CHAPTER XXXVII.
Madame Coulancourt and Mabel beheld Monsieur Gramont ride down the avenue from the château with feelings difficult to describe.
“That horrid man,” said Mabel, “thought to terrify you, dear mother, into some compromise or promise, by acting on your feelings with respect to my brother’s safety. He stated a falsity when he said Julian was arrested. It’s impossible he could know anything about him; for Joseph assured us that he had crossed to the opposite side of the river before he left to return with the ponies.”
“I forgot that, dear girl; I was so startled by his saying he had discovered Louis Lebeau to be Julian. There must be some traitor or spy in the château; who can it be?”
“It must be Dedan, the girl from Dame Moret’s farm. Julia told me she had a lover to whom she was shortly to be married—a domestic in the house of Monsieur Gramont. She appears a kind, good-humoured girl. Oh! here is Julia.”
“Thanks to the Virgin,” said Julia, “they are gone, gendarmes and all; and only to think of it! it’s that girl Dedan who has done all the mischief. Here is my father, he will explain all.”
Monsieur Plessis and his wife entered the room; the latter looked pale and frightened.
“You look alarmed, Marie,” said Madame Coulancourt toher intendant’s good lady, and taking her hand they sat down on a sofa. “What makes you look so serious, now that we have, as dear Julian would say, weathered the storm?”
“I was so shocked,” returned Madame Plessis, “by the discovery of the treachery of that girl, who might have destroyed us all by her weak infatuation.”
“How did you discover her treachery, Jean Plessis?” said Madame. “For you cleverly turned the tables upon that designing man, Monsieur Gramont.”
“I had not the slightest idea,” said Jean Plessis, “when I left the château this morning that we had an enemy in the camp. We got to Havre to breakfast; I left Marie to make some purchases, and went to my appointment with Captain Bonafoux, the owner of the chasse-mare, and finally we arranged our terms and mode of proceeding; wishing to be back early, for fear Monsieur Gramont should visit the château. As I drove into the yard, the man, Antoine Dubois, was coming out of an outhouse. When he saw me, he hesitated, and thought to get out by a back way; but as I had given the girl Dedan strict injunctions not to receive her intended husband at the château, I followed the man, and he paused till I came up.
“‘What brought you here this morning, Dubois?’ I demanded. I knew the man well, for he is a native of this place, and never bore a very good character. He looked at me a moment and then said—‘If you will give me a hundred francs, Monsieur Plessis, and promise not to detain me or the girl Dedan, I will tell you news that may save you all from the clutches of Monsieur Gramont, who drove me out of his house two hours ago, and will be here, I expect, every moment.’ I was struck with the man’s manner, and aware how critical our situation is, I said, ‘I promise you; and if you really give me any intelligence that I consider of consequence, I will give you two hundred francs, and you and this girl Dedan, whom I suspect, shall be free to go where you like.’
“‘Well, then,’ said Dubois, ‘the two hundred francs are mine. The man that led the pretended robbers to plunder you the day you arrived here with the young demoiselles, is now lying wounded in Monsieur Gramont’s mansion; it was he who induced the coast-guard to endeavour to secure the two Englishmen you had hid in this château. He did so whilst Monsieur Gramont was gone to Paris; he wished to catch you all trying to escape, and then arrest you.’
“‘Do you know the wounded man’s name?’ I demanded.
“‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It is Vadier; he is a desperate jacobin. He told me I should have five hundred francs if I could get the girl Dedan to tell everything that passed in the château, and allshe heard; and though the girl was not willing, I at last induced her to do so.’
“I was struck at once by the name of Vadier. This, then, is the very Vadier, the galley slave, who stole the casket under the charge of the English midshipman.
“‘What did Monsieur Gramont go to Paris for?’ I questioned.
“‘To procure an order from Monsieur Fouché to arrest you all, and send you to Paris.’
“‘Then Monsieur Gramont was aware that this Vadier intended to plunder me as I travelled the road?’
“‘Certainly he was. It was planned between them; they wanted some papers you had.’
“‘Come,’ said I, ‘this intelligence is worth the two hundred francs; but, Antoine Dubois, you are a great rascal.’
“‘There are many more in the world,’ said the fellow, quite coolly; ‘that Vadier is one, and my late master another. They treated me scurvily, and so let them take the consequence.’
“‘If he catches you after this disclosure, he will make you pay for it.’
“‘Ah, ça! He must catch me first. Have I earned the money?’
“‘Yes,’ said I; ‘whether it will do you good or not I cannot say. There it is,’ and I gave it him. ‘Now, where are you going?’
“‘If you intend stating what I have told you to Monsieur Gramont,’ said Dubois, ‘you may say I am gone to Havre. I only require an hour’s start. You will let the girl Dedan go?’
“‘Yes. She is a bad girl; but you made her so. She shall be dismissed.’
“‘Well,’ said the man, doggedly; ‘may be so; but we are not so bad as those who tempted us. I detested the wretch Vadier, and I hope he will die of his wound; I wanted to quit service and to marry Dedan, and the five hundred francs tempted me.’”
“Do you think, Monsieur Plessis,” asked Mabel, “that they will be caught by Monsieur Gramont?”
“I rather think,” said Jean Plessis, “that he would prefer their escaping. I do not imagine he will look for them. What surprises me is, that he ventured to drive out of his employ a man who knew so much.”
“I suspect,” observed Julia, “that he acquired his knowledge of what he told you, father, from practising the same espionage upon his employers that he was paid or promised to be paid for spying upon us.”
“Very likely,” returned the intendant; “however, his intelligencewas of immense importance to me. It completely gave me the upper hand of Monsieur Gramont.”
“How do you intend to proceed?” said Madame Coulancourt. “I feel so very anxious about Julian.”
“He has done wisely in crossing to the other side of the river,” said Jean Plessis. “He did not go further than the village of ——, two leagues from here. We must, however, lose no more time, but act with all expedition. We have a shrewd enemy, and I believe if I had not known about this Augustine Vadier, he would have done much more than he will attempt now. To-morrow I will send down your luggage and travelling carriage to be embarked on board the chasse-mare; it will be a complete blind. It is nearly eighteen leagues to Rouen, and it will create no surprise your going there by water. Most travellers from Havre prefer it, for the sake of the scenery; and at present, owing to the recent disturbances, the roads are really dangerous. The day after to-morrow, therefore, madame, can you be ready?”
“As to that, we could be ready to-morrow evening,” said Mabel, “but with respect to Julian, how are we to manage?”
“There will be no difficulty. When off the coast we will take him on board. I shall send one of the crew of the boat to the village to stay and watch for us, and let Monsieur Julian know; the man will seek him, of course, under the name of Lebeau.”
“God grant,” said Madame Coulancourt, “that no untoward event may occur to mar your apparently well-laid plans!”
In the meantime Monsieur Gramont rode rapidly towards his own mansion, bitterly cursing the sagacity and foresight of Jean Plessis. He guessed at once how he had contrived to procure the protection of Barras and Fouché, both men playing into each other’s hands.
“He must,” muttered Bertram Gramont, “have sacrificed an immense sum to Barras, whose boundless extravagance is Universally known.”
Jean Nicholas Barras began life as a sub-lieutenant in the regiment of Languedoc, served a short time in India, became a determined revolutionist, and was one of those who voted for the death of the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth. His power and arbitrary will are well known, and he exercised them to enrich himself, caring little, so he kept up his boundless extravagance and gratified his inordinate vanity, whether he served the Republic or not. He kept his place till Bonaparte dispersed the existing government. Jean Plessis had in truth sacrificed a very large sum to Barras, besides the twenty thousand francs. He had also confessed that Madame Coulancourt’s daughter had arrived from England to remain with her mother.
“Showed she was a dutiful child,” said the director, “a couple of women cannot overturn the Republic. We do not war with the fair sex. Let them come up to Paris, and they shall have every protection. Monsieur Gramont has found a mare’s nest; that Englishman he spoke of, domiciled at Coulancourt, I dare say is a lover of Mademoiselle Arden. Fool enough to run the chance of a few years’ captivity for a smile from his ladye love, n’est ce pas?”
Monsieur Plessis assented, but gave no further explanation; and having obtained the passport expressly revoking the order of arrest given six or seven days previously by Fouché to Monsieur Gramont, he returned to Coulancourt, thus completely baffling Monsieur le Maire.
Bertram Gramont, on reaching his château, proceeded to the chamber of Augustine Vadier. That worthy had contrived to get up and dress himself, and was reclining back in a chair, with a bandage across his head, concealing the contusion and loss of his eye.
“Here’s a cursed botched piece of business from beginning to end!” said Bertram Gramont passionately, pacing the chamber backwards and forwards.
“Why, what has occurred now?” asked Vadier, anxiously. “I think I may say I am a sufferer.”
“Your own doings,” returned his accomplice, almost savagely; “you precipitated events. That cursed Jean Plessis has outwitted me; he has paid an immense sum to Barras and Fouché, and has come back from Paris with a most stringent passport. There is no disputing the purport, for it actually ensures the safety of mother and daughter to Paris, and they leave this to-morrow or the next day.”
“Diable!” muttered Vadier; “how do they go?”
“In a chasse-mare, I understand, to Rouen, or as far as they can by water.”
“And do you believe they will go to Paris?” said Vadier, looking with his remaining sinister optic into the flushed features of Bertram Gramont.
“And where else would you have them go?” returned the maire, pausing in his walk.
“Why, escape to England, after that cursed lieutenant in the English navy. They intended to go before he made his escape on board the corvette. Where’s the son, Julian?”
Bertram Gramont looked at his accomplice with a startled expression.
“By St. Nicholas! your idea is not a bad one, it’s possible. But do you know that Jean Plessis has discovered you are here, and also that it was you who stopped and attempted to rob him a month ago?”
“Tonnerre de diable! how is that?” exclaimed Augustine Vadier starting up, his one orb flashing with excitement. “Who betrayed me?”
“It’s deuced little consequence,” said Gramont, “because Plessis is not likely to make any advantage of his discovery. He used it against me, though, for he insinuated that I was your accomplice.”
“But who betrayed my retreat?” again demanded Augustine Vadier. “If the government knew I was here, or any where in France, they would have my head.”
“It’s only three parts of a head now,” replied his companion, with one of his sneering laughs. “But make yourself easy, they do not want heads; they would be content to send you to Cayenne; it’s a hot place, but——”
“Take care, Bertram Gramont,” interrupted the ci-devant galley slave, “that you do not carry your cursed propensity for joking too far; if I make a journey to Cayenne, it’s not unlikely but that you would keep me company.”
Bertram Gramont laughed outright.
“Diable! you are sensitive, mon ami. If I should have to keep you company we should still row in the same boat; come, come, be sensible.”
Augustine Vadier swallowed his ire, and again demanded how Jean Plessis had obtained his information about him.
“Through our own folly,” said Gramont. “I thought myself so secure in my projects, that it slipped my memory how unwise it was to turn that rascal Antoine Dubois out of my service, drunken and impudent as he was.”
“Antoine Dubois!” repeated Vadier, with intense surprise; “how did that villain find out my real name?”
“Ma foi! being employed as a spy taught him, no doubt, the trick of practising the trade at home. The rascal must have been acting the spy upon us, and, no doubt, picked up his information by listening, and, maybe, overhauling some of your papers.”
“Curse him! you open my eyes,” said Vadier, bitterly. “But no matter, let us consult what is to be done. Your matrimonial scheme did not answer, your finances are at the lowest ebb, and this day month if you do not pay one hundred and twenty-three thousand francs to Monsieur Marie-Claude-Sanglois, you must surrender this estate and château to be sold.”
“Well, I know that,” carelessly returned Bertram Gramont; “I want something fresh from you. Could you not forge me an order, signed by Madame Coulancourt, for one hundred thousand francs upon her banker?”
“No,” returned Vadier; “the failure in securing thosepapers Jean Plessis had in his possession throws us out. Her Paris banker has no such sum, depend on it; the bulk of her fortune is disposed of in some other way we have failed in finding out. Monsieur Barras, depend on it, has secured a goodly portion. No, you must still stick to convicting her of attempting flight from this country, the only way you can secure your ends.”
“Diable! she is going to Paris; if Sergeant Perrin fails in entrapping her son at Caudebee, I shall lose all power over her.”
“And are you so shallow as to suppose they will venture to Paris?” said Vadier, contemptuously. “When this affair of the Vengeance is known to the government it will make a stir, Barras will not be able to shield Madame Coulancourt, with all his power and love of gold; her participation and knowledge of the two Englishmen residing under the same roof with her is too palpable, she would be condemned. Depend on it, the whole party meditate flight to England; what is easier? You say they embark at Havre for Rouen in a chasse-mare, the captain of which is a notorious smuggler. Do not you think, for a sum of money, that fellow would run them over and land them on the coast of England?”
“By St. Nicholas! you are right, and if so, all will go well. I’ll catch them in the very act of flight, and then the game will be ours. You must get out of the way, for this Jean Plessis, when detected and caught, will bring his accusation against you.”
“I am not afraid,” replied Vadier, “it’s money I want. I shall go to Paris, there is another convulsion preparing, the jacobins are in force in the capital.”
“You will be a fool if you do,” retorted Bertram Gramont; “mark my word, Bonaparte will by and by upset all the Directors and their rules, annihilate the jacobin party, and establish a powerful military government. However, that’s your look-out; I shall go, to-morrow, to Havre, and make minute inquiries about the embarkation of madame, and then see Captain Gaudet and the owners of the Vengeance privateer, who are furious at her loss. I will have the Ca-Ira chasse-mare closely watched and followed, and if my suspicions are true, she shall be captured just as she clears the harbour. There will be no getting over that disaster, and perhaps Master Louis Lebeau may be a prisoner by that time. There is a very fine privateer, mounting fourteen guns, and one hundred and twenty-three men and officers in Havre, but this British cruiser outside is thought to be watching for her; the privateer is waiting for thick weather to get out. If Captain Gaudet can induce her commander to watch the mouth of the Seine, it’s impossible the chasse-mare can put to sea.”
“I would go on board myself, if I was in your place,” said Augustine Vadier. “Your triumph would be complete.”
“By all the saints! so it would,” said Bertram Gramont, exultingly; “it would repay me for the insult that rascal, Jean Plessis, inflicted on me this day. If your conjecture turns out right, and we catch them, nothing can save them from condemnation.”