THE CASTAWAY
§1
An excellent dinner served by Mistress Sally and her attendant little
wenches put everybody into rare good-humour. Madame de Serval--pale,
delicate, with gentle, plaintive voice and eyes that had acquired a
pathetically furtive look--even contrived to smile, her heart warmed by
the genuine welcome, the rare gaiety that irradiated this fortunate
corner of God's earth. Wars and rumours of war reached it only as an
echo of great things that went on in the vast outside world; and though
more than one of Dover's gallant sons had perished in one or the other
of the Duke of York's unfortunate incursions into Holland, or in one of
the numerous naval engagements off the Western shores of France, on the
whole, the war, intermittent and desultory, had not yet cast its heavy
gloom over the entire country.
Joséphine and Jacques de Serval, whose enthusiasm for martyrdom had
received so severe a check in the course of the Fraternal Supper in the
Rue St. Honoré, had at first with the self-consciousness of youth
adopted an attitude of obstinate and irreclaimable sorrow, until the
antics of Master Harry Waite, pretty Sally's husband--jealous as a young
turkey-cock of every gallant who dared to ogle his buxom wife--brought
laughter to their lips. My lord Hastings' comical attempts at speaking
French, the droll mistakes he made, easily did the rest; and soon their
lively, high-pitched Latin voices mingled with unimpaired gaiety with
the more mellow sound of Anglo-Saxon tongues.
Even Régine de Serval had smiled when my lord Hastings had asked her
with grave solemnity whether Mme. de Serval would wish "le fou de
descendre"--the lunatic to come downstairs--meaning all the while
whether she wanted the fire in the big hearth to be let down, seeing
that the atmosphere in the coffee-room was growing terribly hot.
The only one who seemed quite unable to shake off his moroseness was
Bertrand Moncrif. He sat next to Régine, silent, somewhat sullen, a
look that seemed almost one of dull resentment lingering in his eyes.
From time to time, when he appeared peculiarly moody or when he refused
to eat, her little hand would steal out under the table and press his
with a gentle, motherly gesture.
§2
It was when the merry meal was over and while Master Jellyband was going
the round with a fine bottle of smuggled brandy, which the young
gentlemen sipped with unmistakable relish, that a commotion arose
outside the inn; whereupon Master Harry Waite ran out of the coffee-room
in order to see what was amiss.
Nothing very much apparently. Waite came back after a moment or two and
said that two sailors from the barque _Angela_ were outside with a young
French lad, who seemed more dead than alive, and whom it appears the
barque had picked up just outside French waters, in an open boat, half
perished with terror and inanition. As the lad spoke nothing but French,
the sailors had brought him along to _The Fisherman's Rest_, thinking
that maybe some of the quality would care to interrogate him.
At once Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, my lord Tony and Lord Hastings were on the
qui vive. A lad in distress, coming from France, found alone in an open
boat, suggested one of those tragedies in which the League of the
Scarlet Pimpernel was wont to play a rôle.
"Let the lad be taken into the parlour, Jellyband," Sir Andrew
commanded. "You've got a fire there, haven't you?"
"Yes, yes, Sir Andrew! We always keep fires going here until past the
15th of May."
"Well then, get him in there. Then give him some of your smuggled brandy
first, you old dog! then some wine and food. After that we'll find out
something more about him."
He himself went along in order to see that his orders were carried out
Jellyband, as usual, had already deputed his daughter to do the
necessary, and in the hall there was Mistress Sally, capable and
compassionate, supporting, almost carrying, a youth who in truth
appeared scarce able to stand.
She led him gently into the small private parlour, where a cheerful
log-fire was blazing, sat him down in an arm-chair beside the hearth,
after which Master Jellyband himself poured half a glass of brandy down
the poor lad's throat. This revived him a little, and he looked about
him with huge, scared eyes.
"Sainte Mère de Dieu!" he murmured feebly. "Where am I?"
"Never mind about that now, my lad," replied Sir Andrew, whose knowledge
of French was of a distinctly higher order than that of his comrades.
"You are among friends. That is enough. Have something to eat and drink
now. Later we'll talk."
He was eyeing the boy keenly. Contact with suffering and misery over
there in France, under the leadership of the most selfless, most
understanding man of this or any time, had intensified his powers of
perception. Even the first glance had revealed to him the fact that here
was no ordinary waif. The lad spoke with a gentle, highly refined voice;
his skin was delicate, and his face exquisitely beautiful; his hands,
though covered with grime, and his feet, encased in huge, coarse boots,
were small and daintily shaped, like those of a woman. Already Sir
Andrew had made up his mind that if the oilskin cap which sat so
extraordinarily tightly on the boy's head were to be removed, a wealth
of long hair would certainly he revealed.
However, all these facts, which threw over the young stranger a further
veil of mystery, could not in all humanity he investigated now. Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes, with the consummate tact born of kindliness, left the
lad alone as soon as he appeared able to sit up and eat, and himself
rejoined his friends in the coffee-room.