, nor all the magistrates' warrants in England will get him out again—no, not the whole British Army!"
La Vireville made no reply to this unpleasant truth. "What I cannot understand," he said, "is your motive for sending him there—unless it be sheer cruelty. You cannot seriously regard him as a source of information; moreover, you have, apparently, already pumped him dry."
Mme. de Chaulnes smiled a little. "He is an intelligent child, and an attractive. His father no doubt adores him—motherless only son as he is."
And on that, in a flash, La Vireville saw the whole thing. They were going to use Anne as a bait. They hoped his father, that adversary of parts, would follow him into the jaws of destruction.
"As you are no doubt aware," he said slowly, "the Marquis de Flavigny is little likely to hear of his son's kidnapping for some time to come. Your acquaintance, however procured, with the family affairs will tell you that he is not in England at present."
"Measures will be taken to inform him during the course of his travels on the Continent," replied Mme. de Chaulnes with calm. "If the information does not reach him, well——"
She left the sentence unfinished, her needle pursuing its unfaltering course. La Vireville watched it, his brain busy with all sorts of desperate schemes.
"I have almost the feelings of a father for Anne myself," he remarked at length.
"That is most creditable to you, Monsieur."
"Would it not be possible formeto play the part designed for the Marquis de Flavigny, or is he irreplaceable?"
Mme. de Chaulnes put down her needle and looked her compatriot in the face. In those old clear eyes, wells of falsehood, he could read nothing save an implacable will.
"You would do . . . better," she said.
"Faith, I am flattered!" cried La Vireville gaily, though, to tell the truth, he felt a little cold. "Will you instruct me how to play the part?"
"It is simple. Fired with this quasi-paternal anxiety, you go to France after the child and attempt to recover him."
The Chevalier de la Vireville laughed. "A fine 'attempt'! Do you think, Madame, that I am fool enough to venture my head for no better a chance than that? After all, I amnothis father."
"No," said Mme. de Chaulnes cooly, "naturally you could never recover him that way. But, of course, there is another method."
"You mean . . . exchange?"
"Precisely."
There was a pregnant silence. The goldfish suddenly ceased swimming, and gaped at the Frenchman through its prison walls.
"But you are not his father, one sees," resumed the old lady, and took up her embroidery again. "So why consider it? He will forget England and his surroundings—in time. I do not suppose he will be unkindly used; someone will probably adopt him and bring him up to a useful trade."
"Some foster-father like Simon, no doubt," commented the émigré bitterly. In his mind was the little prisoner of the Temple, so soon, had La Vireville known it, to be free of his captivity for ever. The thought of that martyred innocence pierced him as nothing else could have done, and he went straight to the point. "How could I possible have any guarantee that, if I gave myself up, the bargain would be respected, and the boy sent back unharmed?"
For the second time the old lady looked at him long and steadily. Then she opened a drawer in the table and took out a paper which she laid before him.
"That has been arranged for," said she. "Here is the child's passport out of France all ready. You have only to convey it to him."
"Parbleu!" exclaimed the émigré, "this has all been very prettily planned! I can scarcely flatter myself that it was entirely for my benefit, since it was by mere chance that I came upon this errand."
Again Mme. de Chaulnes smiled that wintry smile. "Do not seek to probe too deeply, Monsieur. Yet, since you spoke of playing with the cards on the table, the Convention would, perhaps, rather see your band of Chouans leaderless, Monsieur Augustin, than possess themselves of the person of M. de Flavigny, who, after all, has no such forces at his disposal. 'Tout étant fait pour une fin, tout est nécessairement pour la meilleure fin.' You know yourCandide, no doubt. . . . But to return to business. Does this safe-conduct convince you?"
"Only tolerably," answered La Vireville, as he examined it. "It would convey to me much more conviction if there were ever any chance of its reaching the child. You know as well as I, Madame, that I should be apprehended as an émigré the moment I set foot at Calais or Boulogne. No doubt that would suit the Convention just as well—better, in fact—but you can scarce expect it to make much appeal to me. I shall never have a second head; I do not propose to make those gentlemen a present of it for nothing. I also must have some kind of a safe-conduct, to protect me till my business is done."
"Really, Monsieur Augustin, you are very exacting," observed Mme. de Chaulnes. "Yet there is sense in what you say."
"I dare say that you, in your providence, have already such a safe-conduct made out for me?" hazarded he.
"Not altogether fully," said his adversary, and again she put her hand into the drawer. "It is blank, for we did not know who might be fired by the idea of rescue—though, to tell the truth, from what the boy said of your relations with him, we began to hope that we might have the pleasure of seeing you. . . . Shall we fill it in?"
La Vireville looked at her steadily as she faced him, the embroidery still in one frail, blue-veined hand, mockery round her mouth. It was sheer insanity. He had no right to do it, for he knew his life to be a hundred times more valuable than a child's happiness. He could be very ill-spared in Northern Brittany, in Jersey. . . . And though his real intention was not merely to cross the Channel and deliver himself up as a hostage, but by hook or by crook to get Anne out of France and himself into the bargain, the chances were quite fifty to one against his succeeding, and he knew it. It was just the knowledge that he was acting against all the canons of common sense and perhaps even of duty that decided La Vireville—that, and an intolerable picture of a little boy who had never known an unkind word being "brought up to some useful trade."
He nodded. "Yes, if you please."
"Angèle,ma chérie," said Mme. de Chaulnes, putting down the embroidery, "you can pen M. le Chevalier's description better than I. Have the goodness, Monsieur, to tell my sister your height and your age; the rest she can see for herself."
Mlle Angèle got pen and ink, while La Vireville, not unamused, gave her the required information. Then, looking up at him from time to time as he sat there, she wrote much more, and he knew that such a description of his personal appearance, drawn from the life, must almost inevitably, in the end, be his ruin, for in sitting for his own portrait he was also sitting for that of 'Monsieur Augustin.' And he wondered whether the picture now taking shape under her pen were flattering or the reverse. Some of the Government 'signalements' which he had seen posted up in Brittany were remarkable for their fidelity to detail. . . . At any rate, he was not forced to reveal to this artist, now accumulating unimpeachable material, what other scars he carried besides that, only too obvious, on his cheek.
"It will be best, Angèle," said Mme. de Chaulnes as the writer finished, "to put, not Monsieur's name, which for this purpose he might find inconvenient, but 'the person recommended by' and then the cypher signature. It will be best also to fill in the route to be taken, lest a fancy should seize Monsieur Augustin to go by way of Brittany, for example."
The émigré was about to protest, when it occurred to him that she might conceivably indicate the same route as that taken by Anne and his escort, which it would be a great convenience to know, since his mind was entirely set on overtaking them before they got to Paris. It need hardly be said that he had no intention of putting foot in that city if he could possibly avoid it.
Mlle. de Chaulnes passed the document to her sister-in-law, who read it through carefully.
"Excellent," she said. "I fear, M. Augustin, that you will not henceforward derive much immunity from the inaccuracy of the Convention's previous description of your person. You have taken a copy, Angèle?"
"Yes," said the younger lady.
Mme. de Chaulnes folded the passport, and gave it, together with Anne-Hilarion's safe-conduct back to England, to the prospective rescuer. "Voilà, Monsieur!" she said. "Take that to the Committee of Public Safety and you will find that it will do what you wish for the child. You need have no fear that it will not, for the Committee is something in our debt. But I take leave to doubt if your intentions are quite as heroic as they appear."
"I lay claim to no heroism of any kind," said La Vireville shortly, and, putting the papers in his breast, he took up his wet cloak.
Mme. de Chaulnes meanwhile had, for the first time, got to her feet, and stood leaning upon her stick. "Of course, M. le Chevalier, you do not think we are so blind as not to know what you mean to do. But, believe me, you will never be able to do it. For one thing, you will not be able to overtake them before Paris. They have twenty-four hours' start of you."
"Madame," retorted Fortuné de la Vireville, his hand on the latch of the door, "some have thought that children are peculiarly the objects of angelic protection. We shall see about that twenty-four hours' start!"
As he shut the door he was aware of a little laugh, and the words, in a voice of mock surprise, "Monsieur est donc dévot?"
Dévotindeed La Vireville was not, and no real confidence in celestial intervention, but wrath and dismay filled his heart as he rode off in the rain and the darkness. But it was not in him to show other than a bold front to an enemy, whatever his secret apprehensions. It was not very likely that he would be able to get the boy out of the hands of his captors without, himself, paying the ultimate penalty. Still, there was a chance, and he meant to stake everything upon it. Only, as he hastened to theRose and Crownto change his horse, it occurred to him most unpleasantly that perhaps he was being utterly duped; that Anne-Hilarion had, perhaps, never been taken to France after all, and that he was going to put his head into the lion's mouth for nothing. And he cursed the maddening uncertainty of the whole affair, where the only fact that stood out with real clearness was the jeopardy in which he was about to place his own neck.
In the midst of the business of hiring another horse, he suddenly remembered Elspeth, and wondered that he had not thought of her before. She must know something. But where was she? Had they shipped her off too? It seemed unlikely—yet equally unlikely was it that they had either left her free to hurry back to London with her tale, or had made away with her. They had probably arranged for a temporary disappearance. If he looked for her he would waste the time on which so much depended, and even if he found her she would not, probably, be able to tell him a great deal. And so La Vireville, whose life of late years had taught him the faculty of quick decision, resolved not to pursue that trail.
He wrote at the inn a letter to Mr. Elphinstone, explaining what he was about to do, made arrangements for it to be taken by special messenger to London, and, in a quarter of an hour or so, on a fresh horse, was galloping through the rainy night along the Dover road.