GOSSIP.
“Cupid is a casuist,
A mystic, and a cabalist.
Can your lurking thought surprise,
And interpret your device?”
That which has been taken by the sword must be held by the sword. In
Corsica the blade is sheathed, but it has never yet been laid aside. The
quick events of July thrust this sheathed weapon into the hand of Colonel
Gilbert, who, as he himself had predicted, was left behind in the general
exodus.
“If you are placed in command at Bastia, how many, or how few men will
suffice?” asked the civil authority, who was laid on the shelf by the
outbreak of war.
And Colonel Gilbert named what appeared to be an absurd minimum.
“We must think of every event; things may go badly, the fortune of war
may turn against us.”
“Still I can do it,” answered the colonel.
“The empire may fall, and then Corsica will blaze up like tow.”
“Still I can do it,” repeated the colonel.
It is the natural instinct of man to strike while his blood is up, and
the national spirit on either side of the Rhine was all for immediate
action. The leaders themselves were anxious to begin, so that they might
finish before the winter. So the preparations were pushed forward in
Germany with a methodical haste, a sane and deliberate foresight. In
France it was more a question of sentiment--the invincibility of French
arms, the heroism of French soldiers, the Napoleonic legend. But while
these abstract aids to warfare may make a good individual soldier of that
untidy little man in the red trousers, who has, in his time, overrun all
Europe, it will not move great armies or organize a successful campaign.
For the French soldier must have some one to fight for--some one towering
man in whom he trusts, who can turn to good account some of the best
fighting material the human race has yet produced. And Napoleon III was
not such a man.
It is almost certain that he counted on receiving assistance from Austria
or Italy, and when this was withheld, the disease-stricken, suffering man
must assuredly have realized that his star was sinking. He had made the
mistake of putting off this great war too long. He should have fought it
years earlier, before the Prussians had made sure of those steady,
grumbling Bavarians, who bore the brunt of all the fighting, before his
own hand was faltering at the helm, and the face of God was turned away
from the Napoleonic dynasty.
The emperor was no tactician, but he knew the human heart. He knew that
at any cost France must lead off with a victory, not only for the sake of
the little man in the red trousers, but to impress watching Europe, and
perhaps snatch an ally from among the hesitating powers. And the result
was Saarbrück. The news of it filtered through to Colonel Gilbert, who
was now quartered in the grey, picturesque Watrin barracks at Bastia,
which jut out between the old harbour and the plain of Biguglia. The
colonel did not believe half of it. It is always safe to subtract from
good news. But he sat down at once and wrote to Denise Lange. He had not
seen her, had not communicated with her, since he had asked her to marry
him, and she had refused. He was old enough to be her father. He had
asked her to marry him because she would not sell Perucca, and he wanted
that estate; which was not the right motive, but it is the usual one with
men who are past the foolishness of youth--that foolishness which is
better than all the wisdom of the ages.
From having had nothing to do, Colonel Gilbert found himself thrown into
a whirl of work, or what would have been a whirl with a man less calm and
placid. Very much at ease, in white linen clothes, he sat in his room in
the bastion, and transacted the affairs of his command with a leisurely
good nature which showed his complete grasp of the situation.
With regard to Denise, this middle-aged, cynical Frenchman grasped the
situation also. He was slowly and surely falling in love with her. And
she herself had given him the first push down that facile descent when
she had refused to be his wife.
“Mademoiselle,” he wrote, “to quarrel is, I suppose, in the air of
Corsica, and when we parted at your gate some time ago, I am afraid I
left you harbouring a feeling of resentment against me. At this time, and
in the adverse days that I foresee must inevitably be in store for
France, none can afford to part with friends who by any means can
preserve them. In our respective positions, you and I must rise above
small differences of opinion; and I place myself unreservedly at your
service. I write to tell you that I have this morning good news from
France. We have won a small victory at Saarbrück. So far, so good. But,
in case of a reverse, there is only too much reason to fear that internal
disturbances will arise in France, and consequently in this unfortunate
island. It is, therefore, my duty to urge upon you the necessity of
quitting Perucca without delay. If you will not consent to leave the
island, come at all events into Bastia, where, at a few minutes' notice,
I shall be able to place you in a position of safety. I trust I am not
one who is given to exaggerating danger. Ask Mademoiselle Brun, who has
known me since, as a young man, I had the privilege of serving under your
father, a general who had the gift of drawing out from those about him
such few soldierly qualities as they might possess.”
Denise received this letter by post the next morning, and, after reading
it twice, handed it to Mademoiselle Brun, who was much too wise a woman
to ask for an explanation of those parts of it which she did not
comprehend. Indeed, she was manlike enough to pass on with an unimpaired
understanding to the second part of the letter, whereas most women would
have been so consumed by curiosity as to be unable to give more than half
their mind to the colonel's further news.
“And--?” inquired mademoiselle--a Frenchwoman's way of asking a thousand
questions in one. Mademoiselle Brun knew all the conversational tricks
that serve to economize words.
“It is all based upon supposition,” said the erstwhile mathematical
instructress of the school in the Rue du Cherche-Midi. “It will be time
enough to arrive at a decision when the reverse comes. The Count de
Vasselot or the Abbé Susini will, no doubt, warn us in time.”
“Ah!” said Mademoiselle Brun.
“But, if you like, I will write to the Count de Vasselot,” said Denise,
in the voice of one making a concession.
Mademoiselle Brun thought deeply before replying. It is so easy to take a
wrong turning at the cross-roads of life, and assuredly Denise stood at a
_carrefour_ now.
“Yes,” said mademoiselle at length; “it would be well to do that.”
And Denise went away to write the letter that Lory had asked for in case
she wanted him. She did not show it to Mademoiselle Brun, but went out
and posted it herself in the little square box, painted white, affixed to
the white wall on the high-road, and just within sight of Olmeta. When
she returned she went into the garden again, where she spent so great a
part of these hot days that her face was burnt to a healthy brown, which
was in keeping with her fearless eyes and carriage. Mademoiselle Brun, on
the other hand, spent most of her days indoors, divining perhaps that
Denise had of late fallen into an unconscious love of solitude.
Denise returned to the house at luncheon-time, entered by the window, and
caught Mademoiselle Brun hastily shutting an atlas.
“I was wondering,” she said, “where Saarbrück might be, and whether any
one we know had time to get there before the battle.”
“Yes.”
“But Colonel Gilbert will tell us.”
“Colonel Gilbert?” inquired Denise, turning rather sharply.
“Yes. I think he will come to-day or to-morrow.”
And Mademoiselle Brun was right. In the full heat of the afternoon the
great bell at the gate gave forth a single summons; for the colonel was
always gentle in his ways.
“I made an opportunity,” he said, “to escape from the barracks this hot
day.”
But he looked cool enough, and greeted Denise with his usual leisurely,
friendly bow. His manner conveyed, better than any words, that she need
feel no uneasiness on his account, and could treat him literally at his
word, as a friend.
“In order to tell you, with all reserve, the good news,” he continued.
“With all reserve!” echoed Mademoiselle Brun.
“Good news in a French newspaper, Mademoiselle--” And he finished with a
gesture eloquent of the deepest distrust.
“I was wondering,” said Mademoiselle Brun, speaking slowly, and in a
manner that demanded for the time the colonel's undivided attention,
“whether our friend the Count de Vasselot could have been at Saarbrück.”
“The Count de Vasselot,” said Colonel Gilbert, with an air of friendly
surprise. “Has he quitted his beloved château? He is so attached to that
old house, you know.”
“He has joined his regiment,” replied Mademoiselle Brun, upon whom the
burden of the conversation fell; for Denise had gone to the open window,
and was closing the shutters against the sun.
“Ah! Then I can tell you that he was not at Saarbrück. The count's
regiment is not in that part of the country. I was forgetting that he was
a soldier. He is, by the way, your nearest neighbour.”
The colonel rose as he spoke, and went to the window--not to that where
Denise was standing, but to the other, of which the sun-blinds were only
half closed.
“You can, of course, see the château from here?” he said musingly.
“Yes,” answered Mademoiselle Brun, with an uneasy glance.
What was Colonel Gilbert going to say?
He stood for a moment looking down into the valley, while Denise and
Mademoiselle Brun waited.
“And you have perceived nothing that would seem to confirm the gossip
current regarding your--enemy?” he asked, with a good-natured,
deprecatory laugh.
“What gossip?” asked mademoiselle, bluntly.
The colonel shrugged his shoulders without looking round.
“Oh,” he answered, “one does not believe all one hears. Besides, there
are many who think that in such a remote spot as Corsica, it is not
necessary to observe the ordinary--what shall I say?--etiquette of
society.”
He laughed uneasily, and spread out his hands as if, for his part, he
would rather dismiss the subject. But Mademoiselle Brun could be frankly
feminine at times.
“What is the gossip to which you refer?” she asked again.
“Oh, I do not believe a word of it--though I, myself, have seen. Well,
mademoiselle--you will excuse my frankness?--they say there is some one
in the château--some one whom the count wishes to conceal, you
understand.”
“Ah!” said mademoiselle, indifferently.
Denise said nothing. She was looking out of the window with a face as
hard as the face of Mademoiselle Brun. She looked at her watch, seemed to
make a quick mental calculation, and then turned and spoke to Colonel
Gilbert with steady, smiling eyes.
“You have not told us your war news yet,” she said.
So he told them what he knew, which, as a matter of fact, did not amount
to much. Then he took his leave, and rode home in the cool of the
evening--a solitary, brooding man, who had missed his way somehow early
on the road of life, and lacked perhaps the strength of mind to go back
and try again.
Denise said good-bye to him in the same friendly spirit which he had
inaugurated. She was standing with her back to the window from which she
had looked down on to the château of Vasselot while Colonel Gilbert
related his idle gossip respecting that house. And Mademoiselle Brun, who
remembered such trifles, noted that she never looked out of that window
again, but avoided it as one would avoid a cupboard where there is a
skeleton.
Denise, who consulted her watch again so soon as the colonel had left,
wrote another letter, which she addressed in an open envelope to the
postmaster at Marseilles, and enclosed a number of stamps. She went out
on to the high-road, and waited there in the shade of the trees for the
diligence, which would pass at four o'clock on its way to Bastia.
The driver of the diligence, like many who are on the road and have but a
passing glimpse of many men and many things, was a good-natured man, and
willingly charged himself with Denise's commission. For that which she
had enclosed was not a letter, but a telegram to be despatched from
Marseilles on the arrival of the mail steamer there. It was addressed to
Lory de Vasselot at the Cercle Militaire in Paris, and contained the
words--
“Please return unopened the letter posted to-day.”