“There are some occasions on which a man must sell half hissecret in order to conceal the rest.”
“There is some one moving among the oleanders down by the river,” said the count, coming quickly into the room where Lory de Vasselot was sitting, one morning some days after his unexpected arrival at the château.
The old man was cool enough, but he closed the window that led to the small terrace where he cultivated his carnations, with that haste which indicates a recognition of undeniable danger, coupled with no feeling of fear.
“I know every branch in the valley,” he said, “every twig, every leaf, every shadow. There is some one there.”
Lory rose, and laid aside the pen with which he was writing for an extended leave of absence. In four days these two had, as one of them had predicted, grown accustomed to each other. And the line between custom and necessity is a fine drawn one.
“Show me,” he said, going towards the window.
“Ah!” murmured the count, jerking his head. “You will hardly perceive it unless you are a hunter—or the hunted.”
Lory glanced at his father. Assuredly the sleeping mind was beginning to rouse itself.
“It is nothing but the stirring of a leaf here, the movement of a branch there, which are unusual and unnatural.”
As he spoke, he opened the window with that slow caution which had become habitual to his every thought and action.
“There,” he said, pointing with a steady hand; “to the left of that almond tree which is still in bloom. Watch those willows which have come there since the wall fell away, and the terrace slipped into the flooded river twenty-one years this spring. You will see the branches move. There—there! You see. It is a man, and he comes too slowly to have an honest purpose.”
“I see,” said Lory. “Is that land ours?”
The count gave an odd little laugh.
“You can see nothing from this window that is not ours,” he answered. “As much as any other man's,” he added, after a pause. For the conviction still holds good in some Corsican minds that the mountains are common property.
“He is coming slowly, but not very cautiously,” said Lory. “Not like a man who thinks that he may be watched from here. He probably is taking no heed of these windows, for he thinks the place is deserted.”
“It is more probable,” replied the count, “that he is coming here to ascertain that fact. What the abbé has heard, another may hear, though he would not learn it from the abbé. If you want a secret kept, tell it to a priest, and of all priests, the Abbé Susini. Some one has heard that you are here in Corsica, and is creeping up to the castle to find out.”
“And I will go and find him out. Two can play at that game in the bushes,” said Lory, with a laugh.
“If you go, take a gun; one can never tell how a game may turn.”
“Yes; I will take a gun if you wish it.” And Lory went towards the door. “No,” he said, pausing in answer to a gesture made by his father, “not that one. It is of too old a make.”
And he went out of the room, leaving his father holding in his hand the gun with which he had shot Andrei Perucca thirty years before. He stood looking at the closed door with dim, reflective eyes. Then he looked at the gun, which he set slowly back in its corner.
“It seems,” he said to himself, “that I am of too old a make also.”
He went to the window, and, opening it cautiously, stood looking down into the valley. There he perceived that, though two may play at the same game, it is usually given to one to play it better than the other. For he who was climbing up the hill might be followed by a careful eye, by the chance displacement of a twig, the bending of a bough; while Lory, creeping down into the valley, remained quite invisible, even to his father, upon whose memory every shadow was imprinted.
“Aha!” laughed the old man, under his breath. “One sees that the boy is a Corsican. And,” he added, after a pause, “one would almost say that the other is not.”
In which the count's trained eye—trained as only is the vision of the hunted—was by no means deceived. For Lory, who was far down in the valley, had already caught sight of a braided sleeve, and, a moment later, recognized Colonel Gilbert. The colonel not only failed to perceive him, but was in nowise looking for him. He appeared to be entirely absorbed, first in the examination of the ground beneath his feet, and then in the contemplation of the rising land. In his hand he seemed to be carrying a note-book, and, so far as the watcher could see, consulted from time to time a compass.
“He is only engaged in his trade,” said Lory to himself, with a laugh; and, going out into the open, he sat down on a rock with the gun across his knee and waited.
Thus it happened that Colonel Gilbert, working his way up through the bushes, note-book in hand, looked up and saw, within a few yards of him, the owner of the land upon which they stood, whom he had every reason to believe to be in Paris.
His ruddy face was of a deeper red as he slipped his note-book within his tunic and came forward, holding out his hand. But his smile was as ready and good-natured as ever.
“Well met!” he said. “You find me, count, taking a professional and business-like survey of the laud that you promised to sell me.”
“You are welcome to take the survey,” answered Lory, taking the outstretched, cordial hand, “but I must ask you to let me keep the land. I did not take your offer seriously.”
“It was intended seriously, I assure you.”
“Then it was my mistake,” answered Lory, quite pleasantly.
He tapped himself vigorously on the chest, and made a gesture indicating that at a word from the colonel he was ready to lay violent hands upon himself for having been so foolish. The colonel laughed, and shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were but a small one. The pitiless Mediterranean, almost African, sun poured down on them, and one of those short spells of absolute calm, which are characteristic of these latitudes, made it unbearably hot. The colonel took off his cap, and, sitting down in quite a friendly way near de Vasselot on a rock, proceeded to mop his high forehead, pressing back the thin smooth hair which was touched here and there with grey.
“You have come here at the wrong time,” he said. “The heats have begun. One longs for the cool breezes of Paris or of Normandy.”
And he paused, giving Lory an opportunity of explaining why he had come at this time, which opportunity was promptly neglected.
“At all events, count,” said the colonel, replacing his cap and lighting a cigarette, “I did not deceive you as to the nature of the land which I wished to buy. It is a desert, as you see. And yet I cannot help thinking that something might be made of this land.”
He sat and gazed lazily in front of him. Presently, leaving his cigarette to smoulder, he began to buzz through his teeth, in the bucolic manner, an air of Offenbach. He was, in a word, entirely agricultural, and consequently slow of speech.
“Yes, count,” he said, with conviction, after a long pause; “there is only one drawback to Corsica.”
“Ah?”
“The Corsicans,” said the colonel, gravely. “You do not know them as I do; for I suppose you have only been here a few days?”
De Vasselot's quick eyes glanced for a moment at the colonel's face, but no reply was made to the supposition. Then the colonel fell to his guileless Offenbach again. There is nothing so innocent as the meditative rendering of a well-known tune. A popular air is that which echoes in empty heads.
Colonel Gilbert glanced sideways at his companion. He had not thought that this was a silent man. Nature was singularly at fault in her mouldings if this slightly made, dark-eyed Frenchman was habitually taciturn. And the colonel was vaguely uneasy.
“My horse,” he said, “is up at Olmeta. I took a walk round by the river. It is my business to answer innumerable questions from the Ministry of the Interior. Railway projects are still in the air, you understand. I must know my Corsica. Besides, as I tell you, I thought I was on my own land.”
“I am sorry that I cannot hold to my joke, for it was nothing else, as you know.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” acquiesced the colonel. “And in the mean time, it is a great pleasure to see you here, as well as a surprise. I need hardly tell you that your presence here is quite unknown to your neighbours. We have little to talk about at this end of the island now that the Administration is centred more than ever at Ajaccio; and were it known in the district that you are at Vasselot, you may be sure I should have heard of it at the café or at the hotel where I dine.”
“Yes. I came without drum or trumpet.”
“You are wise.”
The remark was made so significantly that Lory could not ignore it even if such a course had recommended itself to one of his quick and impulsive nature.
“What do you mean, colonel?”
Gilbert made a little gesture of the hand that held the half-burnt cigarette. He deprecated, it would appear, having been drawn to talk on so serious a topic.
“Well, I speak as one Frenchman to another, as one soldier to another. If the emperor does not die, he will declare war against Germany. There is the situation in a nutshell, is it not? And do you think the army can afford to lose one man at the present time, especially a man who has made good use of such small opportunities of distinction as the fates have offered him? And, so far as I have been able to follow the intricacies of the parochial politics, your life is not worth two sous in this country, my dear count. There, I have spoken. A word to the wise, is it not?”
He rose, and threw away his cigarette with a nod and a smile.
“And now I must be returning. You will allow me to pass up that small pathway that leads past the chateau. Some day I should, above all things, like to see the chateau. I am interested in old houses, I tell you frankly.”
“I will walk part of the way with you,” answered Lory, with a stiffness which was entirely due to a sense of self-reproach. For it was his instinct to be hospitable and open-handed and friendly. And Lory would have liked to ask the colonel then and there to come to the chateau.
“By the way,” said the colonel, as they climbed the hill together, “I did not, of course, mean to suggest that you should sell me the old house which bears your name—only a piece of land, a few hectares on this south-west slope, that I may amuse myself with agriculture, as I told you. Perhaps some day you may reconsider your decision?”
He waited for a reply to this suggestion, or an invitation in response to the hint that he was interested in the old house. But neither came.
“I am much obliged to you for your warning as to the unpopularity of my name in this district,” said Lory, rather laboriously changing the subject. “I had, of course, heard something of the same sort before; but I do not attach much importance to local tradition, do you?”
The colonel paused for a few minutes. He had the leisurely conversational manner of an old man.
“These people have undergone a change,” he said at length, “since their final subjugation by ourselves—exactly a hundred years ago, by the way. They were a turbulent, fighting, obstinate people. Those qualities—good enough in times of war—go bad in times of peace. They are a lawless, idle, dishonest people now. Their grand fighting qualities have run to seed in municipal disagreements and electioneering squabbles. And, worst of all, we have grafted on them our French thrift, which has run to greed. There is not a man in the district who would shoot you, count, from any idea of the vendetta, but there are a hundred who would do it for a thousand-franc note, or in order to prevent you taking back the property which he has stolen from you. That is how it stands. And that is why Pietro Andrei came to grief at Olmeta.”
“And Mattei Perucca?” asked Lory, thereby causing the colonel to trip suddenly over a stone.
“Oh, Perucca,” he answered, “that was different. He died a more or less natural death. He was a very stout man, and on receiving a letter, gave way to such ungovernable rage that he fell in a fit. True, it was a threatening letter; but such are common enough in this country. It may have been a joke or may have had some comparatively harmless object. None could have foreseen such a result.”
They were now near the chateau, and the colonel rather suddenly shook hands and went away.
“I am always to be found at Bastia, and am always at your service,” he said, waving a farewell with his whip.
Lory found the door of the chateau ajar, and Jean watching behind it. His father, however, seemed to have forgotten upon what mission he had gone forth, and was sitting placidly in the little room, lighted by a skylight, where they always lived. The sight of Lory reminded him, however.
“Who was it?” he asked, without showing a very keen interest.
“It was a man called Gilbert,” answered Lory, “whom I have met in Paris. An engineer. He is stationed at Bastia, and is connected with the railway scheme. A man I should like to like, and yet—He ought to be a good fellow. He has every qualification, and yet—”
Lory did not finish the sentence, but stood reflectively looking at his father.
“He has more than once offered to buy Vasselot,” he said, watching for the effect.
“You must never sell Vasselot,” replied the old man. He did not seem to conceive it possible that there should be any temptation to do so.
“I do not quite understand Colonel Gilbert,” continued Lory. “He has also offered to buy Perucca; but there I think he has to deal with a clever woman.”
“C'est ce qu'on ne dit pas qui explique ce qu'on dit.”
From the Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris to the Casa Perucca in Corsica is as complete a change as even the heart of woman may desire. For the Rue du Cherche-Midi is probably the noisiest corner of that noisy Paris that lies south of the Seine; and the Casa Perucca is one of the few quiet corners of Europe where the madding crowd is non-existent, and that crowning effort of philanthropic folly, the statute holiday, has yet to penetrate.
“Yes,” said Mademoiselle Brun, one morning, after she and Denise had passed two months in what she was pleased to term exile—“yes; it is peaceful. Give me war,” she added grimly, after a pause.
They were standing on the terrace that looked down over the great valley of Vasselot. There was not a house in sight except the crumbling chateau. The month was June, and the river, which could be heard in winter, was now little more than a trickling stream. A faint breeze stirred the young leaves of the copper-beech, which is a silent tree by nature, and did not so much as whisper now. There are few birds in Corsica, for the natives are great sportsmen, and will shoot, sitting, anything from a man to a sparrow in season and out.
“Listen,” said Mademoiselle Brun, holding up one steady, yellow finger; but the silence was such as will make itself felt. “And the neighbours do not call much,” added mademoiselle, in completion of her own thoughts.
Denise laughed. She had been up early, for they were almost alone in the Casa Perucca now. The servants who had obeyed Mattei Perucca in fear and trembling, had refused to obey Denise, who, with much spirit, had dismissed them one and all. An old man remained, who was generally considered to be half-witted; and Maria Andrei, the widow of Pietro, who was shot at Olmeta. Denise superintended the small farm.
“That cheery Maria,” said Mademoiselle Brun, “she is our only resource, and reminds me of a cheap funeral.”
“There is the colonel,” said Denise. “You forget him.”
“Yes; there is the colonel, who is so kind to us.”
And Mademoiselle Brun slowly contemplated the whole landscape, taking in Denise, as it were, in passing.
“And there is our little friend,” she added, “down in the valley there who does not call.”
“Why do you call him little?” asked Denise, looking down at the Chateau de Vasselot. “He is not little.”
“He is not so large as the colonel,” explained mademoiselle.
“I wonder why he does not call?” said Denise, presently, looking down into the valley, as if she could perhaps see the explanation there.
“It has something to do with the social geography of the district,” said mademoiselle, “which we do not understand. The Cheap Funeral alone knows it. Half of the country she colours red, the other half black. Theoretically, we hate a number of persons who reciprocate the feeling heartily. Practically, we do not know of their existence. I imagine the Count de Vasselot hates us on the same principle.”
“But we are not going to be dictated to by a number of ignorant peasants,” cried Denise, angrily.
“I rather fancy we are.”
Denise was standing by the low wall, with her head thrown back. She was naturally energetic, and had the carriage that usually goes with that quality.
“Are you sure he is there?” she asked, still looking down at the château.
“No, I am not. I have only Maria's word for it.”
“Then I am going to the village of Olmeta to find out,” said Denise.
And mademoiselle followed her to the house without comment. Indeed, she seemed willing enough to do that which they had been warned not to do.
On the road that skirts the hill and turns amid groves of chestnut trees, they met two men, loitering along with no business in hand, who scowled at them and made no salutation.
“They may scowl beneath their great hats,” said Denise; “I am not afraid of them.” And she walked on with her chin well up.
Below them, on the left, the terraces of vine and olive were weed-grown and neglected; for Denise had found no one to work on her land, and the soil here is damp and warm, favouring a rapid growth.
Colonel Gilbert had been unable to help them in this matter. His official position necessarily prevented his taking an active part in any local differences. There were Luccans, he said, to be hired at Bastia, hard-working men and skilled vine-dressers, but they would not come to a commune where such active hostility existed, and to induce them to do so would inevitably lead to bloodshed.
The Abbé Susini had called, and told a similar tale in more guarded language. Finding the ladies good Catholics, he pleaded for and abused his poor in one breath, and then returned half the money that Denise gave him.
“As likely as not you will be given credit for the whole in heaven, mademoiselle, but I will only take part of it,” he said.
“A masterful man,” commented Mademoiselle Brun, when he was gone.
But the abbé had suggested no solution to Denise's difficulties. The estate seemed to be drifting naturally into the hands of the only man who wanted it, and, after all, had offered a good price for it.
“I will find out from the Abbé Susini or the mayor whether the Count de Vasselot is really here,” Denise said, as they approached the village. “And if he is, we will go and see him. We cannot go on like this. He says do not sell, and then he does not come near us. He must give his reasons. Why should I take his advice?”
“Why, indeed?” said Mademoiselle Brun, to whom the question was not quite a new one.
She knew that though Denise would rebel against de Vasselot's advice, she would continue to follow it.
“It seems to be luncheon-time,” said Denise, when they reached the village. “The place is deserted. It must be theirdéjeuner.”
“It may be,” responded mademoiselle, with her manlike curtness of speech.
They went into the church, which was empty, and stayed but a few minutes there, for Mademoiselle Brun was as short in her speech with God as with men. When they came out to the market-place, that also was deserted, which was singular, because the villagers in Corsica spend nearly the whole day on the market-place, talking politics and whispering a hundred intrigues of parochial policy; for here a municipal councillor is a great man, and usually a great scoundrel, selling his favour and his vote, trafficking for power, and misappropriating the public funds. Not only was the market-place empty, but some of the house-doors were closed. The door of a small shop was even shut from within as they approached, and surreptitiously barred. Mademoiselle Brun noticed it, and Denise did not pretend to ignore it.
“One would say that we had an infectious complaint,” she said, with a short laugh.
They went to the house of the Abbé Susini. Even this door was shut.
“The abbé is out,” said the old woman, who came in answer to their summons, and she closed the door again with more speed than politeness.
Denise did not need to ask which was the mayor's house, for a board, with the word “Mairie” painted upon it (appropriately enough a movable board), was affixed to a house nearly opposite to the church. As they walked towards it, a stone, thrown from the far corner of the Place, under the trees, narrowly missed Denise, and rolled at her feet. Mademoiselle Brun walked on, but Denise swung round on her heel. There was no one to be seen, so she had to follow Mademoiselle Brun, after all, in silence. She was rather pale, but it was anger that lighted her eyes, and not fear.
Almost immediately a volley of stones followed, and a laugh rang out from beneath the trees. And, strange to say, it was the laugh that at last frightened Denise, and not the stones; for it was a cruel laugh—the laugh of a brutal fool, such as one may still hear in a few European countries when boys are torturing dumb animals.
“Let us hurry,” said Denise, hastily. “Let us get to the Mairie.”
“Where we shall find the biggest scoundrel of them all, no doubt,” added mademoiselle, who was alert and cool.
But before they reached the Mairie the stones had ceased, and they both turned at the sound of a horse's feet. It was Colonel Gilbert riding hastily into the Place. He saw the stones lying there and the two women standing alone in the sunlight. He looked towards the trees, and then round at the closed houses. With a shrug of the shoulders, he rode towards Denise and dismounted.
“Mademoiselle”, he said, “they have been frightening you.”
“Yes”, she answered. “They are not men, but brutes.”
The colonel, who was always gentle in manner, made a deprecatory gesture with the great riding-whip that he invariably carried.
“You must remember”, he said, “that they are but half civilized. You know their history—they have been conquered by all the greedy nations in succession, and they have never known peace from the time that history began until a hundred years ago. They are barbarians, mademoiselle, and barbarians always distrust a new-comer.”
“But why do they hate me?”
“Because they do not know you, mademoiselle,” replied the colonel, with perhaps a second meaning in his blue eyes.
And, after a pause, he explained further.
“Because they do not understand you. They belong to one of the strongest clans in Corsica, and it is the ambition of every one to belong to a strong clan. But the Peruccas are in danger of falling into dissension and disorder, for they have no head. You are the head, mademoiselle. And the work they expect of you is not work for such hands as yours.”
And again Colonel Gilbert looked at Denise slowly and thoughtfully. She did not perceive the glance, for she was standing with her head half turned towards the trees.
“Ah!” he said, noting the direction of her glance, “they will throw no more stones, mademoiselle. You need have no anxiety. They fear a uniform as much as they hate it.”
“And if you had not come at that moment?”
“Ah!” said the colonel, gravely; and that was all. “At any rate, I am glad I came,” he added, in a lighter tone, after a pause. “You were going to the Mairie, mesdemoiselles, when I arrived. Take my advice, and do not go there. Go to the abbé if you like—as a man, not as a priest—and come to me whenever you desire a service, but to no one else in Corsica.”
Denise turned as if she were going to make an exception to this sweeping restriction, but she checked herself and said nothing. And all the while Mademoiselle Brun stood by in silence, a little, patient, bent woman, with compressed lips, and those steady hazel eyes that see so much and betray so little.
“The abbé is not at home,” continued the colonel. “I saw him many miles from here not long ago; and although he is quick on his legs—none quicker—He cannot be here yet. If you are going towards the Casa Perucca, you will perhaps allow me to accompany you”.
He led the way as he spoke, leading loosely by the bridle the horse which followed him, and nuzzled thoughtfully at his shoulder. The colonel was, it appeared, one whose gentle ways endeared him to animals.
It was glaringly hot, and when they reached the Casa Perucca, Denise asked the colonel to come in and rest. It was, moreover, luncheon-time, and in a thinly populated country the great distances between neighbours are conducive to an easier hospitality than that which exists in closer quarters. The colonel naturally stayed to luncheon.
He was kind and affable, and had a hundred little scraps of gossip such as exiles love. He made no mention of his offer to buy Perucca, remembered only the fact that he was a gentleman accepting frankly a lady's frank hospitality, and if the conversation turned to local matters, he gracefully guided it elsewhere.
Immediately after luncheon he rose from the table, refusing even to wait for coffee.
“I have my duties,” he explained. “The War Office is, for reasons known to itself, moving troops, and I have gradually crept up the ladder at Bastia, till I am nearly at the top there.”
Denise went with him to the stable to see that his horse had been cared for.
“They have only left me the decrepit and the half-witted,” she said, “but I am not beaten yet.”
Colonel Gilbert fetched the horse himself and tightened the girths. They walked together towards the great gate of solid wood which fitted into the high wall so closely that none could peep through so much as a crack. At the door the colonel lingered, leaning against his great horse and stroking its shoulder thoughtfully with a gloved finger.
“Mademoiselle,” he said at length.
“Yes,” answered Denise, looking at him so honestly in the face that he had to turn away.
“I want to ask you,” he said slowly, “to marry me.”
Denise looked at him in utter astonishment, her face suddenly red, her eyes half afraid.
“I do not understand you,” she said.
“And yet it is simple enough,” answered the colonel, who himself was embarrassed and ill at ease. “I ask you to marry me. You think I am too old—” He paused, seeking his words. “I am not forty yet, and, at all events, I am not making the mistake usually made by very young men. I do not imagine that I love you—I know it.”
They stood for a minute in silence; then the colonel spoke again.
“Of what are you thinking, mademoiselle?”
“That it is hard to lose the only friend we have in Corsica.”
“You need not do that,” replied the colonel. “I do not even ask you to answer now.”
“Oh, I can answer at once.”
Colonel Gilbert bit his lip, and looked at the ground in silence.
“Then I am too old?” he said at length.
“I do not know whether it is that or not,” answered Denise; and neither spoke while the colonel mounted and rode slowly away. Denise closed the door quite softly behind him.
“One stern tyrannic thought that madeAll other thoughts its slave.”
All round the Mediterranean Sea there dwell people who understand the art of doing nothing. They do it unblushingly, peaceably, and of a set purpose. Moreover, their forefathers must have been addicted to a similar philosophy; for there is no Mediterranean town or village without its promenade or lounging-place, where the trees have grown quite large, and the shade is quite deep, and the wooden or stone seats are shiny with use. Here those whom the French call “worth-nothings” congregate peacefully and happily, to look at the sea and contemplate life from that reflective and calm standpoint which is only to be enjoyed by the man who has nothing to lose. To begin at Valentia, one will find these human weeds almost Oriental in their apathy. Farther north, at Barcelona, they are given to fitful lapses into activity before the heat of the day. At Marseilles they are almost energetic, and are even known to take the trouble of asking the passer for alms. But eastward, beyond Toulon, they understand their business better, and do not even trouble to talk among themselves. The French worth-nothing is, in a word, worth less than any of his brothers—much less than the Italian, who is quite easily roused to a display of temper and a rusty knife—and more nearly approaches the supreme calm of the Moor, who, across the Mediterranean, will sit all day and stare at nothing with any man in the world. And between these dreamy coasts there lie half a dozen islands which, strange to say, are islands of unrest. In Majorca every man works from morn till eve. In Minorca they do the same, and quarrel after nightfall. In Iviza they quarrel all day. In Corsica they do nothing, restlessly; while Sardinia, as all the world knows, is a hotbed of active discontent.
At Ajaccio there are half a dozen idlers on the Place Bonaparte, who sit under the trees against the wall; but they never sit there long, and do not know their business. At St. Florent, in the north of the island, which has a western aspect—the best for idling—there are but two real, unadulterated knights of industry, who sit on the low wall of that which is called the New Quay, and conscientiously do nothing from morning till night.
“Of course I know him,” one was saying to the other. “Do I not remember his father, and are not all the de Vasselots cut with the same knife? I tell you there was a moon, and I saw him get off his horse, just here at the very door of Rutali's stable, and unstrap his sack, which he carried himself, and set off towards Olmeta.”
The speaker lapsed into silence, and Colonel Gilbert, who had lunched, and was now sitting at the open window of the little inn, which has neither sign nor license, leant farther forward. For the word “Olmeta” never failed to bring a light of energy and enterprise into his quiet eyes.
The inn has its entrance in the main street of St. Florent, and only the back windows look out upon the quay and across the bay. It was at one of these windows that Colonel Gilbert was enjoying a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and the loafers on the quay were unaware of his presence there. And for the sixth time at least, the story of Lory de Vasselot's arrival at St. Florent and departure for Olmeta was told and patiently heard. Has not one of the great students of human nature said that thecanailleof all nations are much alike? And the dull or idle of intellect assuredly resemble each other in the patience with which they will listen to or tell the same story over and over again.
The colonel heard the tale, listlessly gazing across the bay with dreamy eyes, and only gave the talker his full attention when more ancient history was touched upon.
“Yes,” said the idler; “and I remember his father when he was just at that age—as like this one as one sheep is like another. Nor have I forgotten the story which few remember now.”
He pressed down the tobacco into his wooden pipe—for they are pipe-smokers in a cigarette latitude—and waited cunningly for curiosity to grow. His companion showed no sign, though the colonel set his empty coffee-cup noiselessly aside and leant his elbow on the window-sill.
The speaker jerked his thumb in the direction of Olmeta over his left shoulder far up on the mountainside.
“That story was buried with Perucca,” he said, after a long pause. “Perhaps the Abbé Susini knows it. Who can tell what a priest knows? There were two Peruccas once—fine, big men—and neither married. The other—Andrei Perucca—who has been in hell these thirty years, made sheep's eyes, they told me, at de Vasselot's young wife. She was French, and willing enough, no doubt. She was dull, down there in that great chateau; and when a woman is dull she must either go to church or to the devil. She cannot content herself with tobacco or the drink, like a man. De Vasselot heard of it. He was a quiet man, and he waited. One day he began to carry a gun, like you and me—a bad example, eh? Then Andrei Perucca was seen to carry a gun also. And, of course, in time they met—up there on the road from Pruneta to Murato. The clouds were down, and the gregale was blowing cold and showery. It is when the gregale blows that the clouds seem to whisper as they crowd through the narrow places up among the peaks, and there was no other sound while these two men crept round each other among the rocks, like two cats upon a roof. De Vasselot was quicker and smaller, and as agile as a goat, and Andrei Perucca lost him altogether. He was a fool. He went to look for him. As if any one in his senses would go to look for a Corsican in the rocks! That is how the gendarmes get killed. At length Andrei Perucca raised his head over a big stone, and looked right into the muzzle of de Vasselot's gun. The next minute there was no head upon Perucca's shoulders.”
The narrator paused, and relighted his pipe with a foul-smelling sulphur match.
“Yes,” he said reflectively; “they are fine men, the de Vasselots.”
He tapped himself on the chest with the stem of his pipe, and made a gesture towards the mountains and the sky, as if calling upon the gods to hear him.
“I am all for the de Vasselots—I,” he said.
Colonel Gilbert leant out of the window, and quietly took stock of this valuable adherent.
“At that time,” continued the speaker, “we had at Bastia a young prefect who took himself seriously. He was going to reform the world. They decided to arrest the Count de Vasselot, though they had not a scrap of evidence, and the clan was strong in those days, stronger than the Peruccas are to-day. But they never caught him. They disappeared bag and baggage—went to Paris, I understand; and they say the count died there, or was perhaps killed by the Peruccas, who grew strong under Mattei, so that in a few years it would have been impossible for a de Vasselot to show his face in this country. Then Mattei Perucca died, and was hardly in his grave before this man came. I tell you, I saw him myself, a de Vasselot, with his father's quick way of turning his head, of sitting in the saddle lightly like a Spaniard or a Corsican. That was in the spring, and it is now July—three months ago. And he has never been seen or heard of since. But he is here, I tell you; he is here in the island. As likely as not he is in the old chateau down there in the valley. No honest man has set his foot across the threshold since the de Vasselots left it thirty years ago—only Jean is there, who has the evil eye. But there are plenty of Perucca's people up at Olmeta who would risk Jean's eye, and break down the doors of the chateau at a word from the Casa Perucca. But the girl there who is the head of the clan will not say the word. She does not understand that she is powerful if she would only go to work in the right way, and help her people. Instead of that, she quarrels with them over such small matters as the right of grazing or of cutting wood. She will make the place too hot for her—” He broke off suddenly. “What is that?” he said, turning on the wall, which was polished smooth by constant friction.
He turned to the north and listened, looking in the direction of Cap Corse, from whence the Bastia road comes winding down the mountain slopes.
“I hear nothing,” said his companion.
“Then you are deaf. It is the diligence half an hour before its time, and the driver of it is shouting as he comes—shouting to the people on the road. It seems that there is news—”
But Colonel Gilbert heard no more, for he had seized his sword, and was already halfway down the stone stairs. It appeared that he expected news, and when the diligence drew up in the narrow street, he was there awaiting it, amid a buzzing crowd, which had inexplicably assembled in the twinkling of an eye. Yes; there was assuredly news, for the diligence came in at a gallop though there was no one on it but the driver. He shouted incoherently, and waved his whip above his head. Then, quite suddenly, perceiving Colonel Gilbert, he snapped his lips together, threw aside the reins, and leapt to the ground.
“Mon colonel,” he said, “a word with you.”
And they went apart into a doorway. Three words sufficed to tell all that the diligence driver knew, and a minute later the colonel hurried towards the stable of the inn, where his horse stood ready. He rode away at a sharp trot, not towards Bastia, but down the valley of Vasselot. Although it was evident that he was pressed for time, the colonel did not hurry his horse, but rather relieved it when he could by dismounting, at every sharp ascent, and riding where possible in the deep shade of the chestnut trees. He turned aside from the main road that climbs laboriously to Oletta and Olmeta, and followed the river-path. In order to gain time he presently left the path, and made a short cut across the open land, glancing up at the Casa Perucca as he did so. For he was trespassing.
He was riding leisurely enough when his horse stumbled, and, in recovering itself, clumsily kicked a great stone with such force that he shattered it to a hundred pieces, and then stood on three legs, awkwardly swinging his hoof in a way that horses have when the bone has been jarred. In a moment the colonel dismounted, and felt the injured leg carefully.
“My friend,” he said kindly, “you are a fool. What are you doing? Name of a dog”—he paused, and collecting the pieces of broken quartz, threw them away into the brush—“name of a dog, what are you doing?”
With an odd laugh Colonel Gilbert climbed into the saddle again, and although he looked carefully up at the Casa Perucca, he failed to see Mademoiselle Brun's grey face amid the grey shadows of an olive tree. The horse limped at first, but presently forgot his grievance against the big stone that had lain in his path. The colonel laughed to himself in a singular way more than once at the seemingly trivial accident, and on regaining the path, turned in his saddle to look again at the spot where it had occurred.
On nearing the chateau he urged his horse to a better pace, and reached the great door at a sharp trot. He rang the bell without dismounting, and leisurely quitted the saddle. But the summons was not immediately answered. He jerked at the chain again, and rattled on the door with the handle of his riding whip. At length the bolts were withdrawn, and the heavy door opened sufficiently to admit a glance of that evil eye which the peasants did not care to face.
Before speaking the colonel made a step forward, so that his foot must necessarily prevent the closing of the door.
“The Count de Vasselot,” said he.
“Take away your foot,” replied Jean.
The colonel noted with a good-natured surprise the position of his stout riding-boot, and withdrew it.
“The Count de Vasselot,” he repeated. “You need not trouble, my friend, to tell any lies or to look at me with your evil eye. I know the count is here, for I saw him in Paris just before he came, and I spoke to him at this very door a few weeks ago. He knows me, and I think you know me too, my friend. Tell your master I have news from France. He will see me.”
Jean unceremoniously closed the door, and the colonel, who was moving away towards his horse, turned sharply on his heel when he heard the bolts being surreptitiously pushed back again.
“Ah!” he said, and he stood outside the door with his hand at his moustache, reflectively following Jean's movements, “they are singularly careful to keep me out, these people.”
He had not long to wait, however, for presently Lory came, stepping quickly over the high threshold and closing the door behind him. But Gilbert was taller than de Vasselot, and could see over his head. He looked right through the house into the little garden on the terrace, and saw someone there who was not Jean. And the light of surprise was still in his eyes as he shook hands with Lory de Vasselot.
“You have news for me?” inquired de Vasselot.
“News for every Frenchman.”
“Ah!”
“Yes. The emperor has declared war against Germany.”
“War!” echoed Lory, with a sudden laugh.
“Yes; and your regiment is the first on the list.”
“I know, I know!” cried de Vasselot, his eyes alight with excitement. “But this is good news that you tell me. How can I thank you for coming? I must get home—I mean to France—at once. But this is great news!” He seized the colonel's hand and shook it. “Great news, mon colonel—great news!”
“Good news for you, for you are going. But I shall be left behind as usual. Yes; it is good news for you.”
“And for France,” cried Lory, with both hands outspread, as if to indicate the glory that was awaiting them.
“For France,” said the colonel, gravely, “it cannot fail to be bad. But we must not think of that now.”
“We shall never think of it,” answered Lory. “This is Monday; there is a boat for Marseilles to-night. I leave Bastia to-night, colonel.”
“And I must get back there,” said the colonel, holding out his hand.
He rode thoughtfully back by the shortest route through the Lancone Defile, and, as he approached Bastia, from the heights behind the town he saw the steamer that would convey Lory to France coming northward from Bonifacio.
“Yes,” he said; “he will leave Bastia to-night; and assuredly the good God, or the devil, helps me at every turn of this affair.”