"A LITTLE BOY LOST"
(1)
In a cheap little room, not much more than a garret, at the top of a
house off Tottenham Court Road, the Chevalier de la Vireville was
shaving himself before a cracked mirror. As he did so he hummed,
experimentally, the 'Marseillaise,' which it amused him at times
to render, fitting to it, however, when he actually sang it, the
burlesque words of Royalist invention, 'le jour de boire est arrivé,'
'c'est pour nous que le boudin grille,' and the rest. The light
filtered through the dirty, uncurtained window on to his strong,
aquiline features, the bold chin with a cleft in it, the mouth with
its lines of recklessness and humour; and threw up too the marks
of stress of some kind--it was difficult to tell of what kind--which
had bitten into it too deeply for it to be altogether a handsome
or an attractive countenance. Even as it was, when Fortuné de la
Vireville's smile was merely devil-may-care and not cynical, it had
its charm. Yet something had marred his expression, though neither
women nor wine held any attraction for him. He followed danger,
a commerce which no doubt has purifying effects on some characters,
but which in others is apt to breed consequences not altogether
commendable; and he followed it intemperately, as though life had
very little value for him. With life indeed he possessed only one
enduring tie--his mother in Jersey--and, so his friends whispered,
the remembrance of another, most untimely snapped. Yet for all
this he certainly seemed to find a relish in an existence of the
most constant and varied peril, and envisaged his hazards with an
unfailing and sometimes inconvenient humour.
The ways in which he 'lived dangerously' were these: He was, first
and foremost, a Chouan chief, leading, in a ceaseless guerrilla
warfare of sudden attacks and ambushes, among the broom and hedgerows
of Brittany, those stubborn little long-haired men of an elder
race whose devotion to their religion and their King was almost
fanaticism. Secondly, he was intermittently an 'agent de la
correspondance'--that is to say, he was in constant personal
communication with Jersey, the centre whence set forth all the
small Royalist descents on the coast of Brittany and Normandy. Here
Captain Philip d'Auvergne, the Jerseyman, titular Prince de Bouillon
and captain in His Britannic Majesty's Navy, watched over the
interests of the French émigrés and directed the various gun-running
expeditions to France. When, therefore, as at the present time, La
Vireville was not risking his life amongst Republican bullets, he
was venturing it in a little boat, crossing to and fro from Jersey
to the Breton coast, liable to be shot at sight by a patrol as he
landed, liable to be wrecked on his passage, because secrecy demanded
so small a vessel. It was true that the 'Jersey correspondence' had
three luggers and a brig of its own, but these were generally used
for transporting whole parties of returning émigrés, and in any case
they never came right in to shore.
And always, in whatever capacity La Vireville trod his native soil,
his head was forfeit, since he was an émigré, and in his own person,
as the Chevalier Charles-Marie-Thérèse-Fortuné de la Vireville,
liable to summary execution. It really needed not that a couple
of months ago the Convention had also issued the large reward of
five thousand francs for the body, dead or alive, of 'Augustin,
ci-devant noble, chef de Chouans'; for 'Augustin' and he had but
one body between them. Like most of the Chouan leaders, La Vireville
had a nom de guerre, and many even of his followers knew him by no
other. Little, however, did the reward for his person trouble him,
since he knew his Bretons incapable of betraying him for money, and
was very sensibly persuaded that, his head being forfeit in any case,
it did not concern him whether, when he had parted with it, any other
person were to reap pecuniary benefit by the separation. Only, as
a sacrifice to prudence--about the only one he ever made, and that
more for the sake of the cause he served than for his own--he strove
to keep apart as much as he could these two selves, and, so far, he
had reason to believe the Republican Government ignorant of their
identity.
* * * * *
When he had finished his shaving operations, La Vireville, still
humming, looked round the scantily appointed dressing-table for
something upon which to wipe his razor. On the threadbare dimity
lay, in tempting proximity, a folded paper with worn and soiled
edges, but this he refrained from using. It was, in fact, the
proclamation in question for the person of 'Monsieur Augustin,'
and, as it possessed the merit of being very inaccurate in its
description of that person, he had the habit of carrying it upon
him--partly, he declared, as an amulet. The Republic one and
indivisible had not, he averred, the wits to conceive that a man
would voluntarily carry about with him his own death-warrant.
"Head of a ci-devant!" he observed now, wiping the razor upon a
piece of newspaper, and making a grimace at his image in the glass.
"No, Augustin, my friend, you will get a bullet through your heart
before ever that ornament rolls into the basket and is shown to an
admiring crowd." And indeed this was highly probable.
He was about to put down the razor when the tarnished mirror suddenly
revealed to him a tiny trickle of blood on his left cheek, just
below the short furrowed scar that ran across it. He had cut himself
in shaving--the most infinitesimal injury, yet, after standing a
moment staring at the glass, he gave a violent exclamation, dabbed
at the place with a hasty handkerchief, and threw the scarcely
flecked linen from him as though it were a thing accursed. For a
Chouan, of all men, the action, with its suggestion of repugnance,
was strange.
However, in another minute his brow cleared and he proceeded with
his toilet. Then once more humming the 'Marseillaise,' he sat down
upon the bed and looked over the contents of a letter-case which he
drew from his pocket. A missive in a fine large flourishing hand
signed "Bouillon" informed him that the writer was eagerly expecting
his arrival to confer with him as to the landing of a cargo of arms
and ammunition near Cap Fréhel on the Breton coast. And, in fact,
it was M. de la Vireville's intention to set out this morning for
Southampton, thence to Jersey, on this matter. Another letter was
there, from Jersey also, in a feminine hand. The smile which was
not cynical came about the émigré's lips as he re-read it, and, being
a Frenchman, he lifted and kissed his mother's letter. A third was
the several days' old note from the Marquis de Flavigny, telling
him of the time of the conference which he had already attended
in Mr. Elphinstone's house.
"Tudieu!" exclaimed M. de la Vireville as he came upon this. "And
I promised to say good-bye to the baby. I wonder have I the time?"
He sprang up to put together his few effects, and in a very short
space was making his way westwards.
(2)
Mr. Elphinstone got up from his memoirs when the Chevalier de la
Vireville was shown in to him in the library.
"I am afraid that I am interrupting you, sir," said the émigré.
"If so, it shall only be for a moment."
"You are not interrupting me at all," returned the old gentleman
pleasantly. "I am very glad to see you, M. de la Vireville; pray
sit down. But I thought you had started for Jersey."
"I am just about to do so, sir," said La Vireville, obeying him.
"I came to take my leave of you and of Anne."
"The child will indeed be sorry to miss you," observed his grandfather.
"He was afraid that he might. He has gone away, quite unexpectedly,
upon a visit."
"Tiens!" said La Vireville, surprised; "Anne on a visit! That is
something new. May one ask where he is gone?"
"He has gone to compatriots--some old friends of his father's at
Canterbury. I am glad that the child should have a change of air,
for he has been looking a trifle pale lately, so when my son-in-law's
letter came I was glad to pack him off--under Elspeth's charge,
of course."
But the Frenchman did not seem to be sharing Mr. Elphinstone's
pleasure at the change of air. "_Canterbury!_" he reiterated sharply.
"_Canterbury!_ I did not know that René had friends at Canterbury."
"Nor did I, to tell the truth," confessed Mr. Elphinstone. "I do not
think, in fact, that he was aware of it himself till he came across
them on his way through Canterbury to Dover the other day."
"On his way to Dover!" repeated the émigré. "But, Mr. Elphinstone,
René did not go to Dover! He crossed from Harwich to Germany,
of course."
"I think you must be mistaken, sir," replied the old gentleman
mildly. "His letter came from Canterbury, at all events. It bears
the postmark. But what is wrong then?"
For La Vireville was on his feet, looking very grave. "Have you
the letter here?"
Considerably astonished, Mr. Elphinstone took it out of his pocket.
"This is what he says: 'I have just met, by chance, two very old
friends of my family, who have been living here, it appears, for
a couple of years or so--Mme. and Mlle. de Chaulnes. They are very
anxious to make Anne's acquaintance, and I have promised them that
they should do so as soon as possible. If, therefore, you would send
him to Canterbury with Elspeth for a few days on receipt of this,
I should be greatly obliged. He would be well looked after.' And
enclosed was an invitation from the French lady herself."
La Vireville gave a cry. "It wanted only this! Good God, sir, what
have you done? Mme. de Chaulnes--the poor child!" He almost snatched
the letter from the old man's astonished hand and took it to the
window. "Yes, a very good imitation, though--pardon me--you ought
to know your son-in-law's handwriting better . . . Mon Dieu, what
a disaster! When did the boy go?"
"Last Wednesday," answered Mr. Elphinstone, looking dazed. "But
what in God's name do you mean, M. de la Vireville? He got there
safely. I have even had a letter from him to-day in which he speaks
of the two kind ladies--see, 'The two old ladies who are very gentle
to me'--he means kind, _gentil_; he often uses that expression--'and
their grey cat.' So it is all true, and he is there. . . . I do not
understand you."
"Of course he got there safely--would to God he had not!" exclaimed
La Vireville in a sort of desperation. "But, all the same, those
two kind old ladies are spies in the pay of the Convention. We have
only recently discovered it, to our cost. And clever! . . . How
did they get their information--know that René was leaving England
just at this time, even know the name of Anne's nurse?"
"It must be all right," reiterated Mr. Elphinstone piteously. "No
one could have told them but René himself."
"Mr. Elphinstone, I repeat, René never went to Canterbury! I myself
set him a mile or two on his way to Harwich. That is the one
mistake these women have made, or, it may be, a risk that they
deliberately ran, trusting that you would not know the route your
son-in-law took--as you did not. As for the rest, there has been
treachery somewhere--in the house, almost certainly. . . . I warned
René. . . . However, time is too valuable to spend in finding out
who sold them information. The more pressing matter is to get the
child back before it is too late."
Mr. Elphinstone put his hand to his head. "Too late! . . . I still
do not understand. What could they do to him?"
"Anne knows a good many things it were better he did not know, sir.
I fear that I am responsible for some of his knowledge. That is no
doubt why they wanted him."
"You mean they----"
"They will try to get information out of him. Oh, they will not do
him any bodily harm; it would not advantage them; but they may
frighten him, le pauvre petit! He will come back to you, sir,
never fear"--for the old man had sunk into a chair and had hidden
his face--"but I am very much afraid he will leave something behind.
They will wheedle secrets out of him, for he knows things--he cannot
help but know them."
"What is to be done?" asked Mr. Elphinstone hoarsely, his head still
between his hands.
"I think I had best post off to Canterbury instantly. Give me your
written authority to bring the child back at once."
"But you--you were going to Jersey . . . and ought you, M. de la
Vireville, of all people, to run your head into a nest of spies,
as you say they are?"
La Vireville gave a shrug. "That cannot be helped," said he. "Believe
me, it will be much more difficult if you send an Englishman.
Moreover, it is very necessary that I should discover, if I can,
how much they have got out of Anne. Do not set the law in motion
unless I neither return to-morrow nor send you news. And--you must
pardon me--but I shall want money, possibly a good deal of money."
Mr. Elphinstone pulled himself out of his chair and, going to a
safe, began with trembling hands to unlock it.
"I cannot believe that you are right," he said brokenly. "And he
had Elspeth--he even took his new goldfish with him."
"Neither Elspeth nor a goldfish, I fear, will serve as a talisman,"
returned the Frenchman rather grimly, pocketing the notes and gold
that the old man pushed into his hands. "These two years that Mme.
and Mlle. de Chaulnes, as they call themselves, have lived on the
Dover road, professedly as sympathisers with the Royalist cause,
they have been the reason of more of our plans miscarrying, more
of our agents being betrayed, than any half-dozen of the Convention's
male spies put together. You see, they are really of noble birth."
"René says in his letter that they are old friends--but I forget,
you say his letter is a forgery."
"As to their having known his family in the past I cannot say,"
replied La Vireville. "It is possible, since they are renegades.
The mischief is, that we have only just found out their treachery.
This, I suppose, is a last effort before giving up their trade--in
Canterbury at least. Now a line, sir, to authorise me to bring the
child back."
Mr. Elphinstone wrote it, scarcely able to control his pen. "God
grant you are successful!" he said, as he gave it to the Chouan.
"I will do my best, sir," returned the latter. "I do not want to
alarm you unduly, and, on my soul, I think they only wanted Anne
for what they could get out of him in the way of information. _We_
shall be the losers by that, not you; and so I hope to bring him
back safely in a couple of days at most. In any case, I will write
to you from Canterbury to-night. Au revoir!"
He wrung the old man's hand and departed.
* * * * *
If there were any room in any house in London which held at that
hour more anguish of soul than Mr. Elphinstone's study, it would
have been hard to find it.