“La main morte,La main morte,Tapp’ a la porte,Tapp’ a la porte.”
She shuddered. Why should the dead hand tap at her door? Yet there it was tapping louder, louder.... She struggled, she tried to cry out, then suddenly she grew quiet, and the tapping got fainter and fainter—her eyes opened: she was awake.
For an instant she did not know where she was. Was it a dream still? For there was a tapping, tapping at her door—no, it was at the window. A shiver ran through her from head to foot. Her heart almost stopped beating. Some one was calling to her.
“Guida! Guida!”
It was Philip’s voice. Her cheek had been cold the moment before; now she felt the blood tingling in her face. She slid to the floor, threw a shawl round her, and went to the casement.
The tapping began again. For a moment she could not open the window. She was trembling from head to foot. Philip’s voice reassured her a little.
“Guida, Guida, open the window a moment.”
She hesitated. She could not—no—she could not do it. He tapped still louder.
“Guida, don’t you hear me?” he asked.
She undid the catch, but she had hardly the courage even yet. He heard her now, and pressed the window a little. Then she opened it slowly, and her white face showed.
“O Philip,” she said breathlessly, “why have you frightened me so?”
He caught her hand in his own. “Come out into the garden, sweetheart,” he said, and he kissed the hand. “Put on a dress and your slippers and come,” he urged again.
“Philip,” she said, “O Philip, I cannot! It is too late. It is midnight. Do not ask me. Why, why did you come?”
“Because I wanted to speak with you for one minute. I have only a little while. Please come outside and say good-bye to me again. We are sailing to-morrow—there’s no doubt about it this time.”
“O Philip,” she answered, her voice quivering, “how can I? Say good-bye to me here, now.”
“No, no, Guida, you must come. I can’t kiss you good-bye where you are.”
“Must I come to you?” she said helplessly. “Well, then, Philip,” she added, “go to the bench by the apple-tree, and I shall be there in a moment.”
“Beloved!” he exclaimed ardently. She shut the window slowly.
For a moment he looked about him; then went lightly through the garden, and sat down on the bench under the apple-tree, near to the summer-house. At last he heard her footstep. He rose quickly to meet her, and as she came timidly to him, clasped her in his arms.
“Philip,” she said, “this isn’t right. You ought not to have come; you have broken your promise.”
“Are you not glad to see me?”
“Oh, you know, you know that I’m glad to see you, but you shouldn’t have come—hark! what’s that?” They both held their breath, for there was a sound outside the garden wall. Clac-clac! clac-clac!—a strange, uncanny footstep. It seemed to be hurrying away—clac-clac! clac-clac!
“Ah, I know,” whispered Guida: “it is Dormy Jamais. How foolish of me to be afraid!”
“Of course, of course,” said Philip—“Dormy Jamais, the man who never sleeps.”
“Philip—if he saw us!”
“Foolish child, the garden wall is too high for that. Besides—”
“Yes, Philip?”
“Besides, you are my wife, Guida!”
“No, no, Philip, no; not really so until all the world is told.”
“My beloved Guida, what difference can that make?” She sighed and shook her head. “To me, Philip, it is only that which makes it right—that the whole world knows. Philip, I am so afraid of—of secrecy, and cheating.”
“Nonsense-nonsense!” he answered. “Poor little wood-bird, you’re frightened at nothing at all. Come and sit by me.” He drew her close to him.
Her trembling presently grew less. Hundreds of glow-worms were shimmering in the hedge. The grass-hoppers were whirring in the mielles beyond; a flutter of wings went by overhead. The leaves were rustling gently; a fresh wind was coming up from the sea upon the soft, fragrant dusk.
They talked a little while in whispers, her hands in his, his voice soothing her, his low, hurried words giving her no time to think. But presently she shivered again, though her heart was throbbing hotly.
“Come into the summer-house, Guida; you are cold, you are shivering.” He rose, with his arm round her waist, raising her gently at the same time.
“Oh no, Philip dear,” she said, “I’m not really cold—I don’t know what it is—”
“But indeed you are cold,” he answered. “There’s a stiff south-easter rising, and your hands are like ice. Come into the arbour for a minute. It’s warm there, and then—then we’ll say good-bye, sweetheart.”
His arm round her, he drew her with him to the summer-house, talking to her tenderly all the time. There was reassurance, comfort, loving care in his very tones.
How brightly the stars shone, how clearly the music of the stream came over the hedge! With what lazy restfulness the distant All’s well floated across the mielles from a ship at anchor in the tide-way, how like a slumber-song the wash of the sea rolled drowsily along the wind! How gracious the smell of the earth, drinking up the dew of the affluent air, which the sun, on the morrow, should turn into life-blood for the grass and trees and flowers!
Philip was gone. Before breakfast was set upon the table, Guida saw the Narcissus sail round Noirmont Point and disappear.
Her face had taken on a new expression since yesterday. An old touch of dreaminess, of vague anticipation was gone—that look which belongs to youth, which feels the confident charm of the unknown future. Life was revealed; but, together with joy, wonder and pain informed the revelation.
A marvel was upon her. Her life was linked to another’s, she was a wife. She was no longer sole captain of herself. Philip would signal, and she must come until either he or she should die. He had taken her hand, and she must never let it go; the breath of his being must henceforth give her new and healthy life, or inbreed a fever which should corrode the heart and burn away the spirit. Young though she was, she realised it—but without defining it. The new-found knowledge was diffused in her character, expressed in her face.
Seldom had a day of Guida’s life been so busy. It seemed to her that people came and went far more than usual. She talked, she laughed a little, she answered back the pleasantries of the seafaring folk who passed her doorway or her garden. She was attentive to her grandfather; exact with her household duties. But all the time she was thinking—thinking—thinking. Now and again she smiled, but at times too tears sprang to her eyes, to be quickly dried. More than once she drew in her breath with a quick, sibilant sound, as though some thought wounded her; and she flushed suddenly, then turned pale, then came to her natural colour again.
Among those who chanced to visit the cottage was Maitresse Aimable. She came to ask Guida to go with her and Jean to the island of Sark, twelve miles away, where Guida had never been. They would only be gone one night, and, as Maitresse Aimable said, the Sieur de Mauprat could very well make shift for once.
The invitation came to Guida like water to thirsty ground. She longed to get away from the town, to be where she could breathe; for all this day the earth seemed too small for breath: she gasped for the sea, to be alone there. To sail with Jean Touzel was practically to be alone, for Maitresse Aimable never talked; and Jean knew Guida’s ways, knew when she wished to be quiet. In Jersey phrase, he saw beyond his spectacles—great brass-rimmed things, giving a droll, childlike kind of wisdom to his red rotund face.
Having issued her invitation, Maitresse Aimable smiled placidly and seemed about to leave, when, all at once, without any warning, she lowered herself like a vast crate upon the veille, and sat there looking at Guida.
At first the grave inquiry of her look startled Guida. She was beginning to know that sensitive fear assailing those tortured by a secret. How she loathed this secrecy! How guilty she now felt, where, indeed, no guilt was! She longed to call aloud her name, her new name, from the housetops.
The voice of Maitresse Aimable roused her. Her ponderous visitor had made a discovery which had yet been made by no other human being. Her own absurd romance, her ancient illusion, had taught her to know when love lay behind another woman’s face. And after her fashion, Maitresse Aimable loved Jean Touzel as it is given to few to love.
“I was sixteen when I fell in love; you’re seventeen—you,” she said. “Ah bah, so it goes!”
Guida’s face crimsoned. What—how much did Maitresse Aimable know? By what necromancy had this fat, silent fisher-wife learned the secret which was the heart of her life, the soul of her being—which was Philip? She was frightened, but danger made her cautious.
“Can you guess who it is?” she asked, without replying directly to the oblique charge.
“It is not Maitre Ranulph,” answered her friendly inquisitor; “it is not that M’sieu’ Detricand, the vaurien.” Guida flushed with annoyance. “It is not that farmer Blampied, with fifty vergees, all potatoes; it is not M’sieu’ Janvrin, that bat’d’lagoule of an ecrivain. Ah bah, so it goes!”
“Who is it, then?” persisted Guida. “Eh ben, that is the thing!”
“How can you tell that one is in love, Maitresse Aimable?” persisted Guida.
The other smiled with a torturing placidity, then opened her mouth; but nothing came of it. She watched Guida moving about the kitchen abstractedly. Her eye wandered to the racllyi, with its flitches of bacon, to the dreschiaux and the sanded floor, to the great Elizabethan oak chair, and at last back to Guida, as though through her the lost voice might be charmed up again.
The eyes of the two met now, fairly, firmly; and Guida was conscious of a look in the other’s face which she had never seen before. Had then a new sight been given to herself? She saw and understood the look in Maitresse Aimable’s face, and instantly knew it to be the same that was in her own.
With a sudden impulse she dropped the bashin she was polishing, and, going over quickly, she silently laid her cheek against her old friend’s. She could feel the huge breast heave, she felt the vast face turn hot, she was conscious of a voice struggling back to life, and she heard it say at last:
“Gatd’en’ale, rosemary tea cures a cough, but nothing cures the love—ah bah, so it goes!”
“Do you love Jean?” whispered Guida, not showing her face, but longing to hear the experience of another who suffered that joy called love.
Maitresse Aimable’s face grew hotter; she did not speak, but patted Guida’s back with her heavy hand and nodded complacently.
“Have you always loved him?” asked Guida again, with an eager inquisition, akin to that of a wayside sinner turned chapel-going saint, hungry to hear what chanced to others when treading the primrose path.
Maitresse Aimable again nodded, and her arm drew closer about Guida. There was a slight pause, then came an unsophisticated question:
“Has Jean always loved you?”
A short silence, and then the voice said with the deliberate prudence of an unwilling witness:
“It is not the man who wears the wedding-ring.” Then, as if she had been disloyal in even suggesting that Jean might hold her lightly, she added, almost eagerly—an enthusiasm tempered by the pathos of a half-truth:
“But my Jean always sleeps at home.”
This larger excursion into speech gave her courage, and she said more; and even as Guida listened hungrily—so soon had come upon her the apprehensions and wavering moods of loving woman!—she was wondering to hear this creature, considered so dull by all, speak as though out of a watchful and capable mind. What further Maitresse Aimable said was proof that if she knew little and spake little, she knew that little well; and if she had gathered meagrely from life, she had at least winnowed out some small handfuls of grain from the straw and chaff. At last her sagacity impelled her to say:
“If a man’s eyes won’t see, elder-water can’t make him; if he will—ah bah, glad and good!” Both arms went round Guida, and hugged her awkwardly.
Her voice came up but once more that morning. As she left Guida in the doorway, she said with a last effort:
“I will have one bead to pray for you, trejous.” She showed her rosary, and, Huguenot though she was, Guida touched the bead reverently. “And if there is war, I will have two beads, trejous. A bi’tot—good-bye!”
Guida stood watching her from the doorway, and the last words of the fisher-wife kept repeating themselves through her brain: “And if there is war, I will have two beads, trejous.”
So, Maitresse Aimable knew she loved Philip! How strange it was that one should read so truly without words spoken, or through seeing acts which reveal. She herself seemed to read Maitresse Aimable all at once—read her by virtue, and in the light, of true love, the primitive and consuming feeling in the breast of each for a man. Were not words necessary for speech after all? But here she stopped short suddenly; for if love might find and read love, why was it she needed speech of Philip? Why was it her spirit kept beating up against the hedge beyond which his inner self was, and, unable to see that beyond, needed reassurance by words, by promises and protestations?
All at once she was angry with herself for thinking thus concerning Philip. Of course Philip loved her deeply. Had she not seen the light of true love in his eyes, and felt the arms of love about her? Suddenly she shuddered and grew bitter, and a strange rebellion broke loose in her. Why had Philip failed to keep his promise not to see her again after the marriage, till he should return from Portsmouth? It was selfish, painfully, terribly selfish of him. Why, even though she had been foolish in her request—why had he not done as she wished? Was that love—was it love to break the first promise he had ever made to his wife?
Yet she excused him to herself. Men were different from women, and men did not understand what troubled a woman’s heart and spirit; they were not shaken by the same gusts of emotion; they—they were not so fine; they did not think so deeply on what a woman, when she loves, thinks always, and acts upon according to her thought. If Philip were only here to resolve these fears, these perplexities, to quiet the storm in her! And yet, could he—could he? For now she felt that this storm was rooting up something very deep and radical in her. It frightened her, but for the moment she fought it passionately.
She went into her garden; and here among her animals and her flowers it seemed easier to be gay of heart; and she laughed a little, and was most tender and pretty with her grandfather when he came home from spending the afternoon with the Chevalier.
In this manner the first day of her marriage passed—in happy reminiscence and in vague foreboding; in affection yet in reproach as the secret wife; and still as the loving, distracted girl, frightened at her own bitterness, but knowing it to be justified.
The late evening was spent in gaiety with her grandfather and the Chevalier; but at night when she went to bed she could not sleep. She tossed from side to side; a hundred thoughts came and went. She grew feverish, her breath choked her, and she got up and opened the window. It was clear, bright moonlight, and from where she was she could see the mielles and the ocean and the star-sown sky above and beyond. There she sat and thought and thought till morning.
At precisely the same moment in the morning two boats set sail from the south coast of Jersey: one from Grouville Bay, and one from the harbour of St. Heliers. Both were bound for the same point; but the first was to sail round the east coast of the island, and the second round the west coast.
The boat leaving Grouville Bay would have on her right the Ecrehos and the coast of France, with the Dirouilles in her course; the other would have the wide Atlantic on her left, and the Paternosters in her course. The two converging lines should meet at the island of Sark.
The boat leaving Grouville Bay was a yacht carrying twelve swivel-guns, bringing Admiralty despatches to the Channel Islands. The boat leaving St. Heliers harbour was a new yawl-rigged craft owned by Jean Touzel. It was the fruit of ten years’ labour, and he called her the Hardi Biaou, which, in plain English, means “very beautiful.” This was the third time she had sailed under Jean’s hand. She carried two carronades, for war with France was in the air, and it was Jean’s whim to make a show of preparation, for, as he said: “If the war-dogs come, my pups can bark too. If they don’t, why, glad and good, the Hardi Biaou is big enough to hold the cough-drops.”
The business of the yacht Dorset was important that was why so small a boat was sent on the Admiralty’s affairs. Had she been a sloop she might have attracted the attention of a French frigate or privateer wandering the seas in the interests of Vive la Nation! The business of the yawl was quite unimportant. Jean Touzel was going to Sark with kegs of wine and tobacco for the seigneur, and to bring over whatever small cargo might be waiting for Jersey. The yacht Dorset had aboard her the Reverend Lorenzo Dow, an old friend of her commander. He was to be dropped at Sark, and was to come back with Jean Touzel in the Hardi Biaou, the matter having been arranged the evening before in the Vier Marchi. The saucy yawl had aboard Maitresse Aimable, Guida, and a lad to assist Jean in working the sails. Guida counted as one of the crew, for there was little in the handling of a boat she did not know.
As the Hardi Biaou was leaving the harbour of St. Heliers, Jean told Guida that Mr. Dow was to join them on the return journey. She had a thrill of excitement, for this man was privy to her secret, he was connected with her life history. But before the little boat passed St. Brelade’s Bay she was lost in other thoughts: in picturing Philip on the Narcissus, in inwardly conning the ambitious designs of his career. What he might yet be, who could tell? She had read more than a little of the doings of great naval commanders, both French and British. She knew how simple midshipmen had sometimes become admirals, and afterwards peers of the realm.
Suddenly a new thought came to her. Suppose that Philip should rise to high places, would she be able to follow? What had she seen—what did she know—what social opportunities had been hers? How would she fit with an exalted station?
Yet Philip had said that she could take her place anywhere with grace and dignity; and surely Philip knew. If she were gauche or crude in manners, he would not have cared for her; if she were not intelligent, he would scarcely have loved her. Of course she had read French and English to some purpose; she could speak Spanish—her grandfather had taught her that; she understood Italian fairly—she had read it aloud on Sunday evenings with the Chevalier. Then there were Corneille, Shakespeare, Petrarch, Cervantes—she had read them all; and even Wace, the old Norman trouvere, whose Roman de Rou she knew almost by heart. Was she so very ignorant?
There was only one thing to do: she must interest herself in what interested Philip; she must read what he read; she must study naval history; she must learn every little thing about a ship of war. Then Philip would be able to talk with her of all he did at sea, and she would understand.
When, a few days ago, she had said to him that she did not know how she was going to be all that his wife ought to be, he had answered her: “All I ask is that you be your own sweet self, for it is just you that I want, you with your own thoughts and imaginings, and not a Guida who has dropped her own way of looking at things to take on some one else’s—even mine. It’s the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.”
Was Philip right? Was she really, in some way, a little bit clever? She would like to believe so, for then she would be a better companion for him. After all, how little she knew of Philip—now, why did that thought always come up! It made her shudder. They two would really have to begin with the A B C of understanding. To understand was a passion, it was breathing and life to her. She would never, could never, be satisfied with skimming the surface of life as the gulls out there skimmed the water.... Ah, how beautiful the morning was, and how the bracing air soothed her feverishness! All this sky, and light, and uplifting sea were hers, they fed her with their strength—they were all so companionable.
Since Philip had gone—and that was but four days ago—she had sat down a dozen times to write to him, but each time found she could not. She, drew back from it because she wanted to empty out her heart, and yet, somehow, she dared not. She wanted to tell Philip all the feelings that possessed her; but how dared she write just what she felt: love and bitterness, joy and indignation, exaltation and disappointment, all in one? How was it these could all exist in a woman’s heart at once? Was it because Love was greater than all, deeper than all, overcame all, forgave all? and was that what women felt and did always? Was that their lot, their destiny? Must they begin in blind faith, then be plunged into the darkness of disillusion, shaken by the storm of emotion, taste the sting in the fruit of the tree of knowledge—and go on again the same, yet not the same?
More or less incoherently these thoughts flitted through Guida’s mind. As yet her experiences were too new for her to fasten securely upon their meaning. In a day or two she would write to Philip freely and warmly of her love and of her hopes; for, maybe, by that time nothing but happiness would be left in the caldron of feeling. There was a packet going to England in three days—yes, she would wait for that. And Philip—alas! a letter from him could not reach her for at least a fortnight yet; and then in another month after that he would be with her, and she would be able to tell the whole world that she was the wife of Captain Philip d’Avranche, of the good ship Araminta—for that he was to be when he came again.
She was not sad now, indeed she was almost happy, for her thoughts had brought her so close to Philip that she could feel his blue eyes looking at her, the strong clasp of his hand. She could almost touch the brown hair waving back carelessly from the forehead, untouched by powder, in the fashion of the time; and she could hear his cheery laugh quite plainly, so complete was the illusion.
St. Ouen’s Bay, l’Etacq, Plemont, dropped behind them as they sailed. They drew on to where the rocks of the Paternosters foamed to the unquiet sea. Far over between the Nez du Guet and the sprawling granite pack of the Dirouilles, was the Admiralty yacht winging to the nor’-west. Beyond it again lay the coast of France, the tall white cliffs, the dark blue smoky curve ending in Cap de la Hague.
To-day there was something new in this picture of the coast of France. Against the far-off sands were some little black spots, seemingly no bigger than a man’s hand. Again and again Jean Touzel had eyed these moving specks with serious interest; and Maitresse Aimable eyed Jean, for Jean never looked so often at anything without good reason. If, perchance, he looked three times at her consecutively, she gaped with expectation, hoping that he would tell her that her face was not so red to-day as usual—a mark of rare affection.
At last Guida noticed Jean’s look. “What is it that you see, Maitre Jean?” she said.
“Little black wasps, I think, ma’m’selle-little black wasps that sting.”
Guida did not understand.
Jean gave a curious cackle, and continued: “Ah, those wasps—they have a sting so nasty!” He paused an instant, then he added in a lower voice, and not quite so gaily: “Yon is the way that war begins.”
Guida’s fingers suddenly clinched rigidly upon the tiller. “War? Do—do you think that’s a French fleet, Maitre Jean?”
“Steadee—steadee-keep her head up, ma’m’selle,” he answered, for Guida had steered unsteadily for the instant. “Steadee—shale ben! that’s right—I remember twenty years ago the black wasps they fly on the coast of France like that. Who can tell now?” He shrugged his shoulders. “P’rhaps they are coum out to play, but see you, when there is trouble in the nest it is my notion that wasps come out to sting. Look at France now, they all fight each other there, ma fuifre! When folks begin to slap faces at home, look out when they get into the street. That is when the devil have a grand fete.”
Guida’s face grew paler as he spoke. The eyes of Maitresse Aimable were fixed on her now, and unconsciously the ponderous good-wife felt in that warehouse she called her pocket for her rosary. An extra bead was there for Guida, and one for another than Guida. But Maltresse Aimable did more: she dived into the well of silence for her voice; and for the first time in her life she showed anger with Jean. As her voice came forth she coloured, her cheeks expanded, and the words sallied out in puffs:
“Nannin, Jean, you smell shark when it is but herring. You cry wasp when the critchett sing. I will believe war when I see the splinters fly—me!”
Jean looked at his wife in astonishment. That was the longest speech he had ever heard her make. It was also the first time that her rasp of criticism had ever been applied to him, and with such asperity too. He could not make it out. He looked from his wife to Guida; then, suddenly arrested by the look in her face, he scratched his shaggy head in despair, and moved about in his seat.
“Sit you still, Jean,” said his wife sharply; “you’re like peas on a hot griddle.”
This confused Jean beyond recovery, for never in his life had Aimable spoken to him like that. He saw there was something wrong, and he did not know whether to speak or hold his tongue; or, as he said to himself, he “didn’t know which eye to wink.” He adjusted his spectacles, and, pulling himself together, muttered: “Smoke of thunder, what’s all this?”
Guida wasn’t a wisp of quality to shiver with terror at the mere mention of war with France; but ba su, thought Jean, there was now in her face a sharp, fixed look of pain, in her eyes a bewildered anxiety.
Jean scratched his head still more. Nothing particular came of that. There was no good trying to work the thing out suddenly, he wasn’t clever enough. Then out of an habitual good-nature he tried to bring better weather fore and aft.
“Eh ben,” said he, “in the dark you can’t tell a wasp from a honey-bee till he lights on you; and that’s too far off there”—he jerked a finger towards the French shore—“to be certain sure. But if the wasp nip, you make him pay for it, the head and the tail—yes, I think-me.... There’s the Eperquerie,” he added quickly, nodding in front of him.
The island of Sark lifted a green bosom above her perpendicular cliffs, with the pride of an affluent mother among her brood. Dowered by sun and softened by a delicate haze like an exquisite veil of modesty, this youngest daughter of the isles clustered with her kinsfolk in the emerald archipelago between the great seas.
The outlines of the coast grew plainer as the Hardi Biaou drew nearer and nearer. From end to end there was no harbour upon this southern side. There was no roadway, as it seemed no pathway at all up the overhanging cliffs-ridges of granite and grey and green rock, belted with mist, crowned by sun, and fretted by the milky, upcasting surf. Little islands, like outworks before it, crouched slumberously to the sea, as a dog lays its head in its paws and hugs the ground close, with vague, soft-blinking eyes.
By the shore the air was white with sea-gulls flying and circling, rising and descending, shooting up straight into the air; their bodies smooth and long like the body of a babe in white samite, their feathering tails spread like a fan, their wings expanding on the ambient air. In the tall cliffs were the nests of dried seaweed, fastened to the edge of a rocky bracket on lofty ledges, the little ones within piping to the little ones without. Every point of rock had its sentinel gull, looking-looking out to sea like some watchful defender of a mystic city. Piercing might be the cries of pain or of joy from the earth, more piercing were their cries; dark and dreadful might be the woe of those who went down to the sea in ships, but they shrilled on unheeding, their yellow beaks still yellowing in the sun, keeping their everlasting watch and ward.
Now and again other birds, dark, quick-winged, low-flying, shot in among the white companies of sea-gulls, stretching their long necks, and turning their swift, cowardly eyes here and there, the cruel beak extended, the body gorged with carrion. Black marauders among blithe birds of peace and joy, they watched like sable spirits near the nests, or on some near sea rocks, sombre and alone, blinked evilly at the tall bright cliffs and the lightsome legions nestling there.
These swart loiterers by the happy nests of the young were like spirits of fate who might not destroy, who had no power to harm the living, yet who could not be driven forth: the ever-present death-heads at the feast, the impressive acolytes by the altars of destiny.
As the Hardi Biaou drew near the lofty, inviolate cliffs, there opened up sombre clefts and caverns, honeycombing the island at all points of the compass. She slipped past rugged pinnacles, like buttresses to the island, here trailed with vines, valanced with shrubs of unnameable beauty, and yonder shrivelled and bare like the skin of an elephant.
Some rocks, indeed, were like vast animals round which molten granite had been poured, preserving them eternally. The heads of great dogs, like the dogs of Ossian, sprang out in profile from the repulsing mainland; stupendous gargoyles grinned at them from dark points of excoriated cliff. Farther off, the face of a battered sphinx stared with unheeding look into the vast sea and sky beyond. From the dark depths of mystic crypts came groanings, like the roaring of lions penned beside the caves of martyrs.
Jean had startled Guida with his suggestions of war between England and France. Though she longed to have Philip win glory in some great battle, yet her first natural thought was of danger to the man she loved—and the chance too of his not coming back to her from Portsmouth. But now as she looked at this scene before her, there came again to her face the old charm of blitheness. The tides of temperament in her were fast to flow and quick to ebb. The reaction from pain was in proportion to her splendid natural health.
Her lips smiled. For what can long depress the youthful and the loving when they dream that they are entirely beloved? Lands and thrones may perish, plague and devastation walk abroad with death, misery and beggary crawl naked to the doorway, and crime cower in the hedges; but to the egregious egotism of young love there are only two identities bulking in the crowded universe. To these immensities all other beings are audacious who dream of being even comfortable and obscure—happiness would be a presumption; as though Fate intended each living human being at some one moment to have the whole world to himself. And who shall cry out against that egotism with which all are diseased?
So busy was Guida with her own thoughts that she scarcely noticed they had changed their course, and were skirting the coast westerly, whereby to reach Havre Gosselin on the other side of the island. There on the shore above lay the seigneurie, the destination of the Hardi Biaou.
As they passed the western point of the island, and made their course easterly by a channel between rocky bulwarks opening Havre Gosselin, they suddenly saw a brig rounding the Eperquerie. She was making to the south-east under full sail. Her main and mizzen masts were not visible, and her colours could not be seen, but Jean’s quick eye had lighted on something which made him cast apprehensive glances at his wife and Guida. There was a gun in the stern port-hole of the vanishing brig; and he also noted that it was run out for action.
His swift glance at his wife and Guida assured him that they had not noticed the gun.
Jean’s brain began working with unusual celerity. He was certain that the brig was a French sloop or a privateer. In other circumstances, that in itself might not have given him much trouble of mind, for more than once French frigates had sailed round the Channel Isles in insulting strength and mockery; but at this moment every man knew that France and England were only waiting to see who should throw the ball first and set the red game going. Twenty French frigates could do little harm to the island of Sark; a hundred men could keep off an army and navy there; but Jean knew that the Admiralty yacht Dorset was sailing at this moment within half a league of the Eperquerie. He would stake his life that the brig was French and hostile and knew it also. At all costs he must follow and learn the fate of the yacht.
If he landed at Havre Gosselin and crossed the island on foot, whatever was to happen would be over and done, and that did not suit the book of Jean Touzel. More than once he had seen a little fighting, and more than once shared in it. If there was to be a fight—he looked affectionately at his carronades—then he wanted to be within seeing or striking distance.
Instead of running into Havre Gosselin, he set for the Bec du Nez, the eastern point of the island. His object was to land upon the rocks of the Eperquerie, where the women would be safe whatever befell. The tide was running strong round the point, and the surf was heavy, so that once or twice the boat was almost overturned; but Jean had measured well the currents and the wind.
This was one of the most exciting moments in his life, for, as they rounded the Bec du Nez, there was the Dorset going about to make for Guernsey, and the brig, under full sail, bearing down upon her. Even as they rounded the point, up ran the tricolour to the brig’s mizzen-mast, and the militant shouts of the French sailors came over the water.
Too late had the little yacht with her handful of guns seen the danger and gone about. The wind was fair for her; but it was as fair for the brig, able to outsail her twice over. As the Hardi Biaou neared the landing-place of the Eperquerie, a gun was fired from the privateer across the bows of the Dorset, and Guida realised what was happening.
As they landed another shot was fired, then came a broadside. Guida put her hands before her eyes, and when she looked again the main-mast of the yacht was gone. And now from the heights of Sark above there rang out a cry from the lips of the affrighted islanders: “War—war—war—war!”
Guida sank down upon the rock, and her face dropped into her hands. She trembled violently. Somehow all at once, and for the first time in her life, there was borne in upon her a feeling of awful desolation and loneliness. She was alone—she was alone—she was alone that was the refrain of her thoughts.
The cry of war rang along the cliff tops; and war would take Philip from her. Perhaps she would never see him again. The horror of it, the pity of it, the peril of it.
Shot after shot the twelve-pounders of the Frenchman drove like dun hail at the white timbers of the yacht, and her masts and spars were flying. The privateer now came drawing down to where she lay lurching.
A hand touched Guida upon the shoulder. “Cheer thee, my dee-ar,” said Maitresse Aimable’s voice. Below, Jean Touzel had eyes only for this sea-fight before him, for, despite the enormous difference, the Englishmen were now fighting their little craft for all that she was capable. But the odds were terribly against her, though she had the windward side, and the firing of the privateer was bad. The carronades on her flush decks were replying valiantly to the twelve-pounders of the brig. At last a chance shot carried away her mizzenmast, and another dismounted her single great gun, killing a number of men. The carronades, good for only a few discharges, soon left her to the fury of her assailant, and presently the Dorset was no better than a battered raisin-box. Her commander had destroyed his despatches, and nothing remained now but to be sunk or surrender.
In not more than twenty minutes from the time the first shot was fired, the commander and his brave little crew yielded to the foe, and the Dorset’s flag was hauled down.
When her officers and men were transferred to the Frenchman, her one passenger and guest, the Rev. Lorenzo Dow, passed calmly from the gallant little wreck to the deck of the privateer, with a finger between the leaves of his book of meditations. With as much equanimity as he would have breakfasted with a bishop, made breaches of the rubric, or drunk from a sailor’s black-jack, he went calmly into captivity in France, giving no thought to what he left behind; quite heedless that his going would affect for good or ill the destiny of the young wife of Philip d’Avranche.
Guida watched the yacht go down, and the brig bear away towards France where those black wasps of war were as motes against the white sands. Then she remembered that there had gone with it one of the three people in the world who knew her secret, the man who had married her to Philip. She shivered a little, she scarcely knew why, for it did not then seem of consequence to her whether Mr. Dow went or stayed, though he had never given her the marriage certificate. Indeed, was it not better he should go? Thereby one less would know her secret. But still an undefined fear possessed her.
“Cheer thee, cheer thee, my dee-ar, my sweet dormitte,” said Maitresse Aimable, patting her shoulder. “It cannot harm thee, ba su! ‘Tis but a flash in the pan.”
Guida’s first impulse was to throw herself into the arms of the slow-tongued, great-hearted woman who hung above her like a cloud of mercy, and tell her whole story. But no, she would keep her word to Philip, till Philip came again. Her love—the love of the young, lonely wife, must be buried deep in her own heart until he appeared and gave her the right to speak.
Jean was calling to them. They rose to go. Guida looked about her. Was it all a dream-all that had happened to her, and around her? The world was sweet to look upon, and yet was it true that here before her eyes there had been war, and that out of war peril must come to her.
A week ago she was free as air, happy as healthy body, truthful mind, simple nature, and tender love can make a human being. She was then only a young, young girl. To-day-she sighed.
Long after they put out to sea again she could still hear the affrighted cry of the peasants from the cliff-or was it only the plaintive echo of her own thoughts?
“War—war—war—war!”
The Duke turned at the door, and looked with listless inquiry into the face of the Minister of Marine, who, picking up an official paper from his table, ran an eye down it, marked a point with the sharp corner of his snuff-box, and handed it over to his visitor, saying:
“Our roster of English prisoners taken in the action off Brest.”
The Duke, puzzled, lifted his glass and scanned the roll mechanically.
“No, no, Duke, just where I have marked,” interposed the Minister.
“My dear Monsieur Dalbarade,” remarked the Duke a little querulously, “I do not see what interest—”
He stopped short, however, looked closer at the document, and then lowering it in a sort of amazement, seemed about to speak; but, instead, raised the paper again and fixed his eyes intently on the spot indicated by the Minister.
“Most curious,” he said after a moment, making little nods of his head towards Dalbarade; “my own name—and an English prisoner, you say?”
“Precisely so; and he gave our fellows some hard knocks before his frigate went on the reefs.”
“Strange that the name should be my own. I never heard of an English branch of our family.”
A quizzical smile passed over the face of the Minister, adding to his visitor’s mystification. “But suppose he were English, yet French too?” he rejoined.
“I fail to understand the entanglement,” answered the Duke stiffly.
“He is an Englishman whose name and native language are French—he speaks as good French as your own.”
The Duke peevishly tapped a chair with his stick. “I am no reader of riddles, monsieur,” he said acidly, although eager to know more concerning this Englishman of the same name as himself, ruler of the sovereign duchy of Bercy.
“Shall I bid him enter, Prince?” asked the Minister. The Duke’s face relaxed a little, for the truth was, at this moment of his long life he was deeply concerned with his own name and all who bore it.
“Is he here then?” he asked, nodding assent.
“In the next room,” answered the Minister, turning to a bell and ringing. “I have him here for examination, and was but beginning when I was honoured by your Highness’s presence.” He bowed politely, yet there was, too, a little mockery in the bow, which did not escape the Duke. These were days when princes received but little respect in France.
A subaltern entered, received an order, and disappeared. The Duke withdrew to the embrasure of a window, and immediately the prisoner was gruffly announced.
The young Englishman stood quietly waiting, his quick eyes going from Dalbarade to the wizened figure by the window, and back again to the Minister. His look carried both calmness and defiance, but the defiance came only from a sense of injury and unmerited disgrace.
“Monsieur,” said the Minister with austerity, “in your further examination we shall need to repeat some questions.”
The prisoner nodded indifferently, and for a brief space there was silence. The Duke stood by the window, the Minister by his table, the prisoner near the door. Suddenly the prisoner, with an abrupt motion of the hand towards two chairs, said with an assumption of ordinary politeness:
“Will you not be seated?”
The remark was so odd in its coolness and effrontery, that the Duke chuckled audibly. The Minister was completely taken aback. He glanced stupidly at the two chairs—the only ones in the room—and at the prisoner. Then the insolence of the thing began to work upon him, and he was about to burst forth, when the Duke came forward, and politely moving a chair near to the young commander, said:
“My distinguished compliments, monsieur le capitaine. I pray you accept this chair.”
With quiet self-possession and a matter-of-course air the prisoner bowed politely, and seated himself, then with a motion of the hand backward towards the door, said to the Duke: “I’ve been standing five hours with some of those moutons in the ante-room. My profound thanks to monseigneur.”
Touching the angry Minister on the arm, the Duke said quietly:
“Dear monsieur, will you permit me a few questions to the prisoner?”
At that instant there came a tap at the door, and an orderly entered with a letter to the Minister, who glanced at it hurriedly, then turned to the prisoner and the Duke, as though in doubt what to do.
“I will be responsible for the prisoner, if you must leave us,” said the Duke at once.
“For a little, for a little—a matter of moment with the Minister of War,” answered Dalbarade, nodding, and with an air of abstraction left the room.
The Duke withdrew to the window again, and seated himself in the embrasure, at some little distance from the Englishman, who at once got up and brought his chair closer. The warm sunlight of spring, streaming through the window, was now upon his pale face, and strengthened it, giving it fulness and the eye fire.
“How long have you been a prisoner, monsieur?” asked the Duke, at the same time acknowledging the other’s politeness with a bow.
“Since March, monseigneur.”
“Monseigneur again—a man of judgment,” said the Duke to himself, pleased to have his exalted station recognised. “H’m, and it is now June—four months, monsieur. You have been well used, monsieur?”
“Vilely, monseigneur,” answered the other; “a shipwrecked enemy should never be made prisoner, or at least he should be enlarged on parole; but I have been confined like a pirate in a sink of a jail.”
“Of what country are you?”
Raising his eyebrows in amazement the young man answered:
“I am an Englishman, monseigneur.”
“Monsieur is of England, then?”
“Monseigneur, I am an English officer.”
“You speak French well, monsieur.”
“Which serves me well in France, as you see, monseigneur.”
The Duke was a trifle nettled. “Where were you born, monsieur?”
There was a short pause, and then the prisoner, who had enjoyed the other’s perplexity, said:
“On the Isle of Jersey, monseigneur.”
The petulant look passed immediately from the face of the Duke; the horizon was clear at once.
“Ah, then, you are French, monsieur!”
“My flag is the English flag; I was born a British subject, and I shall die one,” answered the other steadily.
“The sentiment sounds estimable,” answered the Duke; “but as for life and death, and what we are or what we may be, we are the sport of Fate.” His brow clouded. “I myself was born under a monarchy; I shall probably die under a Republic. I was born a Frenchman; I may die—”
His tone had become low and cynical, and he broke off suddenly, as though he had said more than he meant. “Then you are a Norman, monsieur,” he added in a louder tone.
“Once all Jerseymen were Normans, and so were many Englishmen, monseigneur.”
“I come of Norman stock too, monsieur,” remarked the Duke graciously, yet eyeing the young man keenly.
“Monseigneur has not the kindred advantage of being English?” added the prisoner dryly.
The Duke protested with a deprecatory wave of the fingers and a flash of the sharp eyes, and then, after a slight pause, said: “What is your name, monsieur?”
“Philip d’Avranche,” was the brief reply; then with droll impudence: “And monseigneur’s, by monseigneur’s leave?”
The Duke smiled, and that smile relieved the sourness, the fret of a face which had care and discontent written upon every line of it. It was a face that had never known happiness. It had known diversion, however, and unusual diversion it knew at this moment.
“My name,” he answered with a penetrating quizzical look, “—my name is Philip d’Avranche.”
The young man’s quick, watchful eyes fixed themselves like needles on the Duke’s face. Through his brain there ran a succession of queries and speculations, and dominating them all one clear question-was he to gain anything by this strange conversation? Who was this great man with a name the same as his own, this crabbed nobleman with skin as yellow as an orange, and body like an orange squeezed dry? He surely meant him no harm, however, for flashes of kindliness had lighted the shrivelled face as he talked. His look was bent in piercing comment upon Philip, who, trying hard to solve the mystery, now made a tentative rejoinder to his strange statement. Rising from his chair and bowing, he said, with shrewd foreknowledge of the effect of his words:
“I had not before thought my own name of such consequence.”
The old man grunted amiably. “My faith, the very name begets a towering conceit wherever it goes,” he answered, and he brought his stick down on the floor with such vehemence that the emerald and ruby rings rattled on his shrunken fingers.
“Be seated—cousin,” he said with dry compliment, for Philip had remained standing, as if with the unfeigned respect of a cadet in the august presence of the head of his house. It was a sudden and bold suggestion, and it was not lost on the Duke. The aged nobleman was too keen an observer not to see the designed flattery, but he was in a mood when flattery was palatable, seeing that many of his own class were arrayed against him for not having joined the army of the Vendee; and that the Revolutionists, with whom he had compromised, for the safety of his lands of d’Avranche and his duchy of Bercy, regarded him with suspicion. Between the two, the old man—at heart most profoundly a Royalist—bided his time, in some peril but with no fear. The spirit of this young Englishman of his own name pleased him; the flattery, patent as it was, gratified him, for in revolutionary France few treated him with deference now. Even the Minister of Marine, with whom he was on good terms, called him “citizen” at times.
All at once it flashed on the younger man that this must be the Prince d’Avranche, Duc de Bercy, of that family of d’Avranche from which his own came in long descent—even from the days of Rollo, Duke of Normandy. He recalled on the instant the token of fealty of the ancient House of d’Avranche—the offering of a sword.
“Your Serene Highness,” he said with great deference and as great tact, “I must first offer my homage to the Prince d’Avranche, Duc de Bercy—” Then with a sudden pause, and a whimsical look, he added: “But, indeed, I had forgotten, they have taken away my sword!”
“We shall see,” answered the Prince, well pleased, “we shall see about that sword. Be seated.” Then, after a short pause: “Tell me now, monsieur, of your family, of your ancestry.”
His eyes were bent on Philip with great intentness, and his thin lips tightened in some unaccountable agitation.
Philip instantly responded. He explained how in the early part of the thirteenth century, after the great crusade against the Albigenses, a cadet of the house of d’Avranche had emigrated to England, and had come to place and honour under Henry III, who gave to the son of this d’Avranche certain tracts of land in Jersey, where he settled. Philip was descended in a direct line from this same receiver of king’s favours, and was now the only representative of his family.
While Philip spoke the Duke never took eyes from his face—that face so facile in the display of feeling or emotion. The voice also had a lilt of health and vitality which rang on the ears of age pleasantly. As he listened he thought of his eldest son, partly imbecile, all but a lusus naturae, separated from his wife immediately after marriage, through whom there could never be succession—he thought of him, and for the millionth time in his life winced in impotent disdain. He thought too of his beloved second son, lying in a soldier’s grave in Macedonia; of the buoyant resonance of that by-gone voice, of the soldierly good spirits like to the good spirits of the prisoner before him, and “his heart yearned towards the young man exceedingly.” If that second son had but lived there would be now no compromising with this Republican Government of France; he would be fighting for the white flag with the golden lilies over in the Vendee.
“Your ancestors were mine, then,” remarked the Duke gravely, after a pause, “though I had not heard of that emigration to England. However—however! Come, tell me of the engagement in which you lost your ship,” he added hurriedly in a low tone. He was now so intent that he did not stir in his seat, but sat rigidly still, regarding Philip kindly. Something in the last few moments’ experience had loosened the puckered skin, softened the crabbed look in the face, and Philip had no longer doubt of his friendly intentions.
“I had the frigate Araminta, twenty-four guns, a fortnight out from Portsmouth,” responded Philip at once. “We fell in with a French frigate, thirty guns. She was well to leeward of us, and the Araminta bore up under all sail, keen for action. The Frenchman was as ready as ourselves for a brush, and tried to get the weather of us, but, failing, she shortened sail and gallantly waited for us. The Araminta overhauled her on the weather quarter, and hailed. She responded with cheers and defiance—as sturdy a foe as man could wish. We lost no time in getting to work, and, both running before the wind, we fired broadsides as we cracked on. It was tit-for-tat for a while with splinters flying and neither of us in the eye of advantage, but at last the Araminta shot away the main-mast and wheel of the Niobe, and she wallowed like a tub in the trough of the sea. We bore down on her, and our carronades raked her like a comb. Then we fell thwart her hawse, and tore her up through her bowline-ports with a couple of thirty-two-pounders. But before we could board her she veered, lurched, and fell upon us, carrying away our foremast. We cut clear of the tangle, and were making once more to board her, when I saw to windward two French frigates bearing down on us under full sail. And then—”
The Prince exclaimed in surprise: “I had not heard of this,” he said. “They did not tell the world of those odds against you.”
“Odds and to spare, monsieur le due! We had had all we could manage in the Niobe, though she was now disabled, and we could hurt her no more. If the others came up on our weather we should be chewed like a bone in a mastiff’s jaws. If she must fight again, the Araminta would be little fit for action till we cleared away the wreckage; so I sheered off to make all sail. We ran under courses with what canvas we had, and got away with a fair breeze and a good squall whitening to windward, while our decks were cleared for action again. The guns on the main-deck had done good service and kept their places. On the quarter-deck and fo’castle there was more amiss, but as I watched the frigates overhauling us I took heart of grace still. There was the creaking and screaming of the carronade-slides, the rattling of the carriages of the long twelve-pounders amidships as they were shotted and run out again, the thud of the carpenters’ hammers as the shot-holes were plugged—good sounds in the ears of a fighter—”
“Of a d’Avranche—of a d’Avranche!” interposed the Prince.
“We were in no bad way, and my men were ready for another brush with our enemies, everything being done that could be done, everything in its place,” continued Philip. “When the frigates were a fair gunshot off, I saw that the squall was overhauling us faster than they. This meant good fortune if we wished escape, bad luck if we would rather fight. But I had no time to think of that, for up comes Shoreham, my lieutenant, with a face all white. ‘For God’s sake, sir,’ says he, ‘shoal water-shoal water! We’re ashore.’ So much, monsieur le prince, for Admiralty charts and soundings! It’s a hateful thing to see—the light green water, the deadly sissing of the straight narrow ripple like the grooves of a wash-board: and a ship’s length ahead the water breaking over the reefs, two frigates behind ready to eat us.
“Up we came to the wind, the sheets were let run, and away flew the halyards. All to no purpose, for a minute later we came broadside on the reef, and were gored on a pinnacle of rock. The end wasn’t long in coming. The Araminta lurched off the reef on the swell. We watched our chance as she rolled, and hove overboard our broadside of long twelve-pounders. But it was no use. The swishing of the water as it spouted from the scuppers was a deal louder than the clang of the chain-pumps. It didn’t last long. The gale spilled itself upon us, and the Araminta, sick and spent, slowly settled down. The last I saw of her”—Philip raised his voice as though he would hide what he felt behind an unsentimental loudness—“was the white pennant at the main-top gallant masthead. A little while, and then I didn’t see it, and—and so good-bye to my first command! Then”—he smiled ironically—“then I was made prisoner by the French frigates, and have been closely confined ever since, against every decent principle of warfare. And now here I am, monsieur le duc.”
The Duke had listened with an immovable attention, the grey eyebrows twitching now and then, the arid face betraying a grim enjoyment. When Philip had finished, he still sat looking at him with steady slow-blinking eyes, as though unwilling to break the spell the tale had thrown round him. But an inquisition in the look, a slight cocking of the head as though weighing important things, the ringed fingers softly drumming on the stick before him—all these told Philip that something was at stake concerning himself.
The Duke seemed about to speak, when the door of the room opened and the Minister of Marine entered. The Duke, rising and courteously laying a hand on his arm, drew him over to the window, and engaged him in whispered conversation, of which the subject seemed unwelcome to the Minister, for now and then he interrupted sharply.
As the two stood fretfully debating, the door of the room again opened. There appeared an athletic, adventurous-looking officer in brilliant uniform who was smiling at something called after him from the antechamber. His blue coat was spick and span and very gay with double embroidery at the collar, coat-tails, and pockets. His white waistcoat and trousers were spotless; his netted sash of blue with its stars on the silver tassels had a look of studied elegance. The black three-cornered hat, broidered with gold, and adorned with three ostrich tips of red and a white and blue aigrette, was, however, the glory of his bravery. He seemed young to be a General of Division, for such his double embroideries and aigrette proclaimed him.
He glanced at Philip, and replied to his salute with a half-quizzical smile on his proud and forceful face. “Dalbarade, Dalbarade,” said he to the Minister, “I have but an hour—ah, monsieur le prince!” he added suddenly, as the latter came hurriedly towards him, and, grasping his hand warmly, drew him over to Dalbarade at the window. Philip now knew beyond doubt that he was the subject of debate, for all the time that the Duke in a low tone, half cordial, half querulous, spoke to the new-comer, the latter let his eyes wander curiously towards Philip. That he was an officer of great importance was to be seen from the deference paid him by Dalbarade.
All at once he made a polite gesture towards the Duke, and, facing the Minister, said in a cavalier-like tone, and with a touch of patronage: “Yes, yes, Dalbarade; it is of no consequence, and I myself will be surety for both.” Then turning to the nobleman, he added: “We are beginning to square accounts, Duke. Last time we met I had a large favour of you, and to-day you have a small favour of me. Pray introduce your kinsman here, before you take him with you,” and he turned squarely towards Philip.
Philip could scarcely believe his ears. The Duke’s kinsman! Had the Duke then got his release on the ground that they were of kin—a kinship which, even to be authentic, must go back seven centuries for proof?
Yet here he was being introduced to the revolutionary general as “my kinsman of the isles of Normandy.” Here, too, was the same General Grandjon-Larisse applauding him on his rare fortune to be thus released on parole through the Duc de Bercy, and quoting with a laugh, half sneer and half raillery, the old Norman proverb: “A Norman dead a thousand years cries Haro! Haro! if you tread on his grave.”
So saying, he saluted the Duke with a liberal flourish of the hand and a friendly bow, and turned away to Dalbarade.
A half-hour later Philip was outside with the Duke, walking slowly through the court-yard to an open gateway, where waited a carriage with unliveried coachman and outriders. No word was spoken till they entered the carriage and were driven swiftly away.
“Whither now, your Highness?” asked Philip.
“To the duchy,” answered the other shortly, and relapsed into sombre meditation.