FAITH AND UNFAITH
The next day found Morice Conyers at the Chateau de Kernak--and the
next.
He was learning Breton.
That, of course, was necessary, especially as Jehan delayed his coming.
When would the latter be here?
There were two at Kernak who declared they longed for his arrival, and
yet secretly prayed for his delay.
Mademoiselle Cecile found the role of instructress to her new cousin
decidedly attractive, although the countless proprieties hedging in a
high-born demoiselle of Brittany somewhat spoilt the amusement.
But there were compensations, begotten of that unlooked-for attack near
old Nanette's cottage.
Madame de Quernais had become liable to nerves. Cecile could no longer
be permitted to roam at will over the country.
St. Malo was too near, and tales were afloat of the work that the
"widow" was busy with there. It was as though some terrible wolf
prowled in the forests around.
However, Cecile could not remain indoors all the time: she would pine
after the freedom of her life.
It was therefore agreed that the stricter proprieties should be laid
aside a little, and Mademoiselle de Quernais be allowed to accept the
escort of Monsieur le Marquis de Varenac on her walks.
Morice was quite ready to accept the task of acting cavalier to such a
dainty little lady. As I have said, he was one to live in the present.
For those two days life was bounded only by a pair of black eyes, which
looked deeper and deeper into his heart every moment.
Past and future were banished. He was dreaming, and the dream was
sweet.
He put the moment of awakening from him with the resolution of an
epicure.
As for Cecile, the English cousin continued to be the hero come to save
her country. And the black eyes caught the trick of dreaming with
wonderful rapidity.
If Madame de Quernais noticed, she stifled old-fashioned
self-reprovings with the thought that the days were evil, and that her
little Cecile needed a stronger and closer protector than herself or
Jehan, who was too bound up in his work to think much or seriously even
of the welfare of a dearly-loved sister.
And the Marquis de Varenac would be in every way a suitable protector.
Her dear Marie's boy! Of course that was a link already between them.
Thus Morice Conyers, instead of riding to Varenac to welcome Steenie
Berrington and Jack Denningham, sat on a rocky ledge with a slim,
little grey-clad figure beside him, listening to her chatter of Jehan
and la Rouerie, of the Terror and her dear Brittany.
The last was the subject Cecile lingered over longest. It was
necessary that the English cousin should understand the meaning of his
Breton birthright.
"If you were a sailor, Monsieur," she was saying now, pointing across
the bay, "you might see strange things."
"Strange things?" he echoed. "Nay, cousin, what kind of things mean
you?"
She crossed herself devoutly.
"One does not speak of them, but they are there--the spirits of those
whom the sea has taken. On winter nights we may hear them wailing and
imploring for Christian burial; but only a sailor may see their forms."
"Then I am glad to be no sailor. I confess the sea has no attractions
for me."
"It is cruel, cruel," she answered, gazing wistfully out over the grey
waste of waters. "Sometimes it makes me afraid, when I see the great
waves dashing and roaring over the rocks. Jehan laughs at me and says
I am no Bretonne to feel so, for we are a people of the sea. Yet I
cannot help it, sometimes, when I think of those poor women and
children who have waited and waited in vain for the husbands who never
came back."
"And yet you come here to watch the waves you fear?"
Morice's smile was faintly quizzical.
"Oh yes," she replied naively, "I come here often to make my dreams. I
like to picture what it must have been like long, long ago before the
cruel sea swallowed up so much of our Brittany."
"The sea?"
"But certainly. Yonder, do you not see in the sand, those ruins? Ah!
there is not much left to-day, but many, many years ago those were
happy villages, with green fields stretching beyond, and the oak-trees
of Scissy sheltering the valleys."
"Is it a fairy story you are telling me, Mademoiselle Cecile?"
She did not heed his raillery, but replied with sober earnestness:
"No, no; it is quite true. That was before the Deluge."
"Before the Deluge?"
He could hardly hide his laughter.
"It is so called in Armorica, Monsieur. It was a terrible flood.
There is a legend about it which some say is quite true."
"Tell it to me."'
He was not greatly interested--this trifler who was in danger of being
in such deadly earnest himself; but he liked to see the animation on
the pretty, childish face and the quaint seriousness with which she
told her story.
"It is the tale of Amel and Penhor," she said gravely. "They lived at
Sant Vinol, and Amel was a shepherd. He was also a brave man. In the
forest near, wandered the striped wolf of Cheza. It was a fearful
animal, and the terror of the whole land. It was bigger than a
six-weeks' foal, and no arrow could pierce its hide. As for fear of
man, it had none. It was Amel who vowed to kill this creature, which
had devoured his nephew.
"Before he went to the conflict he hung a distaff of fine linen by the
altar of the Virgin. Afterwards he fought and strangled the striped
wolf.
"Amel and Penhor had no children, but now the Virgin was pleased with
them, and gave them their hearts' desire. Their little son they called
Paol, and dedicated him to the Holy Mother of God. In her honour he
always wore a blue dress.
"Then one night the river Couesnon rose rapidly, the wind howled, and
the earth shook. In the morning the sea had risen over the barriers.
"All the inhabitants of the land fled to the church, which stood on a
hill; but Amel and Penhor came too late.
"Then Amel lifted Penhor high in his arms, and she in turn raised her
child above the cruel waves. It was at this moment that the Virgin
left her niche in the church to fly heavenwards, and, in passing, she
saw Paol's blue frock, and remembered he was hers.
"So she raised him in her arms, but found he was very heavy. Then, as
she lifted him higher to her breast, she saw his mother held him, and
that Amel, the father, held both; so, with a smile, she gathered them
all in her arms, and they awoke in heaven."
"A pretty legend," said Morice absently, for he had heard but little of
the tale, his eyes being on the speaker's face.
"It is the land of legend," she replied--"the land of romance and
poetry."
"And of sorrow, too."
"Ah! you feel that? It is because you are also Breton. Yes, we have
our sorrow--it is in the voice of the sea. Not only the lament of the
crierien,* but the warning that always at our doors there waits an
enemy as cruel as it is remorseless. Yet to-day----"
* Unburied dead, drowned at sea.
"To-day we will not think of the sighings of ghosts or the weepings of
widows to be. I prefer your romance."
"And I. But the sorrow is there, and now----"
She was thinking of the tales Louise had told her that morning.
The shadow of the Terror eclipsed the possible sunshine of the present.
But Morice was not one to see coming shadows. The present for him; and
his pulses were stirring as they never had before.
"You are teaching me," he said suddenly.
She smiled.
"Yes; and you are clever. But Pere Mouet would do it better than I."
"I was not speaking of your Breton lessons."
"No!"
She looked up in surprise, and, meeting his gaze, felt the warm blood
surge in her cheeks.
"I would like to teach you of our Brittany," she said falteringly,
"because--well--is it not your country too?"
"I never counted it such till I knew you."
"You have never been here before?"
"I vow I shall never wish to leave it, _if_----"
"If----"
Her face was half turned from him, so that he should not see the
blushes which might betray the fact that she had read a secret in his
eyes.
But he was leaning forward, half across the rocky ledge on which they
sat, his blue eyes aflame with sudden passion.
"If you will go on teaching me--always--always--Cecile."
She was no coquette, this child of a grim and yet tender land, where
all are in earnest with the battle and stress of life.
And yet her lashes drooped over her eyes as though she dared not meet
his glance.
"Teach you, Monsieur, I who know nothing? What could I teach, save
only----"
"Save only what love is," quoth he, with new-born boldness, for the
magic of the moment was with him, transforming him into something
stronger, deeper, truer than his old self.
No need for veiling lashes now. He had caught her two little hands,
slender, sun-burnt hands which seemed too soft for resistance, and bent
his face to the level of hers.
It was a new mode of wooing, as startling as bewildering; yet there was
sweetness in it, too.
"Love?" she whispered, and drew one long, wondering breath as she
looked into those blue eyes so near her own.
"_My_ love. _Our_ love, Cecile--Cecile."
His voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion. She was trembling, too,
but a smile broke on her lips.
"Morice," she whispered, and her heart beat in echo of the name as he
bent to kiss her.
Over the grey waters came the sighing of the autumn breeze, presaging a
storm. Aloft, circling round broken crags and high, gaunt rocks,
wheeled the ospreys, uttering their shrill, weird cries.
But dirge of rolling waves and wailing winds mattered nothing to those
two who sat sheltered in the rocky cleft, for they were dreaming the
golden dream of youth, which may come but once in a lifetime, yet
leaves a trail of glory on its path for ever.
Side by side they sat, man and maid, with never a thought of anything
beyond that dream, and the knowledge that love had bound them thus
together.
But what Eden is long without its serpent? Morice Conyers, basking in
present sunshine, suddenly felt a quick chill strike his heart. It was
the Marquis de Varenac, noble of Brittany, come purposely to save his
country, whom the little Cecile loved.
And the day of reckoning drew near.
But Love is nothing if he be not at his purest and best a reformer.
All the latent manhood, all the better feelings, which ill-training and
ill comrades had kept dormant, were stirred to life by this innocent
child, whose great eyes shone into his with an expression of perfect
trust and love. She called for the highest in him, and that highest,
neglected, scarcely acknowledged before, rose in response to the appeal.
He would be what she thought him to be, whatever the cost.
In presence of that dominant passion now stirring and animating him,
the past shrank into pitiful insignificance.
What were Marcel Trouet and the London Corresponding Society to him now
but traps to rob him of that newly cherished honour and love?
As for Steenie Berrington and Jack Denningham, he should tell them his
mind plainly, and if they would not stomach his change of opinion, they
might go to the devil for all he cared.
Of one thing he was resolved, and that was to ride to Varenac at once
and proclaim himself for what he was--the Marquis--not
citizen--Varenac, who had come to bid his people cry "Vive le roi
Bourbon" rather than "A bas les aristocrats."
Fire ran in his veins, urging him to be up and doing. No time should
be lost. When Jehan came he should not be able to point to him as
traitor.
The last thought caused him a perfect fever of anxiety. He must waste
no time. Proof must come first ere denunciation.
But Cecile was loath to go. Might they not dream a little longer?
That was the question she would have asked, but shy diffidence withheld
her.
Besides, the shadows fell, and she was no peasant lass--to be courted
as Marie or Yvette might be,--but a demoiselle of Brittany.
Even as it was she feared her mother's disapproval, recalling the
oft-told story of how demoiselles of thirty years ago very often never
saw their future husbands till the day of _fiancailles_. Truly the
world was going topsy-turvy now; but, in this particular respect,
Cecile felt that the change was for the better.
Through the twilight they walked home together, whispering, from time
to time, those foolish absurdities which make old grey-beards smile.
Yet who, thus smiling, has not sighed too, remembering days when they
themselves found foolishness the sweetest thing on earth!
Under the leafy shade of sheltering oaks Morice paused, holding the
little hands which lay so warm and passive in his own.
"You love me, Cecile?" he asked wistfully; "you love me?"
He lingered over the repetition.
Stars could have shone no less brightly than the eyes she raised to his.
"I love you, Morice," she answered, and then, blushing rosy-red at such
temerity, hid her small face against his shoulder.
For a long moment they stood thus, his arm around her slender little
figure, holding her closely, as though he could not bear the thought of
letting her go.
"Cecile, Cecile," he groaned, his voice sounding odd and strangled with
conflicting fears and love, "pray Heaven you may say it always--always."
She smiled, looking up at him with the boldness bred by the knowledge
that he needed all that love and sympathy.
"Always--always, Morice, my dearly-loved," she whispered back.
And the night-wind, sweeping up from the coast, seemed to catch the
words and bear them mockingly across the barren landes.
Always--always--always.