Detricand, Prince of Vaufontaine, was no longer in the Vendee. The whole of Brittany was in the hands of the victorious Hoche, the peasants were disbanded, and his work for a time at least was done.
On the same day of that momentous scene in the Cohue Royale when Guida was vindicated, Detricand had carried to Granville the Comtesse Chantavoine, who presently was passed over to the loving care of her kinsman General Grandjon-Larisse. This done, he proceeded to England.
From London he communicated with Grandjon-Larisse, who applied himself to secure from the Directory leave for the Chouan chieftain to return to France, with amnesty for his past “rebellion.” This was got at last through the influence of young Bonaparte himself. Detricand was free now to proceed against Philip.
He straightway devoted himself to a thing conceived on the day that Guida was restored to her rightful status as a wife. His purpose now was to wrest from Philip the duchy of Bercy. Philip was heir by adoption only, and the inheritance had been secured at the last by help of a lie—surely his was a righteous cause!
His motives had not their origin in hatred of Philip alone, nor in desire for honours and estates for himself, nor in racial antagonism, for had he not been allied with England in this war against the Government? He hated Philip the man, but he hated still more Philip the usurper who had brought shame to the escutcheon of Bercy. There was also at work another and deeper design to be shown in good time. Philip had retired from the English navy, and gone back to his duchy of Bercy. Here he threw himself into the struggle with the Austrians against the French. Received with enthusiasm by the people, who as yet knew little or nothing of the doings in the Cohue Royale, he now took over command of the army and proved himself almost as able in the field as he had been at sea. Of these things Detricand knew, and knew also that the lines were closing in round the duchy; that one day soon Bonaparte would send a force which should strangle the little army and its Austrian allies. The game then would be another step nearer the end. Free to move at will, he visited the Courts of Prussia, Russia, Spain, Italy, and Austria, and laid before them his claims to the duchy, urging an insistence on its neutrality, and a trial of his cause against Philip. Ceaselessly, adroitly, with persistence and power, he toiled towards his end, the way made easier by tales told of his prowess in the Vendee. He had offers without number to take service in foreign armies, but he was not to be tempted. Gossip of the Courts said that there was some strange romance behind this tireless pursuit of an inheritance, but he paid no heed. If at last there crept over Europe wonderful tales of Detricand’s past life in Jersey, of the real Duchesse de Bercy, and of the new Prince of Vaufontaine, Detricand did not, or feigned not to, hear them; and the Comtesse Chantavoine had disappeared from public knowledge. The few who guessed his romance were puzzled to understand his cause: for if he dispossessed Philip, Guida must also be dispossessed. This, certainly, was not lover-like or friendly.
But Detricand was not at all puzzled; his mind and purpose were clear. Guida should come to no injury through him—Guida who, as they left the Cohue Royale that day of days, had turned on him a look of heavenly trust and gratitude; who, in the midst of her own great happenings, found time to tell him by a word how well she knew he had kept his promise to her, even beyond belief. Justice for her was now the supreme and immediate object of his life. There were others ready also to care for France, to fight for her, to die for her, to struggle towards the hour when the King should come to his own; but there was only one man in the world who could achieve Guida’s full justification, and that was himself, Detricand of Vaufontaine.
He was glad to turn to the Chevalier’s letters from Jersey. It was from the Chevalier’s lips he had learned the whole course of Guida’s life during the four years of his absence from the island. It was the Chevalier who drew for him pictures of Guida in her new home, none other than the house of Elie Mattingley, which the Royal Court having confiscated now handed over to her as an act of homage. The little world of Jersey no longer pointed the finger of scorn at Guida Landresse de Landresse, but bent the knee to Princess Guida d’Avranche.
Detricand wrote many letters to the Chevalier, and they with their cheerful and humorous allusions were read aloud to Guida—all save one concerning Philip. Writing of himself to the Chevalier on one occasion, he laid bare with a merciless honesty his nature and his career. Concerning neither had he any illusions.
I do not mistake myself, Chevalier [he wrote], nor these late doingsof mine. What credit shall I take to myself for coming to place andsome little fame? Everything has been with me: the chance ofinheritance, the glory of a cause as hopeless as splendid, and moresplendid because hopeless; and the luck of him who loads the dice—for all my old comrades, the better men, are dead, and I, the leastof them all, remain, having even outlived the cause. What praiseshall I take for this? None—from all decent fellows of the earth,none at all. It is merely laughable that I should be left, themonument of a sacred loyalty greater than the world has ever known.I have no claims—But let me draw the picture, dear Chevalier. Herewas a discredited, dissolute fellow whose life was worth a pin tonobody. Tired of the husks and the swine, and all his follies grownstale by over-use, he takes the advice of a good gentleman, andjoins the standard of work and sacrifice. What greater luxury shallman ask? If this be not running the full scale of life’s enjoyment,pray you what is? The world loves contrasts. The deep-dyed sinnerraising the standard of piety is picturesque. If, charmed by hisown new virtues, he is constant in his enthusiasm, behold a St.Augustine! Everything is with the returned prodigal—the more so ifhe be of the notorious Vaufontaines, who were ever saints turnedsinners, or sinners turned saints.Tell me, my good friend, where is room for pride in me? I amgetting far more out of life than I deserve; it is not well that youand others should think better of me than I do of myself. I do notpretend that I dislike it, it is as balm to me. But it would seemthat the world is monstrously unjust. One day when I’m grown old—Icannot imagine what else Fate has spared me for—I shall write theDiary of a Sinner, the whole truth. I shall tell how when mypeasant fighters were kneeling round me praying for success, eventhanking God for me, I was smiling in my glove—in scorn of myself,not of them, Chevalier, no,—no, not of them! The peasant’s is thetrue greatness. Everything is with the aristocrat; he has to kickthe great chances from his path; but the peasant must go huntingthem in peril. Hardly snatching sustenance from Fate, the peasantfights into greatness; the aristocrat may only win to it byrejecting Fate’s luxuries. The peasant never escapes the austereteaching of hard experience, the aristocrat the languor of goodfortune. There is the peasant and there am I. Voila! enough ofDetricand of Vaufontaine.... The Princess Guida and thechild, are they—
So the letter ran, and the Chevalier read it aloud to Guida up to the point where her name was writ. Afterwards Guida would sit and think of what Detricand had said, and of the honesty of nature that never allowed him to deceive himself. It pleased her also to think she had in some small way helped a man to the rehabilitation of his life. He had said that she had helped him, and she believed him; he had proved the soundness of his aims and ambitions; his career was in the world’s mouth.
The one letter the Chevalier did not read to Guida referred to Philip. In it Detricand begged the Chevalier to hold himself in readiness to proceed at a day’s notice to Paris.
So it was that when, after months of waiting, the Chevalier suddenly left St. Heliers to join Detricand, Guida did not know the object of his journey. All she knew was that he had leave from the Directory to visit Paris. Imagining this to mean some good fortune for him, with a light heart she sent him off in charge of Jean Touzel, who took him to St. Malo in the Hardi Biaou, and saw him safely into the hands of an escort from Detricand.
Three days later there was opened in one of the chambers of the Emperor’s palace at Vienna a Congress of four nations—Prussia, Russia, Austria, and Sardinia. Detricand’s labours had achieved this result at last. Grandjon-Larisse, his old enemy in battle, now his personal friend and colleague in this business, had influenced Napoleon, and the Directory through him, to respect the neutrality of the duchy of Bercy, for which the four nations of this Congress declared. Philip himself little knew whose hand had secured the neutrality until summoned to appear at the Congress, to defend his rights to the title and the duchy against those of Detricand Prince of Vaufontaine. Had he known that Detricand was behind it all he would have fought on to the last gasp of power and died on the battle-field. He realised now that such a fate was not for him—that he must fight, not on the field of battle like a prince, but in a Court of Nations like a doubtful claimant of sovereign honours.
His whole story had become known in the duchy, and though it begot no feeling against him in war-time, now that Bercy was in a neutral zone of peace there was much talk of the wrongs of Guida and the Countess Chantavoine. He became moody and saturnine, and saw few of his subjects save the old Governor-General and his whilom enemy, now his friend, Count Carignan Damour. That at last he should choose to accompany him to Vienna the man who had been his foe during the lifetime of the old Duke, seemed incomprehensible. Yet, to all appearance, Damour was now Philip’s zealous adherent. He came frankly repenting his old enmity, and though Philip did not quite believe him, some perverse temper, some obliquity of vision which overtakes the ablest minds at times, made him almost eagerly accept his new partisan. One thing Philip knew: Damour had no love for Detricand, who indeed had lately sent him word that for his work in sending Fouche’s men to attempt his capture in Bercy, he would have him shot, if the Court of Nations upheld his rights to the duchy. Damour was able, even if Damour was not honest. Damour, the able, the implacable and malignant, should accompany him to Vienna.
The opening ceremony of the Congress was simple, but it was made notable by the presence of the Emperor of Austria, who addressed a few words of welcome to the envoys, to Philip, and, very pointedly, to the representative of the French Nation, the aged Duc de Mauban, who, while taking no active part in the Congress, was present by request of the Directory. The Duke’s long residence in Vienna and freedom from share in the civil war in France had been factors in the choice of him when the name was submitted to the Directory by General Grandjon-Larisse, upon whom in turn it had been urged by Detricand.
The Duc de Mauban was the most marked figure of the Court, the Emperor not excepted. Clean shaven, with snowy linen and lace, his own natural hair, silver white, tied in a queue behind, he had large eloquent wondering eyes that seemed always looking, looking beyond the thing he saw. At first sight of him at his court, the Emperor had said: “The stars have frightened him.” No fanciful supposition, for the Duc de Mauban was as well known an astronomer as student of history and philanthropist.
When the Emperor mentioned de Mauban’s name Philip wondered where he had heard it before. Something in the sound of it was associated with his past, he knew not how. He had a curious feeling too that those deliberate, searching dark eyes saw the end of this fight, this battle of the strong. The face fascinated him, though it awed him. He admired it, even as he detested the ardent strength of Detricand’s face, where the wrinkles of dissipation had given way to the bronzed carven look of the war-beaten soldier.
It was fair battle between these two, and there was enough hatred in the heart of each to make the fight deadly. He knew—and he had known since that day, years ago, in the Place du Vier Prison—that Detricand loved the girl whom he himself had married and dishonoured. He felt also that Detricand was making this claim to the duchy more out of vengeance than from desire to secure the title for himself. He read the whole deep scheme: how Detricand had laid his mine at every Court in Europe to bring him to this pass.
For hours Philip’s witnesses were examined, among them the officers of his duchy and Count Carignan Damour. The physician of the old Duke of Bercy was examined, and the evidence was with Philip. The testimony of Dalbarade, the French ex-Minister of Marine, was read and considered. Philip’s story up to the point of the formal signature by the old Duke was straightforward and clear. So far the Court was in his favour.
Detricand, as natural heir of the duchy, combated each step in the proceedings from the stand-point of legality, of the Duke’s fatuity concerning Philip, and his personal hatred of the House of Vaufontaine. On the third day, when the Congress would give its decision, Detricand brought the Chevalier to the palace. At the opening of the sitting he requested that Damour be examined again. The Count was asked what question had been put to Philip immediately before the deeds of inheritance were signed. It was useless for Damour to evade the point, for there were other officers of the duchy present who could have told the truth. Yet this truth, of itself, need not ruin Philip. It was no phenomenon for a prince to have one wife unknown, and, coming to the throne, to take to himself another more exalted.
Detricand was hoping that the nice legal sense of mine and thine should be suddenly weighted in his favour by a prepared tour de force. The sympathies of the Congress were largely with himself, for he was of the order of the nobility, and Philip’s descent must be traced through centuries of yeoman blood; yet there was the deliberate adoption by the Duke to face, with the formal assent of the States of Bercy, but little lessened in value by the fact that the French Government had sent its emissaries to Bercy to protest against it. The Court had come to a point where decision upon the exact legal merits of the case was difficult.
After Damour had testified to the question the Duke asked Philip when signing the deeds at Bercy, Detricand begged leave to introduce another witness, and brought in the Chevalier. Now he made his great appeal. Simply, powerfully, he told the story of Philip’s secret marriage with Guida, and of all that came after, up to the scene in the Cohue Royale when the marriage was proved and the child given back to Guida; when the Countess Chantavoine, turning from Philip, acknowledged to Guida the justice of her claim. He drove home the truth with bare unvarnished power—the wrong to Guida, the wrong to the Countess, the wrong to the Dukedom of Bercy, to that honour which should belong to those in high estate. Then at the last he told them who Guida was: no peasant girl, but the granddaughter of the Sieur Larchant de Mauprat of de Mauprats of Chambery: the granddaughter of an exile indeed, but of the noblest blood of France.
The old Duc de Mauban fixed his look on him intently, and as the story proceeded his hand grasped the table before him in strong emotion. When at last Detricand turned to the Chevalier and asked him to bear witness to the truth of what he had said, the Duke, in agitation, whispered to the President.
All that Detricand had said moved the Court powerfully, but when the withered little flower of a man, the Chevalier, told in quaint brief sentences the story of the Sieur de Mauprat, his sufferings, his exile, and the nobility of his family, which had indeed, far back, come of royal stock, and then at last of Guida and the child, more than one member of the Court turned his head away with misty eyes.
It remained for the Duc de Mauban to speak the word which hastened and compelled the end. Rising in his place, he addressed to the Court a few words of apology, inasmuch as he was without real power there, and then he turned to the Chevalier.
“Monsieur le chevalier,” said he, “I had the honour to know you in somewhat better days for both of us. You will allow me to greet you here with my profound respect. The Sieur Larchant de Mauprat”—he turned to the President, his voice became louder—“the Sieur de Mauprat was my friend. He was with me upon the day I married the Duchess Guidabaldine. Trouble, exile came to him. Years passed, and at last in Jersey I saw him again. It was the very day his grandchild was born. The name given to her was Guidabaldine—the name of the Duchese de Mauban. She was Guidabaldine Landresse de Landresse, she is my godchild. There is no better blood in France than that of the de Mauprats of Chambery, and the grandchild of my friend, her father being also of good Norman blood, was worthy to be the wife of any prince in Europe. I speak in the name of our order, I speak for Frenchmen, I speak for France. If Detricand, Prince of Vaufontaine, be not secured in his right of succession to the dukedom of Bercy, France will not cease to protest till protest hath done its work. From France the duchy of Bercy came. It was the gift of a French king to a Frenchman, and she hath some claims upon the courtesy of the nations.”
For a moment after he took his seat there was absolute silence. Then the President wrote upon a paper before him, and it was passed to each member of the Court sitting with him. For a moment longer there was nothing heard save the scratching of a quill. Philip recalled that day at Bercy when the Duke stooped and signed his name upon the deed of adoption and succession three times-three fateful times.
At last the President, rising in his place, read the pronouncement of the Court: that Detricand, Prince of Vaufontaine, be declared true inheritor of the duchy of Bercy, the nations represented here confirming him in his title.
The President having spoken, Philip rose, and, bowing to the Congress with dignity and composure, left the chamber with Count Carignan Damour.
As he passed from the portico into the grounds of the palace, a figure came suddenly from behind a pillar and touched him on the arm. He turned quickly, and received upon the face a blow from a glove.
The owner of the glove was General Grandjon-Larisse.
“Perfectly—and without the glove, monsieur le general,” answered Philip quietly. “Where shall my seconds wait upon you?” As he spoke he turned with a slight gesture towards Damour.
“In Paris, monsieur, if it please you.”
“I should have preferred it here, monsieur le general—but Paris, if it is your choice.”
“At 22, Rue de Mazarin, monsieur.” Then he made an elaborate bow to Philip. “I bid you good-day, monsieur.”
“Monseigneur, not monsieur,” Philip corrected. “They may deprive me of my duchy, but I am still Prince Philip d’Avranche. I may not be robbed of my adoption.”
There was something so steady, so infrangible in Philip’s composure now, that Grandjon-Larisse, who had come to challenge a great adventurer, a marauder of honour, found his furious contempt checked by some integral power resisting disdain. He intended to kill Philip—he was one of the most expert swordsmen in France—yet he was constrained to respect a composure not sangfroid and a firmness in misfortune not bravado. Philip was still the man who had valiantly commanded men; who had held of the high places of the earth. In whatever adventurous blood his purposes had been conceived, or his doubtful plans accomplished, he was still, stripped of power, a man to be reckoned with: resolute in his course once set upon, and impulsive towards good as towards evil. He was never so much worth respect as when, a dispossessed sovereign with an empty title, discountenanced by his order, disbarred his profession, he held himself ready to take whatever penalty now came.
In the presence of General Grandjon-Larisse, with whom was the might of righteous vengeance, he was the more distinguished figure. To Philip now there came the cold quiet of the sinner, great enough to rise above physical fear, proud enough to say to the world: “Come, I pay the debt I owe. We are quits. You have no favours to give, and I none to take. You have no pardon to grant, and I none to ask.”
At parting Grandjon-Larisse bowed to Philip with great politeness, and said: “In Paris then, monsieur le prince.”
Philip bowed his head in assent.
When they met again, it was at the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne near the Maillot gate.
It was a damp grey morning immediately before sunrise, and at first there was scarce light enough for the combatants to see each other perfectly, but both were eager and would not delay.
As they came on guard the sun rose. Philip, where he stood, was full in its light. He took no heed, and they engaged at once. After a few passes Grandjon-Larisse said: “You are in the light, monseigneur; the sun shines full upon you,” and he pointed to the shade of a wall near by. “It is darker there.”
“One of us must certainly be in the dark-soon,” answered Philip grimly, but he removed to the wall. From the first Philip took the offensive. He was more active, and he was quicker and lighter of fence than his antagonist. But Grandjon-Larisse had the surer eye, and was invincibly certain of hand and strong of wrist. At length Philip wounded his opponent slightly in the left breast, and the seconds came forward to declare that honour was satisfied. But neither would listen or heed; their purpose was fixed to fight to the death. They engaged again, and almost at once the Frenchman was slightly wounded in the wrist. Suddenly taking the offensive and lunging freely, Grandjon-Larisse drove Philip, now heated and less wary, backwards upon the wall. At last, by a dexterous feint, he beat aside Philip’s guard and drove the sword through his right breast at one fierce lunge.
With a moan Philip swayed and fell forward into the arms of Damour, still grasping his weapon. Grandjon-Larisse stooped to the injured man. Unloosing his fingers from the sword, Philip stretched up a hand to his enemy.
“I am hurt to death,” he said. “Permit my compliments to the best swordsman I have ever known.” Then with a touch of sorry humour he added: “You cannot doubt their sincerity.”
Grandjon-Larisse was turning away when Philip called him back. “Will you carry my profound regret to the Countess Chantavoine?” he whispered. “Say that it lies with her whether Heaven pardon me.”
Grandjon-Larisse hesitated an instant, then answered:
“Those who are in heaven, monseigneur, know best what Heaven may do.”
Philip’s pale face took on a look of agony. “She is dead—she is dead!” he gasped.
Grandjon-Larisse inclined his head, then after a moment, gravely said:
“What did you think was left for a woman—for a Chantavoine? It is not the broken heart that kills, but broken pride, monseigneur.”
So saying, he bowed again to Philip and turned upon his heel.
Philip lay on a bed in the unostentatious lodging in the Rue de Vaugirard where Damour had brought him. The surgeon had pronounced the wound mortal, giving him but a few hours to live. For long after he was gone Philip was silent, but at length he said “You heard what Grandjon-Larisse said—It is broken pride that kills, Damour.” Then he asked for pen, ink, and paper. They were brought to him. He tried the pen upon the paper, but faintness suddenly seized him, and he fell back unconscious.
When he came to himself he was alone in the room. It was cold and cheerless—no fire on the hearth, no light save that flaring from a lamp in the street outside his window. He rang the bell at his hand. No one answered. He called aloud: “Damour! Damour!”
Damour was far beyond earshot. He had bethought him that now his place was in Bercy, where he might gather up what fragments of good fortune remained, what of Philip’s valuables might be secured. Ere he had fallen back insensible, Philip, in trying the pen, had written his own name on a piece of paper. Above this Damour wrote for himself an order upon the chamberlain of Bercy to enter upon Philip’s private apartments in the castle; and thither he was fleeing as Philip lay dying in the dark room of the house in the Rue de Vaugirard.
The woman of the house, to whose care Philip was passed over by Damour, had tired of watching, and had gone to spend one of his gold pieces for supper with her friends.
Meanwhile in the dark comfortless room, the light from without flickering upon his blanched face, Philip was alone with himself, with memory, and with death. As he lay gasping, a voice seemed to ring through the silent room, repeating the same words again and again—and the voice was his own voice. It was himself—some other outside self of him—saying, in tireless repetition: “May I die a black, dishonourable death, abandoned and alone, if ever I deceive you. I should deserve that if I deceived you, Guida!... “ “A black, dishonourable death, abandoned and alone”: it was like some horrible dirge chanting in his ear.
Pictures flashed before his eyes, strange imaginings. Now he was passing through dark corridors, and the stone floor beneath was cold—so cold! He was going to some gruesome death, and monks with voices like his own voice were intoning: “Abandoned and alone. Alone—alone—abandoned and alone.”... And now he was fighting, fighting on board the Araminta. There was the roar of the great guns, the screaming of the carronade slides, the rattle of musketry, the groans of the dying, the shouts of his victorious sailors, the crash of the main-mast as it fell upon the bulwarks. Then the swift sissing ripple of water, the thud of the Araminta as she struck, and the cold chill of the seas as she went down. How cold was the sea—ah, how it chilled every nerve and tissue of his body!
He roused to consciousness again. Here was still the blank cheerless room, the empty house, the lamplight flaring through the window upon his stricken face, upon the dark walls, upon the white paper lying on the table beside him.
Paper—that was it—he must write, he must write while he had strength. With the last courageous effort of life, his strenuous will forcing the declining powers into obedience for a final combat, he drew the paper near, and began to write. The light flickered, wavered, he could just see the letters that he formed—no more.
Guida [he began], on the Ecrehos I said to you: “If I deceive youmay I die a black, dishonourable death, abandoned and alone!” Ithas all come true. You were right, always right, and I was alwayswrong. I never started fair with myself or with the world. I wasalways in too great a hurry; I was too ambitious, Guida. Ambitionhas killed me, and it has killed her—the Comtesse. She is gone.What was it he said—if I could but remember what Grandjon-Larissesaid—ah yes, yes!—after he had given me my death-wound, he said:“It is not the broken heart that kills, but broken pride.” There isthe truth. She is in her grave, and I am going out into the dark.
He lay back exhausted for a moment, in desperate estate. The body was fighting hard that the spirit might confess itself before the vital spark died down for ever. Seizing a glass of cordial near, he drank of it. The broken figure in its mortal defeat roused itself again, leaned over the paper, and a shaking hand traced on the brief piteous record of a life.
I climbed too fast. Things dazzled me. I thought too much ofmyself—myself, myself was everything always; and myself has killedme. In wanton haste I came to be admiral and sovereign duke, and ithas all come to nothing—nothing. I wronged you, I denied you,there was the cause of all. There is no one to watch with me now tothe one moment of life that counts. In this hour the clock of timefills all the space between earth and heaven. It will strike soon—the awful clock. It will soon strike twelve: and then it will betwelve of the clock for me always—always.I know you never wanted revenge on me, Guida, but still you have ithere. My life is no more now than vraic upon a rock. I cling, Icling, but that is all, and the waves break over me. I am no longeran admiral, I am no more a duke—I am nothing. It is all done. Ofno account with men I am going to my judgment with God. But youremain, and you are Princess Philip d’Avranche, and your son—yourson—will be Prince Guilbert d’Avranche. But I can leave himnaught, neither estates nor power. There is little honour in thetitle now. So it may be you will not use it. But you will have anew life: with my death happiness may begin again for you. Thatthought makes death easier. I was never worthy of you, never. Iunderstand myself now, and I know that you have read me all theseyears, read me through and through. The letter you wrote me, nevera day or night has passed but, one way or another, it has come hometo me.
There was a footfall outside his window. A roysterer went by in the light of the flaring lamp. He was singing a ribald song. A dog ran barking at his heels. The reveller turned, drew his sword, and ran the dog through, then staggered on with his song. Philip shuddered, and with a supreme effort bent to the table again, and wrote on.
You were right: you were my star, and I was so blind withselfishness and vanity I could not see. I am speaking the truth toyou now, Guida. I believe I might have been a great man if I hadthought less of myself and more of others, more of you. Greatness,I was mad for that, and my madness has brought me to this desolateend—alone. Go tell Maitresse Aimable that she too was a goodprophet. Tell her that, as she foresaw, I called your name indeath, and you did not come. One thing before all: teach your boynever to try to be great, but always to live well and to be just.Teach him too that the world means better by him than he thinks, andthat he must never treat it as his foe; he must not try to force itsbenefits and rewards. He must not approach it like the highwayman.Tell him never to flatter. That is the worst fault in a gentleman,for flattery makes false friends and the flatterer himself false.Tell him that good address is for ease and courtesy of life, but itmust not be used to one’s secret advantage as I have used mine tomortal undoing. If ever Guilbert be in great temptation, tell himhis father’s story, and read him these words to you, written, as yousee, with the cramped fingers of death.
He could scarcely hold the pen now, and his eyes were growing dim.
... I am come to the end of my strength. I thought I lovedyou, Guida, but I know now that it was not love—not real love. Yetit was all a twisted manhood had to give. There are some things ofmine that you will keep for your son, if you forgive me dead whomyou despised living. Detricand Duke of Bercy will deal honourablyby you. All that is mine at the Castle of Bercy he will secure toyou. Tell him I have written it so; though he will do it ofhimself, I know. He is a great man. As I have gone downwards hehas come upwards. There has been a star in his sky too. I know it,I know it, Guida, and he—he is not blind. The light is going, Icannot see. I can only—
He struggled fiercely for breath, but suddenly collapsed upon the table, and his head fell forward upon the paper; one cheek lying in the wet ink of his last written words, the other, cold and stark, turned to the window. The light from the lamp without flickered on it in gruesome sportiveness. The eyes stared and stared from the little dark room out into the world. But they did not see.
The night wore on. At last came a knocking, knocking at the door-tap! tap! tap! But he did not hear. A moment of silence, and again came a knocking—knocking—knocking...!
The white and red flag of Jersey was flying half-mast from the Cohue Royale, and the bell of the parish church was tolling. It was Saturday, but little business was being done in the Vier Marchi. Chattering people were gathered at familiar points, and at the foot of La Pyramide a large group surrounded two sailor-men just come from Gaspe, bringing news of adventuring Jersiais—Elie Mattingley, Carterette and Ranulph Delagarde. This audience quickly grew, for word was being passed on from one little group to another. So keen was interest in the story told by the home-coming sailors, that the great event which had brought them to the Vier Marchi was, for the moment, almost neglected.
Presently, however, a cannon-shot, then another, and another, roused the people to remembrance. The funeral cortege of Admiral Prince Philip d’Avranche was about to leave the Cohue Royale, and every eye was turned to the marines and sailors lining the road from the court-house to the church.
The Isle of Jersey, ever stubbornly loyal to its own—even those whom the outside world contemned or cast aside—jealous of its dignity even with the dead, had come to bury Philip d’Avranche with all good ceremony. There had been abatements to his honour, but he had been a strong man and he had done strong things, and he was a Jerseyman born, a Norman of the Normans. The Royal Court had judged between him and Guida, doing tardy justice to her, but of him they had ever been proud; and where conscience condemned here, vanity commended there. In any event they reserved the right, independent of all non-Jersiais, to do what they chose with their dead.
For what Philip had been as an admiral they would do his body reverence now; for what he had done as a man, that belonged to another tribunal. It had been proposed by the Admiral of the station to bury him from his old ship, the Imperturbable, but the Royal Court made its claim, and so his body had lain in state in the Cohue Royale. The Admiral joined hands with the island authorities. In both cases it was a dogged loyalty. The sailors of England knew Philip d’Avranche as a fighter, even as the Royal Court knew him as a famous and dominant Jerseyman. A battle-ship is a world of its own, and Jersey is a world of its own. They neither knew nor cared for the comment of the world without; or, knowing, refused to consider it.
When the body of Philip was carried from the Cohue Royale signals were made to the Imperturbable in the tide-way. From all her ships in company forty guns were fired funeral-wise and the flags were struck halfmast.
Slowly the cortege uncoiled itself to one long unbroken line from the steps of the Cohue Royale to the porch of the church. The Jurats in their red robes, the officers, sailors, and marines, added colour to the pageant. The coffin was covered by the flag of Jersey with the arms of William the Conqueror in the canton. Of the crowd some were curious, some stoical; some wept, some essayed philosophy.
“Et ben,” said one, “he was a brave admiral!”
“Bravery was his trade,” answered another: “act like a sheep and you’ll be eaten by the wolf.”
“It was a bad business about her that was Guida Landresse,” remarked a third.
“Every man knows himself, God knows all men,” snuffled the fanatical barber who had once delivered a sermon from the Pompe des Brigands.
“He made things lively while he lived, ba su!” droned the jailer of the Vier Prison. “But he has folded sails now.”
“Ma fe, yes, he sleeps like a porpoise now, and white as a wax he looked up there in the Cohue Royale,” put in a centenier standing by.
A voice came shrilly over the head of the centenier. “As white as you’ll look yellow one day, bat’d’lagoule! Yellow and green, oui-gia—yellow like a bad apple, and cowardly green as a leek.” This was Manon Moignard the witch.
“Man doux d’la vie, where’s the Master of Burials?” babbled the jailer. “The apprentice does the obs’quies to-day.”
“The Master’s sick of a squinzy,” grunted the centenier. “So hatchet-face and bundle-o’-nails there brings dust to dust, amen.”
All turned now to the Undertaker’s Apprentice, a grim, saturnine figure with his grey face, protuberant eyes, and obsequious solemnity, in which lurked a callous smile. The burial of the great, the execution of the wicked, were alike to him. In him Fate seemed to personify life’s revenges, its futilities, its calculating ironies. The flag-draped coffin was just about to pass, and the fanatical barber harked back to Philip. “They say it was all empty honours with him afore he died abroad.”
“A full belly’s a full belly if it’s only full of straw,” snapped Manon Moignard.
“Who was it brought him home?” asked the jailer. “None that was born on Jersey, but two that lived here,” remarked Maitre Damian, the schoolmaster from St. Aubins.
“That Chevalier of Champsavoys and the other Duc de Bercy,” interposed the centenier.
Maitre Damian tapped his stick upon the ground, and said oracularly: “It is not for me to say, but which is the rightful Duke and which is not, there is the political question!”
“Pardi, that’s it,” answered the centenier. “Why did Detricand Duke turn Philip Duke out of duchy, see him killed, then fetch him home to Jersey like a brother? Ah, man pethe benin, that’s beyond me!
“Those great folks does things their own ways; oui-gia,” remarked the jailer.
“Why did Detricand Duke go back to France?” asked Maitre Damian, cocking his head wisely; “why did he not stay for obsequies—he?”
“That’s what I say,” answered the jailer, “those great folks does things their own ways.”
“Ma fistre, I believe you,” ejaculated the centenier. “But for the Chevalier there, for a Frenchman, that is a man after God’s own heart—and mine.”
“Ah then, look at that,” said Manon Moignard, with a sneer, “when one pleases you and God it is a ticket to heaven, diantre!”
But in truth what Detricand and the Chevalier had done was but of human pity. The day after the duel, Detricand had arrived in Paris to proceed thence to Bercy. There he heard of Philip’s death and of Damour’s desertion. Sending officers to Bercy to frustrate any possible designs of Damour, he, with the Chevalier, took Philip’s body back to Jersey, delivering it to those who would do it honour.
Detricand did not see Guida. For all that might be said to her now the Chevalier should be his mouthpiece. In truth there could be no better mouthpiece for him. It was Detricand—Detricand—Detricand, like a child, in admiration and in affection. If Guida did not understand all now, there should come a time when she would understand. Detricand would wait. She should find that he was just, that her honour and the honour of her child were safe with him.
As for Guida, it was not grief she felt in the presence of this tragedy. No spark of love sprang up, even when remembrance was now brought to its last vital moment. But a fathomless pity stirred her heart, that Philip’s life had been so futile and that all he had done was come to naught. His letter, blotched and blotted by his own dead cheek, she read quietly. Yet her heart ached bitterly—so bitterly that her face became pinched with pain; for here in this letter was despair, here was the final agony of a broken life, here were the last words of the father of her child to herself. She saw with a sudden pang that in writing of Guilbert he only said your child, not ours. What a measureless distance there was between them in the hour of his death, and how clearly the letter showed that he understood at last!
The evening before the burial she went with the Chevalier to the Cohue Royale. As she looked at Philip’s dead face bitterness and aching compassion were quieted within her. The face was peaceful—strong. There was on it no record of fret or despair. Its impassive dignity seemed to say that all accounts had been settled, and in this finality there was quiet; as though he had paid the price, as though the long account against him in the markets of life was closed and cancelled, and the debtor freed from obligation for ever. Poignant impulses in her stilled, pity lost its wounding acuteness. She shed no tears, but at last she stretched out her hand and let it rest upon his forehead for a moment.
“Poor Philip!” she said.
Then she turned and slowly left the room, followed by the Chevalier, and by the noiseless Dormy Jamais, who had crept in behind them. As Dormy Jamais closed the door, he looked back to where the coffin lay, and in the compassion of fools he repeated Guida’s words:
“Poor Philip!” he said.
Now, during Philip’s burial, Dormy Jamais sat upon the roof of the Cohue Royale, as he had done on the day of the Battle of Jersey, looking down on the funeral cortege and the crowd. He watched it all until the ruffle of drums at the grave told that the body was being lowered—four ruffles for an admiral.
As the people began to disperse and the church bell ceased tolling, Dormy turned to another bell at his elbow, and set it ringing to call the Royal Court together. Sharp, mirthless, and acrid it rang:
Chicane—chicane! Chicane—chicane! Chicane—chicane!