PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.
The morning papers on the following day contained the announcement of
Colonel Charles Clery's sudden death, and after devoting some space to
a brief outline of his career, concluded with the following sentences:
“The late colonel dined the night before his death at the house of the
Marquis of Kingsbury, in Park lane. He appeared to be in excellent
health and spirits, and left some time after midnight with the Comte
de Vaugelade, in whose company he walked up Piccadilly. The count is
reported to be the last person who saw him alive.
A couple of days later, and before Frederick had had an opportunity of
calling again at Park lane, a well-known society paper, renowned for
the venom of its attacks and for the correctness of its information,
published the following paragraph:
“Who is the Comte de Vaugelade, the foreign nobleman, in whose company
the late Colonel Clery was last seen alive? We are informed, both at
the Belgian Legation and at the French Embassy, that the name and the
title are extinct.”
These words caught Frederick's eye as he was glancing over the papers
after his early breakfast in the privacy of his own room three days
after Colonel Clery's death. He immediately realized that this,
together with Lady Alice's mysterious words, was making London too hot
for him. It was a great disappointment to have to leave England just as
he believed that he was on the point of obtaining his heart's fondest
wish—namely, a wife belonging to a wealthy and noble family, who
would place her husband for once and all in the sphere to which he was
born. He could then have left his career of adventurer far behind him,
and lived the untrammeled life of a gentleman of means and leisure,
respected and honored by all.
Men, according to the old Greeks, were the toys of the gods, who, from
their high estate in Olympus, put evil and foul instincts and desires
into their mortal hearts, and then, when the evil actions became the
outlet of evil thoughts, amused themselves by watching the fruitless
efforts made by their victims to escape a cruel and merciless goddess,
called Nemesis, who stood there ready to punish them. The gods may have
enjoyed it, but how about the poor mortals? In these days of skepticism
and unbelief we have dropped this deity, but only to replace her by
another, whom we have christened Fate, and whom we use as a scapegoat
upon which to lay the blame of our own shortcomings. The true religion
of Fate, however, is that our lives are the outcome of our actions.
Every action, good or bad, has its corresponding reward—as Frederick
found to his cost.
He resolved to leave London without delay; but, fearing that if he
traveled via Dover or Folkestone, he might meet a number of his English
acquaintances, and thereby attract attention—a thing he particularly
wished to avoid—he determined to take the train for Southampton that
very afternoon, and thence to proceed to St. Malo, on the coast of
Brittany.
Before his departure, he wrote a long letter to Lady Kingsbury,
informing her that to his great sorrow he had been called away by his
only sister's dangerous illness, and that, having no time to come and
make his adieus in person, he begged her ladyship to remember him
most gratefully to the marquis, and to her son and daughters, whose
kindness, as well as her own, he could never forget. He added that
he hoped soon to be able to return to London, since it was his most
cherished wish to meet them all again.
That same evening he embarked on board one of those small steamboats
which make the passage between Southampton and St. Malo, and as he lay
tossing on the narrow couch of the deck cabin, many a bitter thought
filled his troubled mind. He got but little sleep, and when the vessel
steamed into the harbor of St. Malo he was standing on deck, looking
moodily into the deep, transparent waters, where the jelly-fish were
floating many fathoms beneath the surface of the bay, and where a
school of porpoises were sporting in the foaming track left by the ship.
St. Malo is one of the most picturesque places in France, and one of
the most ancient. It is fortified, and its gray, moss-grown walls and
battlements, when seen from the entrance of the harbor, carry one back
to old feudal times.
Frederick, having passed his trunks through the custom-house, made his
way to the best hotel in the place—a grim-looking stone building, with
mullioned windows, rusty iron balconies, and peaked roof, which looked
more like one of Dore's pictures than any modern hostelry. Entering
the office of the hotel, he asked for a sitting-room and bedroom, and
was soon ushered into the very suite of apartments in which the poet
Chateaubriand had been born. The ponderous oak furniture of the rooms,
coupled with the dark paneling of the walls, rendered them a rather
gloomy place of abode.
He walked listlessly to the window, and amused himself in watching
the crowd of peasants, who, as it was market-day, were assembling
upon the esplanade in front of the hotel. The poorer classes have
kept here in all its integrity the costume which was worn before the
French revolution of 1793 by the peasants in Brittany and the Vendee.
The men with their red coats, baggy white breeches, tied with ribbons
at the knee over their crimson stockings, low silver-buckled shoes,
and three-cornered hats; the women with their short dark woolen
petticoats, blue or pink aprons, lace fichus, and white caps, which
look like the wings of a gigantic butterfly, presented a scene not only
animated, but also exceedingly picturesque, which appealed strongly to
Frederick's artistic instincts. Taking his sketch-book with him, he
went down stairs again, with the intention of making a few sketches of
this queer little town and its quaint inhabitants.
He walked over to St. Servan, and, after spending some time in taking
a sketch of the walls and turrets of St. Malo, he hired a boat and
rowed over to the island of Grand Bey, where he intended to visit
Chateaubriand's monument. When he returned to the Hotel de France, he
ordered his dinner to be brought up to his sitting-room; and long after
the piquant little chambermaid had removed the cloth, and noiselessly
left the great dark room, he sat wrapt deep in thought, brooding over
the past and planning out the future, which seemed very uncertain to
him at that moment.