“HOURS IN THE RAIN”
“Roses, roses, roses scatter,
Drifts of pink in the flooding water;
Dial that notched our hours in the sun
Hath no notch for the hours undone,
Hours in the rain; and no great matter.”
—K. T. HINKSON, _The Poor Jacobites_.
Some two hours after Gilbert was repulsed from Madame d’Espaze’s door
an old man and a young girl were sitting in the Hôtel de la Force
playing backgammon by a scanty fire. The large, bare room was empty
but for themselves, for La Force had not then the crowd of captives of
which it was to be relieved in so bloody a fashion just two months
later. Nevertheless there ran across the apartment a long trestle
table void of a cloth, and the old man looked up every now and again
from his game as though expecting an arrival.
“Our guests and the supper are alike late to-night, my dear,” he
remarked at last, pushing away the board and the pieces. He wore the
cross of Saint Louis on a faded and old-fashioned coat; the snuff-box
between his long blanched fingers was of common horn, and a network of
darning obscured the original Mechlin of the lace at his wrists. For
the Chambre des Victoires, where he sat, was on the debtors’ side of
La Force, itself pre-eminently a debtors’ prison, though already
opening to receive political offenders.
A moment after his observation a key turned in the door, and three men
came in. Two of them were quite young, the third about thirty-five,
and all, after saluting the occupants of the room with some ceremony,
fell to conversation with them with the ease and humour of old
acquaintances. Indeed it was now some months since the five had been
accustomed to take their evening meal in common—for though they always
called the Chevalier de Maisonfleur their host, the title was one of
courtesy only, belonging more properly to the State, which provided
apartment, food, and service, and was willing, in return for a small
extra payment, to save its officials the trouble of dishing up
separate repasts.
“Mademoiselle, your hands are cold,” said one of the younger men. “In
July too. I fear the Chambre des Victoires is chilly even in summer.”
“They were late in lighting the fire, Monsieur,” replied the girl,
“and perhaps I am tired to-day.” The ghost of a sigh checked on her
white lips.
“I trust our host will not think me a boor,” said his companion,
bowing to the old man where he sat with crossed legs in his chair, an
air of contentment on his lined and high-bred features. “But I should
like to suggest that his domestics are behindhand with the banquet
also.”
The Chevalier de Maisonfleur smiled. “You have my sincere apologies,
M. Chanzeau. I must really speak sharply to my _maître d’hôtel_. Ah,
here is the rogue.”
Again the key turned, the door was butted violently open, and a
shock-headed jailor hurried in with a tray, while some unseen agency
closed the door behind him. “Now, no complaints, my little pigeons. I
know you are grumbling because poor Jacques is five minutes late.
Always meals—always eating—always trays to carry about and dishes to
wash up.” He set down the tray with a crash. “There is stew to-night.
Are you pampered, hein?” As he proceeded noisily to set spoon and
platters on the bare board, the prisoners regarded him and each other
with indulgent smiles. They esteemed themselves fortunate in the
attendance of the noisy Jacques, the best-hearted jailor in La Force.
“No, we are not grumbling, my dear Jacques,” said the girl in her
gentle, tired voice. “You have so much to do, have you not? Shall I
set out those spoons for you?” And she went to his assistance.
“Let us all help,” said one of the young men, laughing, and he and his
companion, leaving their elders by the fire, crowded to the table,
despite the remonstrances of Jacques, who asserted with some truth
that they were merely hindering him. Thus it was that the key turned,
and the door opened a third time unnoticed, and it was the girl who,
first looking up, cried in surprise, “Who is that?” A handsome youth
in a violet-blue suit of extreme elegance and the latest cut was
standing just inside the door looking at the scene with interest.
“Bless me!” grunted Jacques, coming hastily round the table, “I had
forgotten. Citizen Maisonfleur, I have a new guest for you. Didn’t you
notice that I brought in six covers. The citizen only arrived this
morning.”
“And is very welcome,” observed the Chevalier, getting up from his
chair with much dignity. “Sir, we shall be much obliged to you if you
will do us the favour of supping with us.”
Louis bowed and came over to him. “Had I known that I was intruding on
a private party——” he apologised between jest and earnest. “However,
I was not in reality offered an alternative, and that must be my
excuse.”
“None, my dear sir, is needed, I assure you,” said the old man,
evidently favourably impressed. “You are only too welcome to our
little circle. Let me present you to my daughter, Mademoiselle
Jeanne-Céleste-Valentine de Maisonfleur.”
Louis, supplying his name, kissed the little cold hand, and was duly
made acquainted with MM. Chanzeau and Lagrange, who had abandoned the
laying of the table to Jacques. But before he was introduced to the
elder man, the latter, wrinkling up a pair of short-sighted eyes,
asked abruptly: “Are you the Saint-Ermay who was in the bodyguard,
compagnie Villeroy?”
“Yes,” said Louis, puzzled. “Were you there? Pardon me if I have had
the pleasure of meeting you and the bad manners to forget it——”
The other gave a short laugh. “On my soul, Vicomte, you must have a
short memory. Or else it is over-burdened with such meetings. Have you
really forgotten a certain morning behind the Luxembourg two and a
half years ago? It is true that I have more reason to remember it than
you!”
“Des Essars!” exclaimed Louis. “How could I not know you again!—But it
was such a horribly dark morning,” he added, in such a tone that they
all laughed in spite of themselves.
“And I have altered, eh?” said Des Essars, with a grim little smile.
“Well, I have been in here nearly ever since. As we settled our little
difference finally on that occasion I must not say that I am glad to
see you.” He held out his hand with a friendly gesture, and Louis took
it as frankly.
“Well, gentlemen,” observed M. de Maisonfleur, taking snuff in high
good-humour, “this is all very satisfactory and as it should be.
And here is our good Jacques with some culinary triumph. M. de
Saint-Ermay, I will ask you to give your arm to my daughter. . . .”
* * * * * *
When Louis, back in his own cell, reviewed his evening, he found it a
dream-like memory, at once ludicrous and pathetic. It was not easy to
do the honours of a badly-made stew, eaten in wooden platters with
pewter spoons on a deal table without a cloth, but M. de Maisonfleur
had accomplished it. It was not easy—and Louis had guessed it—for a
girl who was tired and heart-sick to behave as though her shabby dress
were new and fashionable, and she the chatelaine entertaining her
father's guests, but Mademoiselle de Maisonfleur had done it. He had
sat by her side and helped her. Opposite to him, too, was the man whom
he had last seen senseless on the frosty grass in the Luxembourg
gardens—all for the sake of a hasty word. Now it was as though they
had never crossed swords.
It was indeed as like a dream as the rest of the solitary day had
been, as this very straw-covered pallet on which he sat was like a
dream.
“Devilish more like a nightmare!” exclaimed the dreamer aloud,
surveying the couch with disfavour. “Well, perhaps if I really go to
sleep I shall wake up;” and slowly divesting himself of his coat and
waistcoat he lay down in the straw.
The curious semi-stoical strain which underlay Louis de Chantemerle’s
levity had served him well in the last twelve hours, but it had not
the potency of a soporific. Having nothing else to do, he had perforce
spent a considerable amount of time already in reflection on his
position, and had not intended to resume the subject for the present.
He had looked his danger in the face. His chances were not good, and
he knew it. He was there to be made an example of; the example would
probably be made. In that case nothing remained to do but to meet his
fate with courage. But as he lay wide-eyed in the gloom, and watched
the tiny square of night sky through the barred window there seized
him—strangely enough, for the first time—not the realisation of
impending death, but the horrible sense that he was caged. It began
to be impossible to lie still any longer. He sprang up with an
exclamation, combating an insensate impulse to batter at the barred
door, to beat with bare hands against the walls. Instead, biting his
lips, and for the sake of doing something, he dragged the little table
from the middle of the room to the window, and climbed up on it. But
the bars were still above his head, and he got down again to stand a
moment motionless, his back against the wall, the sweat on his
forehead, fighting with all the powers of his nature against the
nameless fear that closes round any trapped creature with youth and
health in its veins. Then he went back to his pallet, lay down and
covered himself up very deliberately with his coat. Sleep did not come
for many hours, but the unsuspected strength of will on which he could
call at pleasure enabled him at least to seek it. In the end he slept
soundly enough.
He did not wake, indeed, till the bolts of his cell door, noisily
withdrawn about six o'clock, brought him back from the region of
dreams to reality. He stirred, and the rustle of the straw told him
instantly where he was.
“Breakfast, _ci-devant_,” said a gruff voice succinctly, and something
was set down on the floor.
“Stop a minute, my friend,” commanded Louis sleepily. “I want some
water—for washing—and a razor too.”
The jailor exploded. “Name of a name! What next? Water—I don’t say, if
you choose to pay for it—but a razor!”
The Vicomte was by this time sitting up, and studying the hairy visage
in the doorway. “True,” he observed reflectively. “Razors don't seem
to be much in fashion here.”
“No, nor won’t ever be, my young sprig,” retorted the man. “However,
don’t trouble yourself. You won’t be here long enough to grow a
beard.”
“I sincerely trust not,” replied the captive, without pausing to
enquire the exact meaning of this ambiguous prediction. “Well, bring
me some water then—a livre's worth.”
When the man returned Saint-Ermay was standing in the middle of the
little room picking bits of straw off his ruffles. His guardian set
down a broken jug and a small basin on the table under the window.
“Been trying to look out?” he asked, grinning.
“No; trying to hang myself with this,” said Louis coolly, untying his
hair and holding up the ribbon. “Ah, thanks for the water. Now, about
that razor——”
“Haven’t I told you, miserable _aristo_, that you can’t have it?”
cried the jailor, exasperated.
Saint-Ermay’s money had been returned to him when he was searched on
arrival, though he would most willingly have parted with it could it
have spared him that distasteful proceeding. He now drew a five-livre
piece from his breeches pocket and looked at it. “What do you suppose
I should do, then, with a razor, my friend?”
“Why, cut my throat,” retorted the jailor with an oath. But his eyes
were fastened on the big silver coin.
“And what advantage,” asked the prisoner, “do you conceive that I
should reap from such an action? Try to be sensible about this matter.
I propose to give you five livres and the word of a gentleman that I
will not lay a finger on your razor. You shall shave me yourself—and
then you will be far more likely to cut my throat than I yours,
especially as I doubt whether you have ever had much practice with the
implement.”
Cupidity struggled for a moment with respect for regulations and came
off victorious, with the result that about an hour afterwards Louis
surrendered his chin to ministrations not of the most skilful. After
the crown-piece had changed hands and the jailor was gathering up his
shaving materials, he observed in a significant tone: “You seem mighty
free with your money, _aristo_. Isn't there any other use you could
put it to, now?”
“I'm afraid, Barber, that your speech is too dark for me,” returned
Saint-Ermay, dabbing at a cut on his chin. “Do you mean that you would
like to powder my hair for me?”
“Isn't there anybody outside,” asked the man, sinking his voice, “who
would be glad to have a line from you? It's done, sometimes, with the
help of a louis or two. . . .”
The Vicomte stood silent, with his handkerchief to his chin, but his
heart suddenly beat fast. Was it possible? Gilbert did not even know
where he was. It might make all the difference. And Lucienne. . . .
“All very fine,” he said, not wishing to appear too eager. “But
supposing I have a fancy to write a letter, how am I to know that you
will ever deliver it?”
“Oh, you may trust me for that, _ci-devant_. I'll deliver it safe
enough, and not ask you for the money till I can prove I have done it.
See, here is paper and pencil, but be quick.” The eagerness was his,
not Saint-Ermay’s, as he dragged out a grimy piece of paper and a
stump of pencil. “Write quickly, and give it to me now, for I shan't
be able to come in again this morning.”
Louis looked very hard at his dirty, leering face as he took the
pencil and paper, shrugged his shoulders, and turned away to the
table. The man hastily placed a stool for him.
“Thanks,” said the Vicomte rather coldly, “but you need not supervise
my composition. You can read it afterwards if you have a mind to.” And
as his Mercury retired grumbling to the door he began to write to
Gilbert—in English.
At the end of a line and a half he stopped dead. It was not the
difficulties of a foreign tongue which gave him pause, it was the
sudden unpleasant suspicion that he was walking into a trap, destined
not, indeed, for his own undoing, but for that of the recipient of his
missive, if he sent one. The demeanour of his would-be messenger, even
now fidgeting with impatience, his eagerness to carry a letter, his
convenient production of the means of communication, might indeed be
due to cupidity, but were capable of a darker explanation. Another
voice told him that his fear was born of imagination, and that when
the Fates had put such a chance in his way he was a fool not to snatch
at it. You are throwing away your life, perhaps, for a scruple, said
Reason. Gilbert was not suspect. But Gilbert’s name, by accident or
design, had figured with his own in the list of conspirators. Of what
avail, too, to have refrained, in the face of strong desire, from
leaving him a verbal message yesterday morning if he meant to
compromise him now far more deeply by writing to him?—No, he dared not
do it. He ran his pencil through the words, crushed the paper
together in his hand, and rose.
“I have changed my mind, M. Figaro,” he said carelessly. “There will
be no letter, after all. I have forgotten my correspondent’s address.”
The man looked for a second as if he were about to break out into a
string of curses. Then, mastering himself, he picked up the shaving
materials from the floor, observing acidly: “As the citizen pleases. I
think he will be sorry before long that he refused an honest man’s
offer of help.”
“The price was too high,” said Louis enigmatically.
“Nevertheless you will regret it, _ci-devant_,” repeated the other in
a menacing tone. Watching the door close on him, Louis thought it very
probable.
The morning dragged by. Last night's horror had not wholly relaxed its
grip, but the presence of daylight had the effect of company, and the
Vicomte de Saint-Errnay would rather have died a thousand times than
allow any human eye to witness his private emotions. He walked up and
down reflecting, till he tired himself by the constant turning that
the narrow limits of his cell required. He wondered what Gilbert was
doing—what he had done when he found out. And D’Aubeville, De Périgny,
and the rest—what of them? How many of them had been taken? There
might be some in La Force. He had not asked because he was sure
that he would not be told the truth. At any rate, their scheme was
shattered for ever.
And something else was ended too. Lucienne should be starting for
England to-morrow. Would she go now? Why not? There was all the more
reason for her departure. He should never see her again . . . and even
in his hour of renunciation, the highest of his life, he had never
contemplated exactly that. The jailor was right. He wished that he had
sent a message—not to Gilbert, but to her. It might have been in her
hands by now. He smoothed out the crumpled ball of paper, then threw
it away with a gesture half anger, half regret. Of what use—of what
use! With Lucienne he had had his chance—and had chosen not to take
it. It looked now inconceivable folly; for when he had turned his back
on what honour forbade him to take he had known—or at least he had
recognised afterwards—that there were other things still left for him
in life. But since he was to end like this the sacrifice seemed barren
beyond the power of speech. He was to die without having known the
best that life could give him. It would have been some comfort to
remember at the last that he had had his heart’s desire. It was the
very poorest kind of consolation to feel that he might have known it,
and had not. It seemed to the young man that he could better have
borne to see Gilbert and Lucienne together with his own living eyes
(as indeed he had schooled himself to realise that he must see them)
than that their union should date from an epoch when he, blown
somewhere about the winds of the world, could no longer behold it. He
had an extreme reluctance to die, in any case; but this thought stung
him to the most passionate revolt. It raged in him for a little while,
and then the very vehemence with which he dashed himself in thought
against the implacable barrier of Death restored him to a former mood.
He had to die like a gentleman. It was perhaps, after all, good that
in this matter he had lived like one too. He had no other creed.
* * * * * *
The Chevalier de Maisonfleur and his daughter were alone when
Saint-Ermay’s turnkey threw open the door of the Chambre des
Victoires. The old man laid aside his book, the girl her knitting,
with alacrity at his entrance.
“A very pleasant surprise, Monsieur le Vicomte,” exclaimed the former
as he welcomed him. “It is not yet nine o’clock. We are unduly
favoured.”
“It is I who am favoured,” returned Louis. “I had no conception of how
long a solitary morning and afternoon could be.”
A shadow swept over the Chevalier’s face. “So, too, are four years,
with only an old man for company,” he said, sighing. His daughter’s
cheek, half concealed by a pale curl as she bent hastily to pick up
her ball of wool, flushed scarlet for a moment. Louis looked away in
an embarrassed pity; there was nothing to say, and he was glad when M.
de Maisonfleur, resuming his usual cheerful, courteous self, set out
in pursuit of other topics. Five minutes later M. des Essars came in.
“Have you heard,” said the newcomer, shaking hands with Louis,
“that—so my jailor tells me—Vergniaud made a great speech yesterday
morning, full of denunciations, and especially of the so-called
_chevaliers du poignard_?”
“I had not,” said his late adversary. “If it be true, however,
it no doubt accounts for my having the pleasure of your renewed
acquaintance.”
“I feared it might,” returned the other gravely. “I hoped, however,
that you might be here for something less—less——”
“Less damning than loyalty,” finished Louis gaily. “Well, you know,
Des Essars, if you have got to be in prison, it doesn’t make much odds
what you are there for.” Privately he thought, however, that it did.
“Do you know if there were many arrests?”
“About thirty, the jailor said. He knew no names.”
Louis bit his lip. “Thirty! Nearly all of us! Damned fools we were—I
beg your pardon, Mademoiselle——”
“Surely, Monsieur,” broke in the Chevalier with a certain lofty
sympathy, “you do not consider yourselves fools for taking the side
that every gentleman would take—if he were free?”
“No, not for that,” returned the young man, “but for trusting the
Gironde, who tricked us into believing their protestations of
friendship, and then betrayed us.”
Anger and disillusionment lent a new tone to his voice, for he knew
now that he was still cherishing hopes of the schemes which for days
he had known to be doomed. Suddenly it occurred to him that Des
Essars, from the way in which he was looking at him, knew something
more. Apologising to the father and daughter, he drew him over to the
other side of the room.
“Tell me the rest,” he said peremptorily. “You know something else, I
can see.”
“My dear Vicomte, there is nothing to tell. Besides, I know nothing—it
is all hearsay.”
“Let me have the hearsay, then. Your jailor had heard something more.
You know quite well what I mean.”
Des Essars looked him in the eyes, and turned away his own. “He said
that they were voting in the Assembly for a long rope and a short
shrift,” he replied unwillingly. “But for God's sake remember——”
Louis stopped him. “It is exactly what I wanted to know, and what I
expected to hear. I am infinitely obliged to you, and I regret the
Luxembourg more than ever.” He shook hands, smiling. “Shall we go back
to Mademoiselle?”
The girl and her father had been watching the little colloquy with
something like alarm, and the knitting had rolled to the ground again.
Louis stooped and picked it up.
“M. des Essars has been relieving my mind about small matter,” he said
lightly, drawing up a chair. “Mademoiselle, I wish you would teach me
to knit. I am sure it is soothing to the temper.”
“And have you a bad one, Monsieur?” asked Jeanne de Maisonfleur. “I
should not have suspected it.”
“You have pardoned me, then, my little exhibition of it a moment ago.
You are very generous, Mademoiselle. May I not do something to show
my gratitude—hold this for you, for instance?” He took up an unwound
skein of wool.
The girl paid no heed to his request. “There is an anger which does
not claim forgiveness, but—admiration,” she said in a low voice. “If
you have lost, Monsieur, you have at least fought for the cause which
we, here, cannot aid, but for which we pray night and morning. If my
poor father . . . if I had a brother . . .” She broke off there and
threw a look at her father and Des Essars, but they were deep in
converse on the other side of the hearth. “Monsieur, it is very bitter
to lose before one has fought, and to suffer, but not for the cause
for which one would so gladly bear anything!”
“Mademoiselle, I had guessed that,” said the Vicomte, dropping his
voice also. “But since you give your prayers——”
“Ah, do you believe in prayers!” she retorted—and to tell the truth
her interlocutor did not—“No! I think Heaven is deaf—to us, at least.
Have you not had some one to pray for you and for France, and yet you
are here . . . And France . . . where is she going? And tell me,” she
went on, without giving him time to reply, “what was M. des Essars
saying to you just now?”
Louis looked down at the long skein of coarse wool still lying across
his palm. “M. des Essars and I were making up our old quarrel,”
he said at length. “How does one undo the end of this thing,
Mademoiselle?—for I insist on holding it for you.”
The girl searched his face with her tragic eyes. “You will not tell
me. . . . Then I know!”
Louis was still holding out the skein, smiling. “I shall have time for
this,” he said gently.
She took it mechanically, her eyes still fixed on his; then, without a
word, steadied perhaps by his own self-command, she began to unfasten
the end.
“You are very kind, M. de Saint-Ermay,” came the Chevalier’s voice.
“Are you sure that my daughter is not trespassing unwarrantably on
your good nature?”
“It was M. de Saint-Ermay who insisted, mon père,” replied
Mademoiselle de Maisonfleur, and a desolate little smile twitched her
mouth for an instant.
“The fact is that I really know how to hold it properly,” said Louis,
half to the girl and half to the others, as he held out his hands and
she put the skein in position. “I advise you to take a lesson from me,
Des Essars.”
“Ah, but could you do it the other way round?” asked Des Essars.
“Could you make the ball if Mademoiselle held the skein?”
Whether Louis would have taken up this challenge was to remain
unknown, for at that instant the turning of a key in the lock reminded
them all that their circle was still incomplete.
“Here are our missing guests,” said the Chevalier, tapping his
snuff-box, “or else, indeed, Jacques with the supper.”
It was neither. The door swung open to reveal an unfamiliar figure—an
official from the _guichet_ of the prison, with a large bunch of keys
in one hand and a paper in the other. A dead silence fell on the room.
“Citizen Chantemerle!” said the man.
Louis looked up for a moment, but he did not stir, and went on
placidly holding the skein, though the hands that had held the ball
were twisted together in their owner’s lap.
The _guichetier_ referred to his paper. “Louis-Adrien Chantemerle,
_ci-devant_ Vicomte de Saint-Ermay. You, there, is not that your
cursed name?”
“A portion of it,” responded Louis lazily. “Your information appears
fragmentary. However, I do recognise myself.” He rose from the chair.
“Mademoiselle, to our next meeting. I regret infinitely that the skein
is not finished after all.” He slipped the wool off his hands and slid
it gently into her lap, and then catching her shaking fingers, he
kissed them with his most courtly air. “Good-bye, Monsieur le
Chevalier. Good-bye, Des Essars.”
“Good-bye, Vicomte,” said the old man, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“I am sorry—I am very sorry.” And he added, in a voice not free from
emotion: “Though our acquaintance has been so short, we shall greatly
miss you.”
Louis loosed Des Essars’ hand and bowed to him. “I wish no more
flattering epitaph,” he said with his charming smile. “Adieu.”
He followed the jailor out of the room, and the girl broke into
hysterical sobbing.