THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER
AND
THE FUGITIVES
“Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?”
“I do.”
--_Much Ado about Nothing._
THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER
AND
THE FUGITIVES
BY
MRS OLIPHANT
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCXC
THE FUGITIVES
(_CONTINUED_)
THE FUGITIVES.
CHAPTER VI.
Next morning Latour was more cheerful than usual. The men who had come
to inspect the woods were not indeed picturesque figures, nor of a very
elevated class, but still they made the village street lively, which was
delightful to Janey, and cheered Helen in spite of herself. Everything
looks a little more cheerful, more comfortable, in the morning. The sun
shone down the village street, catching here and there upon a little
window in a thatched roof, upon the weather-cock on the tower of the
_château_, and on the church spire--and shedding a ruddy glow, touched
with frost, over all the country. The woods looked as if they had been
crimsoned permanently by the red tint in the sunshine, so harmonious
were their hues. The road was flecked by yellow bars looking like rays
of gold; everything was mellow and warm in colour, notwithstanding the
chill of coming winter in the air. Little groups of men took their way
in a broken stream towards the woods. Some of them burly French farmers,
of the better sort, with close-cropped heads, and overcoats of
picturesque green-blue, that favoured tint which is “the fashion”; some
in blouses, not so ambitious; with one or two wood merchants from the
neighbouring towns, prim and well-shaven, in the frock-coat of
respectability. There had been a great deal of drinking and bargaining
in all the _cabarets_ about, the evening before. The villagers had given
their advice, especially those among them who were the least creditable
members of society, the poachers of the _commune_, who knew every tree.
Some of them, the idlest, the least satisfactory of all, to whom the
loss of a day’s work was rather a pleasure than a misfortune,
accompanied the intending purchasers to the woods.
“Keep up by the pond, monsieur,” said one of these fellows, attaching
himself to Mr Goulburn. “There is some oak that might build ships of
war----”
“The best trees are on the Côte du Midi,” said another. “If monsieur
will confide himself to me----”
“I don’t mean to confide myself to any one, my good fellow,” Mr Goulburn
said. He walked along a little in advance of the two, with an air alert
and vigorous, restored by the new possibility of traffic.
Janey ran by her father’s side, clinging to his finger, and chattering
all the way. “What are they saying, papa? They speak so funny. Why don’t
they speak English? Couldn’t they speak English if they liked?”
Mr Goulburn was a man who liked to be popular. He was of the class which
servants declare to be “not the least proud.” “My little girl thinks you
could speak English if you liked,” he said, turning to Antoine, the most
noted poacher in the district.
“Ah! je voudrais bien! I should then have the pleasure of talking to
these demoiselles,” the man said, taking off his hat.
“I don’t like him,” said little Janey. “He has a big cut on his head; he
has eyes like the ogre in ‘Jack the Giant-killer.’ What does he want
with you, papa? He will take you into a cave, and he will eat you up. I
like the other one best.”
The other was Baptiste, who was the son of the landlady at the Lion
d’Or. It was he who advised the Côte du Midi. He knew all the coverts as
well as the partridges did, or the old wolf that lurked in the darkest
shades of the forest. And his woodland likings had brought him woe; but
he was bent upon defending _l’Anglais_, who was his private property for
the moment, his mother’s lodger, from the clutches of Antoine.
When they came as far as the _château_, Janey consented to give up her
father’s finger, and to withdraw from the procession of the wood
merchants. The _château_ was not one of those deserted grey houses they
had passed on their way from Montdard, but a fine medieval building,
surrounded by a moat, and modernised under Louis Quatorze. It occupied
three sides of a square, and at the end nearest the village was
distinguished by a noble tower, covered with a pointed roof, from the
windows of which the lights always shone at night, like a sort of
lighthouse to the village. Helen stopped to look at it with a little
quickening of natural interest. There was nothing about it of the luxury
of the English home. It stood close to the road, no privacy of exquisite
lawns or wealthy foliage withdrawing it from the humblest of its
neighbours, a poor little plot of shrubs occupying the centre of the
square within the gravelled drive. The long row of large white windows,
very close to each other, which ran round two sides of the square, were
undraped and unornamented, not a curtain, not a piece of furniture,
showing from the outside. The great door underneath them stood open,
and showed only a narrow corridor, and a bare stone staircase, mounting
between two white walls. Helen stood and looked at it wistfully. She
scarcely seemed to remember her own past life--it was a life which had
no sort of connection with the cottages of Latour, the women in their
white caps, the strange existence of the Lion d’Or; but here there was a
kind of link of connection. If there were girls in the _château_, theirs
might be a French version of her old life. They would be in the
neighbourhood, in the village, something like what she had been. If they
but knew! “But I hope,” she said to herself with a sigh, realising
vividly the imagination that had presented itself to her, as if the
fancied daughters of this house were certainly existing, “I hope that
nothing will ever happen to _them_!” As the thought passed through her
mind, the very creatures of her fancy appeared at the open door, two
girls, she thought about her own age, though they were both older than
Helen, dressed in the gloomy mourning of France, without an edge of
white anywhere. They came out with a little clamour of talk, their
voices louder than Helen was used to, though finely modulated and
sweetly toned. Their French gave her that sense of giddiness, as if her
head was turning round, which a new language imperfectly understood is
apt to give. She went on, thinking it rude to stand and stare after they
appeared; but the attraction was strong, and she turned when they had
gone a few steps farther, to go back again, almost meeting the two girls
as they came out of the gate. Their pleasant voices seemed to make a
difference in the air. When they perceived her their lively talk broke
off suddenly. Helen felt sure they were asking each other in
undertones, “Who is that? Where has she come from? Do you think she
looks nice?” though all in their French. She scarcely liked to look at
them, but her heart beat; for they seemed to make a pause and consult
each other. She wondered would they speak to her? It went to her heart
when, after that consultation, they went on, though with a momentary
hesitation. “They do not like the looks of us, Janey,” she said.
“Where are they doing to?” said Janey. “What are they thinking about? I
wonder if there are any little children in that big funny castle. Little
children are everywhere,” said the little girl mournfully, “but you
tan’t play with them. Helen, don’t you want to do home?”
“I don’t know; perhaps it would not be home now--not like what it used
to be. But you are too little,” said Helen, with a sigh; “if I were to
tell you, you wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand more better than you,” said Janey, promptly, “for papa
tells me everything. I know,” she said, clapping her hands, “I am not to
be called the old name any more. I am little Janey Harford. Papa told me
so. It is because of naughty, wicked men. Is it not funny, Helen? And
you are Helen Harford too. I sing it to myself, over and over, not to
forget. Nursey wouldn’t know who we were, if she were to hear. We are
all different people now. Dolly, that I put in my little bed is me, and
I’m little Janey Harford.” The child made a little chant of it as she
frisked along the road. “I’m little Janey Harford, I am little Janey
Haar-ford!” It was a piece of delightful fun to Janey. What child can
resist the pleasure of being not me, but somebody else? The spirit of
an adventurer was in the little girl. She did not cling to the
superstitions of propriety and an honest life as Helen did. The
mystification charmed her. “It will not be you and me, but it will be
two other girls,” Janey said. Perhaps the profound gravity of this new
step was lessened to Helen also by its effect upon her little sister.
“It is I who am silly,” poor Helen said to herself. She reminded herself
how common it was for people to travel _incognito_. “That means out of
their right name. The Queen does it!” Helen said suddenly to herself,
with a sense of relief and consolation unspeakable. She knew that august
lady could do no wrong.
They went back slowly through the village, following at a long interval
the young ladies from the _château_, in whom Helen felt so great an
interest, and who stopped to speak to M. le Curé, and turned round,
plainly indicating to him the two figures in the distance. M. le Curé
looked very closely at Helen and Janey when he passed them a little
afterwards. He was an active, spare, tall man, in his long black
_soutane_ and his three-cornered hat of fluffy beaver on his head. He
let his eyes rest with a lingering look of pleasure and interest upon
the child. Most likely he took Helen, who looked older than her eighteen
years, for a young mother with her child, and the Curé knew how to win
the hearts of parents. Now that all the intending purchasers had passed,
there were very few people about. The cottages did not stand open, as at
Fareham; here and there a woman washing her vegetables outside the door,
or chopping her wood into small pieces, would break the monotony, but
there was no lively coming and going of gossips and neighbours. At one
of the two larger houses an old man had come out, and was standing at
the door. He had a handkerchief tied round his head, and a long coat,
half a dressing-gown, folded across his long legs, and was looking out
with the keenest malignant eyes, as if in search of some one. The Curé
passed this personage with a stiff nod, but the other only grinned in
reply. He grinned also at the young strangers as they came along, and at
a lady who suddenly appeared from the door of the other house, dressed
in the simple morning dress, fitting the figure behind, but falling
straight and loose in front, which is common in France. There was a
little conversation between these two, in the high-pitched voices which
made every word audible.
“Madame goes out early,” said the old man. “M. le Précepteur perhaps
has gone to the forest to lay in wood for the winter?”
“No; Monsieur le Précepteur has his public duties to think of. Persons
in the public service have not time to consider their own advantage,”
said the lady.
“Ah, how right madame is! how fine is devotion to one’s country!” cried
the old man, with a grin which divided his long face into two halves,
shrivelling up both. He laughed when his neighbour had passed, and went
on laughing sardonically under his breath. Then his eyes fell upon Helen
and the child. “Tiens! des Anglaises,” he said.
Even Janey knew now that _des Anglaises_ had something to do with her
small self. She drew up her little person with conscious dignity,
averting her head as she walked past.
“Bonjour, mes demoiselles,” he said, and straightway addressed the
alarmed Helen in a speech which drove all idea of amusement out of her
head, comical though his grimaces were. To be addressed in so much
French bewildered the girl, especially as he seemed to be asking
something of her which she could not fathom. “Belle appartement, beau
jardin, pension si on le veut.”
What was it he was offering her? She blushed to the roots of her hair,
and faltered in her English-French, “Pardonnez-moi, s’il vous plaît. Mon
père n’est pas ici. Je ne sais pas. Mon père est----”
Helen’s words failed her. She pointed with much embarrassment along the
road by which her father had gone.
“Ah! monsieur est là-bas? in the woods? Bien, bien, bien! I will wait
for monsieur,” said the old man.
The girls quickened their steps as they got away from him.
“What does he want, Helen?” Janey said in great alarm.
“Oh, I think he wants us to lodge there,” said the elder sister,
scarcely less uncomfortable.
The little girl looked up in her face with a dismayed and frightened
countenance. “Are we doing to stay here--always?” little Janey said.
The question appalled them both, but the one knew as little as the other
how to answer it. They went on softly in the sudden gloom which this
idea spread round them. To drop suddenly from the skies from one new
place into another, might be amusing enough for a little while; but to
remain--always, as Janey said! Helen’s imagination was scarcely less
young than her little sister’s. To-day and always were the only
alternatives. They held each other fast by the hand, and walked along
the village street, feeling a sudden dreariness steal over the whole
scene. It had relapsed into its usual quiet, though there were ranges of
tables outside the Lion d’Or, and the rival _auberge_ on the other side
of the street, to accommodate the thirsty visitors when they should
return from the woods. In the distance the young ladies from the
_château_ were disappearing round the corner. The woman who had been
washing her vegetables had also disappeared, but another had come out to
help her who was chopping the wood. And the old man still stood at his
door, peering up and down the village. It was strange to go on
disturbing the silence, interrupting the sunshine, in a place so quiet;
their steps seemed to send echoes through all the tranquil place.
“Is it always so quiet?” Helen asked timidly when they reached the Lion
d’Or. The mistress of the house stood at the door, shading her eyes with
her hand, and looking out for the return of the expected purchasers.
She was a buxom woman, in a white cap, with long, heavy ear-rings and
bright eyes.
“Does mademoiselle think it so quiet?” she said. “Wait till they begin
to come back. _Ma foi!_ it is a crowd, a tumult. In half an hour we
shall not know where to turn to find a seat that is unoccupied. Ah! the
‘_vente des bois_’ is a great day. There is nothing like it out of
Paris. But in Paris it lasts continually, that is the difference.
Mademoiselle has been in Paris?”
“Only for a day.”
“Aha! that is nothing at all. Paris cannot be seen in so little time.
The English go too quickly, if you will pardon me for saying so. Paris!
Figure to yourself that I was there, mademoiselle, effectively there,
for all of a month. I know Paris at my fingers’ ends.”
“Are the young ladies very nice,” said Helen, hesitating--(she did not
know how to say nice, that accommodating word. “Les jeunes dames,
sont-elles très-agréables”--which, even to her English ear, did not
sound right--was what she said)--“at the _château_?”
“_Comment?_--ah! you would say the demoiselles who passed just now. Yes,
not amiss. We do not find fault with them,” said Madame Dupré, with a
slight shrug of the shoulders; “but speaking of Paris, mademoiselle. Ah!
if I could but have sent my Baptiste there, what a happiness! He might
have been clerk in one of the best _magasins_ on the Boulevard. But boys
are obstinate beyond all things, beyond the very mules. He prefers his
village, and the woods, and the _chasse_. He gives me a great deal of
inquietude, my boy. Should he draw a bad number it will be an evil day
for the Lion d’Or. There is always that hanging over us. When a poor
woman has several sons, instead of being a help to her it is but opening
the gates to evil. She who has only one may keep him safe. And what does
it matter, when they are helpless children, how many sons you have,
mademoiselle? Till the _tirage_ is over, I shall never know a day’s
ease. Sometimes I think it is better to have no children at all, as old
M. Goudron says.”
“Is that old M. Goudron?” said Helen, pointing to the old man who still
stood at his door and watched, with his red and yellow handkerchief tied
round his head.
“He is what we call a _richard_, mademoiselle, the most rich person in
the village. He has so much that he thinks it is a crime to be poor; he
thinks it is your fault, not circumstances. His poor little
granddaughter lives with him in that big house, and he leads her a life!
Fancy, mademoiselle, the poor girl loves my Baptiste! they have always
had a fancy for each other; and if the old man would give her a _dot_ as
he promised, and Baptiste drew a good number----”
“What is a good number?” said Helen, in her ignorance. She did not know
what it meant. That the young man’s fate should depend on the very
insignificant fact whether he drew five or fifty, was incomprehensible
to Helen.
Madame Dupré on her side was equally incapable of understanding how any
one could be ignorant on the subject of the conscription. It did not
require a very strong inducement to make her talk. And she launched
forthwith into an eloquent denunciation of the evils of the system. “A
low number is a good number,” she said; “but figure to yourself,
mademoiselle, what will happen to me if it comes otherwise. Either my
Baptiste marched away to the life of the _caserne_,--such a life, such a
life, _mon Dieu!_ and though he is a good son, he is idle, I do not deny
it--he loves to wander; it would be his destruction,--or all that we
have taken from us to buy a substitute. Often it is a thousand francs,
no less. Think of that, mademoiselle, a thousand francs! and I but a
poor widow with four children. When I think of it in the night my sleep
goes from me. Certainly M. Goudron has reason. Children are the chief
pleasures in our existence, but it is true that they are at the same
time our torment--they are our cross that we must bear.”
She lifted up the corner of her apron to her eye, but seeing under its
shadow the first person of the crowd coming into sight, she returned at
once to her business.
“Quick, Jeanne!” she said--“the soup! they come.” And sure enough, the
one figure was soon followed by others. Madame Dupré lost not another
moment. She took the long rolls out of the basket and put them by every
plate. She set upon the table, at equal distances, the _vin du pays_,
which was given with the meal. Her long ear-rings swung in her ears with
the vehemence of her movements, her cap-strings floated in the air. She
sent little Auguste, the waiter, in three directions at once, and,
wonderful to relate, he went. Auguste was ubiquitous; he could carry any
number of plates, full or empty, and a laden tray on four fingers of his
extended hand. His feet, in their low shoes, twinkled over the floor
like lightning. He was never still for a moment. The two girls stood
looking on at all these arrangements till Madame Dupré ran against them.
“Pardon me, mes demoiselles,” she said, “you will be better up-stairs.
When monsieur your father comes back he will like to find you in your
own apartment. The Lion d’Or is very well regulated, but there are
_mauvais sujets_ that will take more wine than is good for them. When
the bustle is over, Auguste shall mount up-stairs with the young ladies’
breakfast.”
This speech, delivered without one pause for breath, was very puzzling
to Helen, who had only understood approximately. But she understood
enough to lead Janey, very reluctant, up-stairs. And here they watched
the return of the buyers, which went on for the next two hours, one
group and another coming in till the whole village was overflowing. The
most important among them had maps of the property, to which they
referred, perpetually pointing out to one another the different lots,
and quarrelling about the position of their bits of timber. Mr Goulburn
returned as he had gone away, with young Baptiste and Antoine
discoursing to him on either side. He had the air, radiant and
satisfied, of a man who had done a good morning’s work. He listened to
all they said to him with a smile, but he did not accept Antoine’s
offers of guidance in the matter of cutting up the wood he had bought,
or getting the best price for it. “We will talk of that afterwards, my
good friends,” he said. He was willing to hear what they said to him,
but he did not pledge himself to follow either. Meanwhile it was quite a
gay scene from the windows of the Lion d’Or. The old man still stood at
his door, exchanging a word here and there, and asking eager questions
about the buyers. He had nothing to do with the old Count’s wood, but to
have something happening was a godsend to him. As for little Janey, the
bustle in the street was delightful to her. She leaned out of the
window, keeping Helen in terror. She called “Papa,” making a pretty
babyish grimace as she looked down upon him, watching her opportunity to
drop something upon his head or his plate. However impatient of others,
he was always tolerant of Janey’s freaks. Her countenance was as gay as
that of the happiest child in Christendom; and his was bright with
satisfaction and pleasure. It was not possible to Helen to change so
easily. She gazed upon the happiness in both their faces with an envy
that perhaps had a little disdain in it. How easily they threw over
their burdens, while she---- And once more it became apparent to Helen
that they were very likely to remain a long time at Latour.