CHAPTER XXII.
Our hero, followed by Bill Saunders—who was extremely puzzled to understand what had recently taken place, and turning over in his own mind what might be the consequence of living in the château with such lots of handsome girls, who seemed to him to be increasing daily—proceeded to the place where he had thrown down his rod. Bill in vain tried to edge in a word; his master was not to be roused from his train of reflections.
“Is this love at first sight?” asked our hero of himself; “for never did I feel the same strange and unaccountable sensation for a beautiful girl before. I have been in love a dozen times, or, at least, fancied I was; but this is a very different feeling. I used to laugh at the idea of the most beautiful face in the world causing any other sensation at first sight than that of anything else very lovely. No, it will not do to fall in love with a French girl, in my position; and its very clear, if I do not make my escape, I shall do so.”
“My eyes, sir! where’s the rod?” exclaimed Bill, having arrived at the precise spot.
Lieutenant Thornton looked about him; there was no rod to be seen, nor fishing-basket; but, as they looked along the river, some three hundred yards farther down, they perceived a man fishing, and towards him our hero walked, telling Bill to keep at a little distance. As he advanced, the person fishing looked up, and at once came towards him. Lieutenant Thornton could see he was a tall young man, in a dress very similar to his own, and he could also perceive that he carried his missing rod in his hand, and the basket at his back.
“Humph!” muttered our hero; “free and easy, at all events.” But as the young man—evidently a gentleman, and a handsome one to boot—came up, he said, with a polite bow, and a smile—
“I hope, monsieur, you will not think I am taking a liberty with your rod and basket, for I suppose they are yours?”
“I certainly left them on the bank of the stream, monsieur,” said our hero. “I had just hooked a trout.”
“Ah!” interrupted the stranger, “here he is, and a very fine fish, nearly three pounds weight. I had some trouble with him, I assure you; he had run out all your line, and then lay still under the bank, but I secured him with five others, which you will find in your basket.”
Now, though the stranger spoke politely, and was a handsome, gentlemanly man of some two or three and thirty years, yet Lieutenant Thornton did not like either the expression of his features, or the keen and inquiring glance he cast over his face and person.
“I am obliged to you for your care of my rod,” said the Lieutenant, “which I abandoned heedlessly; but I cannot think of depriving you of the proceeds of your skill; therefore, I pray you keep the fish.”
“Oh! not at all,” said the stranger, with a smile; “I can have as many as I like, or require: this part of the stream on both sides for some distance is on my property, and I preserve it.”
The colour came into Lieutenant Thornton’s cheek as the stranger spoke these words, and he at once said—
“I fear I have unconsciously committed a trespass.”
“Not at all, monsieur! not at all! You are, I perceive, quite a stranger to this part of the world; by your accent I should have taken you for an Italian. My name is Gramont; may I have the pleasure of knowing yours? My residence is within half a league, and I shall be most happy, if you are staying in this neighbourhood, to show you better fishing than this stream affords.”
“You are very kind,” returned our hero, wishing the trout had swallowed the rod, or that he had not come back to look for it. “My name is De Tourville; I am staying for a few days at Coulancourt, with Monsieur de Plessis.”
“Ah! indeed; De Tourville,” he repeated. “So, after all, you are French; pardon me for my doubts; I will not detain you, but repeat my wish to form an agreeable acquaintance during your stay; will do myself the pleasure of calling at Coulancourt;” and, with a polite bow saying adieu, and depositing the fishing-basket, the stranger sauntered slowly down the stream.
“Now this is anything but pleasant,” thought our hero, raising the basket, containing six fine trout, each over nine pounds weight. “I wish, Monsieur Gramont, you had happened to be a dozen leagues from this. Very odd he did not hear of or speak of the attempt to rob Monsieur Plessis; he must have heard the firing, or seen the peasantry hurrying to the scene of action; it’s very odd.”
Giving the surprised Bill the basket of trout, which he examinedwith a curious eye, wondering very much what such a fine looking fish could possibly want with a little fly, and a fly that in his mind resembled no fly that ever flew, Lieutenant Thornton retraced his steps to the château. It was near sunset as he entered the lawn, and walked up towards the house. Monsieur de Plessis came out from the front door to meet him.
“I hope the young ladies have quite recovered their fright?” said Lieutenant Thornton, for the first time taking a steady survey of Jean Plessis’ features and person, whom he would not have remembered. He appeared stouter, and wore moustaches, which he did not when first they had met in Toulon. In answer to Lieutenant Thornton’s inquiry, he said they had quite recovered their spirits; that Madame Plessis had reached the château; and that they were all expecting him.
“I was delayed,” said our hero, “looking for my rod, which I afterwards found in the hands of a gentleman who, it seems, is the proprietor of the land on both banks of the river in which I was fishing; he called himself Gramont.”
“Mon Dieu! that is unfortunate,” said Jean Plessis, with a start, and a look of uneasiness. “Did he seem annoyed at your being on his land? I had no idea he was in this part of the country. I thought he was with his regiment on the frontiers!”
“Then, you know him, Monsieur Plessis?” asked the Lieutenant.
“No, I cannot say I know him; I have seen him; but I knew his father, who was a terrible and cruel follower of Robespierre. The strange part of the affair is, that his father held possession of Coulancourt and the estates, till forced to give them up after the trial of madame, when Robespierre lost his head by the axe of the guillotine. Monsieur Gramont fled, and saved his life for a short time. His son, Eugene Gramont, then held a commission in the chasseurs, and after his father’s death managed, through great interest with those in power, to retain the family estate which adjoins Coulancourt; his château is not a mile from the place where you were fishing. I shall conclude for the present by telling you that Captain Eugene Gramont bears a very indifferent character in Paris; he is known as a gambler, and a duellist, and a notorious deceiver amongst the weaker sex. However, with the Parisian ladies he is, I have heard, a favourite, and considered a remarkably handsome man; and, as he is supposed to be in the receipt of forty thousand francs yearly, he is pronounced rather an advantageous party; but I strongly suspect that not only is he himself involved, but his estate also. Now, if he should come here to visit you, it will not do to avoid him altogether.”
“But,” remarked Lieutenant Thornton, “do you not think the sooner I make an attempt to get out of the country thebetter? I was going to ask you why I take the name of De Tourville, though it turned out fortunate your telling me I was to do so, for when Monsieur Gramont requested my name I was prepared.”
“Some name,” said Jean Plessis, “it was requisite you should take; and as Mademoiselle de Tourville was coming here on a visit, and will afterwards be proceeding to England through Flanders, I thought it a most excellent opportunity for you to pass as her brother, and that you could travel together into Flanders and afford her your protection.”
The young man started; an emotion of pleasure he secretly felt sent a glow to his cheek, as he replied—
“Do you not think, Monsieur Plessis, that I am rather young for the guardian of a young and very lovely girl, such as Mademoiselle de Tourville?”
Jean Plessis looked into the handsome, animated face of the Lieutenant with a smile.
“You are afraid, then, monsieur, of your heart. She is, I confess, a most lovely and fascinating young lady; however, I will relieve your uneasiness on that head; a widow lady will also accompany her. But here we are at the house. I pray you have patience for a day or two, and I will explain everything, no doubt to your satisfaction. I have ordered other apartments for you, and in them you will find a trunk full of all the requisites for a change of garments. I had them made in Paris, judging your size by my own; you promised when a youth to be a tall man.”
“You are very considerate and kind,” said Lieutenant Thornton, surprised, but determined in his own mind to let things take their own course, and no longer to persist in thwarting the kind and generous efforts of his friends to serve him.
The next three or four days passed with our hero like magic. Monsieur Plessis was backwards and forwards at Havre, investigating the affair of the brigands. Madame Plessis he found an extremely agreeable, amiable woman, not more than six-and-thirty. With the two young ladies all restraint had vanished; Mademoiselle Julia was a lively and charming girl, with an abundance of agreeable chatter of Parisian life. She played the piano well, and sang all the newest Parisian opera airs, declaring at the same time that she was making the most of herself, and that as soon as he heard Mademoiselle de Tourville play and sing it would be all up with her. As yet Marie de Tourville had resisted all attempts to induce her to either touch the piano or harp; there was a singular timidity in her manner, a degree of agitation very evident to our hero, but unaccountable, when speaking or conversing with him.
However, when she addressed him, her voice was soft andeven affectionate, though there was less of freedom in her manner than in Julia’s.
The fourth or fifth day this restraint began to wear off. She received letters from Paris, her manner altered visibly, and her spirits seemed changed. She ventured to meet the dark eyes of our hero, and one evening he induced her to seat herself at the harp, and favour him with an Italian cansonetta.
Though her voice trembled a little at the commencement, it gradually gained power and depth, and its rich, full tones thrilled through the hearer’s heart. When concluded, Lieutenant Thornton sat actually enthralled, so powerfully had the tones of her voice awakened some dream of the past.
“Ah!” exclaimed Julia Plessis, “I told you, monsieur, how it would be; adieu to my performance. But I can bear it, for in truth, Marie, you have a marvellous flexibility, and a wonderful modulation of tone.”
“You so completely fascinated me, mademoiselle,” said Lieutenant Thornton, “that I was unable at once to express my delight and thank you; if there is any one accomplishment above all others that a female can possess to perfection, I love that of singing. It has always had a strange charm over me. I do think that even in the fiercest strife it would disarm me.”
“Well, that is strange,” said Madame Plessis, looking up from a piece of fancy work she was amusing herself with. “I knew a lady that became so powerfully affected by music when well and skilfully played, and the human voice added, that she invariably fainted.”
“Then I should think, mamma,” said Julia, laughing, “that she carefully shunned such sirens as Mademoiselle de Tourville.”
“No, indeed,” returned the mother, “music had such a fascination, that she eagerly sought the society of those who excelled in that accomplishment.”
“Which proved,” said our hero, with a smile, “that the pleasure exceeded the pain.”
Monsieur Plessis, as he sat with his new friend late that evening enjoying a glass of his favourite Burgundy, said—
“Do you know that that affair of the brigands is rather a strange one.”
“How so? have you not discovered where they came from, or where the rest of the rascals fled to?”
“No; in truth, the two dead men no one could recognise. Their attire was the same as the great band of fugitive Chouans that, driven out of Brittany two years ago, were massacred wherever they could be found by the Blues—as the Republican soldiers were then styled; pursued across the Seine above Honfleur, they dispersed themselves through Normandy, committing various depredations, but were supposed to have been finallyexterminated. There has been a general hunt after the rest of those brigands, but no trace of them is to be found.”
“Curious enough, in such a well-populated district as this,” said the Lieutenant. “However, as you escaped being plundered, it matters but little.”
“Yes, as it turned out,” said Jean Plessis. “The loss of the money would have been of no great moment; but I had very valuable papers relative to this estate of Coulancourt, and what is even of more consequence, Madame de Coulancourt, after some difficulty, a great deal of expense, and nearly two years’ delay, has procured certificates of her marriage with Monsieur Granby Arden, and also those of the birth, &c. &c., of her two children, Julian and Mabel; similar papers were lost, as you know, in the casket. By-the-by, that robbery of the contents of the casket was a most strange affair. When Madame de Coulancourt communicated it to me, I set out for Toulon, for I felt satisfied that the robbery was committed on board the ship you stayed so many hours in the night you had the care of Mademoiselle Arden. By patient and diligent inquiries and bribery, I found out that the two galley-slaves on board the vessel at that time were both remarkable men, who afterwards figured in the bloody scenes of the Reign of Terror. One perished under the axe of the guillotine, the other—the one I strongly suspect of committing the robbery—I cannot trace. With the fall of Robespierre he disappeared, and has not been heard of since. This man’s name was Vadier—Augustine Vadier; he was, before the Revolution broke out, a jeweller of great repute, in the Rue St. Pancras. He was famous for his skill in imitating precious stones of all kinds, and was a bad and dissipated man. It was discovered that some ladies of the court, who had sent their jewels to be re-set, were defrauded of the real gems and false ones substituted. Other frauds came out; he had false keys, could open cabinets and extract the contents in a most dexterous manner; and at last was brought to trial for stabbing one of his workmen, who threatened to betray him, and condemned to the galleys for life. He was sent to Toulon. When the galley-slaves got loose at the taking of that port by the English, this man made himself notorious after the evacuation, by his bloodthirsty revenge upon all aristocrats; got himself into favour with the infamous Feron and the younger Robespierre, rose into power under the elder, and then on his fall, as I before said, disappeared. This man, I suspect, was the robber of your treasure, for he was known to possess a large sum of money immediately after regaining his emancipation; he and the rest of the liberated slaves committed horrid massacres and robberies.”
“Very likely indeed,” remarked Lieutenant Thornton; “infact, there is no other way of accounting for the loss of the contents of the casket. Fortunately, Madame de Coulancourt has been able to replace the papers; had she failed, the loss would have been serious. I was going to ask you, Monsieur Plessis, why Mademoiselle de Tourville leaves France and seeks a home in England? that is, if my question is not indiscreet.”
“Not at all, monsieur; far from it. It is a very natural inquiry, as you will most likely be her companion on the journey. This young lady,” continued Jean Plessis, “is of good family, as I before said. She is an orphan, and I do not believe she has a relative in all France besides Madame de Coulancourt.”
“Then she is a connection of the late Duke de Coulancourt—as madame is an Englishwoman.”
“Such is the case. Unfortunately, she is not only left without relatives or friends, but actually without fortune of any kind. She has a horror of France, from what she witnessed and suffered, and she ardently longs to reach England, where she intends to exert her great musical talents for her support.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Lieutenant Thornton, looking with an expression of extreme astonishment into the face of the intendant. “Mademoiselle de Tourville, so young, so beautiful, so pure, and so amiable, thrown upon the heartless world of London!”
“Nay, nay,” interrupted Monsieur Plessis, laying his hand, with a smile, upon the lieutenant’s arm, “I say also, God forbid! Do not suppose for an instant, that the generous and noble-minded Madame de Coulancourt would permit such a course of life to her young and interesting relative. No, no, she will not; but it is now late; to-morrow I expect an important letter from madame, which will finally determine our future movements. When I receive the letter, you shall be made fully acquainted with everything.”