Off Grouville Bay lay the squadron of the Jersey station. The St. George’s Cross was flying at the fore of the Imperturbable, and on every ship of the fleet the white ensign flapped in the morning wind. The wooden-walled three-decked flag-ship, with her 32-pounders, and six hundred men, was not less picturesque and was more important than the Castle of Mont Orgueil near by, standing over two hundred feet above the level of the sea: the home of Philip d’Avranche, Duc de Bercy, and the Comtesse Chantavoine, now known to the world as the Duchesse de Bercy.
The Comtesse had arrived in the island almost simultaneously with Philip, although he had urged her to remain at the ducal palace of Bercy. But the duchy of Bercy was in hard case. When the imbecile Duke Leopold John died and Philip succeeded, the neutrality of Bercy had been proclaimed, but this neutrality had since been violated, and there was danger at once from the incursions of the Austrians and the ravages of the French troops. In Philip’s absence the valiant governor-general of the duchy, aided by the influence and courage of the Comtesse Chantavoine, had thus far saved it from dismemberment, in spite of attempted betrayals by Damour the Intendant, who still remained Philip’s enemy.
But when the Marquis Grandjon-Larisse, the uncle of the Comtesse, died, her cousin, General Grandjon-Larisse of the Republican army—whose word with Dalbarade had secured Philip’s release years before for her own safety, first urged and then commanded her temporary absence from the duchy. So far he had been able to protect it from the fury of the Republicans and the secret treachery of the Jacobins. But a time of great peril was now at hand. Under these anxieties and the lack of other inspiration than duty, her health had failed, and at last she obeyed her cousin, joining Philip at the Castle of Mont Orgueil.
More than a year had passed since she had seen him, but there was no emotion, no ardour in their present greeting. From the first there had been nothing to link them together. She had married, hoping that she might love thereafter; he in choler and bitterness, and in the stress of a desperate ambition. He had avoided the marriage so long as he might, in hope of preventing it until the Duke should die, but with the irony of fate the expected death had come two hours after the ceremony. Then, shortly afterwards, came the death of the imbecile Leopold John; and Philip found himself the Duc de Bercy, and within a year, by reason of a splendid victory for the Imperturbable, an admiral.
Truth to tell, in this battle he had fought for victory for his ship and a fall for himself: for the fruit he had plucked was turning to dust and ashes. He was haunted by the memory of a wronged woman, as she herself had foretold. Death, with the burial of private dishonour under the roses of public victory—that had come to be his desire. But he had found that Death is wilful and chooseth her own time; that she may be lured, but she will not come with shouting. So he had stoically accepted his fate, and could even smile with a bitter cynicism when ordered to proceed to the coast of Jersey, where collision with a French squadron was deemed certain.
Now, he was again brought face to face with his past; with the imminent memory of Guida Landresse de Landresse. Where was Guida now? What had happened to her? He dared not ask, and none told him. Whichever way he turned—night or day—her face haunted him. Looking out from the windows of Mont Orgueil Castle, or from the deck of the Imperturbable, he could see—and he could scarce choose but see—the lonely Ecrehos. There, with a wild eloquence, he had made a girl believe he loved her, and had taken the first step in the path which should have led to true happiness and honour. From this good path he had violently swerved—and now?
From all that could be seen, however, the world went very well with him. He was the centre of authority. Almost any morning one might have seen a boat shoot out from below the Castle wall, carrying a flag with the blue ball of a Vice-Admiral of the White in the canton, and as the Admiral himself stepped upon the deck of the Imperturbable between saluting guards, across the water came a gay march played in his honour.
Jersey herself was elate, eager to welcome one of her own sons risen to such high estate. When, the very day after his arrival, he passed through the Vier Marchi on his way to visit the Lieutenant-Governor, the redrobed jurats impulsively turned out to greet him. They were ready to prove that memory is a matter of will and cultivation. There is no curtain so opaque as that which drops between the mind of man and the thing it is advantageous to forget. But how closely does the ear of self-service listen for the footfall of a most distant memory, when to do so is to share even a reflected glory!
A week had gone since Philip had landed on the island. Memories pursued him. If he came by the shore of St. Clement’s Bay, he saw the spot where he had stood with her the evening he married her, and she said to him: “Philip, I wonder what we will think of this day a year from now!... To-day is everything to you, but to-morrow is very much to me.” He remembered Shoreham sitting upon the cromlech above singing the legend of the gui-l’annee—and Shoreham was lying now a hundred fathoms deep.
As he walked through the Vier Marchi with his officers, there flashed before his eyes the scene of sixteen years ago, when, through the grime and havoc of battle, he had run to save Guida from the scimitar of the garish Turk. Walking through the Place du Vier Prison, he recalled the morning when he had rescued Ranulph from the hands of the mob. Where was Ranulph now?
If he had but known it, that very morning as he passed Mattingley’s house Ranulph had looked down at him with infinite scorn and loathing—but with triumph too, for the Chevalier had just shown him a certain page in a certain parish-register long lost, left with him by Carterette Mattingley. Philip knew naught of Ranulph save the story babbled by the islanders. He cared to hear of no one but Guida, and who was now to mention her name to him? It was long—so long since he had seen her face. How many years ago was it? Only five, and yet it seemed twenty.
He was a boy then; now his hair was streaked with grey. He was light-hearted then, and he was still buoyant with his fellows, still alert and vigorous, quick of speech and keen of humour—but only before the world. In his own home he was fitful of mood, impatient of the grave, meditative look of his wife, of her resolute tenacity of thought and purpose, of her unvarying evenness of mood, through which no warmth played. It seemed to him that if she had defied him—given him petulance for petulance, impatience for impatience, it would have been easier to bear. If—if he could only read behind those passionless eyes, that clear, unwrinkled forehead! But he knew her no better now than he did the day he married her. Unwittingly she chilled him, and he felt he had no right to complain, for he had done her the greatest wrong which can be done a woman. Whatever chanced, Guida was still his wife; and there was in him yet the strain of Calvinistic morality of the island race that bred him. He had shrunk from coming here, but it had been far worse than he had looked for.
One day, in a nervous, bitter moment, after an impatient hour with the Comtesse, he had said: “Can you—can you not speak? Can you not tell me what you think?” She had answered quietly:
“It would do no good. You would not understand. I know you in some ways better than you know yourself. I cannot tell what it is, but there is something wrong in your nature, something that poisons your life. And not myself only has felt that. I never told you—but you remember the day the old Duke died, the day we were married? You had gone from the room a moment. The Duke beckoned me to him, and whispered ‘Don’t be afraid—don’t be afraid—’ and then he died. That meant that he was afraid, that death had cleared his sight as to you in some way. He was afraid—of what? And I have been afraid—of what? I do not know. Things have not gone well somehow. You are strong, you are brave, and I come of a family that have been strong and brave. We ought to be near: yet, yet we are lonely and far apart, and we shall never be nearer or less lonely. That I know.”
To this he had made no reply and this anger vanished. Something in her words had ruled him to her own calmness, and at that moment he had the first flash of understanding of her nature and its true relation to his own.
Passing through the Rue d’Egypte this day he met Dormy Jamais. Forgetful of everything save that this quaint foolish figure had interested him when a boy, he called him by name; but Dormy Jamais swerved away, eyeing him askance.
At that instant he saw Jean Touzel standing in the doorway of his house. A wave of remorseful feeling rushed over him. He could wait no longer: he would ask Jean Touzel and his wife about Guida. He instantly bethought him of an excuse for the visit. His squadron needed another pilot; he would approach Jean in the matter.
Bidding his flag-lieutenant go on to Elizabeth Castle whither they were bound, and await him there, he crossed over to Jean. By the time he reached the doorway, however, Jean had retreated to the veille by the chimney behind Maitresse Aimable, who sat in a great stave-chair mending a net.
Philip knocked and stepped inside. When Mattresse Aimable saw who it was she was so startled that she dropped her work, and made vague clutches to recover it. Stooping, however, was a great effort for her. Philip instantly stepped forward and picked up the net. Politely handing it to her, he said:
“Ah, Maitresse Aimable, it is as if you had never stirred all these years!” Then turning to her husband “I have come looking for a good pilot, Jean.” Mattresse Aimable had at first flushed to a purple, had afterwards gone pale, then recovered herself, and now returned Philip’s look with a downright steadiness. Like Jean, she knew well enough he had not come for a pilot—that was not the business of a Prince Admiral.
She did not even rise. Philip might be whatever the world chose to call him, but her house was her own, and he had come uninvited, and he was unwelcome.
She kept her seat, but her fat head inclined once in greeting, and she waited for him to speak again. She knew why he had come; and somehow the steady look in these slow, brown eyes, and the blinking glance behind Jean’s brass-rimmed spectacles, disconcerted Philip. Here were people who knew the truth about him, knew the sort of man he really was. These poor folk who had had nothing of the world but what they earned, they would never hang on any prince’s favours.
He read the situation rightly. The penalties of his life were teaching him a discernment which could never have come to him through good fortune alone. Having at last discovered his real self a little, he was in the way of knowing others.
“May I shut the door?” he asked quietly. Jean nodded. Closing it he turned to them again. “Since my return I have heard naught concerning Mademoiselle Landresse,” he said. “I want to ask you about her now. Does she still live in the Place du Vier Prison?”
Both Jean and Aimable shook their heads. They had spoken no word since his entrance.
“She—she is not dead?” he asked. They shook their heads again.
“Her grandfather”—he paused—“is he living?” Once more they shook their heads in negation. “Where is mademoiselle?” he asked, sick at heart.
Jean looked at his wife; neither moved nor answered. “Where does she live?” urged Philip. Still there was no motion, no reply. “You might as well tell me.” His tone was half pleading, half angry—little like a sovereign duke, very like a man in trouble. “You must know I shall find out from some one else, then,” he continued. “But it is better for you to tell me. I mean her no harm, and I would rather know about her from her friends.”
He took off his hat now. Something in the dignity of these two honest folk rebuked the pride of place and spirit in him. As plainly as though heralds had proclaimed it, he understood that these two knew the abatements on the shield of his honour-argent, a plain point tenne, due to him “that tells lyes to his Prince or General,” and argent, a gore sinister tenne, due for flying from his colours.
Maitresse Aimable turned and looked towards Jean, but Jean turned away his head. Then she did not hesitate. The voice so oft eluding her will responded readily now. Anger—plain primitive rage-possessed her. She had had no child, but as the years had passed all the love that might have been given to her own was bestowed upon Guida, and in that mind she spoke.
“O my grief, to think you have come here-you!” she burst forth. “You steal the best heart in the world—there is none like her, nannin-gia. You promise her, you break her life, you spoil her, and then you fly away—ah coward you! Man pethe benin, was there ever such a man like you! If my Jean there had done a thing as that I would sink him in the sea—he would sink himself, je me crais! But you come back here, O my Mother of God, you come back here with your sword, with your crown-ugh, it is like a black cat in heaven—you!”
She got to her feet more nimbly than she had ever done in her life, and the floor seemed to heave as she came towards Philip. “You speak to me with soft words,” she said harshly—“but you shall have the good hard truth from me. You want to know now where she is—I ask where you have been these five years? Your voice it tremble when you speak of her now. Oh ho! it has been nice and quiet these five years. The grand pethe of her drop dead in his chair when he know. The world turn against her, make light of her, when they know. All alone—she is all alone, but for one fat old fool like me. She bear all the shame, all the pain, for the crime of you. All alone she take her child and go on to the rock of Plemont to live these five years. But you, you go and get a crown and be Amiral and marry a grande comtesse—marry, oh, je crais ben! This is no world for such men like you. You come to my house, to the house of Jean Touzel, to ask this and that—well, you have the truth of God, ba su! No good will come to you in the end, nannin-gia! When you go to die, you will think and think and think of that beautiful Guida Landresse; you will think and think of the heart you kill, and you will call, and she will not come. You will call till your throat rattle, but she will not come, and the child of sorrow you give her will not come—no, bidemme! E’fin, the door you shut you can open now, and you can go from the house of Jean Touzel. It belong to the wife of an honest man—maint’nant!”
In the moment’s silence that ensued, Jean took a step forward. “Ma femme, ma bonne femme!” he said with a shaking voice. Then he pointed to the door. Humiliated, overwhelmed by the words of the woman, Philip turned mechanically towards the door without a word, and his fingers fumbled for the latch, for a mist was before his eyes. With a great effort he recovered himself, and passed slowly out into the Rue d’Egypte.
“A child—a child!” he said brokenly. “Guida’s child—my God! And I—have never—known. Plemont—Plemont, she is at Plemont!” He shuddered. “Guida’s child—and mine,” he kept saying to himself, as in a painful dream he passed on to the shore.
In the little fisherman’s cottage he had left, a fat old woman sat sobbing in the great chair made of barrel-staves, and a man, stooping, kissed her twice on the cheek—the first time in fifteen years. And then she both laughed and cried.
Guida sat by the fire sewing, Biribi the dog at her feet. A little distance away, to the right of the chimney, lay Guilbert asleep. Twice she lowered the work to her lap to look at the child, the reflected light of the fire playing on his face. Stretching out her hand, she touched him, and then she smiled. Hers was an all-devouring love; the child was her whole life; her own present or future was as nothing; she was but fuel for the fire of his existence.
A storm was raging outside. The sea roared in upon Plemont and Grosnez, battering the rocks in futile agony. A hoarse nor’-easter ranged across the tiger’s head in helpless fury: a night of awe to inland folk, and of danger to seafarers. To Guida, who was both of the sea and of the land, fearless as to either, it was neither terrible nor desolate to be alone with the storm. Storm was but power unshackled, and power she loved and understood. She had lived so long in close commerce with storm and sea that something of their keen force had entered into her, and she was kin with them. Each wind to her was intimate as a friend, each rock and cave familiar as her hearthstone; and the ungoverned ocean spoke in terms intelligible. So heavy was the surf that now and then the spray of some foiled wave broke on the roof, but she only nodded at that, as though the sea were calling her to come forth, tapping on her rooftree in joyous greeting.
But suddenly she started and bent her head. It seemed as if her whole body were hearkening. Now she rose quickly to her feet, dropped her work upon the table near by, and rested herself against it, still listening. She was sure she heard a horse’s hoofs. Turning swiftly, she drew the curtain of the bed before her sleeping child, and then stood quiet waiting—waiting. Her hand went to her heart once as though its fierce throbbing hurt her. Plainly as though she could look through these stone walls into clear sunlight, she saw some one dismount, and she heard a voice.
The door of the but was unlocked and unbarred. If she feared, it was easy to shoot the bolt and lock the door, to drop the bar across the little window, and be safe and secure. But no bodily fear possessed her—only that terror of the spirit when its great trial comes suddenly and it shrinks back, though the mind be of faultless courage.
She waited. There came a knocking at the door. She did not move from where she stood.
“Come in,” she said. She was composed and resolute now.
The latch clicked, the door opened, and a cloaked figure entered, the shriek of the storm behind. The door closed again. The intruder took a step forward, his hat came off, the cloak was loosed and dropped upon the floor. Guida’s premonition had been right: It was Philip.
She did not speak. A stone could have been no colder as she stood in the light of the fire, her face still and strong, the eyes darkling, luminous. There was on her the dignity of the fearless, the pure in heart.
“Guida!” Philip said, and took a step nearer, and paused.
He was haggard, he had the look of one who had come upon a desperate errand. When she did not answer he said pleadingly:
“Guida, won’t you speak to me?”
“The Duc de Bercy chooses a strange hour for his visit,” she said quietly.
“But see,” he answered hurriedly; “what I have to say to you—” he paused, as though to choose the thing he should say first.
“You can say nothing I need hear,” she answered, looking him steadily in the eyes.
“Ah, Guida,” he cried, disconcerted by her cold composure, “for God’s sake listen to me! To-night we have to face our fate. To-night you have to say—”
“Fate was faced long ago. I have nothing to say.”
“Guida, I have repented of all. I have come now only to speak honestly of the wrong I did you. I have come to—”
Scorn sharpened her words, though she spoke calmly: “You have forced yourself upon a woman’s presence—and at this hour!”
“I chose the only hour possible,” he answered quickly. “Guida, the past cannot be changed, but we have the present and the future still. I have not come to justify myself, but to find a way to atone.”
“No atonement is possible.”
“You cannot deny me the right to confess to you that—”
“To you denial should not seem hard usage,” she answered slowly, “and confession should have witnesses—”
She paused suggestively. The imputation that he of all men had the least right to resent denial; that, dishonest still, he was willing to justify her privately though not publicly; that repentance should have been open to the world—it all stung him.
He threw out his hands in a gesture of protest. “As many witnesses as you will, but not now, not this hour, after all these years. Will you not at least listen to me, and then judge and act? Will you not hear me, Guida?”
She had not yet even stirred. Now that it had come, this scene was all so different from what she might have imagined. But she spoke out of a merciless understanding, an unchangeable honesty. Her words came clear and pitiless:
“If you will speak to the point and without a useless emotion, I will try to listen. Common kindness should have prevented this intrusion—by you!”
Every word she said was like a whip-lash across his face. A devilish light leapt into his eye, but it faded as quickly as it came.
“After to-night, to the public what you will,” he repeated with dogged persistence, “but it was right we should speak alone to each other at least this once before the open end. I did you wrong, yet I did not mean to ruin your life, and you should know that. I ought not to have married you secretly; I acknowledge that. But I loved you—”
She shook her head, and with a smile of pitying disdain—he could so little see the real truth, his real misdemeanour—she said: “Oh no, never—never! You were not capable of love; you never knew what it means. From the first you were too untrue ever to love a woman. There was a great fire of emotion, you saw shadows on the wall, and you fell in love with them. That was all.”
“I tell you that I loved you,” he answered with passionate energy. “But as you will. Let it be that it was not real love: at least it was all there was in me to give. I never meant to desert you. I never meant to disavow our marriage. I denied you, you will say. I did. In the light of what came after, it was dishonourable—I grant that; but I did it at a crisis and for the fulfilment of a great ambition—and as much for you as for me.”
“That was the least of your evil work. But how little you know what true people think or feel!” she answered with a kind of pain in her voice, for she felt that such a nature could never even realise its own enormities. Well, since it had gone so far she would speak openly, though it hurt her sense of self-respect.
“For that matter, do you think that I or any good woman would have had place or power, been princess or duchess, at the price? What sort of mind have you?” She looked him straight in the eyes. “Put it in the clear light of right and wrong, it was knavery. You—you talk of not meaning to do me harm. You were never capable of doing me good. It was not in you. From first to last you are untrue. Were it otherwise, were you not from first to last unworthy, would you have—but no, your worst crime need not be judged here. Yet had you one spark of worthiness would you have made a mock marriage—it is no more—with the Comtesse Chantavoine? No matter what I said or what I did in anger, or contempt of you, had you been an honest man you would not have so ruined another life. Marriage, alas! You have wronged the Comtesse worse than you have wronged me. One day I shall be righted, but what can you say or do to right her wrongs?”
Her voice had now a piercing indignation and force. “Yes, Philip d’Avranche, it is as I say, justice will come to me. The world turned against me because of you; I have been shamed and disgraced. For years I have suffered in silence. But I have waited without fear for the end. God is with me. He is stronger than fortune or fate. He has brought you to Jersey once more, to right my wrongs, mine and my child’s.”
She saw his eyes flash to the little curtained bed. They both stood silent and still. He could hear the child breathing. His blood quickened. An impulse seized him. He took a step towards the bed, as though to draw the curtain, but she quickly moved between.
“Never,” she said in a low stern tone; “no touch of yours for my Guilbert—for my son! Every minute of his life has been mine. He is mine—all mine—and so he shall remain. You who gambled with the name, the fame, the very soul of your wife, you shall not have one breath of her child’s life.”
It was as if the outward action of life was suspended in them for a moment, and then came the battle of two strong spirits: the struggle of fretful and indulged egotism, the impulse of a vigorous temperament, against a deep moral force, a high purity of mind and conscience, and the invincible love of the mother for the child. Time, bitterness, and power had hardened Philip’s mind, and his long-restrained emotions, breaking loose now, made him a passionate and wilful figure. His force lay in the very unruliness of his spirit, hers in the perfect command of her moods and emotions. Well equipped by the thoughts and sufferings of five long years, her spirit was trained to meet this onset with fiery wisdom. They were like two armies watching each other across a narrow stream, between one conflict and another.
For a minute they stood at gaze. The only sounds in the room were the whirring of the fire in the chimney and the child’s breathing. At last Philip’s intemperate self-will gave way. There was no withstanding that cold, still face, that unwavering eye. Only brutality could go further. The nobility of her nature, her inflexible straight-forwardness came upon him with overwhelming force. Dressed in molleton, with no adornment save the glow of a perfect health, she seemed at this moment, as on the Ecrehos, the one being on earth worth living and caring for. What had he got for all the wrong he had done her? Nothing. Come what might, there was one thing that he could yet do, and even as the thought possessed him he spoke.
“Guida,” he said with rushing emotion, “it is not too late. Forgive the past-the wrong of it, the shame of it. You are my wife; nothing can undo that. The other woman—she is nothing to me. If we part and never meet again she will suffer no more than she suffers to go on with me. She has never loved me, nor I her. Ambition did it all, and of ambition God knows I have had enough! Let me proclaim our marriage, let me come back to you. Then, happen what will, for the rest of our lives I will try to atone for the wrong I did you. I want you, I want our child. I want to win your love again. I can’t wipe out what I have done, but I can put you right before the world, I can prove to you that I set you above place and ambition. If you shrink from doing it for me, do it”—he glanced towards the bed—“do it for our child. To-morrow—to-morrow it shall be, if you will forgive. To-morrow let us start again—Guida—Guida!”
She did not answer at once; but at last she said “Giving up place and ambition would prove nothing now. It is easy to repent when our pleasures have palled. I told you in a letter four years ago that your protests came too late. They are always too late. With a nature like yours nothing is sure or lasting. Everything changes with the mood. It is different with me: I speak only what I truly mean. Believe me, for I tell you the truth, you are a man that a woman could forget but could never forgive. As a prince you are much better than as a plain man, for princes may do what other men may not. It is their way to take all and give nothing. You should have been born a prince, then all your actions would have seemed natural. Yet now you must remain a prince, for what you got at such a price to others you must pay for. You say you would come down from your high place, you would give up your worldly honours, for me. What madness! You are not the kind of man with whom a woman could trust herself in the troubles and changes of life. Laying all else aside, if I would have had naught of your honours and your duchy long ago, do you think I would now share a disgrace from which you could never rise? For in my heart I feel that this remorse is but caprice. It is to-day; it may not—will not—be tomorrow.”
“You are wrong, you are wrong. I am honest with you now,” he broke in.
“No,” she answered coldly, “it is not in you to be honest. Your words have no ring of truth in my ears, for the note is the same as I heard once upon the Ecrehos. I was a young girl then and I believed; I am a woman now, and I should still disbelieve though all the world were on your side to declare me wrong. I tell you”—her voice rose again, it seemed to catch the note of freedom and strength of the storm without—“I tell you, I will still live as my heart and conscience prompt me. The course I have set for myself I will follow; the life I entered upon when my child was born I will not leave. No word you have said has made my heart beat faster. You and I can never have anything to say to each other in this life, beyond”—her voice changed, she paused—“beyond one thing—”
Going to the bed where the child lay, she drew the curtain softly, and pointing, she said:
“There is my child. I have set my life to the one task, to keep him to myself, and yet to win for him the heritage of the dukedom of Bercy. You shall yet pay to him the price of your wrong-doing.”
She drew back slightly so that he could see the child lying with its rosy face half buried in its pillow, the little hand lying like a flower upon the coverlet.
Once more with a passionate exclamation he moved nearer to the child.
“No farther!” she said, stepping before him.
When she saw the wild impulse in his face to thrust her aside, she added: “It is only the shameless coward that strikes the dead. You had a wife—Guida d’Avranche, but Guida d’Avranche is dead. There only lives the mother of this child, Guida Landresse de Landresse.”
She looked at him with scorn, almost with hatred. Had he touched her—but she would rather pity than loathe!
Her words roused all the devilry in him. The face of the child had sent him mad.
“By Heaven, I will have the child—I will have the child!” he broke out harshly. “You shall not treat me like a dog. You know well I would have kept you as my wife, but your narrow pride, your unjust anger threw me over. You have wronged me. I tell you you have wronged me, for you held the secret of the child from me all these years.”
“The whole world knew!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I will break your pride,” he said, incensed and unable to command himself. “Mark you, I will break your pride. And I will have my child too!”
“Establish to the world your right to him,” she answered keenly. “You have the right to acknowledge him, but the possession shall be mine.”
He was the picture of impotent anger and despair. It was the irony of penalty that the one person in the world who could really sting him was this unacknowledged, almost unknown woman. She was the only human being that had power to shatter his egotism and resolve him into the common elements of a base manhood. Of little avail his eloquence now! He had cajoled a sovereign dukedom out of an aged and fatuous prince; he had cajoled a wife, who yet was no wife, from among the highest of a royal court; he had cajoled success from Fate by a valour informed with vanity and ambition; years ago, with eloquent arts he had cajoled a young girl into a secret marriage—but he could no longer cajole the woman who was his one true wife. She knew him through and through.
He was so wild with rage he could almost have killed her as she stood there, one hand stretched out to protect the child, the other pointing to the door.
He seized his hat and cloak and laid his hand upon the latch, then suddenly turned to her. A dark project came to him. He himself could not prevail with her; but he would reach her yet, through the child. If the child were in his hands, she would come to him.
“Remember, I will have the child,” he said, his face black with evil purpose.
She did not deign reply, but stood fearless and still, as, throwing open the door, he rushed out into the night. She listened until she heard his horse’s hoofs upon the rocky upland. Then she went to the door, locked it, and barred it. Turning, she ran with a cry as of hungry love to the little bed. Crushing the child to her bosom, she buried her face in his brown curls.
“My son, my own, own son!” she said.
If at times it would seem that Nature’s disposition of the events of a life or a series of lives is illogical, at others she would seem to play them with an irresistible logic—loosing them, as it were, in a trackless forest of experience, and in some dramatic hour, by an inevitable attraction, drawing them back again to a destiny fulfilled. In this latter way did she seem to lay her hand upon the lives of Philip d’Avranche and Guida Landresse.
At the time that Elie Mattingley, in Jersey, was awaiting hanging on the Mont es Pendus, and writing his letter to Carterette concerning the stolen book of church records, in a town of Brittany the Reverend Lorenzo Dow lay dying. The army of the Vendee, under Detricand Comte de Tournay, had made a last dash at a small town held by a section of the Republican army, and captured it. On the prisons being opened, Detricand had discovered in a vile dungeon the sometime curate of St. Michael’s Church in Jersey. When they entered on him, wasted and ragged he lay asleep on his bed of rotten straw, his fingers between the leaves of a book of meditations. Captured five years before and forgotten alike by the English and French Governments, he had apathetically pined and starved to these last days of his life.
Recognising him, Detricand carried him in his strong arms to his own tent. For many hours the helpless man lay insensible, but at last the flickering spirit struggled back to light for a little space. When first conscious of his surroundings, the poor captive felt tremblingly in the pocket of his tattered vest. Not finding what he searched for, he half started up. Detricand hastened forward with a black leather-covered book in his hand. Mr. Dow’s thin trembling fingers clutched eagerly—it was his only passion—at this journal of his life. As his grasp closed on it, he recognised Detricand, and at the same time he saw the cross and heart of the Vendee on his coat.
A victorious little laugh struggled in his throat. “The Lord hath triumphed gloriously—I could drink some wine, monsieur,” he added in the same quaint clerical monotone.
Having drunk the wine he lay back murmuring thanks and satisfaction, his eyes closed. Presently they opened. He nodded at Detricand.
“I have not tasted wine these five years,” he said; then added, “You—you took too much wine in Jersey, did you not, monsieur? I used to say an office for you every Litany day, which was of a Friday.”
His eyes again caught the cross and heart on Detricand’s coat, and they lighted up a little. “The Lord hath triumphed gloriously,” he repeated, and added irrelevantly, “I suppose you are almost a captain now?”
“A general—almost,” said Detricand with gentle humour.
At that moment an orderly appeared at the tent-door, bearing a letter for Detricand.
“From General Grandjon-Larisse of the Republican army, your highness,” said the orderly, handing the letter. “The messenger awaits an answer.”
As Detricand hastily read, a look of astonishment crossed over his face, and his brows gathered in perplexity. After a minute’s silence he said to the orderly:
“I will send a reply to-morrow.”
“Yes, your highness.” The orderly saluted and retired.
Mr. Dow half raised himself on his couch, and the fevered eyes swallowed Detricand.
“You—you are a prince, monsieur?” he said. Detricand glanced up from the letter he was reading again, a grave and troubled look on his face.
“Prince of Vaufontaine they call me, but, as you know, I am only a vagabond turned soldier,” he said. The dying man smiled to himself,—a smile of the sweetest vanity this side of death,—for it seemed to him that the Lord had granted him this brand from the burning, and in supreme satisfaction, he whispered: “I used to say an office for you every Litany—which was a Friday, and twice, I remember, on two Saints’ days.”
Suddenly another thought came to him, and his lips moved—he was murmuring to himself. He would leave a goodly legacy to the captive of his prayers.
Taking the leather-covered journal of his life in both hands, he held it out.
“Highness, highness—” said he. Death was breaking the voice in his throat.
Detricand stooped and ran an arm round his shoulder, but raising himself up Mr. Dow gently pushed him back. The strength of his supreme hour was on him.
“Highness,” said he, “I give you the book of five years of my life—not of its every day, but of its moments, its great days. Read it,” he added, “read it wisely. Your own name is in it—with the first time I said an office for you.” His breath failed him, he fell back, and lay quiet for several minutes.
“You used to take too much wine,” he said half wildly, starting up again. “Permit me your hand, highness.”
Detricand dropped on his knee and took the wasted hand. Mr. Dow’s eyes were glazing fast. With a last effort he spoke—his voice like a squeaking wind in a pipe:
“The Lord hath triumphed gloriously—” and he leaned forward to kiss Detricand’s hand.
But Death intervened, and his lips fell instead upon the red cross on Detricand’s breast, as he sank forward lifeless.
That night, after Lorenzo Dow was laid in his grave, Detricand read the little black leather-covered journal bequeathed to him. Of the years of his captivity the records were few; the book was chiefly concerned with his career in Jersey. Detricand read page after page, more often with a smile than not; yet it was the smile of one who knew life and would scarce misunderstand the eccentric and honest soul of the Reverend Lorenzo Dow.
Suddenly, however, he started, for he came upon these lines:
I have, in great privacy and with halting of spirit, married, thistwenty-third of January, Mr. Philip d’Avranche of His Majesty’s ship“Narcissus,” and Mistress Guida Landresse de Landresse, both of thisIsland of Jersey; by special license of the Bishop of Winchester.
To this was added in comment:
Unchurchmanlike, and most irregular. But the young gentleman’stongue is gifted, and he pressed his cause heartily. Also Mr.Shoreham of the Narcissus—“Mad Shoreham of Galway” his father wascalled—I knew him—added his voice to the request also. Troubledin conscience thereby, yet I did marry the twain gladly, for I thinka worthier maid never lived than this same Mistress Guida Landressede Landresse, of the ancient family of the de Mauprats. Yet I likenot secrecy, though it be but for a month or two months—on my vow,I like it not for one hour.Note: At leisure read of the family history of the de Mauprats andthe d’Avranches.N.: No more secret marriages nor special licenses—most uncanonicalprivileges!N.: For ease of conscience write to His Grace at Lambeth upon thepoint.
Detricand sprang to his feet. So this was the truth about Philip d’Avranche, about Guida, alas!
He paced the tent, his brain in a whirl. Stopping at last, he took from his pocket the letter received that afternoon from General Grandjon-Larisse, and read it through again hurriedly. It proposed a truce, and a meeting with himself at a village near, for conference upon the surrender of Detricand’s small army.
“A bitter end to all our fighting,” said Detricand aloud at last. “But he is right. It is now a mere waste of life. I know my course.... Even to-night,” he added, “it shall be to-night.”
Two hours later Detricand, Prince of Vaufontaine, was closeted with General Grandjon-Larisse at a village half-way between the Republican army and the broken bands of the Vendee.
As lads Detricand and Grandjon-Larisse had known each other well. But since the war began Grandjon-Larisse had gone one way, and he had gone the other, bitter enemies in principle but friendly enough at heart.
They had not seen each other since the year before Rullecour’s invasion of Jersey.
“I had hoped to see you by sunset, monseigneur,” said Grandjon-Larisse after they had exchanged greetings.
“It is through a melancholy chance you see me at all,” replied Detricand heavily.
“To what piteous accident am I indebted?” Grandjon-Larisse replied in an acid tone, for war had given his temper an edge. “Were not my reasons for surrender sound? I eschewed eloquence—I gave you facts.”
Detricand shook his head, but did not reply at once. His brow was clouded.
“Let me speak fully and bluntly now,” Grandjon-Larisse went on. “You will not shrink from plain truths, I know. We were friends ere you went adventuring with Rullecour. We are soldiers too; and you will understand I meant no bragging in my letter.”
He raised his brows inquiringly, and Detricand inclined his head in assent.
Without more ado, Grandjon-Larisse laid a map on the table. “This will help us,” he said briefly, then added: “Look you, Prince, when war began the game was all with you. At Thouars here”—his words followed his finger—“at Fontenay, at Saumur, at Torfou, at Coron, at Chateau-Gonthier, at Pontorson, at Dol, at Antrain, you had us by the heels. Victory was ours once to your thrice. Your blood was up. You had great men—great men,” he repeated politely.
Detricand bowed. “But see how all is changed,” continued the other. “See: by this forest of Vesins de la Rochejaquelein fell. At Chollet”—his finger touched another point—“Bonchamp died, and here d’Elbee and Lescure were mortally wounded. At Angers Stofflet was sent to his account, and Charette paid the price at Nantes.” He held up his fingers. “One—two—three—four—five—six great men gone!”
He paused, took a step away from the table, and came back again.
Once more he dropped his finger on the map. “Tinteniac is gone, and at Quiberon Peninsula your friend Sombreuil was slain. And look you here,” he added in a lower voice, “at Laval my old friend the Prince of Talmont was executed at his own chateau, where I had spent many an hour with him.”
Detricand’s eyes flashed fire. “Why then permit the murder, monsieur le general?”
Grandjon-Larisse started, his voice became hard at once. “It is not a question of Talmont, or of you, or of me, monseigneur. It is not a question of friendship, not even of father, or brother, or son—but of France.”
“And of God and the King,” said Detricand quickly.
Grandjon-Larisse shrugged his shoulders. “We see with different eyes. We think with different minds,” and he stooped over the map again.
“We feel with different hearts,” said Detricand. “There is the difference between us—between your cause and mine. You are all for logic and perfection in government, and to get it you go mad, and France is made a shambles—”
“War is cruelty, and none can make it gentle,” interrupted Grandjon-Larisse. He turned to the map once more. “And see, monseigneur, here at La Vie your uncle the Prince of Vaufontaine died, leaving you his name and a burden of hopeless war. Now count them all over—de la Rochejaquelein, Bonchamp, d’Elbee, Lescure, Stofflet, Charette, Talmont, Tinteniac, Sombreuil, Vaufontaine—they are all gone, your great men. And who of chieftains and armies are left? Detricand of Vaufontaine and a few brave men—no more. Believe me, monseigneur, your game is hopeless—by your grace, one moment still,” he added, as Detricand made an impatient gesture. “Hoche destroyed your army and subdued the country two years ago. You broke out again, and Hoche and I have beaten you again. Fight on, with your doomed followers—brave men I admit—and Hoche will have no mercy. I can save your peasants if you will yield now.
“We have had enough of blood. Let us have peace. To proceed is certain death to all, and your cause worse lost. On my honour, monseigneur, I do this at some risk, in memory of old days. I have lost too many friends,” he added in a lower voice.
Detricand was moved. “I thank you for this honest courtesy. I had almost misread your letter,” he answered. “Now I will speak freely. I had hoped to leave my bones in Brittany. It was my will to fight to the last, with my doomed followers as you call them—comrades and lovers of France I say. And it was their wish to die with me. Till this afternoon I had no other purpose. Willing deaths ours, for I am persuaded, for every one of us that dies, a hundred men will rise up again and take revenge upon this red debauch of government!”
“Have a care,” said Grandjon-Larisse with sudden anger, his hand dropping upon the handle of his sword.
“I ask leave for plain beliefs as you asked leave for plain words. I must speak my mind, and I will say now that it has changed in this matter of fighting and surrender. I will tell you what has changed it,” and Detricand drew from his pocket Lorenzo Dow’s journal. “It concerns both you and me.”
Grandjon-Larisse flashed a look of inquiry at him. “It concerns your cousin the Comtesse Chantavoine and Philip d’Avranche, who calls himself her husband and Duc de Bercy.”
He opened the journal, and handed it to Grandjon-Larisse. “Read,” he said.
As Grandjon-Larisse read, an oath broke from him. “Is this authentic, monseigneur?” he said in blank astonishment “and the woman still lives?”
Detricand told him all he knew, and added:
“A plain duty awaits us both, monsieur le general. You are concerned for the Comtesse Chantavoine; I am concerned for the Duchy of Bercy and for this poor lady—this poor lady in Jersey,” he added.
Grandjon-Larisse was white with rage. “The upstart! The English brigand!” he said between his teeth.
“You see now,” said Detricand, “that though it was my will to die fighting your army in the last trench—”
“Alone, I fear,” interjected Grandjon-Larisse with curt admiration.
“My duty and my purpose go elsewhere,” continued Detricand. “They take me to Jersey. And yours, monsieur?”
Grandjon-Larisse beat his foot impatiently on the floor. “For the moment I cannot stir in this, though I would give my life to do so,” he answered bitterly. “I am but now recalled to Paris by the Directory.”
He stopped short in his restless pacing and held out his hand.
“We are at one,” he said—“friends in this at least. Command me when and how you will. Whatever I can I will do, even at risk and peril. The English brigand!” he added bitterly. “But for this insult to my blood, to the noble Chantavoine, he shall pay the price to me—yes, by the heel of God!”
“I hope to be in Jersey three days hence,” said Detricand.