CHANTEMERLE
First edition, . . . _August_ 1911.
_Reprinted_, . . . . _August_ 1911.
_Reprinted_, . . _September_ 1911.
_Reprinted_, . . . _October_ 1911.
CHANTEMERLE
_A ROMANCE OF THE VENDEAN WAR_
BY
D. K. BROSTER AND G. W. TAYLOR
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1911
“_Melius est nos mori in bello quam videre mala
gentis nostræ et sanctorum_”
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
PROLOGUE. SAINT LUCIAN’S DAY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
I. “MONSIEUR MON COUSIN” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
II. ON THE TERRACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
III. A LETTER AND A CONCLAVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
IV. PLAY AND POLITICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
V. A MENTOR FROM THE PROVINCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
VI. SOME RESULTS OF EARLY RISING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
VII. LUCIENNE LAUGHS AND CRIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
VIII. FURTHER OBSTINACY OF A CONSPIRATOR. . . . . . . . . . . 90
IX. _ET DONA FERENTES_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
X. THE VICOMTE FINISHES HIS TOILET . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
XI. “YOU ARE HIDING SOMETHING FROM ME!” . . . . . . . . . . 122
XII. GILBERT IS TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
XIII. “HOURS IN THE RAIN” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
XIV. CIRCE AND ULYSSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
XV. HAPPY REUNION OF TWO KINSMEN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
XVI. FAREWELL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
XVII. COMEDY OF A BURNT LETTER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
XVIII. THE ROAD TO POITOU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
XIX. CONCERNING A HANDKERCHIEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
XX. A KNIFE WITH TWO EDGES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
XXI. AT THE SIGN OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN . . . . . . . . . . . 227
XXII. “MONSIEUR MILET”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
XXIII. TRAVELS OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
XXIV. “I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
XXV. “OÙ PEUT-ON ÊTRE MIEUX QU’AU SEIN DE SA FAMILLE ?”. . . 272
XXVI. BELEAGUERED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
XXVII. HOUSEKEEPING OF THE VICOMTE AND THE CURÉ. . . . . . . . 298
XXVIII. LAND OF EXILE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
XXIX. “LES VEILLÉES DU CHÂTEAU” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
XXX. FEARS, HOPES AND MYSTIFICATIONS OF M. DES GRAVES. . . . 336
XXXI. WAX FLOWERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
XXXII. THE CUP BRIMS OVER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
XXXIII. AT THE FORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
XXXIV. SURGERY: THE PROBE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
XXXV. OUT OF NIGHT INTO THE NIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
XXXVI. SURGERY: THE KNIFE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
XXXVII. “CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME”. . . . . . . . . 401
XXXVIII. THE SWORD IS DRAWN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
XXXIX. THE FOUR ROADS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
XL. THE FIGHT AT THE BRIDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
XLI. SURRENDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
XLII. PEACE AT THE LAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
XLIII. _ULTIMA FORSAN_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
XLIV. THE SECOND CHRISTMAS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
XLV. THERMOPYLÆ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
XLVI. WRECKAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
XLVII. HOW A VOW WAS KEPT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
XLVIII. MANY WAYS—AND ALL STEEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
XLIX. VIOLETS ONCE MORE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
EPILOGUE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
CHANTEMERLE
PROLOGUE
SAINT LUCIAN’S DAY
“That day of days when hand-in-hand became
Encircling arms, and with an effluent flame
Of terrible surprise we knew Love’s lore.”
—WILLIAM BELL SCOTT, _Parted Love_.
It was a large room, a room in a palace grown to be a prison in all
but name. A bright fire crackled on the hearth at one end, the
firelight danced on the walls, the dusk drew on, and a girl looked out
of the window at the whirling snowflakes.
She stood in the embrasure of the window farthest from the door,
leaning her head against the glass, and her pose suggested that she
was in a daydream. On this January afternoon of 1792 the Tuileries
seemed deserted. Outside, in the great empty garden, the trees stood
up black and bare, for the snow was not settling on them. And though
the girl’s eyes followed the snowflakes, her thoughts were probably
much further away, for she did not hear the door open, nor turn until
she was conscious of a footfall behind her.
In front of her stood a young man. His hands were full of violets. It
was light enough for her to see perfectly his handsome, smiling
face, and for him, though she had her back to the window, to notice,
if he chose, how the wild-rose of her cheek was enhanced by the
deep mourning which she wore. Apparently the two knew each other
intimately, for no greeting passed between them save a smile.
“Are those for me?” asked the girl as one who has no doubt of
the answer, and she half held out her hands. “I thought you had
forgotten.”
“Have I ever forgotten your name-day?” he retorted. “You should have
had them this morning to greet you, but I was on guard, and promised
myself the pleasure of bringing them in person.” He placed the
fragrant mass in her two hands, and as he did so he caught one lightly
by the wrist and kissed it. “Your subject offers his belated homage,”
he said gaily.
A slow, beautiful colour mounted to the girl’s cheek, and she laid her
face in the violets to cool it. “They are exquisite,” she said in a
low voice. “They are more beautiful than—than some of my gifts
to-day.”
The giver shook his head. “Those others must be worth very little,
then, if my poor flowers can surpass them. You are flattering me,
Lucienne.”
For answer the girl laid down her burden on a small table near her.
“You shall see,” she said merrily, and, drawing from her pocket a
shagreen case of some size, she opened it. “I know that I ought not to
make comparisons, but surely your violets are more beautiful than
this?”
The young man looked with a critical expression upon its contents.
“Yes,” he admitted at length. “I do not care for cameos myself,
though if size is a criterion of value it should be a magnificent one.
The Marquise, I suppose?”
The girl nodded as she snapped to the case. “She says it is an
heirloom. But I like violets better than heirlooms.”
“And what has Gilbert sent you—no, I see it on your finger. May I
look?”
She held out her hand without answering, and the firelight caught the
single magnificent ruby as she did so. Her companion did not take her
hand.
“That,” he said gravely, “is a royal gift. I wonder still more at my
presumption in making so worthless an offering, for my flowers won’t
even last, like my aunt’s cameo.” And in his tone there was faint but
unmistakable bitterness.
“But while they last they are better, and when they are dead you can
bring me some more. I sometimes think,” went on the girl a trifle
feverishly, fastening a handful of the violets in her breast, “I
sometimes think that flowers have souls as we have.”
“I don’t think that they have anything so annoying,” returned the
young man. “You would not like them so much if they had. . . . May I
have one or two back again?”
She held out a few of the dark blossoms, and he put them silently into
his coat, looking the while not at her, but at the ruby on her finger.
“You are standing all this time,” he said abruptly when he had
finished, “and it grows cold here. Shall we talk a moment by the fire?
I must not stay long.”
The girl moved away at once. A little shiver had indeed gone over her,
and she had quite lost the colour of a few moments ago, and more
besides. “You are going to the King, perhaps?” she hazarded over her
shoulder as he followed her to the fireplace.
“No; to Bertrand-Moleville, if I can find him. I hardly saw a soul
as I came up. Where is everybody—where is Madame de Fontenelle—and why
are you alone? It is very rare to find you so!”
“The Princess is in her oratory, and will probably be there for some
time. Madame de Fontenelle, poor old thing, has a bad _migraine_, and
I think that Madame de Lessay, who is in waiting to-day, is receiving
her brother.”
“I see. And what is your news from Chantemerle?”
“Nothing in particular,” replied the girl. The ruddy light from
the fire smote upwards on her beautiful, dreamy face. “The Marquise
is well, and Gilbert is building some new cottages. He writes
that—that——”
“That he would rather you did not stay here much longer,” finished the
young man, looking hard at her.
“Yes,” assented the girl indistinctly, dropping her head.
“He is perfectly right,” said Gilbert’s cousin. “Sooner or later you
will have to leave the Court. The Princess Elisabeth, too, will
insist.” His tone was almost hard, and she looked up with a dawn of
surprise.
“Oh, not yet, Louis! There is no danger; no one would harm the
Princess. Surely you do not think I need go yet?”
“You should not ask me,” answered the young man slowly in a low voice.
He seemed to pick his words from a host of others ready on his lips,
looking on the ground the while. “I have no—no right to advise you,
and . . . and . . . Lucienne!”
The name burst from him on a cry, for they had both looked up, and
with the meeting of their eyes all pretence was over between them. The
next instant she was in his arms, and her lips met his, while all the
little stucco Cupids round the cornice smiled down, in the half-dusk
and the firelight, at the foolish mortals who had resolved that they
would never betray their hearts to each other.
“Lucienne, my love, my love!” murmured the young man passionately.
“Oh, I never thought . . . I never meant to tell you. . . . Shut your
eyes, and let me kiss them . . . your hair smells of violets. . . .”
“Louis, Louis!” said the girl, trying, after a moment, to free
herself, “what are we doing?—Oh, what are we doing?”
“What we were always meant to do, my heart,” said he hardily. “No, I
shall not let you go. I will never let you go again, little love. But
we will both leave France—and in England——”
“Louis, Louis, don’t break my heart! You know we can’t!” And,
abandoning her attempt at loosing herself, and clinging all the
closer, she broke into pitiful sobbing.
His arms only closed round her the firmer. “Don’t cry, my darling! Of
course we can. The Abbé Moustier—you remember him—is in Paris just
now; I know where he lodges. He can marry us at once—to-morrow, if you
like, at the Recollets. Then, when I have procured a passport, which
is the only obstacle to getting away at once——”
“Louis . . . you know that there is another!” she gasped. “Gilbert
. . . we can’t—you know we can’t!”
A change passed over her lover’s face; it set and hardened. “My God!”
he broke out fiercely, “why should we consider Gilbert? What is his
claim compared to mine? What is his happiness compared to yours—his,
who has never known what it is to love, else he could never have left
you so long unclaimed? Gilbert is nothing to us.” And he kissed her
again.
“O Louis . . . for God’s sake let me go! You don’t know what you are
doing!”
“I do know very well,” returned the young man. “I am going to take you
away from Gilbert. . . . Have I frightened you, my heart? You know
that for Heaven itself I would not harm you. There!” He loosed his
hold, and she was free.
“Louis . . . you cannot, you dare not do such a thing!”
“Do you think that I am afraid of Gilbert?” he asked.
She put both her hands on his folded arms. “No, Louis, not of him, nor
of any man—but of dishonour.”
Something that was not the best part of him leapt into the young
man’s eyes as he looked down at her with a sudden little smile. “The
dishonour won’t be mine, Lucienne!”
She shrank away at that, and covered her face with her hands. “And he
is your cousin—your friend,” she murmured.
“What of that? Does that give him a claim to dispose of both our
lives? He is not your husband, Lucienne. What is it that you were
affianced to him since you were a child—before you were old enough to
have even a nominal choice? Is it such a crime, then, to have loved
you, when I have known you as long as he, when I have seen you
constantly for years—more often, perhaps, than he has done? Look at
me and answer!” Gently but firmly he pulled away her hands.
“It may not be a crime,” she said. “I cannot tell . . . O Louis, what
am I to say to you . . . for you know what I would give that it might
come true—but it is . . . treachery.”
Dominated as he was by his passion, the young man slowly changed
colour. “Treachery is a big word, and a disastrous,” he said after a
moment. “Will it—will my wife call me traitor?”
“She will call herself so,” said the girl faintly.
“Listen, Lucienne,” said her lover, catching her hands. “Treachery be
it, then! I do not care. I love you too much to consider honour. Of
two things one must choose the best. I choose you, and my honour shall
go.” He had her in his arms again, and kissed her hair with a
dangerous quietness. The plaster Loves smiled at each other, for they
had known that they would win, and the struggle only entertained them,
since it would grace their victory the better.
The girl lifted a white face. “Louis, I conjure you . . . he trusts
you, he trusts us. He has always trusted us, nobly, generously——”
“Are you going to sing Gilbert’s praises to me?”
“—Generously and fully. You have been boys together—we cannot do this.
It is like stabbing him in the back. O Louis, dear Louis, you know I
would come with you if I could—you do not think it is easy for me
either, do you, Louis? . . . You know that I love you with all my
heart . . . but I can’t do it. . . . Mary Mother! help me—help
him!” Her eyes closed; her hands, imprisoned as she was, joined
themselves. And for the second time the young man, now nearly as
white as she, let her go.
“I want no saints between us, Lucienne,” he said, very low. “You
are saint enough for me. . . . And you have no need to invoke
angelic protection against me; you have had it, I think, these many
months . . . else you would have known before to-day what I never
meant to tell you even now, God knows!”
The sudden agony in his voice showed the girl that the day was not yet
lost. Still there was time for the anguish of victory. But was it not
for defeat that her soul cried out? . . . Not till now did she realise
that under this strife of the heart there lay a jewelled picture in
her mind—the little chapel at the Recollets, the decked altar, the
priest bending over two figures that knelt there side by side. It
flashed up now, warm and brilliant, flashed and faded as she turned
away, falteringly crossed the room, and sank down on the brocaded
cushions of the couch.
Her lover looked up and slowly followed her out of the firelight. “Is
this to be the end of the dream, then?” he asked huskily.
She whispered “Yes” almost inaudibly, and catching at his hand carried
it to her lips. He pulled it instantly away, and the lace at his
wrist, catching on a bracelet, tore. “Don’t do that!” he exclaimed,
“if you want this to be the end. . . . My God, how _can_ it!”
She only said, with a little gasp: “Your ruffle is torn. I am
sorry . . .”
And he stood staring at her, as, white as a lily, she sat there
propped by the cushions, her hands idle and open on her lap, and
seemed scarcely to see him. Then he turned away without a word and
went slowly to the fireplace.
The girl sat looking with anguished eyes at the figure thrown up dark
against the firelight, and the bent brown head over which showed on
the marble the carved lilies of France. There was nothing dramatic in
his attitude; he seemed to be examining his torn lace . . . a long
time.
Suddenly all the Amorini grew grave, crowded together, and looked down
from their coigns in alarm. The young man had turned away from the
hearth. His face was very drawn; his eyes, that they and she had
always known so gay and kind, were steel-bright and hopeless. He came
straight across the room and dropped on his knees beside the girl.
“God knows,” he said hoarsely, “I never meant that you should
know. God knows I have struggled against it. If things had been
different. . . . Lucienne, at least kiss me once more!”
Unnaturally calm now, she took his upturned face in her hands.
“Louis, he trusts us,” she said simply, and stooped her lips to his.
“Now go,” she said less assuredly. “Go, Louis. . . .”
“Before you have time to repent,” said he bitterly. “I shall repent
all my life. God! what a fool I am being—and all for a word called
honour!”
“Dear, dear Louis,” said the girl, half maternal, half frightened, “it
is more than that. Oh, believe me, how could we ever be happy together
if——”
“Better than we can be happy apart!” he broke in. “But you are right,
Lucienne; it is not, after all, for a word; it is for Gilbert himself.
If it had been any other man. . . . I wish it were, I wish it were!”
“Yes, he trusts us,” she repeated again. “And he must never know.”
“No, he must never know. But I shall love you, my darling, all my life
long. And sometimes—very rarely, of course”—he tried to smile—“you
will think of me. . . . And, meanwhile, I shall still see you
sometimes.”
“But not often,” she said. “O Louis, not often! It would not be
right—I could not bear it. . . . I think I would rather never see you
again.” Two great tears ran down her cheeks and lay like dew on the
violets at her breast.
All the Cupids on the ceiling stiffened back to their places, and
pretended that they had never taken any interest.
CHAPTER I
“MONSIEUR MON COUSIN”
“ROXANE. Il faut que je revoie en vous le . . . presque frère,
Avec qui je jouais, dans le parc—près du lac !
CYRANO. Oui, vous veniez tous les étés à Bergerac ! . . .
ROXANE. C’était le temps des jeux. . . .
CYRANO. Des murons aigrelets. . . .
ROXANE. Le temps où vous faisiez tout ce que je voulais ! . . .”
—ROSTAND, _Cyrano de Bergerac_. Act II. Sc. vi.
On a certain bleak March afternoon of the year 1774 a solemn,
long-legged boy of ten or eleven sat curled up in a window-seat of his
father’s château of Chantemerle in Poitevin Vendée, and pressed his
nose wistfully against the cold panes. The rain, on the wings of a
fitful wind, hurled itself in blurring gusts against the glass, and
even hissed now and then on the glowing logs of the great hearth. But
the owner of the motionless black head, with its neat ribbon and
queue, was not watching for a chance of going out, nor even wishing
that the rain would cease; he was awaiting, between doubt and desire,
the greatest change of his short young life.
Gilbert-Octavien-Félix-Anne de Chantemerle, Comte de Château-Foix, was
an only child, and he had never left the house of his birth, nor had
he seen many persons from the outside world come into it—and never one
of his own age. To the society of his elders he was well accustomed,
owing to it the greater part of his serious demeanour. He had been
educated at first chiefly by his father, the student, the follower of
the newer lights, and latterly also by the Curé of the parish, who
held with the _philosophe_ Marquis a friendship of a very old and
tried intimacy. Gilbert was, perhaps, equally fond of both his
instructors. When he played—which was seldom—he played alone; but he
was not unhappy, and he had no idea that he was lonely. Diligent at
his lessons, obedient though not docile to authority, he had one
kingdom of which he was absolute master—that of his dreams and his
books. He desired no other.
But now everything was changed. He would work and play alone no
longer. It was a thought half sad, half delightful, but most of all
perplexing, for what would he be like, this mysterious kinsman and
playmate? Even Gilbert’s father knew very little about him. The
motherless only child of the Marquis’ favourite cousin, confided by
the latter on his death-bed to the care of M. de Château-Foix, the boy
was not altogether acceptable to the Marquise. But she had to yield to
her husband in the matter. Château-Foix did not wish the young Vicomte
de Saint-Ermay to be brought up in Paris, where his mother’s relatives
were on the way to secure over him an influence which the Marquis did
not consider desirable. Like a wise woman, Madame de Château-Foix made
in the end something of a virtue of this necessity, and she was really
prepared to give the small stranger a warm welcome.
The preparation of that welcome indeed, in the more material sense,
had but this moment engaged her when she came down the staircase to
await the travellers in the hall. The Marquis had been to Paris to
fetch his small relative and was to bring him in the diligence as far
as Pouzauges, where his own coach would meet him.
Madame de Château-Foix was a very handsome woman, to whom the term
“beautiful” had never been applied. For her years, which were short of
forty, she had, possibly, a too majestic port. Wearing her powdered
hair in the very high and narrow style of the prevailing fashion, and,
for the provinces, somewhat elaborately dressed, she came down the
staircase gently chafing her hands.
“How chilly it is!” she said, as she reached the bottom. “Are you not
catching cold there, Gilbert?”
“No, thank you, mamma; I am quite warm,” replied the boy, without
turning his head.
His mother rustled softly along the hall to the fireplace. She was
restless; the arrival of this little boy meant so much—so much,
perhaps, of change; more, she was sure, than her husband seemed to
realise.
“Come here, Gilbert,” she said suddenly.
The boy slipped obediently off the window-seat. He was not a
good-looking nor even a particularly attractive child, but he was tall
for his age, and well grown.
The Marquise put her hands on his shoulders and surveyed him for a
moment; then she kissed him. “You quite understand, do you not,
Gilbert, about your cousin? He is to be a new brother for you, and you
are always to treat him as if he were your own younger brother, and
make him feel that this is his home. But . . . remember, my dear boy,”
her voice trembled a little, “remember that your father and mother
love you none the less dearly because—because your cousin Louis is
coming to live here; and remember, too, that he has no father nor
mother of his own.”
“Yes, mamma,” said the boy, making no allusion to the thousand
queries and surmises with which his own mind was filled. His mother
kissed him again, and, released, he went slowly back to his post.
But hardly had he got there before he called out with real boyish
excitement: “Here they come! here they come! They’re in the straight
bit of the avenue—and Jean-Baptiste is so wet. I can see the rain
running off his hat in a stream!”
A moment or two later the domestics were opening the heavy doors to
admit, from a background of torrential rain, a tall man leading by the
hand a small figure wrapped about in a cloak. Muffled as this was, it
extricated a hand on the threshold, and punctiliously plucked off its
hat, revealing a curly, golden-brown head. The Marquise swept to meet
the two.
“Here we are,” said her husband cheerfully, uttering the instinctive
banality of most arrivals. He kissed Madame de Château-Foix’ fingers,
and then her cheek. “And here is the celebrated traveller,” he added,
putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder and bringing him forward.
“Louis, here is your aunt, who is very glad to see you.”
A little to the Marquise’s discomfiture—for she was prepared to clasp
him in her arms—the small newcomer made her a profound bow. As he
raised himself from his salute she saw, with a pang at her heart, that
he was without exception the most beautiful boy on whom she had ever
set eyes. He had to the life the head of Greuze’s “Espièglerie”—a face
of beauty and mischief—and as Madame de Château-Foix met the gaze of
the sparkling grey eyes with their dark lashes, and saw the curves of
the youthful mouth, she realised that the Fates had assigned to her
lot that difficult if attractive task, a high-spirited child. But, as
with most of her sex, the charm of childish beauty was too strong
either for maternal jealousy or for premonition of future struggles,
and she went down on her knees, and, clasping the boy to her breast,
kissed him warmly.
Gilbert had stood in the background, a silent spectator, but as his
mother rose he came forward of his own accord, and half shyly, half
composedly held out his hand, and said: “Welcome, Cousin Louis.”
When the child had been taken upstairs, and Gilbert had vanished in
the same direction, the Marquis looked enquiringly at his wife.
“He is a beautiful boy,” said she slowly.
“And a very bright one,” returned M. de Château-Foix. “I assure you,
he has proved an excellent travelling companion.”
“And as a companion for Gilbert?” queried the Marquise.
“He should do him all the good in the world,” responded her husband
promptly. “Gilbert wants rousing; you know my views about him,
Félicité. Louis is—let me see—just about two years younger than he. I
don’t know what sort of an education he has had—probably a somewhat
fragmentary one, since his father died, at least—but if it is at all
possible for them to have lessons together, the stimulus may be of
great gain to Gilbert. We must see what M. des Graves says.”
The Marquise gave a little sigh. “It will all be so different,” she
said regretfully.
“Of course it will, my love,” said the Marquis cheerfully. “I hope
it will also be better. It is not good for children to play alone.”
And, taking his leave of his wife, he went to change his travelling
clothes, while Madame de Château-Foix slowly made her way to the
apartment of the new arrival. She found him, perfectly undisturbed by
the grave and speculating gaze of Gilbert, chatting confidentially to
the old nurse who was brushing out his curls.
* * * * * *
Between ten and eleven the next morning Madame de Château-Foix espied
from the window the cassocked form of M. des Graves coming up the
avenue, and she also saw her husband go to meet him, as he often did.
From the time of their marriage the Marquis had been wont to speak
with pride of a long-trusted friend, who was at once a priest and
a man of the great world. His name, she knew, promised to be an
illustrious one, and it was whispered that the Papal Court had more
than once offered him preferment. But she had never met him until the
influence which she had always vaguely felt became a reality. When
Gilbert was a boy of six or seven this courtier-priest—for such she
had always pictured him—accepted, to her amazement, the living of
Chantemerle. For what reason Sébastien des Graves had been content to
take upon himself the duties of an obscure village curé she could not
guess, and her husband, whom she naturally suspected of knowing,
preserved an impenetrable silence on the point.
The Marquise suddenly unfastened the window and stepped out on to the
flight of steps which led down to the garden. The two men saw her,
and, leaving the gravel, made their way over the wet grass. A clear
sky had followed on yesterday’s rain, and the birds were singing.
“Good-morning, Father,” she said as they began to ascend the steps.
“Your new pupil is already in the library with Gilbert awaiting you.”
“Not with apprehension, I trust,” returned the priest, smiling. His
clearly-cut features were of the type generally associated with the
statesman-ecclesiastic. The lines about his mouth, stern almost to
harshness, seemed to denote the churchman of high place; it was only
the depth of kindness in the eyes which betokened the parish priest to
whom no one ever looked in vain. Of middle height and powerful build,
he betrayed his forty-two years only by a slight sprinkling of white
on his hair.
The Marquis de Château-Foix laughed. “I don't think, Sébastien, that
you will find Louis unduly timorous.”
The preceptor found him, on the other hand, endowed by nature with a
very healthy aversion to Latin grammar. However, he was quick, and
quite reasonably docile, and M. des Graves announced, to the Marquis’
satisfaction, that, at the price of a little extra attention, the two
boys could do the same lessons.
A week, a fortnight passed away in great harmony. Gilbert gave his
new playmate a much-valued puppy, and lent him his pony. Madame de
Château-Foix began to relax her slightly jealous maternal attitude
and to feel that all was for the best, since the two got on so well
together.
Announcement of a disagreement, however, was formally made to her one
morning. “If it please Madame la Marquise, Monsieur le Comte and
Monsieur le Vicomte are fighting in the Italian garden. We cannot find
Monsieur le Marquis, and Monsieur le Curé has not come up yet.”
Annoyed and a little apprehensive, Madame de Château-Foix went down
to separate the combatants, but found the conflict virtually over.
Gilbert, looking very hot and untidy, but not particularly elated or
vindictive, was standing, in shirt and breeches, watching his cousin,
who, sitting on the curved stone bench amid the empty flower-beds, was
holding an ensanguined handkerchief to his face. Stains of the same
hue were discernible all down the front of his shirt.
The Marquise was seriously alarmed. “Gilbert! what have you done?” she
exclaimed.
“It’s only his nose,” replied her son callously. “It makes a mess, but
it doesn’t mean anything, you know.”
“I am ashamed of you,” said Madame de Château-Foix severely, “bitterly
ashamed. How can you ill-treat a boy smaller and younger than yourself
in this disgusting fashion?”
“He hasn’t been ill-treating me,” expostulated Louis through his
handkerchief. “I have hit him too, haven’t I, Gilbert? Look at his
eye!”
The Marquise did look, but her inexperience received more enlightenment
a day or two later, when her son was going about with an eye round
which many shades strove for the mastery, and when Louis’ shapely
little nose also retained a decidedly swollen appearance. The
Marquis laughed when he saw these signs, and pooh-poohed his wife’s
remonstrances.
And indeed the two boys, considering their great dissimilarity of
character, were unusually good friends. The small Vicomte, as his
relatives soon discovered, was endued with a temper which was rarely
ruffled. He never sulked, as Gilbert sometimes did, nor, in spite of
his high spirits, did he often fly into a rage—partly, perhaps,
because he seemed to get what he wanted with so little trouble. For in
a quite unassertive and natural way he tyrannised over Gilbert, who,
finding himself in the position of a host, continued to bestow on him
delightedly many of his choicest treasures. It was the same with the
menials, who adored Monsieur le Vicomte with a worship which their
sense of what was due to Monsieur le Comte obliged them to keep within
bounds.
Conscious of the bondage into which the household was gradually
falling, and having approached her husband with small satisfaction,
the Marquise one day confided to M. des Graves her fear that Louis was
getting spoilt.
The Curé asked her for a definition of a spoilt child.
“I mean a child to whom every one gives way,” she answered. “Now Louis
is so attractive that one gives him all he wants—and surely that is
not good for him, Father?”
“Does he seem to you any the worse for it, Madame?” asked the Curé,
with a little smile.
Madame de Château-Foix was constrained to confess that he did not, but
added that she could not suppose that he would remain indefinitely
unharmed.
The priest took a turn about the long library, where his pupils’
lesson-books were still scattered on the table. “I have a theory about
Louis, Madame,” he said, looking at her in his rather masterful
fashion. “Time may show me that I am wrong, but I believe the boy to
be one of those rare—those very rare—natures, for whom it is good to
be happy.”
The Marquise was shocked. “Good for children to have what they want!”
she exclaimed, bringing the particular down to the general.
“And for grown-up people too, Madame,” returned the priest with
hardihood. “Sometimes. But such people are rare.”
“Fortunately!” ejaculated Madame de Château-Foix indignantly, and did
not pursue the conversation, but retired to reflect on the ridiculous
ideas possessed by the two members of her court of appeal—the
doctrinaire and the celibate. She must take her own stand, and Louis
should not be spoilt. But spoilt he was, for all that.
* * * * * *
And thus the days went on to late summer, when a third person, as yet
mute, or practically so, appeared upon the stage. Like most landowners
in Vendée, the Marquis de Château-Foix possessed a home farm close to
the Château, much frequented by his son and nephew—for as such Louis,
though strictly his cousin, was always considered. One afternoon, when
the corn was being threshed in the great courtyard of this building,
Gilbert, with his hands in his pockets, and something the air of the
future owner, was standing very seriously watching the operation. The
flails rose and fell rhythmically, the farm hands carried off the
chaff in cloths and piled it in a great heap, occasional chickens made
assaults upon the grain, and the golden afternoon air enshrined
everything. Gilbert looked up at a shout. Another laden ox-cart was
coming in under the archway, and it was Louis, in the enjoyment of a
seat more precarious than comfortable on one of the oxen, who had
hailed him.
“Ah, get down now, Monsieur Louis!” said Beaudrier, the Marquis’
farmer, as the teamster put his long goad in front of the beasts’
noses and brought their leisurely progress to a stop. “You’ll be
killing yourself one of these days, and the bullocks aren’t accustomed
to it, neither!”
“I can’t,” retorted the boy, laughing. “O Beaudrier, if you knew how
slippery their backs are! But I suppose you have not ridden one for a
long time.”
“Take Monsieur le Vicomte down,” said Beaudrier, himself the father of
fourteen children, with a smile to the teamster. But Louis slipped off
and ran up to Gilbert.
“Who is it that is coming this evening?” he asked. “My uncle has gone
off to Pouzauges to meet somebody, and ever so many bedrooms are being
got ready.”
“I expect,” said Gilbert, considering, “that it is Madame d’Aucourt.
It is about the time that she generally comes.”
“Does she always come?” enquired his cousin. “Who is she? Will she
stay long?”
“She is a friend of mamma’s,” Gilbert informed him. “Yes, she comes
every year, and she stays about two months. Last time she brought a
baby.”
“A what!” exclaimed Louis. The young hen that he had just captured
uttered protests against the tightness of his interested grip.
“A baby—a child.”
“Why?”
“Why?” repeated his senior scornfully. “How stupid you are, Louis!
Because it belongs to her, I suppose, and she likes to have it with
her. I shouldn’t. It only cries.”
Louis released his chicken. “Do all babies cry?”
“I don’t know. Yes; the one Madame Beaudrier has just now does.”
“Then that’s why people don’t like having babies,” said Louis, with
the air of having solved a long-standing problem. “I have so often
wondered why M. de Larny—my uncle in Paris, you know—was so very angry
when Mademoiselle Claire, his sister, had one. He talked about it a
lot, and said it was a disgrace, and sent it away, I think.”
“That is nonsense,” said Gilbert loftily, “because only married people
have babies.”
“It’s not nonsense,” retorted Louis earnestly. “It’s quite true.
Mademoiselle de Larny cried, and my aunt too. I remember it quite
well.” Indeed the reminiscences with which the Vicomte, occasionally
and quite innocently, regaled the family dinner-table had sometimes to
be checked in mid-career. That tendency afforded the Marquise deep
cause for thankfulness at her husband’s act in removing him from his
Parisian surroundings.
“You can’t remember what’s impossible,” said Gilbert with decision.
“You made a mistake—or else you’re inventing. You were only a little
boy then.”
“I was not a little boy!” retorted Louis, flushing. “It was only last
year. I shall ask my aunt.” He went off whistling, tried to induce one
of the men to lend him a flail, and then returned to his cousin to
announce confidentially that he intended to teach the baby to ride a
bullock.
It was fortunate for the Comtesse d’Aucourt that her daughter was as
yet too young really to run any risk of undergoing this instruction.
Louis found to his annoyance that a child of two years old is scarcely
steady enough on its legs to be a reliable playmate, and is, moreover,
never to be met without a nurse in attendance. Yet for a time
Mademoiselle Lucienne was as interesting as a new kitten, and he
smiled on her even when she plunged tenacious hands into his curls.
Since, after all, she cried very little, he was once more reduced to
speculation as to the grounds on which the possession of so pleasing
a toy could ever be deprecated. Having no fear of strangers he applied
to Madame d’Aucourt for enlightenment, but she referred him to the
Marquise, and Madame de Château-Foix put him off with that annoying
evasion that he would “know when he was older.” Louis then tried to
pin down his aunt to a statement of the epoch when he should be
considered to have attained the desired longevity—next year, when he
would be nine?—the year after, then? He failed in his attempt, but not
until the Marquise had been driven nearly desperate in her efforts to
elude him.
The Comtesse d’Aucourt, lady-in-waiting to the Princess Adelaide, the
new King’s aunt, had been a friend of Madame de Château-Foix since
convent days. If she were able to leave her post at Court she paid the
Marquise a visit every year. It was by her that intimate news of
Versailles came to the Château, and she had this year a budget of more
interest than usual—all the particulars of the old King’s death in
May. The two boys, quick to realise that she came from a world other
than theirs, would demand to be told again how the beautiful Austrian
Dauphine looked now that she was Queen of France, or how M. d’Aucourt,
at present away as envoy at one of the smaller German courts, had
escaped from the Indians when as a young man he fought in Canada with
Vaudreuil and Montcalm. The Comtesse became in some sort installed as
a story-teller to them, in the September evenings, round the fire,
with Louis cross-legged on the floor and Gilbert leaning against his
mother’s chair; or under the mulberry tree in the afternoon, when
Louis would be flat on the grass at her feet, his own kicking
occasionally in the air and his lips black with mulberries. The
faint, rather wearied air that always clung to her, the little
gestures of her beautiful hands, her clear, delicate enunciation with
its undertone of fatigue, remained for years with Gilbert as a kind
of embodiment of a life that seemed so far away and at times so
attractive.
Then the Comtesse left, and it was winter, with fresh delights; when
the execrable, lane-like roads of Vendée were impassable, and with the
coming of the snow one could play, with much semblance of reality, at
being besieged. Then the days began to get longer, and the birds sang
again, and it would soon be summer once more, the best time of all.
And the days were like the year: the morning, when one did one’s
lessons, was the Spring, because, though it was pleasant, there were
more agreeable things to come; and those things happened in Summer,
which was the afternoon; and the evening was the Autumn, because,
though warded off with stories, bed-time was approaching; and bed,
which meant night, was Winter. And the morning was Spring again. . . .
But who can compile the almanac of a happy childhood? Day followed
day, week fled after week; where the fields had been crowned with
rippling yellow they stood shorn, were brown to the ploughshare, were
white with frost, were green again with young life. Then, suddenly as
it seemed, it all came to an end, for Gilbert was sixteen, and it was
high time for him to begin the military education usual to his age and
rank.
Though a dreamy boy, he had grown up not unconscious of his own claims
upon the world or of his position as one who would some day exact
obedience. With powers of thought developed beyond his years, he had
not so much the making of a scholar as of a student and lover of men.
Under a heaviness which might almost have been mistaken for sullenness
of disposition, there lurked possibilities of imagination and of power
which none but M. des Graves guessed, and he kept his own counsel. But
those who had eyes to see might have noticed that Gilbert received
severer censure for any show of idleness in his studies than ever did
Louis for a similar (and infinitely more frequent) offence. The priest
was very thoughtful on the day that the marquis told him how few weeks
more were left to him of his elder pupil, although he had always known
of the career for which Gilbert was destined.
Gilbert, as well as M. des Graves, had long been aware that he was
going to the military academy at Versailles. Of another arrangement he
was still ignorant. His parents had already selected his future wife
in the person of the little girl, now aged seven, with whom he had
sometimes played. The match had made itself. The Marquis had always
an affection for Lucienne, and the now widowed Madame d’Aucourt
desired a closer union with the family of her old friend. The nine
years’ difference between the ages of the prospective bride and
bridegroom was approved, and Lucienne’s dowry, as an only child, was
satisfactory. Gilbert received the news with equanimity; the day when
he should marry seemed very far off, obscured behind the peaks of the
new life upon which he was entering. For the rest, he was fond of the
child.
For a little while Louis remained behind at Chantemerle to struggle
with the Latin authors, to plague and charm the servants as of yore,
and to look enviously at his cousin when he came home in his new
uniform. Then the influence of his mother’s relatives procured him a
place in the royal pages, preparatory to his entering the bodyguard,
and the Château fell into a quietude which it had never known since
his advent on that March afternoon seven years before. A child,
however, still woke the echoes in the garden every summer. Till her
tenth year Gilbert’s destined bride paid annual—sometimes even more
frequent—visits with her mother, and once or twice these visits
coincided with the leave of one or other of the boys of whose own
childhood she had formed a part. She was now an extremely pretty
child, but at this epoch the cousins were both too much absorbed in
their new worlds to pay her particular attention, and her future
husband took, if possible, less notice of her than did Louis. At ten
her mother sent her to be educated in a convent.
A year later Gilbert finished his military studies at Versailles, and,
in accordance with his father’s wish, went over for some months to
England, where he had relatives, the Marquise’s dead sister having
married a Suffolk squire. It was not solely the claims of kinship
which had prompted this visit. The Marquis de Château-Foix was deeply
imbued with the ideas then prevalent among the Liberal _noblesse_
in France. Like them he desired to better the position of his
tenantry; like them he sought help in English methods of agriculture,
introducing these not only at Chantemerle, but in the small, distant,
and not often visited estate near Lyons from which he took his title
of Château-Foix. His father’s projects had been familiar to Gilbert
ever since he was old enough to understand them, and, a native of
that unique province where the curse of a non-resident nobility was
scarcely known, and where _seigneur_ and peasantry were on almost
patriarchal terms of intimacy, of mutual respect and often of
affection, the young man considered them the outcome of a very natural
instinct. He had, therefore, every sympathy with the Marquis’ views;
he meant, when he had made his own career, to settle down and carry on
his father’s work after the latter’s death, and though this event
would not, he trusted, take place till a remote period—for the Marquis
was only five-and-forty—Gilbert was pleased to think that if his
sojourn in England proved profitable he might even now be of use to
him. With these virtuous intentions he embarked for England, and
found his stay under the hospitable roof of his English uncle
agreeable as well as valuable. Sir William Ashley was pleased to
approve of him, saying, indeed—than which there could be no higher
praise—that he was almost like an Englishman; his cousin, George
Ashley, of about his own age, was at hand to pilot him round
neighbouring estates or about London, his younger cousin Amelia to
welcome him when he came back. Hither also came Louis for a short
visit, to make violent, half-teasing love to Amelia and to embitter
the hearts of youthful country gentlemen by his elegance and good
looks, and—chiefly for that reason—to create a certain relief in
Gilbert’s mind when he departed.
The English turnip, that supremely important root, was receiving
Gilbert’s attention when the messenger brought him the news that was
to change his whole career. The Marquis de Château-Foix had died in
two days of a chill contracted while superintending some building
operations on the estate. Voltairean and sceptic, he had given his
life for his ideals, and the young man of twenty, whose feet, indeed,
were at the moment heavy with the soil of a Suffolk turnip-field, but
whose hand was always, in idea, on the hilt of the sword which was to
make him a glorious name, was left to reign in his stead—if he chose.
Gilbert de Château-Foix did choose, and at once. It was a real and no
forced choice, for, except his father's wishes, not expressed in any
document, but clamant in his own heart, there was no binding reason
why he should reside on his estate. Throwing up the commission—the
result of studies more than satisfactory—which awaited him in
Royal-Aunis, and with it his dreams of military glory, he announced
his intention of devoting himself to the care of his tenantry. He was
not yet twenty-one, but if he knew regrets and distastes, he shared
them with no one. His comrades and his friends in Paris thought
him bereft of his senses, and stigmatised him as an eccentric.
The very handsome youth in the blue, scarlet, and silver of the
_gardes-du-corps_ who held an amazed conference with him one afternoon
in the Allée du Mail at Versailles was half incredulous, half amused.
“I had hoped, before I died,” he said, “to be pointed out as the
kinsman of a marshal of France. You should consider, Gilbert, that you
are wrecking the ambitions of other people as well as your own.”
The young Marquis tried to explain that he was not wrecking his
ambitions, or, at least, only some of them.
“Then I suppose,” said Louis, “that you are going to be a sort of
philosopher, like the late M. Voltaire, in his retreat at Ferney. My
cousin, the celebrated philosopher,” he repeated softly to himself.
But though the Vicomte ended, as usual, on a jesting note, Gilbert
fancied that he was sorrier, or more sympathetic, than he cared to
own. Years afterwards he learned that Louis had subsequently called
out a subaltern of Royal-Aunis for saying that the regiment was well
delivered from such a milksop as M. de Château-Foix.