But Valentine broke in with desperate logic. “You cannot know that I should fail! How could you? You cannot be sure till it has been tried. And I shall try! Then you can talk of failure!”
Gaston knelt there as pale as she. Surely, surely, he could find some way to stay her without revealing the cruel knowledge he had—that only he himself could ever be successful in an entreaty which even she could not move him to make.
“Valentine, sooner than think of you on your knees to that man I would go on my own—if that were conceivable. But it is not conceivable—not if he had a pardon ready sealed in his hand, not if he held it out to me! Think a moment, heart of my heart, and face it! When did any captured Breton or Vendean, even the humblest peasant, ever ask for mercy? Thousands of them have laid down their lives readily in the cause they fought for, and hundreds of gentlemen, too. And would you have me—through your mouth or my own it matters little—would you have me, a leader, be the first in either of those lists to play the recreant? Was it for that you wrought and gave me that scarf there—that when the crucial moment came I should deal the cause it represents such a stab in the back as my humiliation would be? Think of our enemies saying, ‘At the last moment the Duc de Trélan’s heart failed him,and he humbly besought the First Consul for his life.’ How would that sound in the streets of Paris next week . . . and when the King comes back?”
Valentine flinched. Her lips were grey. Indeed she did not like the sound of it.
“But, Gaston,” she said, those lips quivering, “for the cause you have done more than enough. You have done everything that mortal man could do, you, the last in arms—more than Cadoudal, who was so strong—more than all the rest!”
“And all in vain,” he finished sadly.
“No devotion is in vain!”
He smiled suddenly, the smile, somehow, of a young man. “My darling, that is what I have been trying to say. There are two sides to being made an ‘example’ of.”
But at that she gave a sharp exclamation and put her hands over her eyes.
Her husband’s face became still more drawn. “Valentine,” he said tenderly, but very gravely, “have you forgotten the night I came, when the tide of fortune was ebbing, to La Vergne. It was your name day; not three weeks have passed since then. That night, my very dear, my heart of hearts, my fleur-de-lys, you understood—wonderfully—and you gave me leave to die!”
“But not like this—not like this!” she cried distractedly. “O blessed saints, help me! Why did I ever say that! I meant—in the fighting . . . and I thought the need for it was past with the surrender. O Gaston, Gaston, you are killing me!”
Indeed it seemed like it. Her head went down to her very knees, and the wrenching sobs shook her from head to foot. The price was more than she could pay! He was now, through and through, what once she would almost have given her soul to see him. But the cost, the cost of it! . . . She saw, dimly, horribly, what he meant—the damage his death would do to Bonaparte’s reputation. It broke her, strong as she was. And, no longer rebellious but purely suppliant, she threw herself on his neck as he knelt there beside the little prison bed, pleaded with him, besought him, implored him—and all in vain.
It almost broke Gaston too, since for him there was also the strain of keeping from her any suspicion of what heknew about Bonaparte’s real desire, but his man’s, his soldier’s will held firm against the lover’s. Extravagant perhaps, even fanatical, but none could say ignoble, his intention was fixed. If the attempt at rescue failed, if the First Consul meant to consummate his treachery, he must do it. There was no more to say.
In the end Valentine was, if not acquiescent, at least vanquished. No, she would not go to Mme Bonaparte; she gave him her word. No, she would not even lend the countenance of her name to any of the protests now being made in certain quarters. Yes, she would even acknowledge that, theoretically, he was right. . . . Beaten and shivering, she half lay in his arms, and composure, the composure of exhaustion, began to come back to them both after the combat, and for a little while they were able to talk of other things, far away and dear. . . .
A warning knock came at the door.
“Good God!” exclaimed Gaston, “is the time nearly up, then? And we have spent so much of it in . . . conflict!”
He looked at her with eyes full of love and a very white smile on his lips. And all Valentine’s soul was in the gaze with which she met his in her answer:
“Forgive me for my foolishness! It is over now. I would not have you otherwise than victor—for now I see you at your full stature. And I . . . who once presumed to criticise you—I am at your feet . . . in worship.”
Her voice died out of existence under his sudden passionate kisses. His own was shaking as he said between them, almost fiercely, “You must not say that, Valentine, you must not say that! O my dear, my dear, howcanwe part, how can I——”
The knock came once more. He stopped abruptly, set his teeth, loosed the tension of his hold, and after a second or two stood up, quite steady and composed again, drawing her gently with him.
“Who brought you here, my darling?”
“Roland,” she answered. “He is waiting out there all this while, poor boy. And, Gaston, he is heartbroken. He thinks they ought all to have been killed before they let you be taken. Not even the message you sent him at Vannes seems to comfort him.”
Gaston sighed. “Poor Roland! And he is just outside?Cannot he come in for a moment? Surely, Valentine, I am absolved now from my promise to de Carné. I should like to tell him.”
“My heart, he knows, these seven days. I told him at Vannes.Ihad made no promise.”
“God bless you!” said her husband, raising her hand to his lips.
“Gaston, ask to see him,” she suggested. “The pass was for one or more members of the family. Tell the gaoler that he is your son.”
“You would allow that?”
“I should wish it. It is the only way to see him.”
“My saint!” He kissed her hand again. “Very well. Old Bernard is an excellent soul; he will not be particular to a minute or two. But do not go, my darling! I want yours to be the last presence in this room to-day.”
But Valentine shook her head with a little smile. “These are his moments. I will come back afterwards.”
One long embrace and they separated as the door swung open. Outside could be heard the click of steel as the sentries crossed their bayonets over the aperture. But, before Valentine going out, they uncrossed for a second.
“I should like to see the Vicomte de Céligny for a minute or two,” said Gaston to the gaoler.
“Only members of the family, Monseigneur,” returned the precise old man, shaking his head. “I have very strict orders.”
“But since he is my son!” retorted M. de Trélan, in the most natural tone possible. “Come,” he went on, as the old man looked incredulous, “you are sufficiently old-fashioned to call me Monseigneur, and yet you affect not to know that the son of a duke rarely bears the same title as his father. Besides, if you doubt me, go and look at him!”
“Well, well,” said old Bernard, “if he is your son the order covers him, though his name is not on it. You swear that he is your son, Monsieur le Duc?”
“Yes, I swear it,” answered Gaston.
What a strange person and place to receive the first public avowal of his relationship to Roland! He leant against the table and put his hand over his eyes, for indeed the victory he had won in the last hour was only lessprostrating than a defeat. When he removed it, Roland was through the door, was on one knee before him, trying to seize his hand and kiss it, and half sobbing out the old appellation, “Monsieur le Marquis! Monsieur le Marquis!”
Gaston stooped and raised him. “Am I only that to you, Roland, my son, my son!”
And, actually in his father’s arms, the warring tides of emotion in the boy’s breast were stilled. He hid his face there, trembling a little. But Gaston said never a word till he took his son’s head between his hands and lifted it. “You are like your mother,” he said in a low voice, looking into his eyes. “You may think of me as you like, Roland, but of her you must think as you have always done. The blame was mine, and mine alone.” And he kissed him.
With his hero’s kiss on his forehead, Roland was in no state to apportion blame between that hero in his mortal peril, and the mother whom he did not remember. He drew a long breath and said, “If only I can be what your son ought to be, sir!”
Gaston smiled rather sadly. “Take a better example, my child. But there is one way in which you can—no, I think I have really no need to point it out to you. If I am shot, Mme de Trélan——”
Roland clutched his arm. “Don’t use that word, sir—I cannot bear it! For it is our fault, all this—we failed you! And we had hoped to die with you!”
“But, my dear boy, that was just what I did not want—and you must allow your general some say in the matter. That was why I hoped the business would be quickly over, and why I was so much distressed to hear from M. Camain what happened after I was gone. You have no further news of the others yet, I suppose?”
Roland shook his head. “But it was thought, when we passed through Hennebont, that Artamène would eventually recover, though he was too ill to know us. . . . Monsieur le Duc, I have never understood why it happened just at that moment—your arrest?”
“Because, directly after you left the room, Roland, I was recognised by a woman whom I had once known slightly. The comedy was that I failed to recognise her at the time—though I have realised since who she was—and that she had no idea, poor soul, of what she was bringingon me. But it made no difference; they would have taken me at Auray, if not at Hennebont; even if Ihadreached Vannes a free man I should not long have remained so. That came out very clearly at my—trial. So you see there is nothing to be distressed about.”
But Roland thought otherwise. Had the arrest been attempted on the highroad there would have been a chance which there never had been in that trap of a room. He had a vision of a great fight in the open, in which they three should have laid down their lives indeed, and their leader spurred away, free. He sighed disconsolately.
“Mme de Trélan spoke of going to Mme Bonaparte,” he remarked.
“I would not sanction it,” said his father quietly. “Besides, it would be useless.”
“You mean,” said Roland, biting his lips to keep back certain unmanly evidences of emotion, “that you are sure the First Consul is absolutely determined to . . .”
Gaston did not answer for a moment. Then he took a letter out of his coat. “No,” he said quietly, “as it happens that is just what I do not mean. On the contrary. For a person of his extreme decision he appears to be uncomfortable. Read that, Roland; but first give me your word that you will not tell the Duchesse.”
“I give you my word, sir—as your son,” said Roland, throwing back his head.
But as he read it some colour came back to his face.
“My God! Then, Mon——”
“Mon père, I hope you were going to say,” interposed M. de Trélan smiling, as he took the letter from his suddenly shaking hand and tore it across. “No, my son, there are some things that one does not do, and one is, to play, in a situation such as mine, the enemy’s game. You see from that letter what—as far as any mortal can penetrate into his heart—the First Consul would like to happen—and therefore, quite plainly, it is just what shall not happen. Either he must release me of his own act, unconditionally—a step which is extremely improbable—or he must go on to the end. That end he will regret . . . for his own sake.” He opened the door of the stove, and threw in the paper. “I have shown you that letter, Roland,” he went on, turning to him again, “because you are a man now,but I have particularly kept the knowledge of what it says from the Duchesse; still more must it be kept from her if I die. It would make it too hard for her . . . you understand? I fear I have made it hard enough as it is . . . You can tell her, if you like, some day—years hence. And I want you to warn the Comte de Brencourt and M. Hyde de Neuville not to let her know on any account—if I die, that is. If I escape, it is of no consequence.”
“If you escape!” cried Roland feverishly, “but you shall escape! That plan—if only I might take part in it! But Mon—mon père, I have been thinking out there . . . I am not so tall as you, but since I am like you a little (though I never knew it), if you would but get into my clothes now and go away with Mme de Trélan while I——”
“My dearest boy,” said Gaston, touched and laughing too, as he put his arm round his shoulders, “that thousand-year-old device! As if I could pass for a young man of twenty! Alas, never again! But I have every confidence in . . . the official scheme for to-morrow evening. Yet in case——” He slipped the emerald ring with the phoenix off his finger and put it on Roland’s.
A quiver ran through the boy. He clasped the hand thus decorated to his breast as though it were wounded. “Then you have not every confidence . . . O mon père, take it back!”
“I will take it back when I am free,” replied his father, smiling. “A loan, you see.—Here is my patient Bernard.” He took him in his arms and kissed him on either cheek. “Be happy with Marthe—she shall wear the rubies after all. And try to get your grandfather, some day, to think less hardly of me.”
Roland, shaking with the sobs he was striving so hard to suppress, said almost inaudibly, “But he does. I have had a letter. He is greatly distressed.”
“Then I have gained something by being sentenced to death,” thought Gaston to himself, with a rather grim amusement. “You must go, my boy,” he said aloud. “And God go with you, always!”
He watched his son walk, blind with tears, to the door, and then made a sign to the gaoler. “Give us one last moment, Bernard, for pity’s sake!” For, before the bayonets could cross themselves again, Valentine hadslipped in, and come straight into his arms where he stood under that heartbreaking window. And Bernard compassionately went out again and closed the door.
“If the plan fails, Gaston, is this the last time?” (How could anyone who was so white speak so steadily?)
“No, no—they will certainly let me see you again.” His own voice was not quite steady.
“You are sure? I—a woman does not know about these things.”
“Yes, I am sure of it. If it comes to that, I shall have you in my arms once again, my dearest, dearest heart!” Yet he held her now as if that time had come. “Moreover, I do not believe the plan will fail. But, my darling, I have not been torturing you unnecessarily, in speaking of . . . the other alternative. It is only because, as God has given us at the end of summer to be one in life, I want you to understand that to die now would be to me no defeat or loss—to understand so that we might still be one . . . even if we had to part. . . .”
“Death could never take you from me,” she answered.
It was about six o’clock the next morning that old Bernard, who had just finished dressing himself, looked out of the window of the little ground-floor room in the Palace of the Temple where he slept—for most of the personnel of the prison were housed there, and he indeed, a former servant of the Prince de Conti, had slept there for more years than he could count. The pale, reluctant winter dawn was on the courtyard and its shivering trees. It would be a chilly transit to his duties in the Tower.
As he was turning away, blowing on his fingers, he heard unusual sounds in the courtyard, and, after another glance through the window, he went out on to the perron and stood there in some astonishment.
A closed carriage—a berline—had just drawn in under the entrance and was coming to a standstill in the middle of the court. Immediately behind, with a great jangle of bits and trappings, came riding two and two a score or so of hussars. What on earth could this portend, at so early an hour? It must be something official, however, since the guard at the entry had admitted the cortège.
Even as Bernard stood there he heard himself hailed, and saw the sergeant of the guard running towards him and trying to attract his attention. A little behind him rode an officer.
“Holà, Bernard!” called out the sergeant. “You are just the man I want. Take M. le Capitaine Guibert to the Tower at once; he brings orders for the immediate transference of a prisoner. Here, mon Capitaine, is the very gaoler who has the care of those au secret.”
The officer dismounted without a word, threw the speaker the reins, and strode up the five steps to where the surprised old man awaited him. He was young, tall and handsome,suitable in every way to the bravery of his sky-blue pelisse heavily barred with silver, the fur-edged dolman of darker blue that hung from one shoulder, and the gaily embroidered sabretache that swung against his leg. But under the high, cord-wreathed shako his face looked impenetrably, almost unnaturally grave.
“If you will come this way, sir,” said Bernard a little nervously, and thereafter trotted along in front of him through the palace and the length of its frosty garden, perturbed in spirit, while the officer stalked behind him equally silent. They passed the guardhouse in the wall without comment. At thegreffein the Tower itself the hussar, with the same economy of language, presented an order, and said he wished to see the prisoner in question immediately. Theguichetier, having read it through, raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips and transcribed it carefully in a book. It was an order for the delivery of the person of Gaston de Saint-Chamans, ex-Duc de Trélan, known also as the Marquis de Kersaint.
“M. de Trélan is au secret—I expect you know that, captain,” he remarked when he had finished. “I hope there has been no dissatisfaction at the Tuileries? I assure you that every precaution is taken for his safe custody.”
The young officer made a gesture that might have meant anything, and prepared to follow his guide.
To mount that dark, winding staircase on a winter’s morning required a light. Bernard produced a torch and preceded the officer, whose sabre clanked on the steps as he followed him. Half way up, at one of the wickets, the old man paused, and turned to him. “You are taking away our most distinguished prisoner, Monsieur le Capitaine.”
“Yes,” replied the hussar. His mouth shut as if he did not intend to say more, and the old man went on again.
One sentry—they were of a corps of veterans—was plainly asleep, on the bench by the door, when they got up. His companion, pacing to and fro, shoved him with his foot, and he stood sleepily to attention as the officer passed. In another moment the nail-studded door stood open, and the young hussar, taking the torch from Bernard and motioning him back, went in, pushing the door to behind him.
The torch he held, conflicting with the daylight from the high window, showed him the man he had come for fast asleep on the little bed in the furthest corner. He went over to him, stood looking down at him a second or two, and then, with what looked like hesitation, put out a hand to wake him. But at that moment, roused by the light, the prisoner stirred.
Gaston had dreamt much that night, dreams commingled of sweet and sinister. Nearly always the menhirs had been in them, the Allée des Vieilles where Valentine had been miraculously restored to him, but they were strangely mixed with visions of Mirabel, where he and she had parted. He stood once more among the old stones, but she was not there; he was to meet her, he knew, at Mirabel, and the idea was sweet. Yet somehow the dream was sinister. . . .
And now—he was fully awake on the instant, in the fashion of a soldier and a commander. His first thought was—Hyde de Neuville . . . they had put forward the time . . . here was the pseudo-Republican officer he was to expect. He looked up at the hussar for a second or two—and all that fell away from him for ever. A man in peril is swift of apprehension. This officer was genuine.
“You are an early visitor, sir,” he said, raising himself on his elbow. “I may guess, may I not, that you do not come at this hour on any very agreeable errand?”
“General,” said the young man, speaking at length for the first time since he had entered the prison, “my errand is hateful. I . . . I am ashamed of the uniform I wear—but as long as I wear it I must obey. . . . Will you read that, Monsieur le Duc?” He held out, not the order he had shown to theguichetier, but another, and brought the torch a little nearer.
Gaston took the paper, and, still leaning on one elbow, studied it, and the vehement “Bonaparte” at the bottom, with the marks of the splutter of the pen. His eyebrows went up a trifle, but no other change came over his face.
“A little sudden,” he observed. “But after all . . . What time do you wish me to be ready?”
“At seven o’clock, General. It is now ten minutes after six.”
The Duc de Trélan returned the warrant. “The First Consul is somewhat given to sudden impulses,” he remarked. “As he grows older he will find that they are generally to be regretted. But I think that, after all, I misjudge him; for this was intended from the first. I have about fifty minutes then. Would you be so good, Monsieur, as to see if they could find me a priest while I am dressing; there may be one in captivity in the Temple.—No, do not give yourself the trouble; if old Bernard is there I will ask him myself. And you, Monsieur le Capitaine—shall I see you again?”
“I command the escort,” replied the young hussar, looking away.
“I will be ready for you then, in . . . forty-seven minutes,” said the Duc, his eyes on the watch he had drawn from beneath his pillow. “Perhaps you will be good enough to leave me your torch for the moment. The oil was finished in my lamp last night, and the illumination here is not very good, as you can see.”
The young officer looked round, saw a ring designed for that purpose on the wall, thrust the torch into it, drew himself up, made the captive a magnificent salute, and strode to the door.
Next moment the old gaoler looked in, mildly curious.
“Monsieur Bernard,” said the Duc, who was now sitting on the edge of the bed, “I have a particular favour to ask you. Can you contrive to heat me some shaving water within a quarter of an hour or so? I wish to be presentable this morning.”
“But certainly, only—Monsieur le Duc, what is it, so early? You are being transferred, I gathered?”
“Yes, Bernard—if you like to put it so. And besides the shaving water—and a better light to use it by—is there by chance a priest among the prisoners here, think you?”
“A priest!” exclaimed the old man, taken aback. “A priest . . . I don’t know—I don’t think so. But why do you want a . . . O Monseigneur!—it’s notthat!”
“It is indeed,” said Gaston with a little smile. “Not altogether unexpected, my good Bernard.—Well, do your best to get me a priest. I have not much time; only about three-quarters of an hour.”
No, he had not much time. And perhaps it was best.He could not possibly say good-bye to Valentine now. Yesterday had been their farewell after all. Did this hurried execution mean that the First Consul had got wind of to-night’s rescue?
He dressed swiftly, but with attention to details, shaved with care when old Bernard, almost weeping, brought him the water and the tidings that no priest could so far be found; and, with only twenty-five minutes left, sat down to write his last letter to Valentine.
He had no little to say, but he wrote steadily and without difficulty, pausing only once or twice. When he had finished he took out from a pocket-case in his breast a little square of folded paper, somewhat worn, wrote on it three words and slipped it inside his letter. Then he folded, addressed and sealed the whole, kissed his wife’s name upon the superscription, and put it in the case. There was already another letter there.
And now, since he had taken from its place over his heart the amulet he always wore there, to give it back to the hand whence he had it, for the short time that heart had to beat it should beat against the symbol that was rather of loyalty than of love—but which love had nevertheless fashioned and given him. He took from the back of the chair the scarf he had so treasured, and put the end with the golden fleur-de-lys to his lips. For a moment, at the touch of what her fingers had wrought, a wave of anguish engulfed him. He gripped his hands hard behind his head, as it fell forward on the folds of the scarf across the table. O, not to have to leave her . . . even to see her once more, only once!
It was short, that agony. Gaston de Trélan had faced it many times these last few days. He rose, fastening the scarf across his breast instead of as usual round his waist. Her arms would be about him thus, to the end. Only four minutes more. No priest had come. So he knelt down by the table, and tried to collect his thoughts.
The door opened slowly. Gaston stood up; the young hussar, much the paler of the two, came in.
“I am ready,” said the Duc. “But before we go I have a favour to ask of you. This case, Monsieur, contains aletter to my wife, with another to the same address. Could it be given to her? She is to be found at Mme Tessier’s in the Rue de Seine.”
“I give you my word that she shall have it,” said the officer. “I will take it myself—if I cannot find a better messenger.”
“Thank you, Monsieur,” said Gaston, replacing the case inside his uniform. “If it will not inconvenience you, however, I will keep the letter on me till the last possible moment, and give it to you—later on. And I have a fancy not to be parted from my Cross of Maria Theresa before I need; therefore, if it would not be putting you to too much trouble, I would ask you to take it off when the business is over. This scarf I should wish to be buried with. I am still, you know, Monsieur le Capitaine,” he threw back his head a little, “the General commanding for His Majesty King Louis XVIII. in Finistère, a position that is not cancelled by my capture under a safe-conduct.—I beg your pardon, for you neither had part in, nor approve of that,” he added, seeing the young man wince. “The scarf, then, I should desire to remain on me, the order to go to the Duchesse if you would be so good.”
“She shall have it . . . if you think that a Republican’s word is ever to be trusted again.”
“I think that I can trust yours,” retorted Gaston, holding out his hand.
“Monsieur le Duc . . .” stammered the young hussar, hesitating.
The keen eyes smiled at him. “My boy, do you think I don’t understand? Come, we have a journey to make in company. And your hands are clean—as I hope mine are.”
So, with a flush, Captain Guibert gripped his prisoner’s fingers for a second. And then old Bernard’s voice broke in on them. “Monseigneur,” it said at Gaston’s elbow, “you are fasting, and it is so cold outside! Will you not?” And he held out on a little tray a cup of coffee. But his hands shook so that the cup was clattering on its saucer.
“Monsieur Bernard, you are my good angel,” said Gaston gaily, as he took it from him. “I hope M. le Capitaine was as fortunate before he set out—so much earlier, too, than I am to do.”
He drank down the hot coffee and set the empty cup onthe table in significant proximity to his purse, which he had already placed there for the old gaoler. But Bernard, sniffing, shuffled out before he could take farewell of him.
“Poor Bernard is too tenderhearted for his post,” observed his prisoner. “The sooner he is quit of us the better.—I follow you, Monsieur.”
A guard of dismounted hussars was awaiting them at the foot of the Tower.
“I have a carriage for you, Monsieur le Duc,” explained Captain Guibert half apologetically, as, on a sign from him, his men fell in behind him and his prisoner, “but it is in the courtyard of the Palace, for as you know, it is impossible for a vehicle to be brought any nearer.”
“But why should I wish for better treatment than my King?” asked the Duc de Trélan. “He had to walk from the Tower.”
Once through the great wall of isolation—at last—they went side by side in silence, the armed guard behind, across the garden to the Palace. Gaston was thinking that if, on their way to the Plaine de Grenelle—the usual spot for such events—they crossed the river by the Pont Neuf, as was most likely, they could hardly avoid passing one end or other of the Rue de Seine, where Valentine lay asleep, or wakeful. He wondered whether she would somehow be aware . . . and whether he could entirely keep his composure as they went so near. . . .
When they came, through the building, in sight of the courtyard, the carriage was drawn up at the foot of the steps. Grouped round it, the remaining hussars sat their horses motionless, holding those of their dismounted comrades, but the frost in the air made the animals impatient, and one perpetual jingle shook from their tossing heads, while their breaths, and the men’s, too, went up like smoke.
Gaston looked back over his shoulder for an instant. Above the low façade of the Palace, to the left of the Tower behind, the sun was now visible, huge and red. It would be a fine day, probably—but one would not know. . . . The dismounted men were already resumingtheir saddles; a horse was pawing the ground as if eager to be off.
“Lieutenant Soyer,” said the captain, “take the head of the escort!” He turned to his prisoner. “Monsieur de Trélan, pardon me, but someone must drive in the carriage with you. I am very sorry . . . but if you will permit me, I will do so myself, instead of my lieutenant.”
He reminded Gaston of his own three ‘jeunes.’ In such circumstances he would not have wished Roland to carry himself otherwise.
“I should desire your company, Monsieur le Capitaine,” he replied courteously, and put his foot on the step of the high-slung berline. “We journey to the Plaine de Grenelle, I suppose?”
The young man dropped his eyes and reddened. “No,” he said, in a low, ashamed voice, “the orders are . . .Mirabel.”
For the first time since he had learnt that he was to die that morning, Gaston de Trélan showed emotion before a witness. He flushed too, but it was with anger.
“The First Consul’s idea of the dramatic, I suppose! One sees his origin.” He bit his lip and recovered himself. “I have the right, I think, to consider it somewhat misplaced. However, the setting of the last scene is really of small importance to me.”
He got into the carriage, and the captain of hussars silently followed him in, and sat down opposite him, his sabre across his knees. In a few seconds the carriage was rolling noisily over the cobblestones of the archway into the street. But they would not pass near Valentine now; they would soon be going further away every moment . . . for ever.
They had traversed Paris, and were in the Avenue de Neuilly, when the young officer said abruptly,
“Monsieur le Duc, if when we are past Neuilly, I were to get out, to halt the escort, make some diversion, and call off the men on either side if you could slip out . . .”
Gaston shook his head, smiling, despite himself, at the wild idea. “My dear boy—apart from a personal preference for not being shot in the back—do you suppose that I would accept your young life for mine?”
“My life! But my career was my life—and I am goingto resign my commission before this day is over! I cannot serve any more a soldier who violates a safe-conduct. And I thought him . . . I was with him in Italy—at Acre—at Aboukir . . .” He put his forehead down on the hands that rested over each other on the hilt of his sabre, upright between his knees.
Gaston’s face softened as he looked at him. It was as he thought. He would not have died in vain.
He leant back with folded arms. The rumble of the wheels, the trot of the horses on either hand, the figures of their riders as they rose and fell close to the carriage windows, held a rhythm that was almost soothing. And now that the shock of indignation and disgust was over, what better place at which to die than Mirabel, which had re-united him and Valentine? It was his dream come true; he was not going away from her; she was—was she not?—waiting for him there.
Only just this side of death had they plucked the flower of flowers; but theyhadplucked it. And the life whose uselessness had hurt her so, at the end he had contrived to do something with it after all. By refusing to ransom it, as he might conceivably have done, he was flinging it down, not as a forfeit, but as a challenge, against the walls that had been his and Valentine’s. In having him shot in defiance of the strictest article of military honour, Bonaparte plainly designed to make of the Duc de Trélan’s death a terrible example—in decreeing that the sentence should be carried out, against all the dictates of decent feeling, in front of his own confiscated house, to make that death a kind of show as well. But the more publicity given to so callous and unscrupulous an action, the longer it was likely to be remembered—against its author; and the impression might not be what Bonaparte designed. The hope of such a result was partly what Gaston de Trélan was laying down his life for. Already, as he knew, there was no small clamour and protest in Paris over his probable fate, so that the added affront of this morning did but make dying, after all, the more worth while.
The short miles had slipped past. Here already, by the slackening pace, was the turn off the Saint-Germain road. Nearly ten years. . . . The carriage, swaying a little, swung round at right angles into the way lined with gauntpoplars, where the frozen puddles crackled under hoofs and wheels—the last stage but one of the journey that was bearing him away from all he loved. No! “Death could never take you from me!”Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi.Crossing himself, he began silently to recite his act of contrition.
And in a few moments more, the faint winter sun glinting on its majolica, came Mirabel—Mirabel with the barrier removed, and some hundreds of troops drawn up in front of it on the frostbound gravel.
The officer of hussars, raising his head, saw his companion holding out to him, with a little smile, the lettercase he had drawn from his breast.
“I am glad, after all,” said the last Duc de Trélan quietly, “that it should behere.”
It was Hyde de Neuville, half beside himself with grief and fury, who brought the Comte de Brencourt the news, which at ten o’clock the young conspirator had only just heard, and which he could hardly believe. Yet there was no doubt about its truth. And someone must break it to the Duchesse.
But not, surely, the stunned and horrified man to whom this announcement had just been made. He stood frozen, in his room at the littlehôtel garni, repeating with a stammering tongue, “Dead!—dead! shot this morning! . . . there is some mistake . . .”
“I wish there were!” cried Hyde de Neuville passionately. “I wish to God there were! I wish we had tried for last night—why were we such fools as to delay? I do not yet know whether this morning’s work was prompted by design, or just by evil chance. And the Duchesse——”
“Don’t suggest that I shall tell her!” cried the Comte wildly. “De Neuville, for pity’s sake——”
“But I must not lose a moment in going to Bertin and the others,” said the young man. “We may all find ourselves in prison before nightfall—and to no purpose. Besides, I am a stranger to her; you an old acquaintance—the Duc’s late chief of staff. You are the man, Comte. Tell her the whole plan has failed—tell her her husband is suddenly taken ill—tell her anything to soften the blow!” And he was gone.
The Comte sank down and buried his head in his arms. “I told her that he was dead, once. Now it is true—now it is true!”
He could not do it. He must find someone else. Roland—he would break the news best, if he could get hold of him. O God, to think he had once wished this, had lied for it, had tried to bring it about with his own hand! And—shotat Mirabel! The idea was profoundly shocking to him even in the midst of the shock of the execution itself. He seemed to recall a hateful precedent for it, for he remembered the young Prince de Talmont, captured in the Vendean war and shot in front of the castle of Laval, which had belonged to his family for nine centuries.
What was the time? Suppose Mme de Trélan were to go to the Temple this morning! “The Duc is gone, Madame la Duchesse; he has driven out to his château of Mirabel. Will Madame follow?” Why did he see the Temple as it had once been, a princely residence, and why did he imagine that dialogue? He must be going mad. She would not go there to-day; the order was for yesterday. Yesterday she had seen him; and did not know she should see him no more in life.
Or stay, suppose Valentine had taken a fancy to visit Mirabel this morning with Roland. It was most unlikely that she would do such a thing; yet his distracted mind showed him the Duchesse and Roland arriving there and finding God knew what—soldiers, a crowd, and in front of the great façade——
M. de Brencourt sprang up. That wholly baseless picture decided him. He could not let her run that dreadful risk. Oblivious of the fact that, long before she got to Mirabel, if ever she went, she must meet the tidings of what had taken place there, he crammed on his hat, and without a redingote, despite the cold, rushed out in the direction of the Rue de Seine.
“No, M. de Céligny has gone out,” replied Suzon’s servant. “Mme de Trélan is within.”
His last hope was vanished then. He never thought of Mme Tessier. There was no help for it. Far rather would he have been in the dead man’s place at Mirabel.
He was only just in time, apparently, for the first thing that he saw on being ushered into Mme Tessier’s parlour was Valentine’s hat and gloves on the table. And she, standing by the hearth, had her cloak on already—a grey cloak with grey fur at the throat, in which he would always see her now to the end of the world. He contrived, he knew not how, to get across the room and to kiss her hand before she noticed anything unusual.
“I am glad I had not gone out, Monsieur de Brencourt,” she said in an ordinary tone, such as she had managed to preserve nearly all the time in these days of strain. “I was only waiting for Roland to return.”
And then she saw his face and said, quite quietly, “I am afraid you bring some bad news.”
“It is not good.” His voice—he heard it himself—was the voice of a stranger.
“The plan has miscarried somehow, Comte—you have come to tell me that?”
He bent his head. “Yes. Yes, Madame. I . . . came to tell you that.”
A pause. Slowly, slowly the colour faded in the face over the grey fur collar that he would see to the end of the world.
“It will not be carried out to-night, then?”
(“Nor any other night.”) No, he lacked courage to say that yet.
“No, Madame. It . . . it . . . it has proved impossible.”
“This cloak is too hot,” said Valentine de Trélan suddenly. She unfastened the collar. “Perhaps I will not go out after all.” She made as if she were going to throw it off, then sat down instead in the armchair by the fire. “But time is precious, Monsieur de Brencourt,” she said, looking at him fixedly—he could feel that, though he could not meet her eyes.
“No,” he said, trembling, and very low, “time is of no value now.”
But either she had not heard, or she did not understand. He could see that; so he tried again, and got out more. “Madame, I must tell you that the time for this plan is past for ever.”
He felt the impact of these words on her mind, yet he felt also that she was gathering herself up in spirit either to resist their meaning or to infuse fresh will into him. He saw her hands clench themselves a little as she said,
“If that has failed, then, you will make another, a better plan, will you not?”
O, why would she not understand! He raised his eyes at last in agony from her clenched hands to her face. “Valentine . . .” he said, and, had her life depended onit, could get out no other word. His throat had closed up. He turned away and hid his face.
The fire crackled like a burning house; outside in the street a boy was whistling like a fife . . . and yet it was so still.
At last her voice came, and it sounded sick with horror. “Monsieur de Brencourt, what—what, in God’s name, are you trying to tell me?”
“Not to go to the Temple to-day—not to go——”
“They have taken him away?” she interrupted sharply, her hands on the arms of the chair. “Transferred him to another prison?”
At last he turned and faced her, at last he got it out in its entirety. “Yes, he is gone—but not to another prison. He is gone where I wish I were gone too, before I had to tell you. It is all over, Valentine, all over . . .”
She fell back in her chair. If only he might kneel and kiss her feet, try—though he knew he could not—to comfort her. But the memory of this scene’s parody, played out falsely before, lay like a bitter flood between him and her. This time it was true, his news.
Steps outside, thank God! Roland, perhaps, or Mme Tessier, whom he had forgotten. He hurried to the door, caught at the passerby—Suzon.
“Go in to the Duchesse at once,” he said. “I have had to bring her terrible news—I can bear no more. The Duc was shot at Mirabel this morning. Go in, I say!” He pushed her in.
On the very threshold, as he opened the door into the street to escape, M. de Brencourt all but ran into an officer of hussars. The officer was young, handsome, rigid, set about the mouth.
“Does Mme de Trélan lodge here?” he asked with a foot on the doorstep.
“Yes,” replied the Comte. “Excuse me, Monsieur——”
The officer barred the way. “Pardon me a moment. I must see her.”
“You cannot,” retored de Brencourt, stopped despite himself. “She cannot see anyone.”
“She knows then!” said the young man, and there was relief in his tone.
And instantly, looking at the expression on his visage, the Comte understood.
“I have just told her,” he said.
“Thank God for that,” returned the hussar. “But I have a message to deliver—and I pray you, Monsieur, to give it to her, as you have . . . done the other thing. I come straight from Mirabel.”
“Monsieur,” replied the Comte hoarsely. “Once it was prophesied to me that I should do this lady a service. I did not know what it would be—now, I think I do . . . I have just rendered it, and not for the hope of heaven would I go through the like again. You must give the message yourself, if it was from . . .him.”
“There is no verbal message from . . . the late Duc de Trélan,” answered the young hussar, and as he paused at the name and its qualification he suddenly brought his heels together and saluted. And the Comte, for all his pre-occupation with his own feelings, saw that his mouth was twitching. “There is no verbal message,” he repeated, “but I have two letters, and the Duc’s decoration. I am charged, however, to say, that Mme de Trélan is at liberty to go to Mirabel when and how she will, that her privacy will be respected in every way, and that if she wishes the body to be buried in the chapel there——”
“Is this the First Consul’s magnanimity!” flared out the Comte. And, thinking he heard a sound behind him in the house, and suddenly becoming conscious, too, that all this was taking place on the doorstep, he seized hold of the young officer’s hanging dolman. “Bring that cursed uniform of yours inside!” he muttered, and, opening the door of a little room close by, pushed the glittering and jingling form inside.
Once sheltered by a closed door the young Republican turned on him almost savagely. “Do you think that you are the only man heartbroken over this horrible business?” he demanded. “Do you realise that I have had to help carry it out—that it was I, at least, who commanded the escort, that it was I who had to rouse M. de Trélan early this morning with the news, had to drive with him from Paris to Mirabel, had to sit my horse like a statue with my sword drawn, as though I approved, while it was done—I who have been one of Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp inEgypt and Syria, and have worshipped his very stirrup leather . . . and am going to throw up my commission the moment I leave this house!”
There was no doubt of his emotion now; two tears were running down his face. He could not have been more than five and twenty. He raised a gauntleted hand and brushed them away.
“Why, then, did you——” began M. de Brencourt in a suddenly weary voice.
“Because if I had not commanded the escort someone else would have done so. When I found I was detailed for that duty, I thought I could at least ensure that M. de Trélan had due respect shown him—and that I could, perhaps, let him know before he died that there was, at any rate, one soldier of the Republic who was ashamed of the deed. As I intended to resign my commission immediately afterwards there was nothing improper in that . . . and if I went farther than I should perhaps have done when, on the way to Mirabel, I offered to connive at his escape—well, the Duc refused.” He paused, drew a long breath, and said, “Afterwards I had my men carry him into Mirabel, into the great hall there. We unbarred the big door for it. I had the candlesticks fetched from the chapel also; strangely enough, there were funeral candles already in them. If Mme de Trélan goes, therefore, there is nothing she cannot look upon; I have seen to that. His face is quite uninjured—I would not even have it covered.”
The Comte held out his hand to him. “If I could bring myself really to believe that he is dead,” he said painfully, “I would thank you in her name. But I cannot believe it—even after telling her so.”
“Oh, God knows it’s true enough,” responded the young hussar, passing his hand for a moment over his eyes.
“Where was it carried out—this iniquity?” demanded M. de Brencourt abruptly.
“In front of one of the central towers, below which the concierge used to live. It was the Duc’s own choice, when he was asked if he had any preference; I do not know the reason for it.”
M. de Brencourt did. He turned away.
And, even as he turned, the door of the little room opened,and in came, not Roland, as he expected—but the Abbé Chassin.
“You!” exclaimed the Comte, staring at him in astonishment. They had not met since the memorable day in the thicket by the road; moreover he thought the Abbé still in England.
Travelstained, his eyes red-rimmed for lack of sleep, his round face drawn and shadowed, the little priest looked not only twenty years older, but as if the heart had gone out of him for ever.
“I have journeyed day and night since I heard he was taken,” he said in a dulled voice. “I know now that I am too late. My God, my God!”
“How did you learn it? Have you seen Mme de Trélan?”
“Not yet. Mme Tessier is with her. I heard it in the streets.”
The Comte looked at him and was moved with compassion. “I am sorry for that,” he said, gently for him, and put his hand for a second on the dusty shoulder. Then he bent and added in a low voice, “We should have saved him this very evening if it had not been for this.”
The young officer, who had been standing since the Abbé’s entrance gazing at some objects which he had laid on the table, here raised his head and addressed the newcomer. “Then perhaps you, Monsieur, would give Mme la Duchesse the message I bear—and give her these, too. I was trying to persuade this gentleman to do it. It is not over fitting for me.”
“You were . . .?” asked M. Chassin, his face working a little.
“Monsieur commanded the escort,” replied the Comte for him, “and has done everything that he could do, then and since. He bears a message from the . . . the authorities that the Duchesse is free to go to Mirabel when she pleases, and to do what she wishes about burial. . . . You tell her, Abbé. We have both had as much as we can bear!”
“And you think I can bear anything?” asked M. Chassin in a half-choked voice, “I, who shall never see him alive now!”
The young hussar had noted the Comte’s method ofaddress. “You are a priest, sir?” he enquired. “Then perhaps this letter, directed to the Abbé Chassin, is for you?”
Pierre was beside him in a moment, and saw what was on the table. “O Gaston, my brother!” he exclaimed brokenly, and knelt down there, covering his face.
“Brother!” ejaculated the Comte under his breath. Then he understood. It explained many things.
“This order that he wore is not hurt,” murmured the young hussar almost to himself, “although——” He did not finish, but lifted a fold of the handkerchief, and revealed the cross of white and gold with its red heart. “M. de Trélan particularly wished the Duchesse to have it.” He relapsed into silence again, looking down at it, and M. de Brencourt stood looking at it too—save those two letters in the firm hand-writing which he knew so well, all that was left of the leader he had admired, and hated, and schemed against—and tried to save.
“Absolve, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant,” prayed the Abbé in the silence, “that though dead to the world he may live to Thee, and whatsoever he hath done amiss in his human conversation, through the weakness of the flesh, do Thou by the pardon of Thy most merciful loving-kindness wipe away.” He rose to his feet, took up the letter addressed to him, kissed it, and put it in his pocket. “This, I understand,” he said to the hussar, touching the cross, “is for Mme de Trélan, as well as the letter?”
“You will do my commission then, Monsieur l’Abbé?” asked the young man, his face haggard with strain and entreaty. “I thank you from my heart! As for me, I have business of my own now.” And he picked up his shako.
“One moment,” said M. Chassin. “I fancy that when I came in you were telling this gentleman some details about—the end. The Duchesse may some day wish to hear them; and I wish to know now, both as M. le Duc’s foster-brother and a priest.—Did they let him have a priest this morning?”
The young captain sedulously fingered the cords that went round his headgear. “He asked for one, but none could be found in the time.” He hesitated, and then broke out—“If I might tell you the rest another day, Monsieurl’Abbé; I engage to do so. But just now the whole affair is so horrible to me—no, not the actual execution, for any one more nobly and simply composed than M. de Trélan it is impossible to imagine . . . the one man at Mirabel this morning who had no cause for shame. Moreover since there was, mercifully, no bungling, he could scarcely have suffered—shot, as he was, through the heart. I was not the only soldier there who envied him so fine an end before so many witnesses. (There were generals present; Lannes and Murat, and Marmont, too, I think.) But the treachery of it! . . . Gentlemen, your cause has sustained a great loss, but Bonaparte’s honour has sustained a greater!”
“Yes,” said the Comte, “and if M. de Trélan had cared less for that cause for which he died, he might very conceivably have kept his life—but that, I expect, is not generally known. I intend that it shall be.”
“What is that?” exclaimed the Abbé. “He refused a pardon?”
“He refused to ask for one,” returned the Comte, and explained.
“O, my brother, I recognise you there!” said Pierre softly.
“Yet it is not a thing that the Duchesse ought to know,” added M. de Brencourt.
“Not know it!” exclaimed the young hussar. “Why, to die like that is more than fine—it is glorious! It seems a pity that she should be ignorant of it.Ishall remember . . . Farewell, gentlemen.”
He turned towards the door, and took one step in its direction, but no more. For it was open, and Mme de Trélan herself stood on the threshold. None of them, absorbed, had known it.
M. de Brencourt put his hand over his mouth. God grant she had not heard! She gave no sign of it. Her eyes were on the young Republican.
“You come from . . . Mirabel, I think, sir?”
“Yes, Madame. I have brought you . . . these.” He indicated the letter and the decoration on the table, but made no motion to give them to her, and she did not take them. Yet she looked at them as though she saw nothing else. And the Abbé was kissing her hand before she seemedto realise that he was there, nor did she show any surprise at his presence.
But in a moment or two she lifted her eyes to the young officer again, and from her look it seemed as if, with the strange, exalted sight that comes sometimes with the stroke of a grief that no words can fathom, she saw something now of the tragedy of his soul on his face.
“I thank you, sir, for these,” she said gently. “My husband has a higher honour now, I think.”
The young hussar bent his head till his looped-up tresses of plaited hair fell on his breast. “Yes, Madame.” He bowed profoundly, and went once more towards the door; then, inspired perhaps by that vision of measureless sorrow and courage before him, turned and said, “Madame, I have been present at the death of a hero. I wish mine might be like it!” And—only a young captain of hussars, but the material of which the conqueror’s marshals were made—he saluted and went out, to lay aside, with his broken belief, all his dreams of glory.
When he was gone, M. Chassin took the letter and the cross in its handkerchief, and put them into Valentine’s hands. M. de Brencourt looked out of the window. He did not hear what they said to each other, but he supposed that the priest was giving her the message about Mirabel . . .
It was thawing outside. People were going to and fro as usual. . . . Who would have thought the world would seem so empty?
Valentine’s voice startled him. “Monsieur de Brencourt, would you have the goodness to procure me a carriage? I am going at once to Mirabel.”
He turned round. “Not alone, Madame, surely!” For she stood there alone now.
“No, M. l’Abbé will go with me.—But first, tell me of what you were speaking when I came in. I heard the wordpardon; was there ever talk of such a thing?”
Rent with compassion, he looked at her and did not answer.
“I heard what that young man said,” she went on with extraordinary steadiness, “that it was a pity I should not know. Tell me, I implore you!”
She knew too much already! Useless to try to keep itfrom her now, and dreadful to combat her wishes at this moment. And, not yet having seen Roland since yesterday afternoon, the Comte had received no direct prohibition; it was only his own consideration for her which recommended silence. So he told her the truth. She covered her face; and once again he left her.
“Will you tell Roland, when he comes, to follow us to Mirabel?” said the Abbé to him some half-hour later, before entering the carriage after Mme de Trélan.
M. de Brencourt bowed his head. “And I?” he said in a low voice, “If I might—if I dared think——”
The Duchesse turned hers and answered without hesitation. “Come with Roland—friend!”