BY SURPRISE.
“C'est ce qu'on ne dit pas qui explique ce qu'on dit.”
From the Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris to the Casa Perucca in Corsica is
as complete a change as even the heart of woman may desire. For the Rue
du Cherche-Midi is probably the noisiest corner of that noisy Paris that
lies south of the Seine; and the Casa Perucca is one of the few quiet
corners of Europe where the madding crowd is non-existent, and that
crowning effort of philanthropic folly, the statute holiday, has yet to
penetrate.
“Yes,” said Mademoiselle Brun, one morning, after she and Denise had
passed two months in what she was pleased to term exile--“yes; it is
peaceful. Give me war,” she added grimly, after a pause.
They were standing on the terrace that looked down over the great valley
of Vasselot. There was not a house in sight except the crumbling chateau.
The month was June, and the river, which could be heard in winter, was
now little more than a trickling stream. A faint breeze stirred the young
leaves of the copper-beech, which is a silent tree by nature, and did not
so much as whisper now. There are few birds in Corsica, for the natives
are great sportsmen, and will shoot, sitting, anything from a man to a
sparrow in season and out.
“Listen,” said Mademoiselle Brun, holding up one steady, yellow finger;
but the silence was such as will make itself felt. “And the neighbours do
not call much,” added mademoiselle, in completion of her own thoughts.
Denise laughed. She had been up early, for they were almost alone in the
Casa Perucca now. The servants who had obeyed Mattei Perucca in fear and
trembling, had refused to obey Denise, who, with much spirit, had
dismissed them one and all. An old man remained, who was generally
considered to be half-witted; and Maria Andrei, the widow of Pietro, who
was shot at Olmeta. Denise superintended the small farm.
“That cheery Maria,” said Mademoiselle Brun, “she is our only resource,
and reminds me of a cheap funeral.”
“There is the colonel,” said Denise. “You forget him.”
“Yes; there is the colonel, who is so kind to us.”
And Mademoiselle Brun slowly contemplated the whole landscape, taking in
Denise, as it were, in passing.
“And there is our little friend,” she added, “down in the valley there
who does not call.”
“Why do you call him little?” asked Denise, looking down at the Chateau
de Vasselot. “He is not little.”
“He is not so large as the colonel,” explained mademoiselle.
“I wonder why he does not call?” said Denise, presently, looking down
into the valley, as if she could perhaps see the explanation there.
“It has something to do with the social geography of the district,” said
mademoiselle, “which we do not understand. The Cheap Funeral alone knows
it. Half of the country she colours red, the other half black.
Theoretically, we hate a number of persons who reciprocate the feeling
heartily. Practically, we do not know of their existence. I imagine the
Count de Vasselot hates us on the same principle.”
“But we are not going to be dictated to by a number of ignorant
peasants,” cried Denise, angrily.
“I rather fancy we are.”
Denise was standing by the low wall, with her head thrown back. She was
naturally energetic, and had the carriage that usually goes with that
quality.
“Are you sure he is there?” she asked, still looking down at the château.
“No, I am not. I have only Maria's word for it.”
“Then I am going to the village of Olmeta to find out,” said Denise.
And mademoiselle followed her to the house without comment. Indeed, she
seemed willing enough to do that which they had been warned not to do.
On the road that skirts the hill and turns amid groves of chestnut trees,
they met two men, loitering along with no business in hand, who scowled
at them and made no salutation.
“They may scowl beneath their great hats,” said Denise; “I am not afraid
of them.” And she walked on with her chin well up.
Below them, on the left, the terraces of vine and olive were weed-grown
and neglected; for Denise had found no one to work on her land, and the
soil here is damp and warm, favouring a rapid growth.
Colonel Gilbert had been unable to help them in this matter. His
official position necessarily prevented his taking an active part in any
local differences. There were Luccans, he said, to be hired at Bastia,
hard-working men and skilled vine-dressers, but they would not come to a
commune where such active hostility existed, and to induce them to do so
would inevitably lead to bloodshed.
The Abbé Susini had called, and told a similar tale in more guarded
language. Finding the ladies good Catholics, he pleaded for and abused
his poor in one breath, and then returned half the money that Denise gave
him.
“As likely as not you will be given credit for the whole in heaven,
mademoiselle, but I will only take part of it,” he said.
“A masterful man,” commented Mademoiselle Brun, when he was gone.
But the abbé had suggested no solution to Denise's difficulties. The
estate seemed to be drifting naturally into the hands of the only man who
wanted it, and, after all, had offered a good price for it.
“I will find out from the Abbé Susini or the mayor whether the Count de
Vasselot is really here,” Denise said, as they approached the village.
“And if he is, we will go and see him. We cannot go on like this. He says
do not sell, and then he does not come near us. He must give his reasons.
Why should I take his advice?”
“Why, indeed?” said Mademoiselle Brun, to whom the question was not quite
a new one.
She knew that though Denise would rebel against de Vasselot's advice, she
would continue to follow it.
“It seems to be luncheon-time,” said Denise, when they reached the
village. “The place is deserted. It must be their _déjeuner_.”
“It may be,” responded mademoiselle, with her manlike curtness of speech.
They went into the church, which was empty, and stayed but a few minutes
there, for Mademoiselle Brun was as short in her speech with God as with
men. When they came out to the market-place, that also was deserted,
which was singular, because the villagers in Corsica spend nearly the
whole day on the market-place, talking politics and whispering a hundred
intrigues of parochial policy; for here a municipal councillor is a great
man, and usually a great scoundrel, selling his favour and his vote,
trafficking for power, and misappropriating the public funds. Not only
was the market-place empty, but some of the house-doors were closed. The
door of a small shop was even shut from within as they approached, and
surreptitiously barred. Mademoiselle Brun noticed it, and Denise did not
pretend to ignore it.
“One would say that we had an infectious complaint,” she said, with a
short laugh.
They went to the house of the Abbé Susini. Even this door was shut.
“The abbé is out,” said the old woman, who came in answer to their
summons, and she closed the door again with more speed than politeness.
Denise did not need to ask which was the mayor's house, for a board, with
the word “Mairie” painted upon it (appropriately enough a movable board),
was affixed to a house nearly opposite to the church. As they walked
towards it, a stone, thrown from the far corner of the Place, under the
trees, narrowly missed Denise, and rolled at her feet. Mademoiselle Brun
walked on, but Denise swung round on her heel. There was no one to be
seen, so she had to follow Mademoiselle Brun, after all, in silence. She
was rather pale, but it was anger that lighted her eyes, and not fear.
Almost immediately a volley of stones followed, and a laugh rang out from
beneath the trees. And, strange to say, it was the laugh that at last
frightened Denise, and not the stones; for it was a cruel laugh--the
laugh of a brutal fool, such as one may still hear in a few European
countries when boys are torturing dumb animals.
“Let us hurry,” said Denise, hastily. “Let us get to the Mairie.”
“Where we shall find the biggest scoundrel of them all, no doubt,” added
mademoiselle, who was alert and cool.
But before they reached the Mairie the stones had ceased, and they both
turned at the sound of a horse's feet. It was Colonel Gilbert riding
hastily into the Place. He saw the stones lying there and the two women
standing alone in the sunlight. He looked towards the trees, and then
round at the closed houses. With a shrug of the shoulders, he rode
towards Denise and dismounted.
“Mademoiselle”, he said, “they have been frightening you.”
“Yes”, she answered. “They are not men, but brutes.”
The colonel, who was always gentle in manner, made a deprecatory gesture
with the great riding-whip that he invariably carried.
“You must remember”, he said, “that they are but half civilized. You know
their history--they have been conquered by all the greedy nations in
succession, and they have never known peace from the time that history
began until a hundred years ago. They are barbarians, mademoiselle, and
barbarians always distrust a new-comer.”
“But why do they hate me?”
“Because they do not know you, mademoiselle,” replied the colonel, with
perhaps a second meaning in his blue eyes.
And, after a pause, he explained further.
“Because they do not understand you. They belong to one of the strongest
clans in Corsica, and it is the ambition of every one to belong to a
strong clan. But the Peruccas are in danger of falling into dissension
and disorder, for they have no head. You are the head, mademoiselle. And
the work they expect of you is not work for such hands as yours.”
And again Colonel Gilbert looked at Denise slowly and thoughtfully. She
did not perceive the glance, for she was standing with her head half
turned towards the trees.
“Ah!” he said, noting the direction of her glance, “they will throw no
more stones, mademoiselle. You need have no anxiety. They fear a uniform
as much as they hate it.”
“And if you had not come at that moment?”
“Ah!” said the colonel, gravely; and that was all. “At any rate, I am
glad I came,” he added, in a lighter tone, after a pause. “You were going
to the Mairie, mesdemoiselles, when I arrived. Take my advice, and do not
go there. Go to the abbé if you like--as a man, not as a priest--and come
to me whenever you desire a service, but to no one else in Corsica.”
Denise turned as if she were going to make an exception to this sweeping
restriction, but she checked herself and said nothing. And all the while
Mademoiselle Brun stood by in silence, a little, patient, bent woman,
with compressed lips, and those steady hazel eyes that see so much and
betray so little.
“The abbé is not at home,” continued the colonel. “I saw him many miles
from here not long ago; and although he is quick on his legs--none
quicker--He cannot be here yet. If you are going towards the Casa
Perucca, you will perhaps allow me to accompany you”.
He led the way as he spoke, leading loosely by the bridle the horse which
followed him, and nuzzled thoughtfully at his shoulder. The colonel was,
it appeared, one whose gentle ways endeared him to animals.
It was glaringly hot, and when they reached the Casa Perucca, Denise
asked the colonel to come in and rest. It was, moreover, luncheon-time,
and in a thinly populated country the great distances between neighbours
are conducive to an easier hospitality than that which exists in closer
quarters. The colonel naturally stayed to luncheon.
He was kind and affable, and had a hundred little scraps of gossip such
as exiles love. He made no mention of his offer to buy Perucca,
remembered only the fact that he was a gentleman accepting frankly a
lady's frank hospitality, and if the conversation turned to local
matters, he gracefully guided it elsewhere.
Immediately after luncheon he rose from the table, refusing even to wait
for coffee.
“I have my duties,” he explained. “The War Office is, for reasons known
to itself, moving troops, and I have gradually crept up the ladder at
Bastia, till I am nearly at the top there.”
Denise went with him to the stable to see that his horse had been cared
for.
“They have only left me the decrepit and the half-witted,” she said, “but
I am not beaten yet.”
Colonel Gilbert fetched the horse himself and tightened the girths. They
walked together towards the great gate of solid wood which fitted into
the high wall so closely that none could peep through so much as a crack.
At the door the colonel lingered, leaning against his great horse and
stroking its shoulder thoughtfully with a gloved finger.
“Mademoiselle,” he said at length.
“Yes,” answered Denise, looking at him so honestly in the face that he
had to turn away.
“I want to ask you,” he said slowly, “to marry me.”
Denise looked at him in utter astonishment, her face suddenly red, her
eyes half afraid.
“I do not understand you,” she said.
“And yet it is simple enough,” answered the colonel, who himself was
embarrassed and ill at ease. “I ask you to marry me. You think I am too
old--” He paused, seeking his words. “I am not forty yet, and, at all
events, I am not making the mistake usually made by very young men. I do
not imagine that I love you--I know it.”
They stood for a minute in silence; then the colonel spoke again.
“Of what are you thinking, mademoiselle?”
“That it is hard to lose the only friend we have in Corsica.”
“You need not do that,” replied the colonel. “I do not even ask you to
answer now.”
“Oh, I can answer at once.”
Colonel Gilbert bit his lip, and looked at the ground in silence.
“Then I am too old?” he said at length.
“I do not know whether it is that or not,” answered Denise; and neither
spoke while the colonel mounted and rode slowly away. Denise closed the
door quite softly behind him.