Madame Coulancourt and Mabel beheld Monsieur Gramont ride down the
avenue from the château with feelings difficult to describe.
“That horrid man,” said Mabel, “thought to terrify you, dear mother,
into some compromise or promise, by acting on your feelings with
respect to my brother’s safety. He stated a falsity when he said Julian
was arrested. It’s impossible he could know anything about him; for
Joseph assured us that he had crossed to the opposite side of the river
before he left to return with the ponies.”
“I forgot that, dear girl; I was so startled by his saying he had
discovered Louis Lebeau to be Julian. There must be some traitor or spy
in the château; who can it be?”
“It must be Dedan, the girl from Dame Moret’s farm. Julia told me she
had a lover to whom she was shortly to be married—a domestic in the
house of Monsieur Gramont. She appears a kind, good-humoured girl. Oh!
here is Julia.”
“Thanks to the Virgin,” said Julia, “they are gone, gendarmes and all;
and only to think of it! it’s that girl Dedan who has done all the
mischief. Here is my father, he will explain all.”
Monsieur Plessis and his wife entered the room; the latter looked pale
and frightened.
“You look alarmed, Marie,” said Madame Coulancourt to her intendant’s
good lady, and taking her hand they sat down on a sofa. “What makes you
look so serious, now that we have, as dear Julian would say, weathered
the storm?”
“I was so shocked,” returned Madame Plessis, “by the discovery of the
treachery of that girl, who might have destroyed us all by her weak
infatuation.”
“How did you discover her treachery, Jean Plessis?” said Madame. “For
you cleverly turned the tables upon that designing man, Monsieur
Gramont.”
“I had not the slightest idea,” said Jean Plessis, “when I left the
château this morning that we had an enemy in the camp. We got to Havre
to breakfast; I left Marie to make some purchases, and went to my
appointment with Captain Bonafoux, the owner of the chasse-mare, and
finally we arranged our terms and mode of proceeding; wishing to be
back early, for fear Monsieur Gramont should visit the château. As I
drove into the yard, the man, Antoine Dubois, was coming out of an
outhouse. When he saw me, he hesitated, and thought to get out by a
back way; but as I had given the girl Dedan strict injunctions not to
receive her intended husband at the château, I followed the man, and he
paused till I came up.
“‘What brought you here this morning, Dubois?’ I demanded. I knew the
man well, for he is a native of this place, and never bore a very good
character. He looked at me a moment and then said—‘If you will give me
a hundred francs, Monsieur Plessis, and promise not to detain me or
the girl Dedan, I will tell you news that may save you all from the
clutches of Monsieur Gramont, who drove me out of his house two hours
ago, and will be here, I expect, every moment.’ I was struck with the
man’s manner, and aware how critical our situation is, I said, ‘I
promise you; and if you really give me any intelligence that I consider
of consequence, I will give you two hundred francs, and you and this
girl Dedan, whom I suspect, shall be free to go where you like.’
“‘Well, then,’ said Dubois, ‘the two hundred francs are mine. The man
that led the pretended robbers to plunder you the day you arrived here
with the young demoiselles, is now lying wounded in Monsieur Gramont’s
mansion; it was he who induced the coast-guard to endeavour to secure
the two Englishmen you had hid in this château. He did so whilst
Monsieur Gramont was gone to Paris; he wished to catch you all trying
to escape, and then arrest you.’
“‘Do you know the wounded man’s name?’ I demanded.
“‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It is Vadier; he is a desperate jacobin. He told
me I should have five hundred francs if I could get the girl Dedan to
tell everything that passed in the château, and all she heard; and
though the girl was not willing, I at last induced her to do so.’
“I was struck at once by the name of Vadier. This, then, is the very
Vadier, the galley slave, who stole the casket under the charge of the
English midshipman.
“‘What did Monsieur Gramont go to Paris for?’ I questioned.
“‘To procure an order from Monsieur Fouché to arrest you all, and send
you to Paris.’
“‘Then Monsieur Gramont was aware that this Vadier intended to plunder
me as I travelled the road?’
“‘Certainly he was. It was planned between them; they wanted some
papers you had.’
“‘Come,’ said I, ‘this intelligence is worth the two hundred francs;
but, Antoine Dubois, you are a great rascal.’
“‘There are many more in the world,’ said the fellow, quite coolly;
‘that Vadier is one, and my late master another. They treated me
scurvily, and so let them take the consequence.’
“‘If he catches you after this disclosure, he will make you pay for it.’
“‘Ah, ça! He must catch me first. Have I earned the money?’
“‘Yes,’ said I; ‘whether it will do you good or not I cannot say. There
it is,’ and I gave it him. ‘Now, where are you going?’
“‘If you intend stating what I have told you to Monsieur Gramont,’
said Dubois, ‘you may say I am gone to Havre. I only require an hour’s
start. You will let the girl Dedan go?’
“‘Yes. She is a bad girl; but you made her so. She shall be dismissed.’
“‘Well,’ said the man, doggedly; ‘may be so; but we are not so bad as
those who tempted us. I detested the wretch Vadier, and I hope he will
die of his wound; I wanted to quit service and to marry Dedan, and the
five hundred francs tempted me.’”
“Do you think, Monsieur Plessis,” asked Mabel, “that they will be
caught by Monsieur Gramont?”
“I rather think,” said Jean Plessis, “that he would prefer their
escaping. I do not imagine he will look for them. What surprises me is,
that he ventured to drive out of his employ a man who knew so much.”
“I suspect,” observed Julia, “that he acquired his knowledge of what he
told you, father, from practising the same espionage upon his employers
that he was paid or promised to be paid for spying upon us.”
“Very likely,” returned the intendant; “however, his intelligence was
of immense importance to me. It completely gave me the upper hand of
Monsieur Gramont.”
“How do you intend to proceed?” said Madame Coulancourt. “I feel so
very anxious about Julian.”
“He has done wisely in crossing to the other side of the river,”
said Jean Plessis. “He did not go further than the village of ——,
two leagues from here. We must, however, lose no more time, but act
with all expedition. We have a shrewd enemy, and I believe if I had
not known about this Augustine Vadier, he would have done much more
than he will attempt now. To-morrow I will send down your luggage and
travelling carriage to be embarked on board the chasse-mare; it will
be a complete blind. It is nearly eighteen leagues to Rouen, and it
will create no surprise your going there by water. Most travellers from
Havre prefer it, for the sake of the scenery; and at present, owing to
the recent disturbances, the roads are really dangerous. The day after
to-morrow, therefore, madame, can you be ready?”
“As to that, we could be ready to-morrow evening,” said Mabel, “but
with respect to Julian, how are we to manage?”
“There will be no difficulty. When off the coast we will take him on
board. I shall send one of the crew of the boat to the village to stay
and watch for us, and let Monsieur Julian know; the man will seek him,
of course, under the name of Lebeau.”
“God grant,” said Madame Coulancourt, “that no untoward event may occur
to mar your apparently well-laid plans!”
In the meantime Monsieur Gramont rode rapidly towards his own mansion,
bitterly cursing the sagacity and foresight of Jean Plessis. He guessed
at once how he had contrived to procure the protection of Barras and
Fouché, both men playing into each other’s hands.
“He must,” muttered Bertram Gramont, “have sacrificed an immense sum to
Barras, whose boundless extravagance is Universally known.”
Jean Nicholas Barras began life as a sub-lieutenant in the regiment
of Languedoc, served a short time in India, became a determined
revolutionist, and was one of those who voted for the death of the
unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth. His power and arbitrary will are well
known, and he exercised them to enrich himself, caring little, so he
kept up his boundless extravagance and gratified his inordinate vanity,
whether he served the Republic or not. He kept his place till Bonaparte
dispersed the existing government. Jean Plessis had in truth sacrificed
a very large sum to Barras, besides the twenty thousand francs. He had
also confessed that Madame Coulancourt’s daughter had arrived from
England to remain with her mother.
“Showed she was a dutiful child,” said the director, “a couple of women
cannot overturn the Republic. We do not war with the fair sex. Let
them come up to Paris, and they shall have every protection. Monsieur
Gramont has found a mare’s nest; that Englishman he spoke of, domiciled
at Coulancourt, I dare say is a lover of Mademoiselle Arden. Fool
enough to run the chance of a few years’ captivity for a smile from his
ladye love, n’est ce pas?”
Monsieur Plessis assented, but gave no further explanation; and having
obtained the passport expressly revoking the order of arrest given six
or seven days previously by Fouché to Monsieur Gramont, he returned to
Coulancourt, thus completely baffling Monsieur le Maire.
Bertram Gramont, on reaching his château, proceeded to the chamber
of Augustine Vadier. That worthy had contrived to get up and dress
himself, and was reclining back in a chair, with a bandage across his
head, concealing the contusion and loss of his eye.
“Here’s a cursed botched piece of business from beginning to end!” said
Bertram Gramont passionately, pacing the chamber backwards and forwards.
“Why, what has occurred now?” asked Vadier, anxiously. “I think I may
say I am a sufferer.”
“Your own doings,” returned his accomplice, almost savagely; “you
precipitated events. That cursed Jean Plessis has outwitted me; he has
paid an immense sum to Barras and Fouché, and has come back from Paris
with a most stringent passport. There is no disputing the purport, for
it actually ensures the safety of mother and daughter to Paris, and
they leave this to-morrow or the next day.”
“Diable!” muttered Vadier; “how do they go?”
“In a chasse-mare, I understand, to Rouen, or as far as they can by
water.”
“And do you believe they will go to Paris?” said Vadier, looking with
his remaining sinister optic into the flushed features of Bertram
Gramont.
“And where else would you have them go?” returned the maire, pausing in
his walk.
“Why, escape to England, after that cursed lieutenant in the English
navy. They intended to go before he made his escape on board the
corvette. Where’s the son, Julian?”
Bertram Gramont looked at his accomplice with a startled expression.
“By St. Nicholas! your idea is not a bad one, it’s possible. But do you
know that Jean Plessis has discovered you are here, and also that it
was you who stopped and attempted to rob him a month ago?”
“Tonnerre de diable! how is that?” exclaimed Augustine Vadier starting
up, his one orb flashing with excitement. “Who betrayed me?”
“It’s deuced little consequence,” said Gramont, “because Plessis is not
likely to make any advantage of his discovery. He used it against me,
though, for he insinuated that I was your accomplice.”
“But who betrayed my retreat?” again demanded Augustine Vadier. “If the
government knew I was here, or any where in France, they would have my
head.”
“It’s only three parts of a head now,” replied his companion, with
one of his sneering laughs. “But make yourself easy, they do not want
heads; they would be content to send you to Cayenne; it’s a hot place,
but——”
“Take care, Bertram Gramont,” interrupted the ci-devant galley slave,
“that you do not carry your cursed propensity for joking too far; if I
make a journey to Cayenne, it’s not unlikely but that you would keep me
company.”
Bertram Gramont laughed outright.
“Diable! you are sensitive, mon ami. If I should have to keep you
company we should still row in the same boat; come, come, be sensible.”
Augustine Vadier swallowed his ire, and again demanded how Jean Plessis
had obtained his information about him.
“Through our own folly,” said Gramont. “I thought myself so secure in
my projects, that it slipped my memory how unwise it was to turn that
rascal Antoine Dubois out of my service, drunken and impudent as he
was.”
“Antoine Dubois!” repeated Vadier, with intense surprise; “how did that
villain find out my real name?”
“Ma foi! being employed as a spy taught him, no doubt, the trick of
practising the trade at home. The rascal must have been acting the spy
upon us, and, no doubt, picked up his information by listening, and,
maybe, overhauling some of your papers.”
“Curse him! you open my eyes,” said Vadier, bitterly. “But no matter,
let us consult what is to be done. Your matrimonial scheme did not
answer, your finances are at the lowest ebb, and this day month if you
do not pay one hundred and twenty-three thousand francs to Monsieur
Marie-Claude-Sanglois, you must surrender this estate and château to be
sold.”
“Well, I know that,” carelessly returned Bertram Gramont; “I want
something fresh from you. Could you not forge me an order, signed by
Madame Coulancourt, for one hundred thousand francs upon her banker?”
“No,” returned Vadier; “the failure in securing those papers Jean
Plessis had in his possession throws us out. Her Paris banker has no
such sum, depend on it; the bulk of her fortune is disposed of in some
other way we have failed in finding out. Monsieur Barras, depend on it,
has secured a goodly portion. No, you must still stick to convicting
her of attempting flight from this country, the only way you can secure
your ends.”
“Diable! she is going to Paris; if Sergeant Perrin fails in entrapping
her son at Caudebee, I shall lose all power over her.”
“And are you so shallow as to suppose they will venture to Paris?”
said Vadier, contemptuously. “When this affair of the Vengeance is
known to the government it will make a stir, Barras will not be able
to shield Madame Coulancourt, with all his power and love of gold; her
participation and knowledge of the two Englishmen residing under the
same roof with her is too palpable, she would be condemned. Depend on
it, the whole party meditate flight to England; what is easier? You say
they embark at Havre for Rouen in a chasse-mare, the captain of which
is a notorious smuggler. Do not you think, for a sum of money, that
fellow would run them over and land them on the coast of England?”
“By St. Nicholas! you are right, and if so, all will go well. I’ll
catch them in the very act of flight, and then the game will be ours.
You must get out of the way, for this Jean Plessis, when detected and
caught, will bring his accusation against you.”
“I am not afraid,” replied Vadier, “it’s money I want. I shall go to
Paris, there is another convulsion preparing, the jacobins are in force
in the capital.”
“You will be a fool if you do,” retorted Bertram Gramont; “mark my
word, Bonaparte will by and by upset all the Directors and their
rules, annihilate the jacobin party, and establish a powerful military
government. However, that’s your look-out; I shall go, to-morrow, to
Havre, and make minute inquiries about the embarkation of madame, and
then see Captain Gaudet and the owners of the Vengeance privateer, who
are furious at her loss. I will have the Ca-Ira chasse-mare closely
watched and followed, and if my suspicions are true, she shall be
captured just as she clears the harbour. There will be no getting
over that disaster, and perhaps Master Louis Lebeau may be a prisoner
by that time. There is a very fine privateer, mounting fourteen
guns, and one hundred and twenty-three men and officers in Havre,
but this British cruiser outside is thought to be watching for her;
the privateer is waiting for thick weather to get out. If Captain
Gaudet can induce her commander to watch the mouth of the Seine, it’s
impossible the chasse-mare can put to sea.”
“I would go on board myself, if I was in your place,” said Augustine
Vadier. “Your triumph would be complete.”
“By all the saints! so it would,” said Bertram Gramont, exultingly;
“it would repay me for the insult that rascal, Jean Plessis, inflicted
on me this day. If your conjecture turns out right, and we catch them,
nothing can save them from condemnation.”