WITHIN THE GATES
The great bell hanging inside the gates of Gemosac was silent for two
days after the return of Juliette de Gemosac from her fever-stricken
convent school, at Saintes.
But on the third day, soon after nightfall, it rang once more, breaking
suddenly in on the silence of the shadowy courts and gardens, bidding the
frogs in the tank be still with a soft, clear voice, only compassed by
the artificers who worked in days when silver was little accounted of in
the forging of a bell.
It was soon after eight o'clock, and darkness had not long covered the
land and sent the workers home. There was no moon. Indeed, the summons to
the gate, coming so soon after nightfall, seemed to suggest the arrival
of a traveller, who had not deemed it expedient to pass through the
winding streets of Gemosac by daylight.
The castle lies on a height, sufficiently removed from the little town to
temper the stir of its streets to a pleasant and unobtrusive evidence of
neighbourhood. Had the traveller come in a carriage, the sound of its
wheels would certainly have been heard; and nearer at hand, the tramp of
horses on the hollow of the old drawbridge, not raised these hundred
years, must have heralded the summons of the bell. But none of these
sounds had warned Juliette de Gemosac, who sat alone in the little white
room upstairs, nor Marie and her husband, dumb and worn by the day's
toil, who awaited bedtime on a stone seat by the stable door.
Juliette, standing at the open window, heard Jean stir himself, and
shuffle, in his slippers, toward the gate.
"It is some one who comes on foot," she heard Marie say. "Some
beggar--the roads are full of them. See that he gets no farther than the
gate."
She heard Jean draw back the bolts and answer gruffly, in a few words,
through the interstice of a grudging door, what seemed to be inquiries
made in a voice that was not the voice of a peasant. Marie rose and went
to the gate. In a few minutes they returned, and Juliette drew back from
the window, for they were accompanied by the new-comer, whose boots made
a sharper, clearer sound on the cobble-stones.
"Yes," Juliette heard him explain, "I am an Englishman, but I come from
Monsieur de Gemosac, for all that. And since Mademoiselle is here, I must
see her. It was by chance that I heard, on the road, that there is fever
at Saintes, and that she had returned home. I was on my way to Saintes to
see her and give her my news of her father."
"But what news?" asked Marie, and the answer was lost as the speakers
passed into the doorway, the new-comer evidently leading the way, the
peasant and his wife following without protest, and with that instinctive
obedience to unconscious command which will survive all the iconoclasm of
a hundred revolutions.
There followed a tramping on the stairs and a half-suppressed laugh as
the new-comer stumbled upward. Marie opened the door slowly.
"It is a gentleman," she announced, "who does not give his name."
Juliette de Gemosac was standing at the far side of the table, with the
lamp throwing its full light upon her. She was dressed in white, with a
blue ribbon at her waist and wrists. Another ribbon of the same colour
tied back her hair, which was of a bright brown, with curls that caught
the light in a score of tendrils above her ears. No finished coquette
could have planned a prettier surprise than that which awaited Loo
Barebone, as he made Marie stand aside, and came, hat in hand, into the
room.
He paused for an instant, breathless, before Juliette, who stood, with a
little smile of composed surprise parting her lips. This child, fresh
from the quiet of a convent-school, was in no wise taken aback nor at a
loss how to act. She did not speak, but stood with head erect, not
ungracious, looking at him with clear brown eyes, awaiting his
explanation. And Loo Barebone, all untaught, who had never spoken to a
French lady in his life, came forward with an assurance and a readiness
which must have lain dormant in his blood, awaiting the magic of this
moment.
"Since my name would convey nothing to Mademoiselle," he said, with a bow
which he had assuredly not learnt in Farlingford, "it was useless to
mention it. But it is at the disposal of Mademoiselle, nevertheless. It
is an English name--Barebone. I am the Englishman who has been fortunate
enough to engage the interest of your father, who journeyed to England to
find me--and found me."
He broke off with a laugh, spreading out his arms to show himself, as it
were, and ask indulgence.
"I have a heritage, it appears, in France," he went on, "but know nothing
of it, yet. For the weather has been bad and our voyage a stormy one. I
was to have been told during the journey, but we had no time for that.
And I know no more than you, mademoiselle."
Juliette had changed colour, and her cheeks, which were usually of a most
delicate pink, were suddenly quite white. She did not touch upon the
knowledge to which he referred, but went past it to its object.
"You do not speak like an Englishman," she said. "For I know one or two.
One came to the school at Saintes. He was a famous English prelate, and
he had the manner--well, of a tree. And when he spoke, it was what one
would expect of a tree, if it suddenly had speech. But you--you are not
like that."
Loo Barebone laughed with an easy gaiety, which seemed infectious, though
Marie did not join in it, but stood scowling in the doorway.
"Yes," he said, "you have described them exactly. I know a hundred who
are like great trees. Many are so, but they are kind and still like
trees--the English, when you know them, mademoiselle."
"They?" she said, with her prettily arched eyebrows raised high.
"We, I mean," he answered, quickly, taking her meaning in a flash. "I
almost forgot that I was an Englishman. It is my heritage, perhaps, that
makes me forget--or yourself. It is so easy and natural to consider one's
self a Frenchman--and so pleasant."
Marie shuffled with her feet and made a movement of impatience, as if to
remind them that they were still far from the business in hand and were
merely talking of themselves, which is the beginning of all things--or
may be the beginning of the inevitable end.
"But I forgot," said Barebone, at once. "And it is getting late. Your
father has had a slight misfortune. He has sprained his ankle. He is on
board my ship, the ship of which I am--I have been--an officer, lying at
anchor in the river near here, off the village of Mortagne. I came from
Mortagne at your father's request, with certain messages, for yourself,
mademoiselle, and for Marie--if Madame is Marie."
"Yes," replied the grim voice in the doorway. "Madame is Marie."
Loo had turned toward her. It seemed his happy fate to be able to disarm
antagonism at the first pass. He looked at Marie and smiled; and slowly,
unwillingly, her grim face relaxed.
"Well," he said, "you are not to expect Monsieur le Marquis to-night, nor
yet, for some time to come. For he will go on to Bordeaux, where he can
obtain skilled treatment for his injured ankle, and remain there until he
can put his foot to the ground. He is comfortable enough on board the
ship, which will proceed up the river to-morrow morning to Bordeaux.
Monsieur le Marquis also told me to set your mind at rest on another
point. He was to have brought with him a guest--"
Loo paused and bowed to Marie, with a gay grace.
"A humble one. But I am not to come to Gemosac just now. I am going,
instead, with Monsieur Dormer Colville, to stay at Royan with Mrs. St.
Pierre Lawrence. It is, I hope, a pleasure deferred. I cannot, it
appears, show myself in Bordeaux at present, and I quit the ship
to-night. It is some question of myself and my heritage in France, which
I do not understand."
"Is that so?" said Marie. "One can hardly believe it."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing," replied Marie, looking at his face with a close scrutiny,
as if it were familiar to her.
"And that is all that I had to tell you, Madame Marie," concluded
Barebone.
And, strangely enough, Marie smiled at him as he turned away, not
unkindly.
"To you, mademoiselle," he went on, turning again to Juliette, whose hand
was at her hair, for she had been taken by surprise, "my message is
simpler. Monsieur, your father, will be glad to have your society at
Bordeaux, while he stays there, if that is true which the Gironde pilot
told him--of fever at Saintes, and the hurried dispersal of the schools."
"It is true enough, monsieur," answered Juliette, in her low-pitched
voice of the south, and with a light of anticipation in her eye; for it
was dull enough at Gemosac, all alone in this empty château. "But how am
I to reach Bordeaux?"
"Your father did not specify the route or method. He seemed to leave that
to you, mademoiselle. He seemed to have an entire faith in your judgment,
and that is why I was so surprised when I saw you. I thought--well, I
figured to myself that you were older, you understand."
He broke off with a laugh and a deprecatory gesture of the hand, as
if he had more in his mind but did not want to put it into words. His
meaning was clear enough in his eyes, but Juliette was fresh from a
convent-school, where they seek earnestly to teach a woman not to be a
woman.
"One may be young, and still have understanding, monsieur," she said,
with the composed little smile on her demure lips, which must only have
been the composure of complete innocence: almost a monopoly of children,
though some women move through life without losing it.
"Yes," answered Loo, looking into her eyes. "So it appears. So, how will
you go to Bordeaux? How does one go from Gemosac to Bordeaux?"
"By carriage to Mortagne, where a boat is always to be obtained. It is a
short journey, if the tide is favourable," broke in Marie, who was
practical before she was polite.
"Then," said Loo, as quick as thought, "drive back with me now to
Mortagne. I have left my horse in the town, my boat at the pier at
Mortagne. It is an hour's drive. In an hour and a half you will be on
board 'The Last Hope,' at anchor in the river. There is accommodation on
board for both you and Madame; for I, alas! Leave the ship to-night with
Monsieur Colville, and thus vacate two cabins."
Juliette reflected for a moment, but she did not consult, even by a
glance, Marie; who, in truth, appeared to expect no such confidences, but
awaited the decision with a grim and grudging servitude which was as
deeply pressed in upon her soul as was the habit of command in the soul
of a de Gemosac.
"Yes," said Juliette, at length, "that will be best. It is, of course,
important that my father should reach Bordeaux as soon as possible."
"He will be there at midday to-morrow, if you will come with me now,"
answered Loo, and his gay eyes said "Come!" as clearly as his lips,
though Juliette could not, of course, be expected to read such signals.
The affair was soon settled, and Jean ordered to put the horse into the
high, old-fashioned carriage still in use at the château. For Juliette
de Gemosac seemed to be an illustration of the fact, known to many
much-tried parents, that one is never too young to know one's mind.
"There is a thunder-storm coming from the sea," was Jean's only comment.
There was some delay in starting; for Marie had to change her own clothes
as well as pack her young mistress's simple trunks. But the time did not
hang heavily on the hands of the two waiting in the little drawing-room,
and Marie turned an uneasy glance toward the open door more than once at
the sound of their laughter.
Barebone was riding a horse hired in the village of Mortagne, and quitted
the château first, on foot, saying that the carriage must necessarily
travel quicker than he, as his horse was tired. The night was dark, and
darkest to the west, where lightning danced in and out among heavy clouds
over the sea.
As in all lands that have been torn hither and thither by long wars, the
peasants of Guienne learnt, long ago, the wisdom of dwelling together in
closely built villages, making a long journey to their fields or
vineyards every day. In times past, Gemosac had been a walled town,
dominated, as usual, by the almost impregnable castle.
Barebone rode on, alone, through the deserted vineyards, of which the
scent, like that of a vinery in colder lands, was heavy and damp. The
road runs straight, from point to point, and there was no chance of
missing the way or losing his companions. He was more concerned with
watching the clouds, which were rising in dark towers against the western
sky. He had noted that others were watching them, also, standing at their
doors in every street. It was the period of thunder and hailstorms--the
deadly foe of the vine.
At length Barebone pulled up and waited; for he could hear the sound of
wheels behind him, and noted that it was not increasing in loudness.
"Can you not go faster?" he shouted to Jean, when, at length, the
carriage approached.
Jean made no answer, but lashed his horse and pointed upward to the sky
with his whip. Barebone rode in front to encourage the slower horse. At
the village of Mortagne he signed to Jean to wait before the inn until he
had taken his horse to the stable and paid for its hire. Then he
clambered to the box beside him and they rattled down the long street and
out into the open road that led across the marshes to the port--a few
wooden houses and a jetty, running out from the shallows to the channel.
When they reached the jetty, going slowly at the last through the heavy
dust, the air was still and breathless. The rounded clouds still towered
above them, making the river black with their deep shadows. A few lights
twinkled across the waters. They were the lightships marking the middle
bank of the Gironde, which is many miles wide at this spot and rendered
dangerous by innumerable sand-banks.
"In five minutes it will be upon us," said Jean. "You had better turn
back."
"Oh, no," was the reply, with a reassuring laugh. "In the country where I
come from, they do not turn back."