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CERISE


[Illustration: “CARESSING HER HORSE WITH ONE HAND.”

(_Page 35._)]


CERISE

A Tale of the Last Century

by

G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE

Author of “Market Harborough,” “Katerfelto,”
“Satanella,” etc., etc.

Illustrated by G. P. Jacomb-Hood






London
Ward, Lock & Co., Limited
New York and Melbourne.




CONTENTS


       CHAP.                                       PAGE

          I. The Daisy-Chain                          9

         II. The Montmirails                         17

        III. Monsieur l’Abbé                         25

         IV. Tantara!                                34

          V. The Usher of the Black Rod              44

         VI. A Jesuit’s Task                         51

        VII. St. Mark’s Balsam                       59

       VIII. The Grey Musketeers                     68

         IX. Eugène Beaudésir                        76

          X. The Boudoir of Madame                   86

         XI. What the Serpent Said                   94

        XII. Out-manœuvred                          105

       XIII. The Mother of Satan                    113

        XIV. The Débonnaire                         122

         XV. The Masked Ball                        132

        XVI. Raising the Devil                      144

       XVII. A Quiet Supper                         151

      XVIII. Baiting the Trap                       160

        XIX. Mater Pulchrâ, Filia Pulchrior         167

         XX. A General Rendezvous                   177

        XXI. The Fox and Fiddle                     185

       XXII. Three Strands of a Yarn                193

      XXIII. The Parlour-Lodger                     202

       XXIV. A Volunteer                            210

        XXV. Three Pressed Men                      218

       XXVI. “Yo-heave-yo!”                         227

      XXVII. ‘The Bashful Maid’                     235

     XXVIII. Dirty Weather                          244

       XXIX. Port Welcome                           250

        XXX. Montmirail West                        259

       XXXI. Black, but Comely                      272

      XXXII. A Wise Child                           277

     XXXIII. Jack Aground                           286

      XXXIV. Jack Afloat                            294

       XXXV. Besieged                               301

      XXXVI. At Bay                                 309

     XXXVII. Just in Time                           317

    XXXVIII. Mère avant tout                        326

      XXXIX. All Adrift                             335

         XL. Homeward Bound                         341

        XLI. Lady Hamilton                          351

       XLII. The Desire of the Moth                 360

      XLIII. For the Star                           370

       XLIV. “Box it About”                         379

        XLV. The Little Rift                        389

       XLVI. The Music Mute                         399

      XLVII. The “Hamilton Arms”                    408

     XLVIII. Pressure                               419

       XLIX. Poor Emerald                           429

          L. Captain Bold                           441

         LI. Sir Marmaduke                          448

        LII. The Bowl on the Bias                   458

       LIII. Fair Fighting                          466

        LIV. Friends in Need                        475

         LV. Forewarned                             486

        LVI. Forearmed                              494

       LVII. An Addled Egg                          503

      LVIII. Horns and Hoofs                        511

        LIX. A Substitute                           518

         LX. Solace                                 529




CERISE

_A TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY_




CHAPTER I

THE DAISY-CHAIN


In the gardens of Versailles, as everywhere else within the freezing
influence of the _Grand Monarque_, nature herself seemed to accept the
situation, and succumbed inevitably under the chain of order and courtly
etiquette. The grass grew, indeed, and the Great Waters played, but
the former was rigorously limited to certain mathematical patches, and
permitted only to obtain an established length, while the latter threw
their diamond showers against the sky with the regular and oppressive
monotony of clockwork. The avenues stretched away straight and stiff like
rows of lately-built houses; the shrubs stood hard and defiant as the
white statues with which they alternated, and the very sunshine off the
blinding gravel glared and scorched as if its duty were but to mark a
march of dazzling hours on square stone dials for the kings of France.

Down in Touraine the woods were sleeping, hushed, and peaceful in the
glowing summer’s day, sighing, as it were, and stirring in their repose,
while the breeze crept through their shadows, and quivered in their
outskirts, ere it passed on to cool the peasant’s brow, toiling contented
in his clearing, with blue home-spun garb, white teeth, and honest
sunburnt face.

Far off in Normandy, sleek of skin and rich of colour, cows were
ruminating knee-deep in pasturage; hedges were loaded with wild flowers,
thickets dark with rank luxuriance of growth, while fresh streams, over
which the blue kingfisher flitted like a dragon-fly, rippled merrily down
towards the sea. Through teeming orchards, between waving cornfields,
past convent-walls grown over with woodbine and lilac and laburnum, under
stately churches, rearing Gothic spires, delicate as needlework, to
heaven, and bringing with them a cool current of air, a sense of freedom
and refreshment as they hurried past. Nay, even where the ripening sun
beat fiercely on the vineyards, terraced tier upon tier, to concentrate
his rays—where Macon and Côte-d’Or were already tinged with the first
faint blush of their coming vintage, even amidst the grape-rows so
orderly planted and so carefully trained, buxom peasant-girls could
gather posies of wild flowers for their raven hair, to make their black
eyes sparkle with merrier glances, and their dusky cheeks mantle in rich
carnation, type of southern blood dancing through their veins.

But Versailles was not France, and at Versailles nothing seemed free but
the birds and the children.

One of the alleys, commanded from the king’s private apartments, was
thickly crowded with loungers. Courtiers in silk stockings, laced coats,
and embroidered waistcoats reaching to their thighs, wearing diamond
hilts on their rapiers, and diamond buckles in their shoes, could not
move a step without apology for catching in the spreading skirts of
magnificent ladies—magnificent, be it understood, in gorgeousness of
apparel rather than in beauty of face or symmetry of figure. The former,
indeed, whatever might be its natural advantages, was usually coated with
paint and spotted with patches, while the latter was so disguised by
voluminous robes, looped-up skirts, falling laces, and such outworks and
appendages, not to mention a superstructure of hair, ribbon, and other
materials, towering so high above the head as to place a short woman’s
face somewhere about the middle of her whole altitude, that it must have
been difficult even for the maid who dressed her to identify, in one of
these imposing triumphs of art, the slender and insignificant little
framework upon which the whole fabric had been raised. Devotion in woman
is never more sublime than when sustaining the torture of dress.

It was all artificial together. Not a word was spoken but might have
been overheard with entire satisfaction by the unseen sovereign who
set the whole pageant in motion. Not a gesture but was restrained by
the consciousness of supervision. Not a sentiment broached but had for
its object the greater glorification of a little old man, feeble and
worn-out, eating iced fruit and sweetmeats in a closet opening from a
formal, heavily-furnished, over-gilded saloon, that commanded the broad
gravel-walk on which the courtiers passed to and fro in a shifting,
sparkling throng. If a compliment was paid by grinning gallant to
simpering dame, it was offered and accepted with a sidelong glance from
each towards the palace windows. If a countess whispered scandal to a
duchess behind her fan, the grateful dish was sauced and flavoured for
the master’s palate, to whom it would be offered by the listener on the
first opportunity. Marshals of a hundred fights tapped their jewelled
snuff-boxes to inhale a pinch of the King’s Mixture. Blooming beauties,
whose every breath was fragrance, steeped their gossamer handkerchiefs in
no other perfume than an extract from orange-flowers, called _Bouquet du
Roi_.

For Louis the Fourteenth, if he might believe his household, Time was to
stand still, and the Seasons brought no change. “I am the same age as
everybody else,” said a courtier of seventy to his Majesty at sixty-five.
“The rain of Marly does not wet one,” urged another, as an excuse for not
covering his head in a shower while walking with the king. By such gross
flattery was that sovereign to be duped, who believed himself a match for
the whole of Europe in perceptive wisdom and diplomatic _finesse_.

But though powdered heads were bowing, and laced hats waving, and
brocades ruffling in the great walk, swallows skimmed and darted through
the shades of a green alley behind the nearest fountain, and a little
girl was sitting on the grass, making daisy-chains as busily as if there
were no other interest, no other occupation at Court or in the world.

Her flapping hat was thrown aside, and her head bent studiously over her
work, so that the brown curls, silken and rich and thick, as a girl’s
curls should be, hid all of her face but a little soft white brow.
Her dimpled arms and hands moved nimbly about her task, and a pair of
sturdy, well-turned legs were stuck out straight before her, as if
she had established herself in her present position with a resolution
not to stir till she had completed the long snowy chain that festooned
already for several yards across the turf. She had just glanced in
extreme content at its progress without raising her head, when a spaniel
scoured by, followed at speed by a young gentleman in a page’s dress,
who, skimming the level with his toe, in all the impetuous haste of
boyhood, caught the great work round his ankles, and tore it into a dozen
fragments as he passed.

The little girl looked up in consternation, having duly arranged her face
for a howl; but she controlled her feelings, partly in surprise, partly
in bashfulness, partly perhaps in gratification at the very obvious
approval with which the aggressor regarded that face, while, stopping
short, he begged “Mademoiselle’s pardon” with all the grand manner of the
Court grafted on the natural politeness of France.

It was indeed a very pretty, and, more, a very lovable little face,
with its large innocent blue eyes, its delicate peach-like cheeks, and
a pair of curling ruddy lips, that, combined with her own infantine
pronunciation of her baptismal name Thérèse, had already obtained for the
child the familiar appellation of “Cerise.”

“Pardon, mademoiselle!” repeated the page, colouring boy-like to his
temples—“Pardon! I was running so fast; I was in such a hurry—I am so
awkward. I will pick you a hatful more daisies—and—and I can get you a
large slice of cake this evening when the king goes out of the little
supper-room to the music-hall.”

“Mademoiselle” thus adjured, rose to her full stature of some forty
inches, and spreading her short stiff skirt around her with great care,
replied by a stately reverence that would have done credit to an empress.
Notwithstanding her dignity, however, she cast a wistful look at the
broken daisy-chain, while her little red lips quivered as if a burst of
tears was not far off.

The boy was down on his knees in an instant, gathering handfuls of
the simple flowers, and flinging them impetuously into his hat. It
was obvious that this young gentleman possessed already considerable
energy of character, and judging from the flash of his bold dark eyes,
a determined will of his own. His figure, though as yet unformed, was
lithe, erect, and active, while his noble bearing denoted self-reliance
beyond his years, and a reckless, confident disposition, such as a true
pedagogue would have longed and failed to check with the high hand of
coercion. In a few minutes he had collected daisies enough to fill his
laced hat to the rims, and flinging himself on the turf, began stringing
them together with his strong, well-shaped, sunburnt fingers. The little
girl, much consoled, had reseated herself as before. It was delightful to
see the chain thus lengthening by fathoms at a time, and this new friend
seemed to enter heart and soul into the important work. Active sympathy
soon finds its way to a child’s heart; she nestled up to his side, and
shaking her curls back, looked confidingly in his face.

“I like you,” said the little woman, honestly, and without reserve. “You
are good—you are polite—you make daisy-chains as well as mamma. My name’s
Cerise. What’s _your_ name?”

The page smiled, and with the smile his whole countenance grew handsome.
In repose, his face was simply that of a well-looking youth enough,
with a bold, saucy expression and hardy sunburned features; but when he
smiled, a physiognomist watching the change would have pronounced, “That
boy _must_ be like his mother, and his mother _must_ have been beautiful!”

“Cerise,” repeated the lad. “What a pretty name! Mine is not a pretty
name. Boys don’t have pretty names. My name’s George—George Hamilton.
You mustn’t call me Hamilton. I am never called anything but George at
Court. I’m not big enough to be a soldier yet, but I am page to _Louis le
Grand_!”

The child opened her eyes very wide, and stared over her new friend’s
head at a gentleman who was listening attentively to their conversation,
with his hat in his hand, and an expression of considerable amusement
pervading his old, worn, melancholy face.

This gentleman had stolen round the corner of the alley, treading softly
on the turf, and might have been watching the children for some minutes
unperceived. He was a small, shrunken, but well-made person, with a
symmetrical leg and foot, the arched instep of the latter increased
by the high heels of his diamond-buckled shoes. His dress in those
days of splendour was plain almost to affectation; it consisted of a
full-skirted, light-brown coat, ornamented only with a few gold buttons;
breeches of the same colour, and a red satin waistcoat embroidered
at the edges, the whole suit relieved by the _cordon bleu_ which was
worn outside. The hat he dangled in his pale, thin, unringed hand was
trimmed with Spanish point, and had a plume of white feathers. His face
was long, and bore a solemn, saddened expression, the more remarkable
for the rapidity with which, as at present, it succeeded a transient
gleam of mirth. Notwithstanding all its advantages of dress and manner,
notwithstanding jewelled buckles, and point lace, and full flowing
periwig, the figure now standing over the two children, in sad contrast
to their rich flow of youth and health, was that of a worn-out, decrepid
old man, fast approaching, though not yet actually touching, the brink of
his grave.

The smile, however, came over his wrinkled face once more as the child
looked shyly up, gathering her daisy-chain distrustfully into her lap.
Then he stooped to stroke her brown curls with his white wasted hand.

“Your name is Thérèse,” said he gravely. “Mamma calls you Cerise, because
you are such a round, ruddy little thing. Mamma is waiting in the
painted saloon for the king’s dinner. You may look at him eating it, if
your _bonne_ takes you home past the square table in the middle window
opposite the Great Fountain. She is to come for you in a quarter of an
hour. You see I know all about it, little one.”

Cerise stared in utter consternation, but at the first sound of that
voice the boy had started to his feet, blushing furiously, and catching
up his hat, to upset an avalanche of daisies in the action, stood
swinging it in his hand, bolt upright like a soldier who springs to
“attention” under the eye of his officer. The old gentleman’s face
had resumed its sad expression, but he drew up his feeble figure with
dignity, and motioned the lad, who already nearly equalled him in height,
a little further back. George obeyed instinctively, and Cerise, still
sitting on the grass, with the daisy-chain in her lap, looked from one to
the other in a state of utter bewilderment.

“Don’t be frightened, little one,” continued the old gentleman,
caressingly. “Come and play in these gardens whenever you like. Tell Le
Notre to give you prettier flowers than these to make chains of, and when
you get older, try to leave off turning the heads of my pages with your
brown curls and cherry lips. As for you, sir,” he added, facing round
upon George, “I have seldom seen any of you so innocently employed. Take
care of this pretty little girl till her _bonne_ comes to fetch her, and
show them both the place from whence they can see the king at dinner. How
does the king dine to-day, sir? and when?” he concluded, in a sharper and
sterner tone. George was equal to the occasion.

“There is no council to-day, sire,” he answered, without hesitation. “His
Majesty has ordered ‘The Little Service’[1] this morning, and will dine
in seventeen minutes exactly, for I hear the Grey Musketeers already
relieving guard in the Front Court.”

“Go, sir,” exclaimed the old gentleman, in great good-humour. “You have
learnt your duty better than I expected. I think I may trust you with the
care of this pretty child. Few pages know anything of etiquette or the
necessary routine of a Court. I am satisfied with you. Do you understand?”

The boy’s cheeks flushed once more, as he bowed low and stood silent,
whilst the old gentleman passed on. The latter, however, had not gone
half-a-dozen paces ere he turned back, and again addressed the younger of
the children.

“Do not forget, little one, to ask Le Notre for any flowers you want,
and—and—if you think of it, tell mamma you met the honest _bourgeois_
who owns these gardens, and that he knew you, and knew your name, and
knew how old you were, and, I dare say, little one, you are surprised the
_bourgeois_ should know so much!”

That Cerise was surprised admitted of small doubt. She had scarcely found
her voice ere the old gentleman turned out of the alley and disappeared.
Then she looked at her companion, whose cheeks were still glowing with
excitement, and presently burst into a peal of childish laughter.

“What a funny old man!” cried Cerise, clapping her hands; “and I am to
have as many flowers as I like—what a funny old man!”

“Hush, mademoiselle,” answered the boy, gravely, as though his own
dignity had received a hurt, “you must not speak like that. It is very
rude. It is very wrong. If a man were to say such things it should cost
him his life.”

Cerise opened her blue eyes wider than ever.

“Wrong!” she repeated, “rude! what have I done? who is it, then?”

“It is the King!” answered the boy, proudly. “It is _Louis le Grand_!”




CHAPTER II

THE MONTMIRAILS


Ladies first. Let us identify the pretty little girl in the gardens of
Versailles, who answered to the name of Cerise, before we account for the
presence of George Hamilton the page.

It is a thing well understood—it is an arrangement universally conceded
in France—that marriages should be contracted on principles of practical
utility, rather than on the vague assumption of a romantic and unsuitable
preference. It was therefore with tranquil acquiescence, and feelings
perfectly under control, that Thérèse de la Fierté, daughter of a line of
dukes, found herself taken out of a convent and wedded to a chivalrous
veteran, who could scarcely stand long enough at the altar, upon his
well-shaped but infirm old legs, to make the necessary responses for
the conversion of the beautiful _brunette_ over against him into Madame
la Marquise de Montmirail. The bridegroom was indeed infinitely more
agitated than the bride. He had conducted several campaigns; he was a
Marshal of France; he had even been married before, to a remarkably
plain person, who adored him; he had undergone the necessary course of
gallantry inflicted on men of his station at the Court and in the society
to which he belonged; nevertheless, as he said to himself, he felt like
a recruit in his first “affair” when he encountered the plunging fire of
those black eyes, raking him front, and flanks, and centre, from under
the bridal wreath and its drooping white lace veil.

Thérèse had indeed, in right of her mother, large black eyes as well as
large West Indian possessions; and her light-haired rivals were good
enough to attribute the rich radiance of her beauty to a stain of negro
blood somewhere far back in that mother’s race.

Nevertheless, the old Marquis de Montmirail was really over head and ears
in love with his brilliant bride. That he should have indulged her in
every whim and every folly was but reasonably to be expected, but that
_she_ should always have shown for _him_ the warm affection of a wife,
tempered by the deference and respect of a daughter, is only another
instance, added to the long score on record of woman’s sympathy and right
feeling when treated with gentleness and consideration.

Not even at Court did Madame de Montmirail give a single opportunity
to the thousand tongues of scandal during her husband’s lifetime; she
was indeed notorious for sustaining the elaborate homage and tedious
admiration of majesty itself, without betraying, by the flutter of
an eyelash, that ambition was roused or vanity gratified during the
ordeal. It seemed that she cared but for three people in the world. The
chivalrous old wreck who had married her, and who was soon compelled to
move about in a wheeled chair; the lovely little daughter born of their
union, who inherited much of her mother’s effective beauty with the
traditional grace and delicate complexion of the handsome Montmirails, a
combination that had helped to distinguish her by the appropriate name
of Cerise, and the young Abbé Malletort, a distant cousin of her own,
as remarkable for shrewd intellect and utter want of sentiment as for
symmetry of figure and signal ugliness of face. The _Grand Monarque_
was not famous for consideration towards the nobles of his household.
Long after the Marquis de Montmirail had commenced taking exercise on
his own account in a chair, the king commanded his attendance at a
shooting-party, kept him standing for three-quarters of an hour on damp
grass, under heavy rain, and dismissed him with a pompous compliment, and
an attack of gout driven upwards into the region of the stomach. The old
courtier knew he had got his death-blow. The old soldier faced it like an
officer of France. He sent for Madame la Marquise, and complimented her
on her _coiffure_ before proceeding to business. He apologised for the
pains that took off his attention at intervals, and bowed her out of the
room, more than once, when the paroxysms became unbearable. The Marquise
never went further than the door, where she fell on her knees in the
passage and wept. He explained clearly enough how he had bequeathed to
her all that was left of his dilapidated estates. Then he sent his duty
to the king, observing that “He had served his Majesty under fire often,
but never under water till now. He feared it was the last occasion of
presenting his homage to his sovereign.” And so, asking for Cerise, who
was brought in by her weeping mother, died brave and tranquil, with his
arm round his child and a gold snuff-box in his hand.

Ladies cannot be expected to sorrow as inconsolably for a mate of seventy
as for one of seven-and-twenty, but the Marquise de Montmirail grieved
very honestly, nevertheless, and mourned during the prescribed period,
with perhaps even more circumspection than had she lost a lover as well
as, or instead of, a husband. Wagers were laid at Court that she would
marry again within a year; yet the year passed by and Madame had not
so much as seen anybody but her child and its _bonne_. Even Malletort
was excluded from her society, and that versatile ecclesiastic, though
pluming himself on his knowledge of human nature, including its most
inexplicable half, was obliged to confess he was at a loss!

“_Peste!_” he would observe, taking a pinch of snuff, and flicking the
particles delicately off his ruffles, “was not the sphinx a woman? At
least down to the waist. So, I perceive, is the Marquise. What would you
have? There is a clue to every labyrinth, but it is not always worth
while to puzzle it out!”

After a time, when the established period for seclusion had expired, the
widow, more beautiful than ever, made her appearance once more at Court.
That she loved admiration there could not now be the slightest doubt, and
the self-denial became at length apparent with which she had declined
it during her husband’s lifetime, that she might not wring his kind old
heart. So, in all societies—at balls, at promenades, at concerts—at
solemn attendances on the king, at tedious receptions of princes
and princesses, dukes and duchesses, sons and daughters of majesty,
legitimate or otherwise—she accepted homage with avidity, and returned
compliment for compliment, and gallantry for gallantry, with a coquetry
perfectly irresistible. But this was all: the first step was fatal taken
by an admirer across that scarce perceptible boundary which divides the
gold and silver grounds, the gaudy flower-beds of flattery from the
sweet wild violet banks of love. The first tremble of interest in his
voice, the first quiver of diffidence in his glance, was the signal for
dismissal.

Madame de Montmirail knew neither pity nor remorse. She had the softest
eyes, the smoothest skin, the sweetest voice in the bounds of France, but
her heart was declared by all to be harder than the very diamonds that
became her so well. Nor, though she seldom missed a chance of securing
smiles and compliments, did she seem inclined to afford opportunity
for advances of a more positive kind. Cerise was usually in her arms,
or on her lap; and suitors of every time must have been constrained to
admit that there is no _duenna_ like a daughter. Besides, the child’s
beauty was of a nature so different from her mother’s, that the most
accomplished coxcomb found it difficult to word his admiration of
mademoiselle so as to infer a yet stronger approval of madame herself.
The slightest blunder, too, was as surely made public as it was quickly
detected. The Marquise never denied herself or her friends an opportunity
for a laugh, and her sarcasm was appropriate as pitiless; so to become
a declared admirer of Madame de Montmirail required a good deal of that
courage which is best conveyed by the word _sang-froid_.

And even for those reckless spirits, who neither feared the mother’s wit
nor respected the daughter’s presence, there was yet another difficulty
to encounter in the person of the child’s _bonne_, a middle-aged
quadroon to whom Cerise was ardently attached, and who never left her
mistress’s side when not employed in dressing or undressing her charge.
This faithful retainer, originally a slave on the La-Fierté estates,
had passed—with lands, goods, and chattels—into the possession of the
Marquise after the death of her mother, the duchess, who was said to
have a black drop of blood in her veins, and immediately transferred her
fidelity and affections to her present owner. She was a large, strong
woman, with the remains of great beauty. Her age might be anything under
fifty; and she was known at Court as “The Mother of Satan,” a title she
accepted with considerable gratification, and much preferred to the
sweeter-sounding name of Célandine, by which she was called on the West
Indian estate and in the family of her proprietors.

Notwithstanding her good looks, there was something about Célandine that
made her an object of dread to her fellow-servants, whether slaves or
free. The woman’s manner was scowling and suspicious, she suffered from
long fits of despondency; she muttered and gesticulated to herself; she
walked about during the night, when the rest of the household were in
bed. Altogether she gave occasion, by her behaviour, to those detractors
who affirmed that, whether his _mother_ or not, there was no doubt she
was a faithful worshipper of Satan.

In the island whence she came, and among the kindred people who had
brought with them from Africa their native barbarism and superstitions,
the dark rites of Obi were still sedulously cultivated, as the magic
power of its votaries was implicitly believed. The three-fourths of white
blood in the veins of Célandine had not prevented her, so they said,
from becoming a priestess of that foul order; and the price paid for her
impious exaltation was differently estimated, according to the colour of
those who discussed the revolting and mysterious question, even amongst
the French domestics of Madame de Montmirail, and in so practical an age
as the beginning of the eighteenth century. The quadroon, finding herself
shunned by her equals, was drawn all the closer to her mistress and her
little charge.

Such was the woman who pushed her way undaunted through the crowd of
courtiers now thronging the Grand Alley at Versailles, eliciting no
small share of attention by the gorgeousness of her costume; the scarlet
shawl she had bound like a turban round her head, the profusion of gold
ornaments that serpentined about her neck and arms, together with the
glaring pattern of white and orange conspicuous on her dress, till she
reached the secluded corner where Cerise was sitting with her broken
daisy-chain and her attendant page, as she had been left by the king.

The quadroon’s whole countenance brightened into beauty when she
approached her darling, and the child bounding up to meet her, ran into
her arms with a cry of delight that showed their attachment was mutual.
George, extremely proud of his commission, volunteered to guide them to
the spot whence, as directed, they could witness the progress of the
king’s dinner, and the strangely-matched trio proceeded through the now
decreasing crowd, to all appearance perfectly satisfied with each other.

They had already taken up their position opposite the window which his
Majesty had indicated, and were in full enjoyment of the thrilling
spectacle he had promised them, namely, a little old man in a wig, served
by half-a-dozen servants at once, and eating to repletion, when Cerise,
who clung to Célandine’s hand, hid her face in the _bonne’s_ gown, to
avoid the gaze of two gentlemen who were staring at her with every mark
of approval. “What is it, my cherished one?” said the quadroon, in tender
accents. “Who dares frighten my darling?” But the fierce voice changed
into coaxing tones when the _bonne_ recognised a familiar face in one of
her charge’s unwelcome admirers.

“Why, it’s _Monsieur l’Abbé_! Surely you know _Monsieur l’Abbé_! Come,
be a good child, then; make _Monsieur l’Abbé_ a reverence, and wish him
good-day!”

But Cerise persistently declined any friendly overtures whatever to
_Monsieur l’Abbé_; hanging her head and turning her toes in most
restively; so the three passed on to witness the process of eating as
performed by _Louis le Grand_; and _Monsieur l’Abbé_, crumpling his
extremely plain features into a sneer, observed his companion, “It is
droll enough, Florian, children never take to me, though I make my way as
well as another with grown-up people. They seem to mistrust me from the
first. Can it be because I am so very ugly?”

The other smiled deprecatingly. “Good looks,” said he, “have nothing to
do with it. Children are like their elders—they hate intellect because
they fear it. Oh, Malletort! had I the beauty of Absalom, I would give
it all willingly to possess your opportunities and your powers of using
them!”

“Thank you,” replied Malletort, looking gratified in spite of himself
at the compliment, but perhaps envying in his secret heart the outward
advantages which his friend seemed so little to appreciate.

Florian de St. Croix, just on the verge of manhood, was as handsome
a youth as might be met with amongst the thousand candidates for the
priesthood, of whom he was one of the most sanguine and enthusiastic.
Not even the extreme plainness of his dress, appropriate to the sacred
calling he was about to enter—not even his close-cut hair and pallid hue,
result of deep thought and severe application—could diminish the beauty
of his flashing eyes, his clear-cut features, and high, intellectual
forehead, that denoted ideality and self-sacrifice as surely as the sweet
womanly mouth betrayed infirmity of purpose and fatal subservience to the
affections. His frame, though slender, was extremely wiry and muscular;
cast, too, in the mould of an Apollo. No wonder there was a shadow of
something like jealousy on his companion’s shrewd, ugly face, while he
regarded one so superior in external advantages to himself.

The Abbé Malletort was singular in this respect. He possessed the rare
faculty of appreciating events and individuals at their real value. He
boasted that he had no prejudices, and especially prided himself on the
accuracy with which he predicted the actions of his fellow-creatures by
the judgment he had formed of their characters. He made no allowance for
failure, as he gave no credit to success. Men, with him, were capable
or useless only as they conquered or yielded in the great struggle of
life. Systems proved good or bad simply according to their results. The
Abbé professed to have no partialities, no feelings, no veneration, and
no affections. He had entered the Church as a mere matter of calculation
and convenience. Its prizes, like those of the army, were open to
intellect and courage. If the priest’s outward conduct demanded more of
moderation and self-restraint, on the other hand the fasts and vigils of
Rome were less easily enforced than the half-rations of a march or the
night-watches of an outpost.

Moreover, the tonsure in those days might be clipped (not close enough
to draw attention) from a skull that roofed the teeming brain of a
politician; and, indeed, the Church of Rome not only permitted but
encouraged the assumption of secular power by her votaries, so that
the most important and lucrative posts of the empire were as open
to Abbé and Cardinal as to a Colonel of the Body-guard or a Marshal
of France; while the soldier’s training fitted him far less than the
priest’s to countermine the subtleties of diplomacy or unravel the
intricacies of finance. There remained, then, but the vow of celibacy to
swallow, and, in truth, the vow of celibacy suited Malletort admirably
well. Notwithstanding his ugly face, he was an especial favourite with
women, on whom his ready wit, his polished manners, and, above all,
his imperturbable coolness, made a pleasing impression. They liked him
none the less that his reputed hardness of heart and injustice towards
themselves were proverbial. While, as for his plain features, why, to
quote the words of Ninon de l’Enclos, who ought to have been a good judge
in such matters, “A man’s want of beauty is of small account if he be not
deficient in other amiable qualities, for there is no conquest without
the affections, and what mole can be so blind as a woman in love?”




CHAPTER III

MONSIEUR L’ABBÉ


The crowd had passed on to witness the king’s dinner, now in full
progress, and the two soberly-clad friends found themselves the only
occupants of the gardens. Side by side they took their seats on a bench
under a row of lime-trees, and continued the conversation which had
originated in little Cerise and her childish beauty.

“It is a face as God made it,” said Florian, his boyish features lighting
up with enthusiasm. “Children are surely nearer Heaven than ourselves.
What a pity to think that they should grow into the painted, patched,
powdered hypocrites, of whom so many have passed by us even now.”

“Beautifully dressed, however,” answered his worldly senior, placidly
indifferent, as usual, to all that did not concern his own immediate
comfort. “If there were no women, Florian, there would be no children,
I conclude. Both seem necessary evils. You, I observe, prefer the
lesser. As for being near Heaven, that, I imagine, is a mere question
of altitude. The musketeer over there is at least a couple of inches
nearer it than either of us. What matter? It will make little difference
eventually to any one of the three.”

Florian looked as if he did not understand. Indeed, the Abbé’s manner
preserved a puzzling uncertainty between jest and earnest. He took a
pinch of snuff, too, with the air of a man who had thoroughly exhausted
the question. But his companion, still harping on the beauty of the
child, continued their conversation.

“Is she not a cousin of yours, this little angel? I know you are akin to
that beautiful Marquise, her mother. Oh, Malletort, what advantages you
possess, and how unconscious you seem of them!”

“Advantages!” repeated the Abbé, musing. “Well, perhaps you are right.
Handsome women are the court-cards of the game, if a man knows how
to play them. It is a grand game, too, and the stakes are well worth
winning. Yet I sometimes think if I had foreseen in time how entirely you
must devote body and soul to play it, I might never have sat down at all.
I could almost envy a boy, like that merry page who passed us with my
baby-cousin—a boy, whose only thought or care is to spend the time gaily
now, and wear a sword as soon as his beard is grown hereafter.”

“The boy will carry a sword fairly enough,” answered Florian; “for he
looks like a little adventurer already. Who is he? I have remarked him
amongst the others for a certain bold bearing, that experience and sorrow
alone will, I fear, be able to tame.”

“It will take a good deal of both to tame any of that family,” answered
Malletort; “and this young game-chick will no doubt prove himself of
the same feather as the rest of the brood when his spurs are grown.
He’s a Hamilton, Florian; a Hamilton from the other side of the water,
with a cross of the wildest blood in France or Europe in his veins. You
believe the old monkish chronicles—I don’t. They will tell you that boy’s
direct ancestor went up the breach at Acre in front of Cœur de Lion—an
Englishman of the true pig-headed type, who had sense enough, however, to
hate his vassal ever after for being a bigger fool than himself. On the
mother’s side he comes of a race that can boast all its sons brave, and
its daughters—well, its daughters—very much the same as other people’s
daughters. The result of so much fighting and gasconading being, simply,
that the elder branch of the family is sadly impoverished, while the
younger is irretrievably ruined.”

“And this lad?” asked Florian, interested in the boy, perhaps because the
page’s character was in some respects so completely the reverse of his
own.

“Is of the younger branch,” continued Malletort, “and given over body
and soul to the cause of this miserable family, whose head died, not
half-a-dozen years ago, under the shadow of our grand and gracious
monarch, a victim to prejudice and indigestion. Well, these younger
Hamiltons have always made it their boast that they grudged neither blood
nor treasure for the Stuarts; and the Stuarts, I need hardly tell you,
Florian, for you read your breviary, requited them as men must expect to
be requited who put their trust in princes—particularly of that dynasty.
The elder branch wisely took the oaths of allegiance, for the ingratitude
of a reigning house is less hopeless than that of a dethroned family. I
believe any one of them would be glad to accept office under the gracious
and extremely ungraceful lady who fills the British throne, established,
as I understand she is, on so broad a basis, there is but little room
for a consort. They are scarce likely to obtain their wish. The younger
branch would scout the idea, enveloped, one and all, in an atmosphere of
prejudice truly insular, which ignorant people call loyalty. This boy’s
great-grandfather died in a battle fought by Charles I., at a place with
an unpronounceable name, in the province of ‘Yorkshires.’ His grandfather
was shot by a platoon of musketeers in his own courtyard, under an order
signed by the judicious Cromwell; and his father was drowned here, in the
channel, carrying despatches for his king, as he persisted in calling
him, under the respectable disguise of a smuggler. I believe this boy
was with him at the time. I know when first he came to Court, people
pretended that although so young he was an accomplished sailor; and I
remember his hands were hard and dirty, and he always seemed to smell of
tar. I will own that now, _for_ a page, he is clean, polished, and well
dressed.”

Florian’s dark eyes kindled.

“You interest me,” said he; “I love to hear of loyalty. It is the
reflection of religion upon earth.”

“Precisely,” replied the other. “A shadow of the unsubstantial. Well,
all his line are loyal enough, and I doubt not the boy has been brought
up to believe that in the world there are men, women, and Stuarts. The
fact of his being page here, I confess, puzzles me. Lord Stair protested
against it, I know, but the king would not listen, and used his own wise
discretion, consenting, however, that the lad should drop his family name
and be called simply—George. So George fulfils the destiny of a page,
whatever that may be—as gaudy, as troublesome, and to all appearance as
useless an item in creation as the dragon-fly.”

“And has the child no relations?” asked Florian; “no friends, nobody to
whom he belongs? What a position; what a fate; what a cruel isolation!”

“He is indeed in that enviable situation which I cannot agree with you in
thinking merits one grain of pity. You and I, Florian, with our education
and in our career, should, of all people, best appreciate the advantages
of perfect freedom from those trammels which old women of both sexes call
the domestic affections.”

“So young, so hopeful, so spirited,” continued Florian, speaking rather
to himself than his informant, “and to have no mother!”

“But he _had_ a mother, I tell you,” replied Malletort, “only she died of
a broken heart, as women always do when a little energy is required to
repair their broken fortunes. _Our_ mother, my son,” he proceeded, still
in the same half-mocking, half-impressive tone, “_our_ mother is the
Church. She provides for us carefully during life, and when we die in her
embrace, at least affords us decent burial and prayers for our welfare
hereafter. I tell you, Florian, she is the most thoughtful as she is the
most indulgent of mothers. She offers us opportunity for distinction, or
allows us shelter and repose according as our ambition soars to heaven,
or limits itself, as I confess mine does, to the affairs of earth. Who
shall be found exalted above their kind in the next world? (I speak as
I am taught)—Priests. Who fill the high places in this? (I speak as I
learn)—Priests. The king’s wisest councillors, his ablest financiers,
are men of the sober garment and the shaven crown; nay, judging from the
simplicity of his habits, and the austerity of his demeanour, I cannot
but think that the bravest marshal in our armies is only a priest in
disguise.”

“There are but two careers worthy of a life-sacrifice,” observed Florian,
his countenance glowing with enthusiasm, “and glory is the aim of each.
But who would compare the soldier of France with the soldier of Rome?—the
banner of the Bourbon with the cross of Calvary? How much less noble is
it to serve earth than heaven?”

Malletort looked in his young friend’s face as if he thought such
exalted sentiments could not possibly be real, and shrewdly suspected
him of covert sarcasm or jest; but Florian’s open brow admitted of no
misconstruction, and the elder man’s features gradually relaxed into the
quiet expression of amusement, not devoid of pity, with which a professor
in the swimmer’s art, for instance, watches the floundering struggles of
a neophyte.

“You are right,” said he, calmly and after a pause; “ours is incomparably
the better profession of the two, and the safer. We risk less, no doubt,
and gain more. Persecution, in civilised countries at least, is happily
all the other way. It is extremely profitable to be saints, and there
is no call for us to become martyrs. I think, Florian, we have every
reason to be satisfied with our bargain. Why, the very ties we sever, the
earthly affections we resign, are, to my mind, but so many more enforced
advantages, for which we cannot be too thankful.”

“There would be no merit were there no effort,” answered the other. “No
self-denial were there nothing to give up; but with us it is different. I
am proud to think we _do_ resign, and cheerfully, all that gives warmth
and colouring to the hard outlines of an earthly life. Is it nothing
to forego the triumphs of the camp, the bright pageantry, the graceful
luxuries of the Court? Is it nothing to place yourself at once above and
outside the pale of those sympathies which form the very existence of
your fellow-men? More than all, is it nothing, Malletort,”—the young man
hesitated, blushed, and cast his eyes down—“is it nothing to trample out
of your heart, passions, affections—call them what you will—that seem the
very mainspring of your being? Is it nothing to deny yourself at once and
for ever the solace of woman’s companionship and the rapture of woman’s
love?”

“You declaim well,” replied Malletort, not affecting to conceal that he
was amused, “and your arguments would have even more weight were it not
that you are so palpably in earnest. This of itself infers error. You
will observe, my dear Florian, as a general rule, that the reasoner’s
convictions are strong in direct proportion to the weakness of his
arguments. But let us go a little deeper into this question of celibacy.
Let us strip it of its conventional treatment, its supposed injustice,
its apparent romance. To what does it amount? That a priest must not
marry—good. I repeat, so much the better for the priest. What is marriage
in the abstract?—The union of persons for the continuation of the species
in separate and distinct races. What is it in the ideal?—The union of
souls by an unphilosophical and impossible fusion of identity, which
happily the personality of every human being forbids to exist. What is
it in reality?—A fetter of oppressive weight and inconvenient fabric,
only rendered supportable from the deadening influence of habit, combined
with its general adoption by mankind. Look around you into families and
observe for yourself how it works. The woman has discovered all her
husband’s evil qualities, of which she does not fail to remind him; and
were she a reflective being, which admits of argument, would wonder
hourly how she could ever have endured such a mass of imperfections.
The man bows his head and shrugs his shoulders in callous indifference,
scorning to analyse the disagreeable question, but clear only of one
thing—that if he were free, no consideration would induce him to place
his neck again beneath the same yoke. Another—perhaps! The same—never!
Both have discovered a dissimilarity in tastes, habits, and opinions, so
remarkable that it seems scarcely possible that it should be fortuitous.
To neither does it occur that each was once the very reflection of the
other, in thought, word, and deed; and that a blessing pronounced by a
priest—a few years, nay a few months, of unrestricted companionship—have
wrought the miraculous change. Sometimes there are quarrels, scenes,
tears, reproaches, recriminations. More often, coldness, self-restraint,
inward scorn, and the forbearance of a repressed disgust. Then is the
separation most complete of all. Their bodies preserve to each other the
outward forms of an armed and enforced neutrality, but their souls are so
far asunder that perhaps, of all in the universe, this pair alone could,
under no circumstances, come together again.”

“Sacrilege!” broke in Florian, indignantly. “What you say is sacrilege
against our very nature! You speak of marriage as if it _must_ be the
grave of Love. But at least Love has lived. At least the angel has
descended and been seen of men, even though he touched the mountain only
to spring upward on his flight again towards the skies. He who has really
loved, happily or unhappily, married or alone, is for that love ever
after a wiser, a nobler, and a better man.”

“Not if he should happen to love a Frenchwoman,” observed the other,
taking a pinch of snuff. “Thus much I will not scruple to say for my
countrywomen: their coquetries are enough to drive an honest man mad.
With regard to less civilised nations (mind, I speak not from personal
experience so much as observation of my kind), I admit that for a time,
at least, the delusion may possess a charm, though the loss must in all
cases far exceed the gain. Set your affections on a German, for instance,
and observe carefully, for the experiment is curious, if a dinner with
the idol does not so disgust you that not a remnant of worship is left
to be swept away by supper-time. A Pole is simply a beautiful barbarian,
with more clothing but less manner than an Indian squaw. An Italian
deafens you with her shrill voice, pokes your eye out with her fingers,
and betrays your inmost secrets to her director, if indeed she does not
prefer him to you in every respect. An Englishwoman, handsome, blonde,
silent, and retiring, keeps you months in uncertainty while you woo, and
when won, believes she has a right to possess you body and soul, and
becomes, from a sheer sentiment of appropriation, the most exacting of
wives and the most disobliging of mistresses. To make love to a Spaniard
is a delicate phrase for paying court to a tigress. Beautiful, fierce,
impulsive—with one leap she is in your arms—and then for a word, a
look, she will stab you, herself, a rival, perhaps all three, without
hesitation or remorse. Caramba! she considers it a compliment no doubt!
Yet I tell you, Florian, were I willing to submit to such weaknesses, I
had rather love any one of these, or all of them at once for that matter,
than attach myself to a Frenchwoman.”

Florian opened his dark eyes wide. This was new ground to the young
student. These were questions more interesting than the principles of
Aristotle or the experiences of the Saints. He was penetrated, too, with
that strange admiration which the young entertain for familiarity with
evil in their elders. The other scanned him with half-pitying interest;
broke a branch from the fragrant lime-tree under which they sat, and
proceeded to elucidate his theory.

“With all other women,” said Malletort, “you have indeed a thousand
rivals to out-do; still you know their numbers and can calculate their
resources; but with the Frenchwoman, in addition to these, you have
yet another, who changes and multiplies himself day by day—who assumes
a thousand Protean forms, and against whom you cannot employ the most
efficient weapons—such as vanity, gaiety, and love of dissipation, by
which the others are to be subdued. This enemy is dress—King Chiffon is
the absolute monarch of these realms. Your mistress is gay when you are
sad, sarcastic when you are plaintive, reserved when you are adventurous.
All this is a matter of course; but as Monsieur Vauban told the king the
other day in these gardens, ‘no fortress is stronger than its weakest
place,’ and every citadel may be carried by a _coup de main_, or reduced
by the slower process of blockade. But here you have a stronghold within
a stronghold; a reserve that can neither be tampered with in secret nor
attacked openly; in brief a rival who owns this incalculable advantage,
that in all situations and under all circumstances he occupies the first
place in your mistress’s thoughts. Bah!” concluded the Abbé, throwing
from him the branch which he had stripped of leaves and blossoms, with
a gesture that seemed thus to dismiss the subject once for all; “put a
Frenchwoman into what position you will, her sympathies indeed may be
with her lover, but her first consideration is for her dress!”

As the Abbé spoke he observed a group of four persons passing the
front of the palace, under the windows of the king’s dining-saloon. It
consisted of little Cerise, her mother, Célandine, and the page. They
were laughing and chatting gaily, George apparently taking his leave of
the other three. Florian observed a shadow cross the Abbé’s face, that
disappeared, however, from those obedient features quickly as it came;
and at the same moment the Marquise passed her hand caressingly over the
boy’s dark curls, while he bent low before her, and seemed to do homage
to her beauty in the act of bidding her a courteous farewell.




CHAPTER IV

TANTARA!


Year by year a certain stag had been growing fatter and fatter in the
deep glades and quiet woodlands that surrounded Fontainebleau. He was but
a pricket when Cerise made her daisy-chain in the gardens of Versailles,
but each succeeding summer he had rubbed the velvet off another point
on his antlers, and in all the king’s chase was no finer head than he
carried the day he was to die. Brow, bay, and tray, twelve in all, with
three in a cup at the summits, had been the result of some half-score
years passed in the security and shelter of a royal forest; nor was
the lapse of time which had thus brought head and haunch to perfection
without its effect upon those for whose pastime the noble beast must fall.

Imagine, then, a glowing afternoon, the second week in August. Not a
cloud in the sky, a sun almost tropical in its power, but a pure clear
air that fanned the brow wherever the forest opened into glades, and
filled the broad nostrils of a dozen large, deep-chested, rich-coloured
stag-hounds, snuffing and questing busily down a track of arid grass that
seemed to have checked their steady, well-considered unrelenting chase,
and brought their wondrous instinct to a fault. One rider alone watched
their efforts with a preoccupied air, yet with the ready glance of an
old sportsman. He had apparently reached his point of observation before
the hounds themselves, and far in advance of the rest of the chase. His
close-fitting blue riding-coat, trimmed with gold-lace and turned back
with scarlet facings, called a “_just au corps_,” denoted that he was
a courtier; but the keen eye, the erect figure, the stateliness, even
stiffness of his bearing, smacked of the old soldier, more, the old
soldier of France, perhaps the most professional veteran in the world.

He was not so engrossed with his own thoughts, however, but that his eye
gleamed with pleasure when a tan-coloured sage, intent on business, threw
a square sagacious head into the air, proclaiming in full deep notes
his discovery of the line, and solemn conviction that he was right. The
horseman swore a good round garrison oath, and cheered the hound lustily.
A cry of tuneful tongues pealed out to swell the harmony. A burst of
music from a distant glade announced that the stag had passed yet farther
on. A couple of royal foresters, in blue and red, arrived on foot,
breathless, with fresh hounds struggling in the leash; and a lady on a
Spanish barb, attended by a plainly-dressed ecclesiastic, came cantering
down the glade to rein up at the veteran’s side, with a smile of greeting
on her face.

“Well met, _Monsieur le Prince_, once more,” said she, flashing a look
from her dark eyes, under which, old as he was, he lowered his own.
“Always the same—always successful. In the Court—in the camp—in the
ball-room—in the field—if you seek the Prince-Marshal, look in the most
forward post, and you will find him.”

She owed him some reparation for having driven him from her side in a fit
of ill-humour half an hour before, and this was her way of making amends.

“I have won posts in my time, madame,” said the old soldier, an
expression of displeasure settling once more on his high worn features,
“and held them, too, without dishonour. It is perhaps no disgrace to be
worsted by a woman, but it is humiliating and unpleasant all the same.”

“Dishonour and disgrace are words that can never be coupled with the name
of Chateau-Guerrand,” returned the lady, smiling sweetly in his face, a
process that appeared to mollify him considerably. Then she completed his
subjection by caressing her horse with one hand, while she reined him in
so sharply with the other, that he rose on his hind-legs as if to rear
straight on end.

“You are a hard mistress, madame,” said the gentleman, looking at the
beautiful barb chafing and curveting to its bit.

“It is only to show I _am_ mistress,” she answered in a low voice, that
seemed to finish the business, for turning to her attendant cavalier,
who had remained discreetly in the background, she signed to him that he
might come up and break the _tête-à-tête_, while she added gaily—

“I am as fond of hunting as you are, prince. Hark! The stag is still
forward. Our poor horses are dying with impatience. Let us gallop on
together.”

The Marquise de Montmirail had considerably altered in character since
she tended the infirmities of her poor old husband, or sat in widow’s
garments with her pretty child on her knee. A few years at the Court of
France had brought to the surface all the evil of her character, and
seemed to have stifled in her everything that was good. She had lost
the advantage of her daughter’s companionship, for Cerise (and in this
perhaps the Marquise was right) had been removed to a distance from the
Court and capital, to bloom into womanhood in the healthier atmosphere of
a provincial convent. She missed her darling sadly, no doubt, and for the
first year or two contented herself with the gaieties and distractions
common to her companions. She encouraged no lover, properly so called,
and had seldom fewer than three admirers at a time. Nor had the king of
late taken special notice of her; so she was only hated by the other
Court ladies with the due hatred to which she was entitled from her
wealth, beauty, and attractions.

After a while, however, she put in for universal dominion, and then of
course the outcry raised against her was loud and long sustained. She
heeded it little; nay, she seemed to like it, and bandied sarcasms with
her own sex as joyously, to all appearance, as she exchanged compliments
with the other.

She never faltered. She never committed herself. She stood on the brink,
and never turned giddy nor lost her presence of mind. What she required,
it seemed, what she could not live without, was influence, more or less,
but the stronger the better, over every male creature that crossed her
path. When this was gained, she had done with them unless they were
celebrities, or sufficiently frivolous to be as variable as herself. In
either of such cases she took considerable pains to secure the empire she
had won. What she liked best was to elicit an offer of marriage. She was
supposed to have refused more men, and of more different ranks, than any
woman in France. For bachelor or widower who came within the sphere of
her influence there was no escape. Sooner or later he must blunder into
the net, and the longer he fought the more complete and humiliating was
his eventual defeat. “Nothing,” said the Abbé Malletort, “nothing but the
certainty of the king’s unacknowledged marriage to Madame de Maintenon
prevented his cousin from obtaining and refusing an offer of the crown of
France.”

She was beautiful, too, no doubt, which made it so much worse—beautiful
both with the beauty of the intellect and the senses. Not strictly by
any rules of art, but from grace of outline, richness of colouring, and
glowing radiance of health. She had all the ways, too, of acknowledged
beauty; and even people who did not care for her were obliged to admit
she possessed that strange, indefinite, inexplicable charm which every
man finds in the woman he loves.

The poor Prince-Marshal, Hector de Chateau-Guerrand, had undergone the
baptism of fire at sixteen, had fought his duels, drank his Burgundy,
and lost an estate at lansquenet in a night before he was twenty. Since
then he had commanded the Musketeers of the Guard—divisions of the great
king’s troops—more than once a French army in the field. It was hard to
be a woman’s puppet at sixty—with wrinkles and rheumatism, and failing
health, with every pleasure palling, and every pain enhanced. Well, as he
said himself, “_le cœur ne vieillit jamais_!” There is no fool like an
old one. The Prince-Marshal, for that was the title by which he was best
known, had never been ardently attached to anybody but himself till now.
We need not envy him his condition.

“Let us gallop on together,” said the Marquise; but ere they could
put their horses in motion a yeoman-pricker, armed to the teeth, rode
rapidly by, and they waited until his Majesty should have passed. Their
patience was not tried for long. While a fresh burst of horns announced
another view of the quarry further on, the king’s little calèche turned
the corner of the alley at speed, and was pulled up with considerable
dexterity, that its occupant might listen for a moment to determine on
his future course. Louis sat by himself in a light, narrow carriage,
constructed to hold but one person. He was drawn by four cream-coloured
horses, small, well-bred, and active. A child of some ten years of age
acted postilion to the leaders, but the king’s own hand drove the pair
at wheel, and guided them with all the skill and address of his early
manhood.

Nevertheless, he looked very old and feeble when he returned the
obeisance of the Prince-Marshal and his fair companion. Always
punctiliously polite, Louis lifted his hat to salute the Marquise, but
his chin soon sank back on his chest, and the momentary gleam died out in
his dull and weary eyes.

It was obvious his health was failing day by day; he was now nearly
seventy-seven years of age, and the end could not be far off. As he
passed on, an armed escort followed at a few paces distance. It was
headed by a young officer of the Grey Musketeers, who saluted the
Prince-Marshal with considerable deference, and catching the eye of the
Marquise, half halted his horse; and then, as if thinking better of it,
urged him on again, the colour rising visibly in his brown handsome face.

The phenomenon of a musketeer blushing was not likely to be lost on so
keen an observer as Madame de Montmirail, particularly when the musketeer
was young, handsome, and an excellent horseman.

“Who is that on guard?” said she, carelessly of course, because she
really wanted to know. “A captain of the Grey Musketeers evidently. And
yet I do not remember to have seen his face at Court before.”

Now it was not to be expected that a Marshal of France should show
interest, at a moment’s notice, in so inferior an official as a mere
captain of musketeers, more particularly when riding with a “ladye-love”
nearly thirty years younger than himself, and of an age far more
suitable to the good-looking gentleman about whom she made inquiries.
Nevertheless, the Prince had no objection to enter on any subject
redounding to his own glorification, particularly in war, and it so
happened that the officer in question had served as his aide-de-camp in
an affair that won him a Marshal’s baton; so he reduced his horse’s pace
forthwith, and plunged into the tempting subject.

“A fine young man, madame,” said the Prince-Marshal, like a generous old
soldier as he was, “and a promising officer as ever I had the training
of. He was with me while a mere cadet in that business when I effected my
junction with Vendôme at Villa-Viciosa, and I sent him with despatches
from Brighuega right through Staremberg’s uhlans, who ought to have cut
him into mince-meat. Even Vendôme thanked him in person, and told me
himself I must apply for the brave child’s promotion.”

Like other ladies, the Marquise suffered her attention to wander
considerably from these campaigning reminiscences. She roused herself,
however, enough to answer, not very pertinently—

“What an odious man the Duke is, and how hideous. Generally drunk,
besides, and always disagreeable!”

The Prince-Marshal looked a little put out, but he did not for this allow
himself to be diverted from his subject.

“A very _fortunate_ soldier, madame,” he replied, pompously; “perhaps
more fortunate than really deserving. Nevertheless, in war as in love,
merit is of less importance than success. His Majesty thought well to
place the Duke over the head of officers whose experience was greater,
and their services more distinguished. It is not for me to offer an
opinion. I serve France, madame, and _you_,” he added, with a smile, not
too unguarded, because some of his teeth were gone, “I am proud to offer
my homage to both.”

The Marquise moved her horse impatiently. The subject did not seem to
amuse her, but the Prince-Marshal had got on a favourite theme, and was
not going to abandon it without a struggle.

“I do not think, madame,” he proceeded, laying his hand confidentially
on the barb’s crest—“I do not think I have ever explained to you in
detail the strategical reasons of my forced march on Villa-Viciosa in
order to co-operate with Vendôme. I have been blamed in military circles
for evacuating Brighuega after taking it, and abandoning the position
I held at the bridge the day before the action, which I had caused to
be strengthened during the night. Now there is much to be urged on both
sides regarding this movement, and I will endeavour to make clear to you
the arguments for and against the tactics I thought it my duty to adopt.
In the first place, you must bear in mind that the enemy’s change of
front on the previous morning, which was unexpected by us, and for which
Staremberg had six cogent reasons, being as follows―”

The Marquise looked round to her other cavalier in despair; but no
assistance was to be expected from the cynical Abbé—for it was Malletort
in attendance, as usual, on his cousin.

The Prince-Marshal was, doubtless, about to recount the dispositions and
manœuvres of three armies seriatim, with his own advice and opinions
thereon, when relief came to his listener from a quarter in which she
least expected it.

She was preparing herself to endure for the hundredth time the oft-told
tale, when her horse started, snorted, trembled violently, and attempted
to wheel round. In another instant an animal half as big as itself leaped
leisurely into the glade, and went lurching down the dry sunny vista as
if in utter disregard and contempt of its pursuers.

The stag had been turned back at several points by the horns of the
foresters, who thus melodiously greeted every appearance of their quarry.
He was beginning to think some distant refuge would be safer and more
agreeable; also his instinct told him that the scent would improve while
he grew warmer, and that his noisy pursuers would track him more and more
unerringly as the sun went down.

Already he felt the inconvenience of those fat haunches and that
broad russet back he carried so magnificently; already he heard the
deep-mouthed chorus chiming nearer and nearer, full, musical, and
measured, like a death-bell.

“_En avant!_” exclaimed Madame de Montmirail, as the stag, swerving
from a stray hound, stretched into an honest, undisguised gallop down
the glade, followed by the straggler at its utmost speed, labouring,
over-paced, distressed, but rolling on, mute, resolute, and faithful to
the line. The love of rapid motion, inseparable from health, energy, and
high spirits, was strong in the Marquise. Her barb, in virtue of his
blood, possessed pace and endurance; his mistress called on him to prove
both, while she sped along on the line of chase, accompanied by several
of the hounds, as they straggled up in twos and threes, and followed by
most of the equestrians.

Thus they reached the verge of the forest, and here stood the king’s
calèche drawn up, his Majesty signing to them feebly yet earnestly that
the stag was away over the plain.

Great was now the confusion at so exciting and so unexpected an event.
The foresters, with but little breath to spare, managed to raise a final
flourish on their horns. The yeoman-prickers spurred their horses with
a vigour more energetic than judicious; the hounds, collecting as it
seemed from every quarter of the forest, were already stringing, one
after another, over the dusty plain. The king, too feeble to continue
the chase, yet anxious to know its result, whispered a few words to his
officer of the guard, and the Musketeer, starting like an arrow from
a bow, sped away after the hounds with some half-dozen of the keenest
equestrians, amongst whom were the Marquise and the Prince-Marshal.
Many of the courtiers, including the Abbé, seemed to think it disloyal
thus to turn their backs on his Majesty, and gathered into a cluster
to watch with interjections of interest and delight the pageant of
the fast-receding chase. The far horizon was bounded by another range
of woods, and that shelter the stag seemed resolved to reach. The
intervening ground was a vast undulating plain, crossed apparently by
no obstacles to hounds or horsemen, and varied only by a few lines of
poplars and a _paved_ high-road to the nearest market-town.

The stag then made direct for this road, but long ere he could reach
it, the chase had become so severe that many of the hounds dropped
off one by one; and of the horses, only those ridden by the Marquise,
the Prince-Marshal, and the Grey Musketeer, were able to keep up the
appearance of a gallop.

Presently these successful riders drew near enough to distinguish clearly
the object of their pursuit. The Musketeer was in advance of the others,
who galloped on abreast, every nerve at its highest strain, and too
preoccupied to speak a syllable.

Suddenly a dip in the ground hid the stag from sight; then he appeared
again on the opposite rise, looking darker, larger, and fresher than
before.

The Musketeer turned round and pointed towards the hollow in front. In a
few more strides his followers perceived a fringe of alders serpentining
between the two declivities. Madame de Montmirail’s dark eyes flashed,
and she urged her barb to yet greater exertions.

The Musketeer sat back in his saddle, and seemed to collect his horse’s
energies for an effort. There was an increase of speed, a spring, a
stagger, and he was over the rivulet that stole deep and cool and shining
between the alders.

The Marquise followed his horse’s footmarks to an inch, and though the
barb threw his head up wildly, and galloped furiously at it, he too
cleared the chasm and reached the other side in safety.

The Prince-Marshal’s old blood was warmed up now, and he flew along,
feeling as he used in the days of the duels, and the Burgundy, and the
lansquenet. He shouted and spurred his steed, urging it with hand and
voice and leg, but the highly-broken and well-trained animal felt its
powers failing, and persistently declined to attempt the feat it had seen
the others accomplish; so the Prince-Marshal was forced to discontinue
the chase and remain on the safe side of the rubicon, whence he turned
his horse unwillingly homewards, heated, angry, and swearing many strange
oaths in different languages.

Meanwhile the other two galloped on, the Marquise, though she spared no
effort, finding herself unable to overtake the captain of Grey Musketeers.

All at once he stopped short at a clump of willows, through which the
chase had disappeared, and jumping off his horse, left the panting beast
to its own devices. When she reached the trees, and looked down into the
hollow below, she perceived the stag up to its chest in a bright, shallow
pool, at bay, and surrounded by the eager though exhausted hounds.

The Musketeer had drawn his _couteau de chasse_, and was already
knee-deep in the water, but hearing her approach, turned back, and,
taking his hat off, with a low obeisance, offered her the handle of his
weapon.

It was the customary form when a lady happened to be present on such an
occasion, though, as now, the compliment was almost always declined.

He had scarcely gone in and given the _coup de grace_, which he did
like an accomplished sportsman, before some of the yeomen-prickers and
other attendants came up, so that the disembowelling and other obsequies
were performed with proper ceremony. Long, however, ere these had been
concluded the Marquise was riding her tired horse slowly homeward through
the still, sweet autumn evening, not the least disturbed that she had
lost the Abbé and the rest of her escort, but ruminating, pleasantly and
languidly, as her blood cooled down, on the excitement of the chase and
the events of the day.

She watched the sunset reddening and fading on the distant woods; the
haze of twilight gradually softening, and blurring and veiling the
surrounding landscape; the curved edge of the young moon peering over
the trees, and the evening-star hanging, like a golden lamp, against the
purple curtain of the sky.

With head bent down, loose reins, and tired hands resting on her lap,
Madame de Montmirail pondered on many matters as the night began to fall.

She wondered at the Abbé’s want of enterprise, at the Prince-Marshal’s
activity—if the first could have yet reached home, and whether the
second, with his rheumatism, was not likely to spend a night in the woods.

She wondered at the provoking cynicism of the one and the extraordinary
depressive powers possessed by the other; more than all, how she could
for so long have supported the attentions of both.

She wondered what would have happened if the barb had fallen short at his
leap; whether the Musketeer would have stopped in his headlong course
to pity and tend her, and rest her head upon his knee, inclining to the
belief that he would have been very glad to have the opportunity.

Then she wondered what it was about this man’s face that haunted her
memory, and where she could have seen those bold keen eyes before.




CHAPTER V

THE USHER OF THE BLACK ROD


For the courtiers of _Louis le Grand_ there was no such thing as hunger
or thirst, want of appetite, heat, cold, lassitude, depression, or
fatigue. If he chose they should accompany him on long journeys, in
crowded carriages, over bad roads, they were expected, nevertheless, to
appear fresh, well-dressed, exuberant in spirits, inclined to eat or
content to starve, unconscious of sun and wind; above all, ready to agree
with his Majesty upon every subject at a moment’s notice. Ladies enjoyed
in this respect no advantage over gentlemen. Though a fair amazon had
been hunting the stag all day, she would be required to appear just the
same in grand Court toilet at night; to take her place at lansquenet; to
be present at the royal concerts, twenty fiddles playing a heavy opera
of Cavalli right through; or, perhaps, only to assist in lining the
great gallery, which the king traversed on his way to supper. Everything
must yield to the lightest whim of royalty, and no more characteristic
reply was ever made to the arbitrary descendant of St. Louis than that
of the eccentric Cardinal Bonzi, to whom the king complained one day at
dinner that he had no teeth. “Teeth, sire!” replied the astute churchman,
showing, while he spoke, a strong, even well-polished row of his own.
“Why, who _has_ any teeth?”

His Majesty, however, like mortals of inferior rank, did not touch on the
accomplishment of his seventy-seventh year without sustaining many of the
complaints and inconveniences of old age. For some time past not only
had his teeth failed, but his digestion, despite of the regimen of iced
fruits and sweetmeats, on which he was put by his physician Fagon, became
unequal to its task. Everybody but himself and his doctor perceived the
rapidity with which a change was approaching. In vain they swaddled him
up in feather-pillows at night, to draw the gout from him through the
pores of his skin; in vain they administered sage, veronica, cassia,
and Jesuit-bark between meals, while they limited his potations to a
little weak Burgundy and water, thereby affording some amusement to those
present from the wry faces made by foreign lords and grandees who were
curious to taste the king’s beverage. In vain they made him begin dinner
with mulberries, and melons, and rotten figs, and strong soups, and
salads. There is but one remedy for old age, and it is only to be found
in the pharmacopœia, at the last chapter of the book. To that remedy the
king was fast approaching—and yet hunting, fiddling, dining, promenades,
concerts, and the whole round of empty Court gaiety went on all the same.

The Marquise de Montmirail returned to her apartments at the palace with
but little time to spare. It wanted but one hour from the king’s supper,
and she must attend with the other ladies of the Court, punctual as
clockwork, directly the folding-doors opened into the gallery, and his
Majesty, in an enormous wig, should totter in at one end to totter out
again at the other. Nevertheless, a good deal of decoration can be done
in sixty minutes, when a lady, young and beautiful, is assisted by an
attendant whose taste becomes chastened and her activity quickened by
the superintendence of four distinct toilets every day. So the Marquise
and Célandine between them had put the finishing touches to their great
work within the appointed time. The former was going through a gratifying
revision of the whole at her looking-glass, and the latter was applying
to her mistress’s handkerchief that perfume of orange-flowers which alone
his Majesty could endure, when a loud knocking at the outer door of the
apartment suspended the operations of each, bringing an additional colour
to the Marquise’s cheek, and a cloud of displeasure on the quadroon’s
brow.

“See what it is Célandine,” said the former, calmly, wondering in her
heart, though it seemed absurd, whether this disturbance could relate in
any manner to the previous events of the day.

“It is the Abbé, I’ll be bound,” muttered Célandine, proceeding to do as
she was bid; adding, sulkily, though below her breath, “He might knock
there till his knuckles were sore if I was mistress instead of maid!”

It was the Abbé, sure enough, in plain attire, as became his profession;
but with an expression of hope and elation on his brow which even his
perfect self-command seemed unable to conceal.

“Pardon, madame!” said he, standing, hat in hand, on the threshold;
“I was in attendance to conduct you to the gallery, as usual, when
the intelligence that reached me, and, indeed, the confusion I myself
witnessed, induced me to take the liberty of waiting on you at once.”

“No great liberty,” answered the Marquise, smiling, “seeing that I
must have encountered you, at any rate, within three paces of my door.
But what is this alarming news, my cousin, that agitates even your
imperturbable front? Nothing wrong with the barb, I hope!”

“Not so bad as that, madame,” replied the Abbé, who was rapidly
recovering his calmness. “It is only a matter affecting his Majesty. I
have just learned the king is taken seriously ill. Fagon crossed the
courtyard five minutes ago. Worse than that, Père Tellier has been sent
for.”

“Père Tellier!” repeated the Marquise. “The king’s confessor! Then the
attack is dangerous?”

“There is no doubt that his Majesty’s state is precarious in the
extreme,” answered the Abbé, seriously. “It is a severe and exhausting
malady from which he suffers, and at his time of life we may anticipate
the gravest results. Madame, I must be in Paris by break of day
to-morrow, to wait on the Duke of Orleans.”

She looked at him with a half-contemptuous indulgence, and laughed.

“So soon?” said she. “Nay, then, I am satisfied you think the worst.
My cousin, you are wise in your generation, no doubt; and it would
be a sudden blow, indeed, that should fall and find you unprepared.
Nevertheless, is not this haste indecent? Worse; is it not ill-judged?
The king has a wonderful constitution; Fagon is a cautious physician.
His Majesty may recover in spite of the doctor.”

“And sin again in spite of his confessor,” added the Abbé. “Nevertheless,
I think both have foreseen a crisis for some time past. Fagon has called
in Marechal to help him; and Père Tellier has been asking for every
vacant benefice during the last three weeks.”

“It was very polite of you, my cousin,” observed the Marquise, after a
pause, “to come and tell me at once; though the only immediate result of
all this confusion to _me_ is, that I suppose I may undress and go to
bed. I have had a fatiguing day.”

“Pardon again,” answered the Abbé. “I fear you must attend as usual in
the gallery; and, indeed, it would be a thousand pities that such a
toilette should be wasted, for you look beautiful, and are charmingly
dressed. You know, besides, that only the king’s own order can rescind
the daily regulations for the Court.”

“We had better proceed, then,” said Madame de Montmirail. “Célandine has
revised me thoroughly, and the sooner I go the sooner I shall get it
over. Believe me, it would require some excitement stronger than common
to keep me awake to-night.”

“One instant, madame,” replied the Abbé. “I will not detain you longer;
but at a crisis like the present what I have to say merits your most
earnest attention. In the first place, will you permit Célandine to
examine if the outer door be shut?”

The scowl on the quadroon’s brow grew deeper, while, in obedience to a
sign from her mistress, she retired into the outer chamber. The Marquise
seated herself on a couch near the toilet-table, spreading her skirts out
carefully, lest their freshness might sustain damage in that position,
and prepared to receive her cousin’s confidences, as he stood near, cool,
polished, smiling, but obviously repressing, with an effort, the strong
agitation under which he laboured.

While she sat in that graceful attitude, her head turned up towards his
face, one beautifully moulded arm and hand resting in her lap, the other
yet ungloved holding a closed fan against her lips, it may have occurred
to the Abbé that so many charms of person and manner might be applied
to a worthier purpose than the furtherance of Court intrigues or the
advancement of any one man’s ambition. It may even have occurred to him,
though doubtless if it did so the thought had to be stifled as it rose,
that it would be no unpleasant task, however difficult, to woo and win
and wear such beauty for himself and his own happiness; and that to be
his cousin’s favoured lover was a more enviable position than could
be afforded by comptroller’s wand, or cardinal’s cap, or minister’s
portfolio. For a moment his rugged features softened like a clearing
landscape under a gleam of sun, while he looked on her and basked, as it
were, in the radiance of her beauty, ere he turned back to the chill,
shadowy labyrinth of deceit in which he spent his life.

Madame de Montmirail’s exterior was of that sparkling kind which, like
the diamond, is enhanced by the richness of its setting. In full Court
toilette as he saw her now, few women would have cared to enter the lists
as her rivals. The dress she wore was of pale yellow satin, displaying,
indeed, with considerable liberality, her graceful neck and shoulders,
glowing in the warm tints of a brunette. It fitted close to her
well-turned bust, spreading into an enormous volume of skirts below the
waist, overlaid by a delicate fabric of black lace, and looped up here
and there in strings of pearls. Her waving hair, black and glossy, was
turned back from a low, broad forehead, and gathered behind her ears into
a shining mass, from which a ringlet or two escaped, smooth and elastic,
to coil, snake-like, on her bosom. One row of large pearls encircled her
neck, and one bracelet of diamonds and emeralds clung to her ungloved
arm. Other ornaments she had none, though an open dressing-case on the
toilet-table flashed and glittered like a jeweller’s shop.

And now I have only made an inventory of her dress after all. How can I
hope to convey an idea of her face? How is it possible to describe that
which constitutes a woman’s loveliness? that subtle influence which,
though it generally accompanies harmony of colouring and symmetry of
feature, is by no means the result of these advantages; nay, often
exists without them, and seems in all cases independent of their aid. I
will only say of her charms, that Madame de Montmirail was already past
thirty, and nine men out of every ten in the circle of her acquaintance
were more or less in love with her.

She had a beautiful foot, besides. It was peeping out now from beneath
her dress. The Abbé’s eyes unconsciously fixed themselves on the small
white satin shoe, as he proceeded with his confidences.

“It is good to be prepared, my cousin,” said he, in a low, hurried voice,
very different from his usual easy, careless tone. “Everything will now
be changed, if, as I expect, the indisposition of to-night is but the
beginning of the end. You know my situation; you know my hopes; you know
the difficulties I have had to contend with. The king’s suspicions, the
courtiers’ jealousy, the imprudence of my patron himself; and you know,
too, that through good and evil I have always stood firm by the Duke of
Orleans. It is evident that in a few days he will be the most powerful
man in France.”

“Afterwards?” asked the Marquise, apparently unmoved by the contingency.

“Afterwards!” repeated Malletort, almost with indignation. “Do you not
see the career that opens itself before us all? Who is best acquainted
with the Duke’s early history?—Abbé Malletort. Who is the Duke bound to
serve before the whole world? Not from gratitude—bah! that is a thing of
course—but from motives of the clearest self-interest?—Abbé Malletort. In
brief, in whom does he confide?—In Abbé Malletort. And to whom does the
Abbé lay bare his hopes, his aspirations, his ambition?—To whom but to
his sweet cousin, Madame de Montmirail?”

“And what would you have me do?” asked the Marquise, yawning, while she
carelessly fastened the bracelet on her arm.

“I would have you guard your lips with a clasp of iron,” answered the
Abbé. “I would have you keep watch to-night and to-morrow, and every
day till the end comes—on your words, your looks, your gestures—the
very trimmings and colour of the dresses you wear. Be polite to all;
but familiar, cordial, even communicative with none. In brief, have no
friends, no enemies, no dislikes, no predilections, till the old state of
affairs is ended and the new begun.”

“I think you can trust me,” answered the Marquise. “My feelings are
little likely to betray me into indiscretion; and though I have plenty of
lovers at Court, I do not imagine I have many friends.”

She spoke wearily, and finished with something like a sigh.

The Abbé’s eyes sparkled. “I _know_ I can!” said he. “My cousin has none
of the weaknesses of her sex, and all its beauty for her own share.” Then
he opened the door and spoke loud enough for Célandine to hear. “We must
have mademoiselle back from her pension. She is old enough now to take
her place as an ornament to society and the Court.”

Malletort understood true economy, and he knew that this bribe, while it
cost him nothing, would purchase favour with the quadroon, whose dislike
he had observed and resolved to efface.

Madame de Montmirail bowed and took his arm. It was now high time they
were both in attendance on his Majesty, should the concert fixed for that
night be permitted to take place.

As they walked through the corridor, however, a great confusion was heard
in the gallery they were about to enter. There was a scuffling of feet,
a murmur of agitated voices suppressed to whispers, and the smothered
sobs of women, denoting some sad catastrophe. When the door opened, the
musicians crowded hurriedly out, carrying with them their instruments,
and tumultuously impeding the progress of a spare grave man in a priest’s
dress, who pushed his way through, with every appearance of anxiety and
dismay.

It was Père Tellier, the king’s confessor, summoned in mortal haste to
the bedside of his dying master.

The Marquise and the Abbé had that day looked their last upon the face of
_Louis le Grand_. Already, through pale attendants and anxious courtiers,
through valets and chamberlains and musketeers of the guard, might be
seen approaching the real Usher of the Black Rod.




CHAPTER VI

A JESUIT’S TASK


Of all armies on earth, there is none with a discipline so perfect as
exists in the ranks of the Jesuits. No similar brotherhood embraces
so extensive a scheme; no society spreads its ramifications so wide
and deep. The soldier who enlists under that black banner abandons
at once and for ever his own affections, his own opinions, his own
responsibilities; nay, his very identity becomes fused in the general
organisation of his order. Florian de St. Croix, with his warm,
impulsive disposition, his tendency to self-sacrifice, and his romantic
temperament, had better have hanged round his neck any other millstone
than this.

As he walked rapidly down a long perspective of paved road, between
two lofty rows of poplars, his head bent low, his hands clenched, his
lips muttering, and his swift unequal strides denoting both impetuosity
and agitation, he seemed strangely and sadly altered from the bright
enthusiastic youth who sat with Abbé Malletort under the limes at
Versailles.

His very name had been put off, with every other association that could
connect the past life of the layman with the future labours of the
priest. He was known as Brother Ambrose now in the muster-rolls of the
order; though, out of it, he was still addressed as Florian by his former
friends. It was supposed, perhaps, in the wisdom of his superiors, that
the devoted knight could fight best under a plain shield on which no
achievements might ever be emblazoned, but which, in theory at least, was
to be preserved pure and stainless, until he was carried home on it from
his last field.

For Florian, indeed, the battle had already commenced. He was fighting
it now, fiercely, under that smiling summer sky, between those fragrant
meadows, fringed with flowering hedges, amongst the clustering orchards
and smiling farms, the green nooks, the gleaming waters, and the free,
fresh range of wooded hill and dale in pleasant Normandy. Little thought
the buxom peasant-woman, with her clean white cap, long earrings, and
handsome weather-beaten face, as she crossed herself in passing, and
humbly received the muttered benediction—how much of war was in his
breast who proffered peace to her and hers; or the prosperous farmer
riding by on his stamping grey stallion, with tail tied up, broad,
well-fed back, huge brass-bound saddle, and red-fronted bridle—how
enviable was his own contented ignorance compared with the learning
and imagination and aspirations running riot in the brain of that wan
hurrying priest. The fat curé, thinking of his dinner, his duties, and
the stone-fruit ripening on his wall, greeted him with professional
friendliness, tempered by profound respect; for in his person he beheld
the principle of self-devotion which constitutes the advance, the
vanguard, the very forlorn hope of an army in which he felt himself a
mere suttler or camp-follower at the best; but his sleep that afternoon
over a bottle of light wine in his leafy arbour would have been none the
sounder could he have known the horror of doubt and darkness that weighed
like lead on his brother’s spirit—the fears, the self-reproaches, the
anxieties that tore at his brother’s heart.

Yet the same sun was shining on them all; the same glorious landscape
of wood and water, waving corn and laughing upland—gold, and silver,
and blue, and green, and purple—spread out for their enjoyment; the
same wild-flowers blooming, the same wild-birds carolling, to delight
their senses; the same heaven looking down in tender pity on the wilful
blindness and reckless self-torture of mankind.

Florian had entered the order, believing that in so doing he adopted
the noblest career of chivalry below, to end in the proudest triumph of
victory above. Like the crusaders of the Middle Ages, he turned to his
profession, and beheld in it a means of ambition, excitement, influence
over his fellow-men, purchased—not at the sacrifice—but in the salvation
of his soul. Like them, he was to have the best of it both for earth
and heaven; like them, he was to submit to labour, privation, all the
harassing exigencies of warfare; but, like them, he was upheld by the
consciousness of power which springs from discipline and cohesion, by
an unselfish sentiment of professional pride, not more peculiar to the
soldier than the priest.

He took the vows of obedience—the blind, unreasoning, unhesitating
obedience exacted by the order—with a thrill of exultation. As a Jesuit,
he must henceforth know neither friendship nor affection; neither
sentiment, passion, nor self-regard. His brain must be always clear, his
eye keen, his hand ready; but brain must think, eye see, and hand strike
only in conformity with the will of a superior. He was to preserve every
faculty of nature except volition. He was to become a galvanised corpse
rather than a living man.

And now these hideous vows, this impossible obedience, must be put to the
test. Like the demoniacs of old, he writhed in torture as he walked. It
seemed that the evil spirit rent and tore the man because it could not
come out of him.

He was hurrying on foot to the convent of our Lady of Succour. He knew
every stone in that paved road as he knew the fingers on his own hand.
His superior had lately installed him confessor to the establishment;
_him_, young, handsome, impressionable, with his dark eyes and his loving
smile. There was another confessor, too, a stout old man, with a rosy
face and a kind heart, altogether, as it would seem, a far more judicious
appointment; but Florian’s duties brought him little in contact with the
nuns and lay amongst the young ladies, several of whom were daughters of
noble families, receiving their education in a pension attached to the
convent.

Of these, Brother Ambrose had been specially enjoined to turn his
attention to Mademoiselle de Montmirail; to obtain all the influence in
his power over the frank, innocent mind of that engaging girl; to win her
affections as much as possible from earthly vanities, to which, as she
was on the verge of womanhood, it is probable she was not disinclined;
and to lead her gradually into a train of thought that might at last
bring her home to the bosom of the Church as a nun. That Church would
at the same time protect her from temptation, by relieving her of the
earthly dross with which she would be encumbered, and which would pass
into its holy keeping the day the heiress should assume the black veil.

Besides the reversion of her mother’s wealth, she would inherit
considerable property of her own when she came of age. Had it been
otherwise, it is possible the same interest might not have been shown
for the insurance of her salvation, and Brother Ambrose might have been
making fires of camel’s dung in Tartary, or bearing witness by martyrdom
in Morocco, instead of hurrying through the shade of those quivering
poplars in homely, happy Normandy.

But as he approached the convent of our Lady of Succour, Brother
Ambrose—or Florian, as we shall call him for the present—reduced his walk
to a much slower step, and became conscious of a hot feeling about his
eyes, a cold moisture in the palms of his hands, that had no connection
with theology, polemics, or the usual duties of a priest. There are
proverbs used in the world, such as “Tit-for-tat;” “The biter bit;” “Go
for wool, and come back shorn,” which are applicable to ecclesiastics as
to laymen. It is no safer to play with edged tools in a convent than in
a ball-room, and it is a matter of the merest hazard who shall get the
best of an encounter in which the talents and education of a clever but
susceptible man are pitted against the bright looks and fresh roses of
girlhood at eighteen.

Florian had been enjoined to use every effort for the subjugation of
Mademoiselle de Montmirail. He was to be restricted by no considerations
such as hamper the proceedings of ordinary minds, for was not this one
of the fundamental principles of his order—“It is lawful to do evil
that good may come”? He had not, indeed, swallowed this maxim without
considerable repulsion, so utterly at variance, as it seemed, not only
with reason, but with that instinctive sentiment of right which is often
a surer guide than even reason itself; but he had been convinced against
his will by those under whose feet he had chosen to place his neck, and
had at last brought his opinions, if not his feelings, to the necessary
state of control. A few interviews with Mademoiselle de Montmirail in the
cool dark convent parlour—a few calm, still evenings in the quiet convent
garden, under the shade of the trellised beeches, amidst the fragrance
of the flower-beds and the heavy perfume of the syringa, waiting for the
rustle of that white dress along the gravel-walk—a few questions and
misgivings from the penitent—a few phrases of advice or encouragement
from the priest—and Florian found himself wildly, hopelessly, wickedly
in love with the girl whom it was his duty, his sacred duty on which
his soul’s salvation depended, to persuade, or lure, or force into a
cloister. These things come by degrees. No man can complain that timely
warning is not given him; yet the steps are so gradual, so easy, so
imperceptible, by which he descends into the pleasant flood, that it is
only when his footing is lost he becomes really aware of danger, or knows
he is sentenced, and must swim about in it till he drowns.

Florian’s task was to obtain influence over the girl. Thus he salved
his conscience till it was too late, and thus excused himself for the
eagerness with which he caught every glance of her eye and drank in
every tone of her voice. It was only when his own looks fell before
hers, when he trembled and turned pale at the sound of her step—when her
image—serene, and fair, and gracious—rose between him and the Cross at
which he knelt, that he knew his peril, his weakness and his sin.

But it was too late then; though he wrestled with the phantom, it
overcame him time by time. Prostrate, bleeding, vanquished, he would
confess with something of the bitterness of spirit and plaintive proud
self-sacrifice of a lost angel, that he had given his soul to Cerise and
did not grudge her the gift.

Not even though she refused to love him in return. Perhaps, after all,
this was the poisoned edge of the weapon—the bitter drop in the cup; and
yet had it been otherwise, it may be the young Jesuit could have found
strength to conquer his infatuation, self-sacrifice, to give up freely
that which was freely his own.

It was not so, however. The very innocence that guarded the girl, while
it lured him irresistibly to destruction, was the most insurmountable
barrier in his path; and so he hovered on, hoping that which he dared
not realise—wishing for all he felt he would yet be unwilling to accept;
striving for a prize unspeakably precious, though, perhaps I should say,
_because_ impossible of attainment, and which, even if he could win it,
he might not wear it so much as an hour. No wonder his heart beat and his
breath came quick, while he passed with stealthy gait into the convent
garden, a pitfall for the feet that walked in innocence—a black sheep in
a stainless flock—a leper where all the rest were clean.

But Cerise, radiant in her white dress, crossed the sunny lawn and came
down the accustomed path with more than their usual light shining in her
blue eyes, with a fresher colour than common on her soft young cheeks.
To him she had never looked so beautiful, so womanly, so attractive. The
struggle had been very fierce during his solitary walk; the defeat was
flagrant in proportion. He ought to have known a bitter disappointment
must be in store to balance the moment of rapture in which he became
conscious of her approach. Some emanation seemed to glorify the air all
around her, and to warn him of her presence long before she came. To the
lady-superior of the convent, to her elders and instructors, Mademoiselle
de Montmirail was nothing more than a well-grown damsel, with good eyes
and hair, neither more nor less frivolous and troublesome than her
fellows, with much room for improvement in the matters of education,
music, manners, and deportment; but to the young Jesuit she was simply—an
angel.

Cerise held both hands out to her director, with a greeting so frank
and cordial that it should have undeceived him on the spot. The
lady-superior, from her shaded windows, might or might not be a witness
to their interview, and there is no retreat perhaps of so much seclusion,
yet so little privacy, as a convent garden; but Cerise did not care
though nuns and lay-sisters and all overlooked her every gesture and
overheard every word she spoke.

“I am so pleased!” she burst out, clapping her hands, as soon as he
released them. “Wish me joy, good father! I have such happy news! My dear
kind mamma! And she writes to me herself! I knew the silk that fastened
it even before I saw her hand on the cover. Such good news! Oh, I am so
pleased! so pleased!”

She would have danced for pure joy had she not remembered she was nearly
eighteen. Also perhaps—for a girl’s heart is very pitiful—she may have
had some faint shadowy conception that the news so delightful to herself
would be less welcome to her companion.

He was looking at her with the admiration in his heart shining out of his
deep dark eyes.

“You have not told me what your good news is, my daughter,” he observed,
in a tone that made her glance into and away from his face, but that
sobered the effervescence of her gaiety like a charm.

“It is a long letter from mamma!” she said, “and a whole month before I
expected one. Judge if that is not charming. But, better still, I am to
go back to her very soon. I am to live with her at the Hôtel Montmirail.
She is fitting up my apartment already. I am to quit the convent when my
quarter is out!”

He knew it was coming. There is always consciousness of a blow for a
moment before it falls.

“Then you have but a few more days to remain in Normandy,” replied the
young priest; and again the change in his voice arrested her attention.
“My daughter, will you not regret the happy hours you have spent here,
the quiet, the repose of the convent, and—and—the loving friends you
leave behind?”

He glanced round while he spoke, and thought how different the white
walls, the drooping branches, the lawn, the flower-beds, and the walk
beneath the beeches would look when she was gone.

“Of course I shall never cease to love all those I have known here,” she
answered; and her eye met his own fearlessly, while there was no tinge
of sorrow such as he would have liked to detect in her voice. “But I am
going home, do you see! home to my dear mamma; and I shall be in Paris,
and assist at operas, and balls, and fêtes. My father! I fear, I shall
like it—oh! so much!”

There remained little time for further explanations. The refectory
bell was ringing, and Cerise must hurry in and present herself for her
ration of fruit and chocolate; to which refreshment, indeed, she seemed
more than usually inclined. Neither her surprise nor her feelings had
taken away her appetite, and she received her director’s benediction
with a humility respectful, edifying, and filial, as if he had been her
grandfather.

“I shall perhaps not visit you at the convent again, my daughter,” he
had said, revolving in his own mind a thousand schemes, a thousand
impossibilities, tinged alike with fierce, bitter disappointment; and to
this she had made answer meekly—

“But you will think of me very often, my father; and, oh, remember me, I
entreat of you, in your prayers!”

Then Florian knew that the edifice he had taken such pains to rear was
crumbling away before his eyes, because, in his anxiety to build it for
his own habitation, he had laid its foundations in the sand.




CHAPTER VII

ST. MARK’S BALSAM


The death of the great king, and the first transactions of the Regency,
left little leisure to Abbé Malletort for the thousand occupations of
his every-day life. With the busy churchman, to stagnate was a cessation
of existence. As some men study bodily health and vigour, carefully
attending to the development of their frames by constant and unremitting
exercise, so did the Abbé preserve his intellect in the highest possible
training by its varied use, and seemed to grudge the loss of every
hour in which he either omitted to learn something new or lay a fresh
stepping-stone for the employment of knowledge previously acquired. Like
Juvenal’s Greek, he studied all the sciences in turn, but his labour was
never without an object, nor had he the slightest scruples in applying
its results to his own advantage. Malletort was qualified to deal
with the most consummate knave, but he might have been unconsciously
out-manœuvred by a really honest man, simply from his own habitual
disregard of the maxim, as true in ethics as in mathematics, which
teaches that the shortest way from any one given point to another is a
straight line.

The Abbé had therefore many irons in his fire, careful, however, so to
hold them that he should preserve his own fingers from being burnt;
and amongst others, he often applied his spare hours to the study of
chemistry.

Now in the time of which I am speaking the tree of knowledge had not been
entirely denuded of its parasite credulity. Science and superstition
were not yet finally divorced, and the philosopher’s stone was still
eagerly sought by many an enthusiast who liked to regenerate the world
in a process of which the making a colossal fortune for himself should
be the first step. Not that the Abbé quite believed in the possibility
of creating gold, but that, true to his character, he was prepared to be
satisfied with any glittering substitute which the world could be induced
to accept in its stead. So he too had his little laboratory, his little
forge, his little crucibles, and vials, and acids, and essences, all
the rudiments of science, and some faint foreshadowings of her noblest
discoveries.

If a man goes into his garden, and seeks eagerly on hands and knees,
we will suppose, for a four-leaved shamrock, I am not prepared to say
that he will succeed in finding that rare and abnormal plant; but in
his search after it, and the close attention thereby entailed, he will
doubtless observe many beauties of vegetation, many curious arrangements
of nature that have hitherto escaped his notice; and though he fails to
discover the four-leaved shamrock, he makes acquaintance with a hundred
no less interesting specimens, and returns home a wiser naturalist than
he went out. So was it with the adepts, as they called themselves, who
sought diligently after the philosopher’s stone. They read, they thought,
they fused, they dissolved, they mingled; they analysed fluids, they
separated gases; they ascertained the combinations of which one substance
was formed, and the ingredients into which another could be resolved.
They missed the object of their search, no doubt, but they lost neither
for themselves nor their successors all the result of their labours;
for while the precious elixir itself escaped them, they captured almost
everything else that was worth learning for the application of chemistry
to the humbler purposes of every-day life. Unfortunately, too, in
tampering with so many volatile essences, they became familiar with the
subtler kinds of poison. A skilful adept of that school knew how to rid a
patron of his enemies in twenty-four hours without fail, and to use the
while no more overt weapon than the grasp of a gloved hand, a pinch of
scented snuff, or the poisoned fragrance of a posy of flowers.

Such men drove a thriving trade in Paris during the Regency, and our
Abbé, himself no mean proficient in the craft, was in the habit of
spending many an hour in the laboratory of one who could boast he was a
match for the most skilful of the brotherhood.

It was for this purpose that Malletort crossed the Seine, and penetrated
into one of the loftiest, gloomiest, and narrowest streets of Old
Paris—how different from Imperial Paris of to-day!—to thread its
windings, with his accustomed placid face and jaunty step, ere he stopped
at the door of the tallest, most dilapidated, and dirtiest building in
the row.

The Abbé’s face was, if possible, more self-satisfied, his step even
lighter than usual. He was in high favour with the Regent, and the
Regent, at least among the lower classes, was still the most popular man
in France. They were aware of his vices, indeed, but passed them over
in a spirit of liberality, bordering on want of principle, with which
the French, in this respect so unlike ourselves, permit their leading
men a latitude of private conduct proportioned to their public utility.
Had the Abbé doubted his patron’s popularity, he need only have listened
to an impudent little urchin, who ran almost between his legs, shouting
at the top of his voice a favourite street song of the day called “The
Débonnaire.”

    “’Tis a very fine place to be monarch of France,
        Most Christian king, and St. Louis’s son,
      When he takes up his fiddle the others must dance,
        And they durstn’t sit down till the music’s done.
    But I’d rather be Regent—eh! wouldn’t you, Pierre?
    Such a Regent as ours, so débonnaire.
        Tra-la-la—tra-la-la—such a mien, such an air!
      Oh, yes! our Regent is débonnaire.

    “A monarch of France, when they bring him to dine,
        They must hand him a cloth, and a golden bowl;
      But the Regent can call for a flagon of wine,
        And need never sit down till he’s emptied the whole.
    He wouldn’t give much for your dry-lipped fare,
    This Regent of ours, so débonnaire.
        Tra-la-la—tra-la-la—how he’ll stagger and swear,
      Oh, yes! our Regent is débonnaire.

    “A monarch of France has a mate on the throne,
        And his likings and loves must be under the rose;
      But the Regent takes all the sweet flowers for his own,
        And he pulls them by handfuls wherever he goes.
    Of the bright and the fair, the rich and the rare,
    Our Regent, you see, is so débonnaire.
        Tra-la-la—tra-la-la—he puts in for his share,
      Oh, yes! our Regent is débonnaire.

    “A monarch of France has his peers in a row,
        And they bring him his boots with the morning light;
      But our Regent is never caught bare-footed so,
        For his roués and he, they sit booted all night!
    And they drink and they swear, and they blink and they stare—
    And never a monarch of France can compare,
    Neither Louis the Fat, nor yet Philip the Fair,
    With this Regent of ours, so débonnaire.
        Tra-la-la—tra-la-la—let us drink to him, Pierre!
      Oh, yes! our Regent is débonnaire.”

“Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, he is débonnaire!” hummed the Abbé, as he mounted
the wooden staircase, and stopped at the first door on the landing.
“Monsieur le Duc is welcome to make all the music for our puppet dance so
long as he leaves it to Monsieur l’Abbé to pull the strings.”

Two gaudily dressed footmen answered Malletort’s summons and admitted
him obsequiously, as being a well-known friend of their master’s,
before he had time to ask if Signor Bartoletti was within. The Abbé had
visited here too often to be surprised at the luxuries of the apartment
into which he was ushered, so little in character with the dirt and
dilapidation that prevailed outside; but Signor Bartoletti, alleging
in excuse the requirements of his southern blood, indulged in every
extravagance to which his means would stretch, was consequently always
in difficulties, and therefore ready to assist in any scheme, however
nefarious, provided he was well paid.

The Signor’s tastes were obviously florid. Witness the theatrical
appearance of his lackeys, the bright colour of his furniture, the gaudy
ornaments on his chimneypiece, the glaring pictures on his walls; nay,
the very style and chasing of a massive flagon of red wine standing on
the table by a filagree basket of fruit for his refection.

The man himself, too, was palpably over-dressed, wearing a sword here
in the retirement of his chamber, yet wearing it as one whose hand
was little familiar with its guard. Every resource of lace, velvet,
satin, and embroidery had been employed in vain to give him an outward
semblance of distinction, but there was an expression of intellect and
energy in his dark beetle-browed face, with its restless black eyes,
that, in spite of low stature and ungainly make, redeemed him from the
imputation of utter vulgarity.

His hands, too (and there is a good deal of character in the hand), were
strong, nervous, and exceedingly well-shaped, though sadly stained and
scorched by the acids he made use of in the prosecution of his art.

A less keen observer than the Abbé might not have remarked beneath the
signor’s cordial greeting symptoms of anxiety, and even apprehension,
blended with something of the passive defiance which seems to say, “I am
in a corner. I have no escape. I don’t like it; but I must make the best
of it.”

A less keen observer, too, might not have detected a ring of bravado
in the tone with which he accosted his visitor as a disciple and
fellow-labourer in the cause of science.

“Welcome, monsieur,” said he—“welcome to the teacher who needs the
assistance of his pupil every step he travels on the radiant path. Have
you made discoveries, Monsieur l’Abbé? Fill your glass, and impart them.
Have you encountered difficulties?—Fill your glass, and conquer them.
Have you seen the true light glimmering far, far off across the black
waters?—Fill your glass, I say, and let us drink success to our voyage
ere we embark once more in search of the Great Secret.”

“Faith, I believe we’re nearer it than you think for, Bartoletti,”
answered Malletort, smiling coldly; “though I doubt if you could look
to the right point of the compass for it with all your geography. What
do you think of the Scotchman’s banking scheme, my gold-seeking friend?
Is not Monsieur Las[2] a better alchemist than either of us? Has he not
discovered the Great Arcanum? And without fire or bellows, crucible,
alembic, or retort? Why, the best of us have used up every metal that the
earth produces without arriving—though I grant you we have come very near
it—yet without arriving at perfection; and here’s an Englishman only asks
for a ton or so of paper, a Government stamp, and—presto!—with a stroke
of the pen he turns it all to gold.”

“Have you, too, bought Mississippi Stock?” asked the Signor, eagerly.
“Then the scheme is prospering; the shares will rise once more. It is
good to hold on!”

“Not quite such a fool!” answered the Abbé; and Bartoletti’s swarthy face
fell several inches, for he had a high opinion of his visitor’s financial
perceptions.

“And yet the Rue Quincampoix was so thronged yesterday, I was compelled
to leave my coach, and bid my lackeys force a passage for me through the
crowd,” urged the Signor. “Madame was there, and the Duc du Maine, and
more peers of France than you would see at the council. There _must_ be
life in it! All the world cannot be dupes. And yet the shares have fallen
even since this morning.”

“All the world are not likely to be on the winning side,” replied the
Abbé, quietly, “or who would be left to pay the stakes? From whom do
you suppose Monsieur Las makes his profits? You know he has bought the
Hôtel Mazarin. You know he has bought Count de Tessé’s house, furniture,
pictures, plate, and all, even to the English carriage-horses that his
coachman does not know how to drive. Where do you suppose the money comes
from? When a society of people are engaged in eating one another, it
seems to me that the emptiest stomach has the best chance.”

His listener looked thoughtfully on his scorched, scarred fingers. It
might be that he reflected in how many ways he had burnt them.

“What do you advise me to do?” he asked, after a pause, during which he
had filled and emptied a goblet of the red wine that stood at his elbow.

“Realise,” was the answer. “Realise, and without delay. The game is like
tennis, and must be played with the same precision. If your ball be not
taken at the first rebound, its force is so deadened that your utmost
skill falls short of cutting it over the net.”

The Abbé’s metaphor, drawn from that fashionable pastime which had been
a favourite amusement of the late king, was not without its effect on
his listener. Like a skilful practitioner, he suffered his advice to
sink into the adept’s mind before he took advantage of its effects. In
other sciences besides chemistry and cookery, it is well to let your
ingredients simmer undisturbed in the crucible till they are thoroughly
fused and amalgamated.

He wanted the Signor malleable, and nothing, he knew by experience,
rendered Bartoletti so obliging as a conviction that he lacked means to
provide for his self-indulgence. Like the general public, he had been
tempted by the great Mississippi scheme, and had invested in its shares
the small amount of ready money at his command. It was gradually dawning
on him that his speculations would entail considerable loss—that loss
he felt, and showed he felt, must be made good. This was the Abbé’s
opportunity. He could offer his own price now for the co-operation of his
friend.

“We are wasting time sadly,” said the visitor, after a pause. “Let us go
to our studies at once,” and he led the way to an inner apartment, as
though he had been host and teacher rather than visitor and disciple.

The Signor followed, obedient though unwilling, like a well-trained dog
bid to heel by its master.

Malletort turned his cuffs back, seized a small pair of bellows, and
blew a heap of powdered coal, mingled with other substances, into a deep
violet glow.

“By the by,” he asked as if suddenly recollecting something of no
importance, “have you ever had any dealings with negroes? Do you know
anything of the superstitions of Obi?”

“I know something of every superstition in the world,” answered the
other, “Christian as well as pagan, or how could I afford to drink such
wine as you tasted in the next room?”

He laughed while he spoke, heartily enough, and so did Malletort, only
the mirth of the latter was assumed. He believed in very little, this
Abbé, very little indeed, either for good or evil; but he would have
liked, if he could, to believe in the philosopher’s stone.

“I have made acquaintance with an Obi-woman lately,” pursued he; “she may
be useful to us both. I will bring her to see you in a day or two, if you
will refresh your mind in the meantime with what you can remember of
their mysteries, so as to meet her on equal terms.”

Bartoletti looked much relieved, and indeed gratified, when informed
that this Obi-woman, instead of being a hideous old negress, was a
fine-looking quadroon.

“Is that all you wanted?” said he, quite briskly; but his countenance
fell once more on perceiving that the Abbé made no preparations for
departure.

“Not quite,” replied the latter. “I am hardly perfect yet in the nature
of those essences we studied at my last lesson. Let us go over their
powers and properties again.”

The Signor turned a shade paler, but taking down some phials, and two or
three papers of powders from a shelf, he did as he was bid, and proceeded
systematically enough to explain their contents, gaining confidence, and
even growing enthusiastic in his subject as he went on.

At the third packet the Abbé stopped him.

“It is harmless, you say, as a perfume when sprinkled in the form of a
powder?”

The Signor nodded.

“But a deadly poison, mixed with three drops of St. Mark’s balsam?”

“Right!” assented the Italian.

“And combined with any vegetable substance, its very odour would be
dangerous and even fatal to animal life?”

“You are an apt pupil,” said the other, not without approval, though he
turned paler still. “It took me seven weeks’ close study, and a hundred
experiments, to find that out.”

“You worked with the glass mask on, of course,” continued the Abbé; “what
would have been the effect had you inhaled the odour?”

“I should have come out in red spots at the first inspiration, turned
black at the second, and at the third Monsieur l’Abbé should have been
lost to the world, to science, and to you,” was the conclusive reply.

“I am not quite satisfied yet,” said Malletort. “I will take a packet
home with me for further examination, if you please, and ten drops of St.
Mark’s balsam as well.”

“It is worth a thousand francs a drop,” observed the adept, producing at
the same time a tiny sealed phial from a drawer under his hand.

“Of course you name your own price,” replied Malletort, snatching up his
purchase with impatience, and leaving in its place a purse through which
the gold shone temptingly, and which clanked down on the table as if the
weight of its lining was satisfactory enough.

The two men seemed to understand each other, for almost before the
Signor’s grasp was on the purse his visitor had left the house; but
Bartoletti, locking up the drawer, returned to his gaudy sitting-room,
with a twitching lip and a cold sweat bursting from his brow.

Till the adept had summoned his theatrical footman, and ordered another
flagon of the red wine, he gasped and panted like a man awaking from
a nightmare; nor did he recover his equanimity till the flagon was
three-parts emptied.

By that time, however, he was scarce in a condition to pursue his
researches after the philosopher’s stone.




CHAPTER VIII

THE GREY MUSKETEERS


A bugler, thirteen years of age, and about three feet high, a veritable
“Child of the Regiment,” was blowing “The Assembly” for the Grey
Musketeers with a vigour that made itself heard through the adjoining
Faubourg.

The miniature soldier, who had already smelt powder, strutted and swelled
like a bantam-cock. His plumage, too, was nearly as gorgeous, and he
seemed more than satisfied with himself and his advantages. In no other
country, perhaps, could a combination so ridiculous, yet so admirable,
have been found as in this union of innocence and precocity; this
simplicity of the child, underlying the bearing of a giant, the courage
of a hero, and the coquetry of a girl.

Ten minutes precisely were allowed by the regulations of the late king
between the mustering call and the “fall-in,” or final summons for the
men to take their places in the ranks.

The Musketeers lounged and straggled over their parade-ground,
laughing, chatting, bantering each other; fastening here a buckle,
there a shoulder-strap; humming snatches of bivouac songs, fixing
flints, adjusting belts, and pulling their long moustaches, as they
conversed, disrespectfully enough it must be admitted, in hoarse, short
murmurs of Vendôme, Villeroy, Staremberg, Prince Eugène, Malbrook, the
great military authorities of the day, and how old Turenne would have
_arranged_ them one and all.

The Grey Musketeers were so called from their uniform, which, except for
its sober hue, shone as splendid as was compatible with the possibility
of manœuvring. The men were all veterans; that is to say, had fought
through one or more campaigns, so that many a young, delicate face in
the ranks was seamed and scarred by the shot and shell of the enemy. The
majority, however, were grim, and grey, and bronzed; men who could eat
ammunition-bread and suttlers’ beef without fear of colic; who could
sleep round a bivouac fire, and rise refreshed and ready to be killed;
who had looked death in the face and laughed at him in a score of fields.

A large proportion were of noble birth, and all were at home in the
drawing-room, the refinements and delicate airs of which it was their
affectation to carry with them under fire. They could be rough and
outspoken enough, jesting with each other over the wine-cup, or arguing
as now while waiting for parade; but put them before an enemy, the nearer
the better, and they became lambs—ladies—perfect dancing-masters in the
postures and graces they assumed. If the baggage was not too far in the
rear, they dressed and scented themselves for a battle as for a ball.
They flourished lace handkerchiefs, wore white gloves, and took snuff
from gold boxes in the act of advancing to charge a column or to storm a
battery. Marlborough’s grenadiers had many a tussle with them, and loved
them dearly. “Close in, Jack,” these honest fellows would say to each
other, when they saw the laced hats, with their jaunty grey cockades,
advancing through the smoke. “There’ll be wigs on the green now—here’s
_the Dandies_ a-coming!”

And in good truth, ere _the Dandies_ and they parted, many a comely head
was down to rise no more.

There were several companies of these picked troops, distinguished by
the different colours of their uniforms. It was their pride to vie with
each other in daring, as in extravagance and dissipation. If a post were
unusually formidable, a battery in a peculiarly strong position, one or
other of these companies, black, red, or grey, would entreat permission
to storm it. The Grey Musketeers had of late esteemed themselves very
fortunate in opportunities for leaving half their number dead on the
field.

They were commanded by the young officer whose acquaintance Madame de
Montmirail made during the stag-hunt at Fontainebleau. Captain George,
as he was called, had obtained this enviable post, no less by skill and
conspicuous bravery, than by great good luck, and perhaps, though last
not least, by an affection of coolness and danger, so exaggerated as to
be sublime while it was ridiculous.

The little bugler was waiting for him now. When the ten minutes should
have elapsed, and the silver lace on the Captain’s uniform come gleaming
round the corner, he was prepared to blow his heroic soul into the
mouthpiece of his instrument.

Meanwhile he stood aloof from his comrades. He looked so much taller thus
than when oppressed by comparison with those full-grown warriors.

The men were grouped about in knots, talking idly enough on indifferent
subjects. Presently the majority gathered round a fresh arrival—a tall,
forbidding-looking soldier, with iron-grey moustaches that nearly reached
his elbows—who seemed to have some important news to communicate. As the
circle of his listeners increased, there was obviously a growing interest
and excitement in his intelligence.

“Who is it?” panted one, hurrying up.

“Killed?” asked another, tightening his sword-belt and twisting his
moustaches fiercely to his eyes.

“It’s a credit to the bourgeois!” “It’s a disgrace to the corps!”
exclaimed a couple in a breath; while, “Tell us all about it,
Bras-de-Fer!” from half-a-dozen eager voices at once, served to hush the
noisy assemblage into comparative silence.

Bras-de-Fer was nothing loth. A pompous old soldier, more of a martinet
and less of a dandy perhaps than most of his audience, he loved, above
all things, to hear himself speak. He was a notorious duellist, moreover,
and a formidable swordsman, whence the nickname by which he was known
among his comrades. He entered on his recital with all the zest of a
professor.

“I was sitting,” said he, with an air of grave superiority, “immediately
in front of the coffee-house, Louis-Quatorze, a little after
watch-setting. I was improving my knowledge of my profession by studying
the combinations in a game of dominoes. By myself, Adolphe? Yes—right
hand against left. Yet not altogether by myself, for I had a bottle of
great Bordeaux wine—there is nothing to laugh at, gentlemen—on the table
in my front. Flanconnade had just entered, and called for a measure
of lemonade, when a street-boy began singing a foolish song about the
Regent, with a jingle of ‘Tra-la-la,’ ‘Débonnaire,’ and some rubbish
of that kind. Now this poor Flanconnade, you remember, comrades, never
was a great admirer of the Regent. He used to say we Musketeers of the
Guard owed allegiance, first to the young king, then to the Duc du Maine,
lastly to the Marshal de Villeroy, and that we should take our orders
only from those three.

“So we do! So we should!” interrupted a dozen voices. But Bras-de-Fer,
raising a brown, sinewy hand, imposed silence by the gesture, and
continued.

“Flanconnade, therefore, was displeased at the air of gasconnade with
which the urchin sang his song. ‘What! thou, too, art a little breechless
roué of the Regent!’ said he, turning round from his drink, and applying
a kick that sent the boy howling across the street. There was an outcry
directly amongst the cuckold citizens in the coffee-house; half of them,
I have no doubt, were grocers and haberdashers in the Regent’s employ.
‘Shame! shame!’ they exclaimed. ‘Down with the bully!’ ‘Long live the
Grey Musketeers!’ I was up, and had put on my hat, you may well believe,
gentlemen, at the first alarm; but with their expression of good-will
to the corps, I sat down again and uncovered. It was simply a personal
matter for Flanconnade, and I knew no man better able to extricate
himself from such an affair. So, leaving the dominoes, I filled my glass
and waited for the result. Our friend looked about him from one to the
other, like a man who seeks an antagonist, but the bourgeoisie avoided
his glances, all but one young man, wrapped in a cloak, who had seemed at
first to take little part in the disturbance. Flanconnade, seeing this,
stared him full in the face, and observed, ‘Monsieur made a remark? Did I
understand clearly what it was?’

“‘I said _shame_!’ replied the other, boldly. ‘And I repeat, monsieur is
in the wrong.’

“By this time the bystanders had gathered round, and I heard whispers
of—‘Mind what you do; it’s a Grey Musketeer; fighting is his trade;’
and such friendly warnings; while old Bouchon rushed in with his face
as white as his apron, and taking the youth by the arm, exclaimed in
trembling accents, ‘Do you know what you’re about, in Heaven’s name? It’s
Flanconnade, I tell you. It’s the fencing-master to the company!’

“Our poor friend appeared so pleased with this homage that I almost
thought he would be pacified; but you remember his maxim—‘Put yourself
in the right first, and then keep your arm bent and your point low.’ He
acted on it now.

“‘Monsieur is prepared for results?’ he asked, quietly; and raising the
tumbler in his hand, dashed its contents into his antagonist’s face.”

There was a murmur of applause amongst the Musketeers, for whom such
an argument combined all the elements of reasoning, and Bras-de-Fer
proceeded.

“I rose now, for I saw the affair would march rapidly. ‘It is good
lemonade,’ said the young man, licking his lips, while he wiped the
liquor from his face. ‘Monsieur has given me a lesson in politeness. He
will permit me in return to demand five minutes’ attention while I teach
him to dance.’

“The youth’s coolness, I could not but admit, was that of a well-bred
man, and surprised me the more because, when he opened his cloak to get
at his handkerchief, I perceived he wore no weapon, and was dressed in
plain dark garments like a scholar or a priest.

“Flanconnade winked at me. There was plenty of moonlight in the garden
behind the coffee-house, but there were two difficulties—the youth had no
second and no sword.

“By great good fortune, at this moment in stepped young Chateau-Guerrand
of the Duc du Maine’s dragoons, with his arm still in a sling, from the
wound he received at Brighuega, when serving on his uncle’s staff. He had
been supping with the Prince-Marshal, and of course was in full-dress,
with a rapier at his belt. He accepted the duty willingly, and lent our
youth the weapon he could not use. We measured their swords. They were
right to a hair’s-breadth, but that the guard of Chateau-Guerrand’s hilt
was open; and as he and I could not possibly exchange a pass or two for
love, we set ourselves to watch the affair with interest, fearing only
that Flanconnade’s skill would finish it almost ere it had well commenced.

“The moon was high, and there was a beautiful fighting-light in the
garden. At twenty paces I could see the faces of the guests and servants
quite distinctly, as they crowded the back door and windows of the house.

“We placed the adversaries at open distance on the level. They saluted
and put themselves on guard.

“The moment I saw the young man’s hand up, I knew there would be a fight
for it. I observed that his slight frame was exceedingly muscular, and
though he looked very pale, almost white in the moonlight, his eyes
glittered and his face lost all its gravity when the blades touched. I
was sure the rogue loved the steel-clink in his heart.

“Moreover, he must have been _there_ before. He neglected no precaution.
He seemed to know the whole game. He bound his handkerchief round his
fingers, to make up for Chateau-Guerrand’s open sword-hilt, and feeling
some inequality of ground beneath his feet, he drew his adversary inch by
inch, till he got him exactly level with his point.

“Flanconnade’s face showed me that he was aware of his antagonist’s
force. After two passes, he tried his own peculiar plunging thrust in
tierce (I never was quick enough for it myself, and always broke ground
when I saw it coming), but this youth parried it in carte. In carte! by
heavens! and Flanconnade was too good a fencer to dare try it again.”

“In carte!” repeated the listeners, with varied accents of interest and
admiration. “It’s incredible!” “It’s beautiful!” “That is _real_ fencing,
and no sabre-play!” “Go on! Flanconnade had met with his match!”

“More than his match,” resumed Bras-de-Fer. “In a dozen passes he was
out of breath, and this youth had never moved a foot after his first
traverse. I tell you his defence was beautiful; so close you could hardly
see his wrist move, and he never straightened his arm but twice. The
first time Flanconnade leaped out of distance, for it was impossible
to parry the thrust; although, as far as I could see, he made a simple
disengagement and came in outside. But the next time he drew our comrade
six inches nearer, and I knew by his face he was as certain as I was
that he had got him at last.

“Bah! One—Two! That single disengagement—a lunge home; and I saw six
inches of Chateau-Guerrand’s sword through our poor comrade’s back ere
he went down. The youth wiped it carefully before he returned it, with
a profusion of thanks, and found time, while Bouchon and his people
gathered round the fallen man, to express his regrets with a perfect
politeness to myself.

“‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘I am distressed to think your friend will not
profit by the lesson he has had the kindness to accept. I am much afraid
he will never dance again.’”

“And where was the thrust?” asked Adolphe, a promising young fencer, who
had been listening to the recital of the duel, open-mouthed.

“Through the upper lung,” answered Bras-de-Fer.

“In five minutes Flanconnade was as dead as Louis Quatorze! Here comes
the Captain, gentlemen. It is time to fall in.”

While he finished speaking, the little bugler blew an astonishing volume
of sound through his instrument. The Musketeers fell into their places.
The line was dressed with military accuracy. The standard of France was
displayed; the ranks were opened, and Captain George walked through them,
scanning each individual of that formidable band with a keen, rapid
glance that would have detected a speck on steel, a button awry, a weapon
improperly handled, as surely as such breach of discipline could have
been summarily visited with a sharp and galling reprimand. Nevertheless,
these men were his own associates and equals; many of them his chosen
friends. Hardly one but had interchanged with him acts of courtesy and
kindness at the bivouac or on the march. Some had risked life for him;
others he had rescued from death in the field. In half an hour all would
be on a footing of perfect equality once more, but now Captain George was
here to command and the rest to obey.

Such was the discipline of the Grey Musketeers—a discipline they were
never tired of extolling, and believed to be unequalled in the whole of
the armies of Europe.

There was little room for fault-finding in the order or accoutrements
of such troops, and in a short space of time—easily calculated by
the bystanders outside, from the arrival of sundry riding-horses and
carriages of these gentlemen privates to throng the street—their
inspection was over—their ranks were closed. The duties for the day,
comprising an especial guard for the young king’s person were told
off—Bras-de-Fer reported the death of the fencing-master—the commandant
observed they must appoint another immediately—the parade was dismissed,
and Captain George was at liberty to return to his quarters.




CHAPTER IX

EUGÈNE BEAUDÉSIR


It was no wonder the Marquise de Montmirail, amid the hurry and
excitement of a stag-hunt, failed to recognise the merry page who used to
play with her child in that stalwart musketeer whom she pressed her eager
barb so hard to overtake. The George Hamilton of royal ante-chambers and
palace stairs, with eyes full of mirth and pockets full of bon-bons,
laughing, skipping, agile, and mischievous as a monkey, had grown into a
strong, fine-looking man, a distinguished soldier, well known in the army
and at Court as Captain George of the Grey Musketeers. He had dropped
the surname of Hamilton altogether now, and nothing remained to him of
his nationality and family characteristics but a certain depth of chest
and squareness of shoulder, accompanied by the bold keen glance that had
shone even in the boy’s eyes, and was not quenched in the man’s, denoting
a defiant and reckless disposition which, for a woman like the Marquise,
possessed some indescribable charm.

As he flung his sword on a couch, and sat down to breakfast in his
luxurious quarters—booted, belted, and with his hat on—the man seemed
thoroughly in character with the accessories by which he was surrounded.
He was the soldier all over—but the soldier adventurer—the soldier of
fortune, rather than the soldier of _routine_. The room in which he sat
was luxurious indeed and highly ornamented, but the luxuries were those
of the senses rather than the intellect; the ornaments consisted chiefly
of arms and such implements of warfare. Blades of the finest temper,
pistols of exquisite workmanship, saddles with velvet housings, and
bridle-bits embossed with gold—decked the wall which in more peaceful
apartments would have been adorned by pictures, vases, or other works
of art. One or two military maps, and a model of some fortified place
in Flanders, denoted a tendency to the theoretical as well as practical
branches of his profession; and a second regimental suit of grey velvet,
almost covered with silver lace, hanging on a chair, showed that its
gaudier exigences, so important in the Musketeers, were not forgotten.
There were also two or three somewhat incongruous articles littered about
amongst the paraphernalia of the soldier—such as a chart of the Caribbean
Sea, another of the Channel, with its various soundings pricked off in
red ink, a long nautical telescope, and a model of a brigantine more than
half rigged. Captain George was possessed of certain seafaring tastes
and habits picked up in early life, and to which he still clung with as
much of sentiment as was compatible with his character. He was not an
impressionable person, this musketeer; but if a foreign shoot could once
be grafted on his affections, it took root and became gradually a part
of the actual tree itself: then it could neither be torn out nor pruned
away. Youthful associations, with such a disposition, attained a power
hardly credible to those who only knew the external strength and hardness
of the man.

Captain George’s predilections, however, seemed to be at present
completely engrossed by his breakfast. Venison steaks and a liberal
flagon of Medoc stood before him; he applied himself to each with a
vigorous industry that denoted good teeth, good will, and good digestion.
He was so intent on business that a knock at his door was twice repeated
ere he answered it, and then the “Come in!” sounded hardly intelligible,
hampered as were the syllables by the process of mastication.

At the summons, however, Bras-de-Fer entered, and stood opposite his
captain. The latter nodded, pointed to a seat, pushed a plate and
wine-cup across the table, and continued his repast.

Bras-de-Fer had already breakfasted once; nevertheless he sat down and
made almost as good play as his entertainer for about ten minutes, when
they stopped simultaneously. Then Captain George threw himself back
in his chair, loosened his belt, undid the two lower buttons of his
heavily-laced grey _just au corps_, and passing the Medoc, now at low
ebb, to his comrade, asked abruptly—

“Have you found him?”

“And brought him with me, my captain,” answered Bras-de-Fer. “He is at
this moment waiting outside. ’Tis a queer lad, certainly. He was reading
a Latin book when I came upon him. He would have no breakfast, nor even
taste a pot of wine with me as we walked along. Bah! The young ones are
not what they used to be in my time.”

“I shouldn’t mind a few recruits of your sort still,” answered his
captain, good-humouredly. “That thick head of yours is pretty strong,
both inside and out; nevertheless, we must take them as we find them,
and I should not like to miss a blade that could out-manœuvre poor
Flanconnade. If he joins, I would give him the appointment. What think
you, Bras-de-Fer? Would he like to be one of us? What did he say?”

“Say!” repeated the veteran, “I couldn’t understand half he said—I can’t
make him out, my captain. I tell you that I, Bras-de-Fer of the Grey
Musketeers, am unable to fathom this smooth-faced stripling. Eyes like
a girl’s, yet quick and true as a hawk’s; white, delicate hands, but a
wrist of steel, that seems to move by machinery. Such science, too! and
such style! Who taught him? Then he rambles so in his talk, and wept when
I told him our fencing-master never spoke after that disengagement. Only
a simple disengagement, my captain; he makes no secret of it. I asked
him myself. And he wouldn’t taste wine—not a mouthful—not a drop—though
I offered to treat him!” And Bras-de-Fer shook his head solemnly, with
something of a monkey’s expression who has got a nut too hard to crack.

Captain George cut short his friend’s reflections by calling for a
servant.

“There is a gentleman outside,” said he, when the lackey appeared. “Ask
his pardon for keeping him waiting, and beg him to step in.”

The well-drilled lackey, all politeness, threw the door open for the
visitor, who entered with a diffident bow and a timid, hesitating step.
Bras-de-Fer could not help remarking how much less assured was his manner
now than when he crossed swords last night with the best fencer in the
company.

The Musketeers both rose at his entrance, and all three continued
standing during the interview.

Captain George scanned the new-comer from head to foot, and from foot to
head, as a sergeant inspects a recruit. Its subject blushed painfully
during the examination. Then the officer inquired, abruptly—

“You wish to join the Musketeers? As a cadet, of course?”

Something stern in the tone recalled the youth’s firmness, and he
answered, boldly enough—

“Under certain circumstances—yes.”

“Your name?”

“Eugène Beaudésir.”

“Your age?”

“More than twenty-five.”

The Musketeers exchanged looks. He did not appear nearly so much. Captain
George continued—

“Your certificates of baptism and gentle birth?”

Again the young man changed colour. He hesitated—he looked down—he seemed
ill at ease.

“You need not produce these if other particulars are satisfactory,”
observed the Captain, with a certain rough sympathy which won him a
gratitude he little suspected; far more, indeed, than it deserved.

“Reach me that muster-roll, Bras-de-Fer,” continued the officer. “We can
put his name down, at least for the present, as a cadet. The rest will
come in time. But look you, young sir,” he added, turning sharply round
on the recruit, “before going through any more formalities, I have still
a few questions to ask. Answer them frankly, or decline to answer at all.”

The visitor bowed and stole another look in his questioner’s face. Frank,
romantic, impressionable, he had become strangely prepossessed with this
manly, soldier-like captain of musketeers—younger in years than himself,
yet so many more steps up the social ladder, he thought, than he could
now ever hope to reach.

“I will answer,” he said, with a hesitation and simplicity almost boyish,
yet engaging in its helplessness—“if you will promise not to use my
answers to my injury, and to take me all the same.”

Captain George smiled good-humouredly.

“Once on the roll of the King’s Musketeers,” he replied, “you are
amenable to none but his Majesty and your own officers. As we say
ourselves, you need fear neither duke nor devil.”

The other looked somewhat relieved, and glancing at Bras-de-Fer, observed
timidly—

“I had a misfortune last night. It was a broil I could not avoid without
great dishonour. I killed my adversary, I fear—and—and—he belongs to your
company.”

“So it is reported to me,” answered the Captain, coolly; “and if you are
capable, it may perhaps be your good fortune to find yourself promoted at
last into his place.”

Beaudésir looked as if he scarcely understood, and Bras-de-Fer gladly
seized the opportunity to explain.

“You do not know us yet, young man. In a short time you will be better
acquainted with the constitution and discipline of the Grey Musketeers.
It is our study, you will find, to become the best fencers in the French
army. To this end we appoint our fencing-master by competition, and he is
always liable to be superseded in favour of a successful adversary. It
cost Flanconnade twenty-three duels to obtain his grade, and in his last
affair—(pardon—I should say his _last but one_) he killed his man. You,
monsieur, have disposed of Flanconnade scientifically, I must admit, and
our captain here is likely enough to promote you to the vacant post.”

“Horror!” exclaimed Beaudésir, shuddering. “Like the priests of Aricia!”

It was now Bras-de-Fer’s turn to be puzzled, but he rose to the occasion.
Quaffing the remains of the Medoc, he nodded approvingly, and repeated—

“Like the priests of Aricia. The same system precisely as established by
His Holiness the Pope. It works remarkably well in the Grey Musketeers.”

Beaudésir looked at the Captain, and said in a low, agitated voice—

“I am most anxious to serve under you. I can be faithful, attentive—above
all, obedient. I have no friends, no resources, nothing to care for. I
only wish for an honest livelihood and an honourable death.”

“We can find you both, I doubt not,” answered George, carelessly opening
once more the muster-roll of the company. “I have your name down and your
age; no further particulars. Where were you educated?”

“In a school of silence, vigilance, self-restraint, and implicit
obedience,” answered the recruit.

“Good,” observed his captain; “but we must put down a name.”

“At Avranches, in Normandy,” said the other, after a moment’s hesitation.

George closed the roll. “Enough for the present,” said he; “and now tell
me, monsieur, as between friends, where did you learn to fence with so
much address?”

“Wherever I could find a foil with a button on,” was the reply. “I never
had a naked sword in my hand till last night.”

Something in the ready simplicity of such an answer pleased the captain
of musketeers, while it interested him still more in his recruit.

“You must be careful of your parries amongst your new comrades,” said he;
“at least till you have measured the force of each. I warn you fairly,
one-half the company will want to try your mettle, and the other half to
learn your secret, even at the cost of an awkward thrust or two. In the
meantime, let us see what you can do. There are a brace of foils in the
cupboard there. Bras-de-Fer, will you give him a benefit?”

But Bras-de-Fer shook his head. What he had seen the night before had
inspired him with an extraordinary respect for the youth’s prowess,
and being justly vain of his own skill, he was averse to expose his
inferiority in the science of defence before his captain. He excused
himself, therefore, on the ground of rheumatism which had settled in an
old wound.

Captain George did not press the veteran, but opening the cupboard,
pulled out the foils, presented one to his visitor, and put himself in
position with the other.

Beaudésir performed an elaborate salute with such grace and precision as
showed him a perfect master of his weapon. He then threw his foil in the
air, caught it by the blade, and returned it courteously to the captain.

But George was not yet satisfied. “One assault at least,” said he,
stamping his right foot. “I want to see if I cannot find a parry for this
famous thrust of yours.”

The other smiled quietly and took his ground. Though within a few inches
of the chamber-door, he seemed to require no more room for his close and
quiet evolutions.

Ere they had exchanged two passes, the captain came over his adversary’s
point with a rapid flanking movement, like the stroke of a riding-whip,
and lending all the strength of his iron wrist to the jerk, broke the
opposing foil short off within six inches of the guard. It was the only
resource by which he could escape a palpable hit.

“Enough!” he exclaimed, laughing. “There are no more foils in the
cupboard, and I honestly confess I should not wish to renew the contest
with the real bloodsuckers. You may be perfectly tranquil as regards your
comrades, my friend. I do not know a musketeer in the whole guard that
would care to take a lesson from you with the buttons off. What say you,
Bras-de-Fer? Come, gentlemen, there is no time to be lost. The Marshal
de Villeroy will not yet have left his quarters. Do you, old comrade,
take him the fresh appointment for his signature. He never requires to
see our recruits till they can wait on him in uniform; and you, young
man, come with me to the _Rue des Quatres Fripons_, where I will myself
order your accoutrements, and see you measured for a _just au corps_.
Recollect, sir, next to their discipline on parade, I am most particular
about the clothes of those I have the honour to command. Slovenliness in
a musketeer is a contradiction as impossible as poltroonery; and it is
a tradition in our corps that we never insulted Malbrook’s grenadiers
by appearing before them in anything but full-dress; or by opening
fire until we were close enough for them to mark the embroidery on our
waistcoats. I congratulate you, my young friend: you are now a soldier in
the pick of that army which is itself the pick of all the armies in the
world!”

With such encouraging conversation Captain George led his lately-enlisted
recruit through a variety of winding streets, thronged at that busy hour
with streams of passengers. These, however, for the most part, made way,
with many marks of respect, for the officer of Musketeers; the women
especially, looking back with unfeigned admiration and interest at the
pair, according as they inclined to the stately symmetry of the one or
the graceful and almost feminine beauty of the other. Perhaps, could they
have known that the pale, dark-eyed youth following timidly half a pace
behind his leader had only last night killed the deadliest fencer in
Paris, they would have wasted no glances even on such a fair specimen of
manhood as Captain George, but devoured his comrade with their bold black
eyes, in a thrill of mingled horror, interest, and admiration, peculiar
to their sex.

To reach the _Rue des Quatres Fripons_, it was necessary to pass a
barrier, lately placed by Marshal de Villeroy’s directions, to check
the tide of traffic on occasion of the young King’s transit through his
future capital. This barrier was guarded by a post of Grey Musketeers,
and at the moment Captain George approached it, one of his handsomest
young officers was performing a series of bows by the door of a
ponderous, heavily-gilt family coach, and explaining with considerable
volubility his own desolation at the orders which compelled him to
forbid the advance of this unwieldy vehicle. Six heavy coach-horses, two
postilions, a coachman, four footmen, and two outriders, armed to the
teeth—all jammed together in a narrow street, with a crowd of bystanders
increasing every minute, served to create a sufficient complication,
and a very pretty young lady inside, accompanied by one attendant, was
already in tears. The attendant, a dark woman with a scarlet turban,
scolded and cursed in excellent French, whilst one of the leaders took
immediate advantage of the halt to rear on end and seize his comrade by
the crest with a savage and discordant scream.

In such a turmoil it took George a few moments to recognise Madame de
Montmirail’s liveries, which he knew perfectly well. To his companion,
of course, fresh from Avranches, in Normandy, all liveries in Paris must
have been equally strange. Nevertheless he followed close behind his
leader, who pushed authoritatively through the crowd, and demanded what
was the matter. The officer of Musketeers, seeing his own captain, fell
back from the carriage-door, and Cerise, with her eyes full of tears,
found a face she had never forgotten staring in at the window scarcely
six inches from her own.

They recognised each other in an instant. For the first sentence it
was even “George!” and “Cerise!” Though, of course, it cooled down to
“Monsieur” and “Mademoiselle” as they talked on. She was very little
altered, he thought, only taller and much more beautiful; while for her,
it was the same brave brown face and kind eyes that she had known by
heart since she was a child, only braver, browner, kinder, nobler, just
as she had expected. It was wonderful she could see it so distinctly,
with her looks cast down on the pretty gloved hands in her lap.

The affair did not take long. “You can pass them by my orders, Adolphe,”
said his captain; and ere the savage stallion had time for a second
attack, the huge vehicle rolled through and lumbered on, leaving handsome
Adolphe ejaculating protestations and excuses, believing implicitly that
he had won the beautiful mademoiselle’s affections at first sight during
the process.

Except by this voluble young gentleman, very little had been said. People
_do_ say very little when they mean a great deal. It seemed to George,
mademoiselle had offered no more pertinent remark than that “She had made
a long journey, and was going to the Hôtel Montmirail _to stop_.” Whilst
Cerise—well, I have no doubt Cerise could have repeated every word of
their conversation, yet she did nothing of the kind neither to Célandine
then, nor to mamma afterwards; though by the time she reached home her
eyes were quite dry, and no wonder, considering the fire in her cheeks.

Altogether, the interview was certainly provocative of silence. Neither
Captain George nor Beaudésir uttered a syllable during the remainder of
their walk. Only on the threshold of the tailor’s shop in the _Rue des
Quatres Fripons_ the latter awoke from a deep fit of musing, and asked,
very respectfully—

“My captain, do you think I should have got the best of it this morning
if we had taken the buttons off the foils?”




CHAPTER X

THE BOUDOIR OF MADAME


There was plenty of room in the Hôtel Montmirail when it was opened
at night for Madame’s distinguished receptions. Its screen of lights
in front, its long rows of windows, shedding lustrous radiance on
the ground and second floors, caused it to resemble, from outside,
the enchanted palace of the White Cat, in that well-known fairy tale
which has delighted childhood for so many generations. Within, room
after room stretched away in long perspective, one after another, more
polished, more decorated, more shining, each than its predecessor. The
waiting-room, the gallery, the reception-room, the dining-hall, the
two withdrawing-rooms, all with floors inlaid by the most elaborate
and slippery of wood-work, all heavy with crimson velvet and massive
gilding in the worst possible taste, all adorned by mythological
pictures, bright of colour, cold of tone, and scant of drapery, led the
oppressed and dazzled visitor to Madame’s bed-chamber, thrown open like
every other apartment on the floor for _his_ or _her_ admiration. Here
the eye reposed at last, on flowers, satin, ivory, mirrors, crystal,
china—everything most suggestive of the presence of beauty, its influence
and the atmosphere that seems to surround it in its home. The bed,
indeed, with lofty canopy, surmounted by ciphers and coronets, was almost
solemn in its magnificence; but the bath of Madame, her wardrobe, above
all, her toilet-table, modified with their graceful, glittering elegance
the oppressive grandeur of this important article in a sleeping-apartment.

At each of the four corners strips of looking-glass reached from ceiling
to floor, while opposite the bed the first object on which Madame’s
eyes rested in waking was a picture that conveyed much delicate and
appropriate flattery to herself.

It represented the Judgment of Paris. That dangerous shepherd of Mount
Ida was depicted in appropriate costume of brown skin, laughing eyes, a
crook, and a pair of sandals, with a golden apple in his hand. Juno stood
on one side—Minerva on the other. The ox-eyed goddess, with her rich
colouring and radiant form, affording a glowing type of those attractions
which are dependent on the senses alone; while Minerva’s deep grey eyes,
serene, majestic air, and noble, thoughtful brow, seemed to promise
a triumph, glorious in proportion to the wisdom and intellect to be
overcome.

Paris stood between them, somewhat in front of the immortal rivals,
his right arm skilfully foreshortened, and offering the apple—to whom?
To neither of these, but to the Marquise, as she got out of bed every
morning; thereby inferring that _she_ was the Olympian Venus, the Queen
of Love and Beauty both for gods and men!

Malletort, in his many visits to the Hôtel Montmirail, never passed this
picture without a characteristic grin of intense amusement and delight.

Traversing the bed-chamber, one arrived at last in a small apartment
which concluded the series, and from which there appeared no further
egress, though, in truth, a door, concealed in the panelling, opened on
a narrow staircase which descended to the garden. This room was more
plainly furnished than the others, but an air of comfort pervaded it that
denoted the owner’s favourite retreat. Its tables were littered, its
furniture was worn. The pens and portfolio were disordered; a woman’s
glove lay near the inkstand; some half-finished embroidery occupied the
sofa; and a sheet of blotted music had fallen on the floor. There was no
kind of mirror in any part of the apartment. It was an affectation of
the Marquise, pardonable enough in a handsome woman, to protest that she
hated the reflection of her own features; and this little chamber was her
favourite retreat—her inner citadel, her sanctuary of seclusion—or, as
the servants called it, the Boudoir of Madame.

It was undoubtedly the quietest room in the house, the farthest removed
from the noise of the courtyard, the domestics, even their guests.
Profound silence would have reigned in it now, but for the ring of a
hooked hard beak drawn sharply at intervals across a row of gilt wires,
and a ghastly muttering, like that of a demoniac, between whisper and
croak, for the encouragement of somebody or something named “Pierrot.”

It was Madame’s West Indian parrot, beguiling his solitude by the
conscientious study of his part. Presently the bird gave a long shrill
whistle, for he heard a well-known step on the garden stair, and his
mistress’s voice singing—

    “Non, je te dis
    Ma sœur, c’est lui,
    C’est mon Henri,
    A l’habit gris
    Des Mousquetaires, des Mousquetaires,
    Des Mousquetaires
    Du roi Louis.

    “Amant gentil
    Qui chante, qui rit,
    Joli, poli,
    Fidèle? Mais, Oui
    Comme Mousquetaire, comme Mousquetaire,
    Comme Mousquetaire,
    Du roi Louis.”

At which conclusive point in its argument Pierrot interrupted the ballad
with a deafening shriek, and Madame, sliding the panel back, passed into
the apartment.

She was dressed in a simple morning toilet of white, with scarlet
breast-knots, and a ribbon of the same colour gathering the shining
masses of her black hair. It suited her well. Even Pierrot, gazing at her
with head on one side, and upturned eye, seemed to be of this opinion,
though bigger and better talkers by rote had probably long ago informed
her of the fact. She had a large _bouquet_ of flowers, fresh gathered,
in her hand, and she gave the bird a caressing word or two as she moved
through her boudoir, disposing of them here and there to the best
advantage; then she selected a few of the rarest, and put them carefully
in water, telling the parrot “these are for Cerise, Pierrot,” and
endeavouring to make it repeat her daughter’s name. Of course, without
success; though on other occasions this refractory pupil would shriek
these well-known syllables, time after time, till the very cook, far off
in the basement, was goaded to swear hideously, wishing in good Gascon he
had the accursed fowl picked and trussed and garnished with olives in the
stew-pan.

Cerise had been brought back from her pension in Normandy, as we have
seen, partly by Malletort’s advice, partly because her mother longed
to have the girl by her side once more. They had been inseparable
formerly, and it is possible she was conscious, without confessing it,
that her whole character deteriorated during her daughter’s absence.
So the heavy family coach, postilions, outriders, footmen, and all,
rolled into the courtyard of the Hôtel Montmirail, after a slight delay,
as we have seen, at one of the barriers, and deposited its freight to
the great jubilation of the whole household. These were never tired of
praising mademoiselle’s beauty, mademoiselle’s grace—her refinement,
her manners, her acquirements, her goodness of heart, were on every
lip. But though she said less about it than the domestics, nobody in
her establishment was so alive to the merits of Cerise as her mother.
In good truth, the Marquise loved her daughter very dearly. She never
thought she could love anything half so much, except—except perhaps, the
germ of a new idea that had lately been forming itself in her heart,
and of which the vague shadowy uncertainty, the shame, the excuses,
the unwillingness with which she acknowledged it, constituted no small
portion of the charm. Is it possible that Love is painted blind because,
if people could see before them, they would never be induced to move
a step along the pleasant path?—the pleasant path that leads through
cool shades and clustering roses, down the steep bank where the nettles
grow, through briar and bramble, to end at last in a treacherous morass,
whence extrication is generally difficult, sometimes impossible, and
always unpleasant. Nevertheless, to get Cerise back from her pension,
to find that she had grown into a woman, yet without losing the child’s
blue eyes, fond and frank and innocent as ever—to watch her matured
intellect, to feel that the plaything was a companion now, though playful
and light-hearted still—lastly, to discover that she was a beauty, but
a beauty who could never become a rival, because in quite a different
style from her mother—all this was very delightful, and the Marquise,
seldom low-spirited at any time, had become perfectly sparkling since her
daughter came home.

So she carolled about the boudoir like a girl, coaxing Pierrot, arranging
the flowers, and warning Célandine, between the notes of her foolish
love-song, not to let mademoiselle’s chocolate get cold. Mademoiselle,
you see, was tired and not yet down; indeed, to tell the truth, not yet
up, but pressing a soft flushed cheek against her laced pillow, having
just awoke from a dream, in which she was back at the convent in Normandy
once more, sauntering down the beech-walk with her director, who somehow,
instead of a priest’s habit, wore the uniform of the Grey Musketeers,
an irregularity that roused the wrath of the Lady Superior and made her
speak out freely; whereat the Musketeer took his pupil’s part, looking
down on her with a brave brown face and kind eyes, while he clasped her
hand in fond assurance of his aid. Waking thus, she tried hard to get
back to sleep, in hopes of dreaming it all over again.

The mother, meanwhile, having disposed her chamber to her liking, sank
into the recesses of a deep arm-chair, and began to speculate on her
daughter’s future. It is not to be supposed that such an important
consideration as the child’s marriage now occupied her attention for
the first time. Indeed her habits, her education, the opinions of that
society in which she lived, even her own past, with its vicissitudes and
experiences, seemed to urge on her the necessity of taking some step
towards an early settlement in life for her attractive girl. Cerise was
beautiful, no doubt, thought the Marquise; not indeed in her mother’s
wicked, provoking style, of which that mother well knew the power, but
with the innocent beauty of an angel. At such a Court, it was good she
should be provided as soon as possible with a legitimate protector. Of
suitors there would be no lack, for two strains of the best blood in
France united in the person of this fair damsel, whose wealth, besides,
would make her a desirable acquisition to the noblest gentleman in the
realm. Then she reviewed in turn all the eligible matches she could think
of in the large circle of her acquaintance; scanning them mentally, one
after another, with the proverbial fastidiousness that, looking for a
perfectly straight stick, traverses the wood from end to end in vain.
The first man was too young, the second too old, a third too clever, a
fourth too stupid. Count Point d’Appui had been hawked at by all the
beauties in Paris, and owned half Picardy; but she was afraid of him.
No, she could not trust him with her Cerise. He was worn out, debauched,
one of the roués, and worse than the Regent! Then there was the Marquis
de la Force Manquée, he would have been the very thing, but he had
sustained a paralytic stroke. Ah! she knew it. The family might hush it
up, talk of a fall in hunting, a shock to the system, a cold bath after
exercise, but Fagon had told her what it was. The late king’s physician
should understand such matters, and she was not to be deceived! To be
sure, there was still the Duc de Beaublafard left—noble rank, tolerable
possessions, easy temper, and a taste for the fine arts. She wavered a
long time, but decided against him at last. “It is a pity!” said the
Marquise, in a half-whisper, shaking her head, and gazing thoughtfully
at Pierrot; “a thousand pities! but I dare not risk it. He is too
good-looking—even for a lover—decidedly for a husband!”

It was strange that, with her knowledge of human nature, her experience,
by observation at least, of human passions, she should so little have
considered that person’s inclinations who ought to have been first
consulted in such a matter. She never seemed to contemplate for an
instant that Cerise herself might shrink from the character of the Count,
appeal against becoming sick-nurse to the Marquis, or incline to the
excessive and objectionable beauty of the Duke. It seemed natural the
girl should accept her mother’s choice just as that mother had herself
accepted, without even seeing, the chivalrous old Montmirail whom she had
so cherished and respected, whose snuff-box stood there under glass on
her writing-table, and for whom, though he had been dead more years than
she liked to count, she sometimes felt as if she could weep even now.

Such a train of reflection gradually brought the Marquise to her own
position in life, and a calculation of the advantages and disadvantages
attendant on marriage as regarded herself. She could not but know she
was in the full meridian of her beauty. Her summer, so to speak, was
still in its July; the fruit bright, glowing, and mature; not a leaf yet
changed in colour with forewarning of decay. She might take her choice
of a dozen noble names whenever she would, and she felt her heart beat
while she wondered why this consideration should of late have been so
often present to her mind. It could only arise from an anxiety to settle
Cerise, she argued with herself; there _could_ be no other reason.
Impossible! absurd! No—no—a thousand times—No!

She went carefully back over her past life, analysing, with no foolish,
romantic, tendencies, but in a keen, impartial spirit, the whole history
of her feelings. She acknowledged, with a certain hard triumph, that in
her young days she had never loved. Likings, flirtations, passing fancies
she had indulged in by hundreds, a dozen at a time, but to true feminine
affection her nearest approach had been that sentiment of regard which
she entertained for her husband. She did not stop to ask herself if this
was love, as women understand the word.

And was she to be always invulnerable? Was she indeed incapable of that
abstraction, that self-devotion which made the happiness and the misery
of nearly all her sex? She _did_ ask herself this question, but she did
_not_ answer it; though Pierrot, still watching her out of one eye, must
have seen her blush.

Certainly, none of her declared suitors had hitherto inspired it. Least
of all, he to whom the world had lately given her as his affianced wife.
Brave he was, no doubt, chivalrous in thought and action; stupid enough
besides; yes, quite stupid enough for a husband! generous too, and
considerate—but oh! not like the kind, unselfish, indulgent old heart she
mourned for in widow’s weeds all those years ago. She could almost have
cried again now, and yet she laughed when she thought of the united ages
of her late husband and her present adorer. Was it her destiny, then,
thus ever to captivate the affections of old men? and were their wrongs
to be avenged at last by her own infatuation for a lover many years
younger than herself? Again the burning blushes rose to her brow, and
though Pierrot was the only witness present, she buried her face in her
hands.

Lifting her eyes once more, they rested on a picture that held the place
of honour in her boudoir. It was a coloured drawing of considerable
spirit, and had been given her by no less a favourite than the
Prince-Marshal himself, for whose glorification it had been executed by a
rising artist.

It represented a battle-field, of which the Prince de Chateau-Guerrand
constituted the principal object; and that officer was portrayed with
considerable fidelity, advancing to the succour of the Count de Guiches,
who at the head of the Guards was covering Villeroy’s retreat before
Marlborough at Ramillies. Two or three broad, honest faces of the
English grenadiers came well out from the smoke and confusion in the
background, ingeniously increased by a fall of rafters and conflagration
of an imaginary farm-house; but the Count de Guiches himself occupied no
prominent place in the composition, dancing about on a little grey horse
in one corner, as if studious not to interfere with the dominant figure,
who was, indeed, the artist’s patron, and who presided over the whole
in a full-bottomed wig, with a conceited smile on his face and a laced
hat in his hand. There lay, also, a dead Musketeer in the foreground,
admirably contrived to impart reality to the scene of conflict; and
it was on this figure that the eyes of the Marquise fixed themselves,
devouring it with a passionate gaze, in which admiration, longing,
self-scorn, and self-reproach, seemed all combined.

For a full minute the wild, pitiful expression never left her face, and
during that minute she tore her handkerchief to the coronet near its hem.
Then she rose and paced the room for a couple of turns, restless as a
leopard; but ere she had made a third, footsteps were heard approaching
through the bed-chamber. The door opened, and one of her servants
announced “Monsieur l’Abbé Malletort!”




CHAPTER XI

WHAT THE SERPENT SAID


HE came in smiling, of course. When was the Abbé to be caught without
his self-possessed smile, his easy manner, and his carefully-arranged
dress? On the present occasion he carried with him some rare flowers as
well. The Marquise sprang at them almost before he had time to offer his
elaborate homage, while he bent over her extended hand. He snatched the
nosegay away, however, with great quickness, and held it behind his back.

“Pardon, madame,” said he, “this is forbidden fruit. As such I bring it
into the garden of Paradise; where my cousin dwells there is Eden, and
the resemblance is the more striking that neither here are found mirrors
to offend me with the reflection of my own ugly face. Consequently, my
attention is concentrated on yourself. I look at you, Marquise, as Adam
looked at Eve. Bah! that father of horticulture was but a husband. I
should rather say, as the subtle creature who relieved their domestic
_tête-à-tête_ looked at the lady presiding over that charming scene.
I look at you, I say, with delight and admiration, for I find you
beautiful!”

“And is it to tell me this important news that you are abroad so early?”
asked the Marquise, laughing gaily, while she pointed to the easy-chair
she had just left. “Sit down, Monsieur l’Abbé, and try to talk sense for
five minutes. You can be rational; none more so, when you choose. I want
your opinion—nay, I even think I want your advice. Mind, I don’t promise
to take it, that of course! Don’t look so interested. It’s not about
myself. It’s about Cerise.”

“How can I look anything else?” asked the Abbé, whose face, to do
him justice, never betrayed his thoughts or feelings. “Madame, or
Mademoiselle, both are near and dear to me—too much so for my own repose.”

He sighed, and laid his white hand on his breast. She was so accustomed
to his manner that she never troubled herself whether he was in jest
or earnest. Moreover, she was at present engrossed with her daughter’s
future, and proceeded thoughtfully.

“Cerise is a woman now, my cousin. Her girlhood is past, and she has
arrived at an age when every woman should think of establishing herself
in life. Pardon! that bouquet is in your way; put it down yonder in the
window-sill.”

The Abbé rose and placed the flowers in the open window, whence a light
air from without wafted their sweet and heavy perfume into the apartment.

When he reseated himself the Marquise had relapsed into silence. She was
thinking deeply, with her eyes fixed on the dead musketeer in the picture.

The Abbé spoke first. He began in a low tone of emotion, that, if
fictitious, was admirably assumed.

“It is not for _me_, perhaps, madame, to give an opinion on such matters
as concern the affections. For _me_, the churchman, the celibate, the man
of the world, whose whole utility to those he loves depends on subjection
of his love at any cost—at any sacrifice; who must trample his feelings
under foot, lest they rise and vanquish him, putting him to torture,
punishment, and shame. My cousin, have not I seemed to you a man of
marble rather than a creature of flesh and blood?”

The Marquise opened her black eyes wide. He had succeeded at least in
rousing her attention, and continued in the same low, hurried voice.

“Can you not make allowance for a position so constrained and unnatural
as mine? Can you not comprehend a devotion that exists out of, and apart
from self? Is not the hideous Satyr peering from behind his tree at the
nymph whose beauty awes him from approach, an object more touching, more
to be respected than vain Narcissus languishing, after all, but for the
mere reflection of himself? Is not that a true and faithful worship which
seeks only the elevation of its idol, though its own crushed body may be
exacted to raise the pedestal, if but by half a foot? Do you believe—I
ask you, my cousin, in the utmost truth and sincerity—do you believe
there breathes a man on earth so completely consecrated to your interests
as myself?”

“You have always been a kind counsellor—and—and—an affectionate
kinsman,” answered the Marquise, a little confused; adding, with an air
of frankness that became her well—“Come! Abbé, you are a good friend,
neither more nor less, staunch, honest, constant. You always have been,
you always will be. Is it not so?”

His self-command was perfect. His face betrayed neither disappointment,
vexation, nor wounded pride. His voice retained just so much of tremor as
was compatible with the warm regard of friendship, yet not too little to
convey the deeper interest of love. He did not approach his cousin by an
inch. He sat back in the arm-chair, outwardly composed and tranquil, yet
he made it appear that he was pleading a subject of vital importance both
to her welfare and his own.

“Pass over _me_, madame!” he exclaimed, throwing both his white hands
up with a conclusive gesture. “Walk over _my_ body without scruple if
it will keep you dry-shod. Why am I here; nay, why do I exist at all
but to serve you—and yours? Nevertheless it is not now a question of
the daughter’s destiny—that will arrive in course of time—it is of the
mother I would speak. For the mother I would plead, even against myself.
What temptation is there in the world like ambition? What has earth to
offer compared to its promises? The draught of love may be, nay, I feel
too keenly _must_ be, very sweet, but what bitter drops are mingled in
the cup! Surely I know it; but what matters its taste to me? the Abbé!
the priest! Marquise, you have a future before you the proudest woman in
Europe might envy. That fair hand might hold a sceptre, that sweet brow
be encircled by a crown. Bah! they are but baubles, of course,” continued
the Abbé, relapsing without a moment’s warning into his usual tone; “the
one would make your arm ache and the other your head; nevertheless, my
cousin, you could endure these inconveniences without complaint, perhaps
even with patience and resignation to your fate?”

The Marquise, it must be confessed, was relieved at his change of tone.
Her feelings had been stimulated, her sympathies enlisted, and now her
curiosity was aroused. This last quality is seldom weak in her sex, and
the Abbé, though it is needless to inquire where or how he learned the
trade, was far too experienced a practitioner to neglect so powerful an
engine as that desire for knowledge which made shipwreck of Eve and is
the bane of all her daughters. Madame de Montmirail was proud—most women
are. She loved power—most women do. If a thought flashed through her mind
that the advancement of her own position might benefit those in whom she
felt interest, what was this but a noble instinct, unselfish as are all
the instincts of womanhood?

“You speak in parables, my good Abbé,” said she, with a laugh that
betrayed some anxiety to know more. “You talk of crowns and sceptres as
familiarly as I do of fans and bracelets. You must expound to me what you
mean, for I am one of those who find out a riddle admirably when they
have been told the answer.”

“I will instruct you, then,” was his reply, “in the form of a parable.
Listen and learn. A certain Sultan had a collection of jewels, and he
changed them from time to time—because he could not find a gem that
sparkled with equal brilliance by day and by night. So he consulted every
jeweller in his dominions, and squandered great sums of money, both in
barter and in a search for what he required. Nay, he would trample under
foot and defile the treasures he possessed, passionate, languishing,
wretched, for want of that he possessed not. So his affairs went to ruin,
and his whole country was in want and misery.

“Now, a Dervish praying at sunset by a fountain, saw a beautiful bird fly
down to the water to drink. Between its eyes grew a jewel that flamed
and glittered like the noonday sun on the Sultan’s drawn scimitar. And
the Dervish bethought him, this jewel would be a rare addition to the
collection of his lord; so he rolled his prayer-carpet into a pillow, and
went to sleep by the side of the fountain, under a tree.

“At midnight the Dervish woke up to pray, and on the branch above his
head he saw something flash and sparkle like the sun on the Sultan’s
scimitar at noonday. So he said, ‘This is the gem for which my lord
pineth. Lo! I will take the bird captive, and bring it with me to the
feet of my lord.’

“Then the Dervish took the bird craftily with his hand, and though the
fowl was beautiful, and the gem was precious, he kept neither of them for
himself, but brought them both for his lord, to be the delight of the
Sultan and the salvation of the land.”

“And suppose the poor bird would rather have had her liberty,” replied
the Marquise. “It seems to me that in their dealings with men the birds
get the worst of it from first to last.”

“This bird was wise in her generation, as the goose that saved Rome,”
answered the Abbé; “but the bird I have in my thoughts wants only
opportunity to soar her pitch, like the falcon, Queen of Earth and Air.
Seriously, madame—look at the condition of _our_ Sultan. I speak not of
the young king, a weak and rickety boy, with all respect be it said, ill
in bed at this very moment, perhaps never to leave his chamber alive. I
mean the Regent, my kind patron, your devoted admirer—the true ruler of
France. And look at the jewels in his casket. Do you think there is one
that he prizes at the value of a worn-out glove?”

The subject possessed a certain degree of interest, trenching though it
was upon very delicate ground.

“He has plenty to choose from, at any rate,” observed the Marquise; “and
I must say I cannot compliment him on the taste he has displayed in these
valuables,” she added, with a mischievous laugh.

“He would throw them all willingly into the Seine to-morrow,” continued
Malletort, “might he but possess the gem he covets, and set it in the
Crown-royal of France. Yes, madame, the Crown-royal, I repeat it. Where
are the obstacles? Louis XV. may not, will not, nay, perhaps, _shall_
not live to be a man. Madame d’Orleans inherits the feeble constitution,
without the beauty of her mother, Madame de Montespan. Fagon himself will
tell you her life is not worth nine months’ purchase, and since she has
quarrelled with her daughter she has less interest with the Regent than
one of the pages. Her party is no longer in power, the Comte de Toulouse
is in disgrace, the Duc du Maine is in disgrace. Illegitimacy is at a
discount, though, _parbleu_, it has no want of propagators in our day. To
speak frankly, my cousin, a clever woman who could influence the Regent
might sway the destinies of the whole nation in six weeks,—might be Queen
of France in six months from this time.”

The Marquise listened, as Eve may have listened to the serpent when
he pressed her to taste the apple. For different palates, the fruit,
tempting, because forbidden, assumes different forms. Sometimes it
represents power, sometimes pique, sometimes lucre, and sometimes love.
According to their various natures, the tempted nibble at it with their
pretty teeth, suck it eagerly with clinging lips, or swallow it whole,
like a bolus, at a gulp. The Marquise was only nibbling, but her cheek
glowed, her eyes shone, and she whispered below her breath, “The Queen of
France;” as if there was music in the very syllables.

The Abbé paused to let the charm work, ere he resumed, in his
half-jesting way—

“The Queen, madame! Despite the injustice on our Salic law, you may say
_the King_! Such a woman, and I know well of whom I speak, would little
by little obtain all the real power of the crown. She might sway the
council—she might rule the parliament—she might control the finances.
In and out of the palace she would become the dispenser of rank, the
fountain of honour. Nay,” he added, with a laugh, “she might usurp the
last privileges of royalty, and command the very Musketeers of the Guard
themselves!”

Did he know that he had touched a string to vibrate through his
listener’s whole being? She rose and walked to the window, where the
flowers were, while at the same moment he prepared to recall her
hastily. It was needless, for she started, turning very pale, and came
quietly back to her seat. The Abbé’s quick ear detected the tramp of
a boot crunching the gravel walk outside, but it was impossible to
gather from his countenance whether he suspected the passer-by to be
of more importance than one of the gardeners. The Marquise, however,
had caught a glimpse of a figure she was beginning to know by heart too
well. Captain George had of late, indeed ever since Cerise came home,
contracted a habit of traversing the gardens of the Hôtel Montmirail to
visit a post of his musketeers in the neighbourhood. These guards were
permitted to enter everywhere, and Madame de Montmirail was the last
person to interfere, in this instance, with their privileges. So little
annoyance, indeed, did she seem to experience from the intrusion, that
the windows of her boudoir were generally wide open at this hour of the
day. Though to visit this post might be a necessary military precaution,
it was obviously a duty requiring promptitude less than consideration.
Captain George usually walked slowly through the garden, and returned
in a very short time at the same deliberate pace. The Marquise knew
perfectly well that it took him exactly ten minutes by the clock in
her boudoir. When she sat down again, Malletort, without noticing her
movement or her confusion, proceeded in a sincere and affectionate tone—

“I need not explain more clearly, madame; I need not urge my motives nor
dwell upon my own self-sacrifice. It is sufficient for the Abbé to see
his peerless cousin set out on her journey to fame, and to feel that he
has indicated the shortest path. There are obstacles, no doubt; but for
what purpose do obstacles exist save to be surmounted or swept away? Let
us take them as they come. I can count them all on the fingers of my
hand.” The Abbé began systematically at his thumb. “The young King and
Madame d’Orleans are already disposed of, or, at worst, soon will be, in
the common course of events. Remain—the _roués_—Madame de Sabran, and
Madame Parabére. Of these, I can manage the first without assistance.
I have influence with the whole gang. Some may be persuaded, others
intimidated, all can be bribed. I anticipate no opposition worth speaking
of from the male element, fond of pleasure, fond of wine, and embarrassed
as they are good for nothing. With the last two it is different. Madame
de Sabran is witty, handsome, and well-bred; but she spares no person,
however exalted, in her sarcasm, and the Regent fears her tongue while he
is oppressed with her society. One or two more of her cutting sayings,
and she will sever the cord, already frayed very thin, by which she
holds on to fortune. Then she becomes but yesterday’s _bouquet_, and
we need trouble ourselves no more with _her_! Exit Madame de Sabran.
Enter—whom shall we name, my beautiful cousin? Whoever it is will have
it in her power to become Queen of France. Now there is only Madame de
Parabére left; but alas! she is the most dangerous and the most powerful
of all. It is against _her_ that I must ask you, madame, to lend me your
assistance.”

“Mine!” repeated the Marquise, half surprised and half unwilling, though
with no especial liking for the lady in question. “Mine! what can I do?”

“Much,” replied Malletort, earnestly. “Indeed, everything! Yet, it is
very little I will ask you to undertake, though it must eventually lead
to the greatest results. Listen. The Regent, while he has confessed to
me over and over again that he grows weary of Madame de Parabére, is
yet fascinated by her beauty—the beauty, after all, of a baby-face with
a skin like cream. Such beauty as even the devil must have possessed
when he was young. She has neither wit, nor grace, nor intellect, nor
form, nor even features. But she has her _skin_, and that I must admit
is wonderfully clear and soft. This attraction possesses some incredible
fascination for the Duke. If she went out in the sun to-morrow and came
home tanned, _adieu_ to her power for ever! I cannot make her go out in
the sun, but I think if you will help me I can arrange that she shall
become tanned—aye, worse than tanned, speckled all over like a toad.
Do you remember once when they praised your beauty at the late King’s
dinner, she said, ‘Yes, you were very well for a mulatto?’”

“I have not forgotten it!” replied the Marquise, and her flashing eye
showed that neither had she forgiven the offence.

“That little compliment alone would make me her enemy,” continued the
Abbé, “if I allowed myself such luxuries as likes and dislikes; but she
is in our way, and that is a far better reason for putting her aside.
Now my beautiful cousin has admired those flowers in the window more
than once. She thinks they are an offering from her faithful kinsman.
It is not so. I have procured them with no small trouble for Madame de
Parabére!”

“Then why bring them here?” asked the Marquise, with a spice of
pardonable pique in her tone.

“Because, if I sent them to her with the compliments of Monsieur l’Abbé
Malletort, the Swiss would probably not take them in; because if I
offered them to her myself, I, the cynic, the unimpressionable, the man
of marble, who has eyes but for his kinswoman, she would suspect a trick,
or perhaps some covert insult or irony that would cause her to refuse the
gift point-blank. No, my plan is better laid. You go to the masked ball
at the opera to-night. She will be there on the Regent’s arm. Jealous,
suspicious, domineering, she will never leave him. There is not another
petal of stephanotis to be procured for love or money within thirty
leagues of Paris; I have assured myself of this. They are her favourite
flowers. You will appear at the ball with your _bouquet_; but for the
love of heaven, my cousin,” and the Abbé’s countenance was really in
earnest while he thus adjured her, “do not, even with a mask on, put it
within six inches of your face!”

“It is poisoned!” exclaimed the Marquise, walking, nevertheless, to the
open window where the flowers stood. “Poisoned! I will have nothing to do
with it. If we were men, I would force her to cross swords with me on the
turf down there. But poison! No, my cousin. I tell you no. Never!”

“Poison is entirely a relative term,” observed the Abbé, philosophically.
“All drugs in excess become poisons. These pretty flowers are not
poisoned so much as medicated. There is no danger to life in smelling
them—none. But their effect on the skin is curious, really interesting
from a scientific point of view. A few hours after inspiration, even
of one leaf, the complexion loses its freshness, fades, comes out in
spots—turns brown.”

The Marquise listened attentively.

“Brown! Deep brown! Browner than any mulatto!”

The Marquise wavered.

“It really would not be a bad joke, and I think she deserves it for what
she said of you.”

The Marquise consented.

“I will take them to the ball,” said she, “and if Madame de Parabére asks
for them, why, in common politeness, she must have them. But mask or no
mask, I will take care to let her know who I _am_!”

“Better not,” said the more cautious Abbé, and would have explained why,
but the Marquise paid no attention to what he said. She seemed uneasy,
and moved behind the window-curtain with a nervous gesture and a rising
colour in her cheek. “Another complication,” muttered her companion,
catching once more the measured boot-tramp on the gravel-walk. “So be it!
The more cards dealt, the better chance for the player who can peep at
his adversary’s hand!”

Looking into the garden, he perceived the Musketeer’s tall figure
moving leisurely along the walk. His pace became slower and slower,
and the Marquise, behind the curtain, blushed deeper and deeper as he
came directly below the window, peering up at the house with an air of
caution, not lost on Malletort’s observation.

“I will force one of them to play a court card,” thought the Abbé, and
muttering something about “stifling heat,” pushed the window noisily, as
far open as it would go.

The Musketeer looked quickly up, and at the same moment something white
and buoyant fluttered lightly to the ground at his very feet.

The Marquise was trembling and blushing behind her window-curtain.

The ruffles at Malletort’s wrist had brushed a cluster of blossoms from
the stephanotis, and it fell within six inches of Captain George’s boot.

He picked it up with a murmur of delight. In another moment he would have
pressed it to his lips, but the Marquise could keep silence no longer.
Shrouding herself in the window-curtain, she exclaimed in a hoarse
whisper, “Hold! Monsieur, in Heaven’s name! It is poisoned!”

He cast a rapid penetrating glance, up, down, all round. His monitress
was invisible, and the Abbé had shrunk back into the room. Then he
examined the blossoms minutely, though at arm’s-length, holding them
in his gloved hand, and so twirling them carelessly about, as if to
avoid observation, went on a few paces, ere he threw them on the walk
and crushed them to pieces beneath his heel. For two minutes Madame
Montmirail had been hot and cold by turns, giddy, choking—the Abbé, the
room, the gardens, swimming before her eyes—now she drew a long breath of
relief and turned to her cousin.

“By my faith, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said she, “that soldier down there is a
true gentleman!”

And Malletort took his leave, reflecting that in research after general
information, his last hour’s work had been by no means thrown away.




CHAPTER XII

OUT-MANŒUVRED


Captain George was not the only soldier of France whom a visit to the
Hôtel Montmirail affected that morning with the slighter and premonitory
symptoms of fever, such as dry mouth, irregular pulse, and a tendency to
flush without physical exertion. While the Musketeer was visiting his
outposts in anything but a warlike frame of mind, his former general
was working his temper up to a state of nervous irritation more trying
than usual to the valets and other domestics of his household. The
Prince-Marshal busied himself to-day with preparations for his grand
attack, and, contrary to the whole practice of his lifetime, in the event
of failure, had made no disposition for retreat.

He felt, indeed, a good deal more agitated now than when he led a
forlorn-hope of Black Musketeers at twenty, an exploit from which he
came off with three flesh wounds and a broken collar-bone, owing to the
usual mistake of too short a scaling-ladder; but he consoled himself by
reflecting how this very agitation denoted that the fountain of youth was
not yet dried up in his heart.

He rose early, though he could not decently present himself at the Hôtel
Montmirail for hours to come. He stormed and swore because his chocolate
was not ready, though he hardly tasted it when it was served, and indeed
broke his fast on yolk of egg and pounded sugar, mixed up with a small
glass of brandy.

This stimulating refreshment enabled him to encounter the fatigue of
dressing, and very careful the veteran was to marshal his staunch old
forces in their most imposing array.

The few teeth he could boast were polished up white and glistening. Their
ranks indeed had been sadly thinned, but, like the last survivors of a
beleaguered garrison, though shattered and disordered, they mustered
bravely to the front. His wrinkled cheeks and pointed chin were shaved
trim and smooth, while the moustaches on his upper lip, though nearly
white, were carefully clipped and arranged in the prevailing fashion.
More than once during the progress of the toilet, before a mirror
which, he cursed repeatedly for a dull and unbecoming glass, his heart
misgave him, and he treated his valets to a few camp compliments current
amongst the old _die-hards_ of Turenne; but when at last his cravat was
fastened—his frills adjusted, his _just au corps_ fitted on, his delicate
ruffles pulled over his wasted hands, with their swollen knuckles and
magnificent rings, his diamond-hilted rapier hung exactly at his hip, and
his laced hat, cocked jauntily _à la Mousquetaire_, he took one approving
survey in the mirror, unbecoming as it was, and marched forth confident
and resolved to conquer.

His carriage was waiting for him at the porter’s lodge of his hotel. A
nobleman of those days seldom walked afoot in the streets, and it took
four horses at least, one coachman, one postilion, and two or three
footmen in laced coats, to convey a single biped the distance of a couple
of hundred metres.

As the door of his heraldry-covered coach closed on him with a bang,
quoth Auguste, who had dressed him, to Etienne, who had handed the
clothes and shared impartially in his master’s maledictions—

“Come, that’s not so bad, Etienne! Hein? What would you have at
sixty-three? And without _me_, Bones of St. Martin! what is he? A monkey,
a skeleton, a heap of rugs and refuse! Ah! What it is! the toilet!—when a
man is really master of his work.”

The Prince-Marshal, you see, like other heroes, was none to his _valet
de chambre_; but Auguste, a true artist, having neglected none of the
_minutiæ_, on which success depended, looked to general results, and
exulted in the masterpiece that he felt was a creation of his own genius.

Now it fell out that the Prince de Chateau-Guerrand, hereditary Grand
Chasseur to the King, Master of the Horse to the Dauphin, State Exon to
the sons and daughters of France, Marshal of its armies, and chevalier of
half-a-dozen orders in his own and other countries, with no decoration on
earth left to wish for but the Golden Fleece of Spain, which he coveted
greedily in consequence, and prized above them all, arrived at the Hôtel
Montmirail almost in the moment when Abbé Malletort quitted it at the
front entrance, and Captain George of the Grey Musketeers left it by the
garden door.

Though the Prince’s chance of victory must have been doubtful at any
time, I do not think he could have chosen a more unfavourable moment to
deploy into line, as it were, and offer battle in the open field. His
fair enemy had already been skirmishing with one foe, and caught sight of
another, whom she would willingly have engaged. Her trumpets had sounded
the _Alerte_, her colours were displayed, her artillery was in advance,
guns unlimbered, matches lighted, front cleared, all her forces ready
and quivering for action—woe to the veteran when he should leave his
entrenchments, and sally forth to hazard all his past successes on the
rash issue of one stand-up fight!

His instincts told him he was wrong, even while he followed the
obsequious lackey, in the Montmirail livery, through the glittering suite
of rooms that led him to his fate. Followed, with cold hands and shaking
knees, he who had led stormers and commanded armies! Even to himself
there was a something of ridicule in the position; and he smiled, as a
man smiles who is going to the dentist, while he whispered—“Courage, my
child! It is but a quarter of an hour, after all! and yet—I wish I had
put that other glass of brandy into my _Lait de Poule_!”

The Marquise received him more graciously than usual, and this, too, had
he known it, was an omen of ill-success. But it is strange how little
experience teaches in the campaigns of Cupid, how completely his guerilla
style of warfare foils all regular strategy and established system of
tactics. I believe any school-girl in her teens to be a match for the
most insidious adversary of the opposite sex; and I think that the older
the male serpent, and the oftener he has cast his skin, the more easily
does his subtlety succumb to the voice of the innocent and unconscious
charmer. What chance then had an honest, conceited, thick-headed old
soldier, with nothing of the snake about him but his glistening outside,
and labouring under the further disadvantage of being furiously in
earnest, against such a proficient as the Marquise—a coquette of a dozen
years’ standing, rejoicing in battle, accustomed to triumph, witty,
scornful, pitiless, and to-day, for the first time, doubtful of her
prowess, and dissatisfied with herself?

She had never looked better in her life; the flushed cheeks, the
brilliant eyes, the simple white dress, with its scarlet breast-knots,
these combined to constitute a very seductive whole, and one that, had
there been a mirror in which she could see it reflected, might have
gone far to strengthen the Abbé’s arguments, and to convince her that
his schemes, aspiring though they seemed, were founded on a knowledge
of human nature, experience, and common sense. Neither, I imagine, does
a woman ever believe in her heart that any destiny can be quite beyond
her reach. Though fortune may offer man something more than his share
of goods and tangible possessions on this material earth, nature has
conferred on woman the illimitable inheritance of the possible; and no
beggar maiden is so lowly but that she may dream of King Cophetua and his
crown-matrimonial laid at her shoeless feet.

To see the chance, vague, yet by no means unreasonable, of becoming Queen
of France looming in the future—to entertain a preference, vague, yet by
no means doubtful, for a handsome captain of Grey Musketeers—and to be
made honourable love to at a little past thirty by a man and a marshal
a little past sixty—was not all this enough to impart a yet deeper
lustre to the glowing cheeks and the bright eyes, to bid the scarlet
breast-knots heave and quiver over that warm, wilful, and impassioned
heart?

It was not a fair fight; far from it. It was Goliath against David, and
David, moreover, with neither stone nor sling, nor ruddy countenance, nor
the mettle of untried courage, nor youthful confidence in his cause.

He came up boldly, however, when he confronted his enemy, and kissed her
hand with a ponderous compliment to her good looks, which she cut short
rudely enough.

Then he took his hat from the floor, and began to smooth its lace
against his heavy coat-cuff. She knew it was coming, and though it made
her nervous, she rather liked it, notwithstanding.

“Madame!” said the Prince-Marshal, and then he stopped, for his voice
sounded so strange he thought he had better begin again.

“Madame, I have for a long period had the honour and advantage of your
friendship. Nay, I hope that I have, in all that time, done nothing to
forfeit your good opinion?”

She laughed a little unmeaning laugh, and of course avoided a direct
answer to the question.

“I always stand up for my friends,” said he, “and yourself, monsieur,
amongst the number. It is no light task, I can assure you!”

The veteran had opened fire now, and gained confidence every moment. The
first step, the first plunge, the first sentence. It is all the same.
Fairly in deep water, a brave man finds his courage come back even faster
than it failed him.

“Madame,” he resumed, laying his hat on the floor again, and sitting bolt
upright, while his voice, though hoarser than usual, grew very stern,
“madame, I am in earnest. Seriously in earnest at present. Listen. I have
something of importance to say to you!”

In spite of herself she was a little cowed. “One moment, Prince!” she
exclaimed, rising to shut the door and window of her boudoir, as if
against listeners. It was a simple feminine manœuvre to gain time; but,
looking into the garden, she spied a remnant of the Stephanotis left
where George had trodden it, and when she sat down again she was as brave
as a lioness once more. Her change of position rather disordered her
suitor’s line of battle, and as she had skilfully increased the distance
between them, his tactics were still further impeded. In his love affairs
the Prince-Marshal’s system had always been to come as soon as possible
to close quarters; but it was so long since he had made a regular formal
proposal of marriage, that he could not for the life of him remember
the precise attitude in which he had advanced. Some vague recollection
he entertained, strengthened by what he had seen on the stage, of going
down on his knees, but the floor was very slippery, and he was not
quite confident about getting up again. It would be ridiculous, he felt,
to urge his suit on all-fours, and he knew the Marquise well enough,
besides, to be quite sure her paroxysms of laughter in such a difficulty
would render her incapable of returning an intelligible answer.
Altogether, he decided on sitting still, and though it was obviously a
disadvantage, doing his love-making at arm’s length.

“Madame!” he repeated for the fourth time, “I am a soldier; I am a man of
few words; I am, I hope, a gentleman, but I am no longer young. I do not
dissemble this; I am even past my prime. Frankly, madame, I am getting an
old man.”

It was incontestable. She smothered a smile as she mentally conceded the
position, but in reply she had nothing to say, and she said it.

The Prince-Marshal, expecting the disclaimer that perhaps politeness
demanded, seemed here a little bothered. He had no doubt gone through
many rehearsals of the imaginary scene, and it confused him to lose his
anticipated cue. Seeking inspiration once more, then, from his hat, he
proceeded rather inconsequently. “Therefore it is that I feel emboldened
in the present instance to lay before you, madame, the thoughts, the
intentions, the wishes, in brief—the anticipations that I had formed of
my own future, and to ask your opinion, and, indeed, your advice, or
perhaps, I should say, your approval of my plans.”

What a quick ear she had! Far off, upstairs, she heard the door of
her daughter’s bedroom shut, and she knew that Cerise, after stopping
at every flower-stand in the gallery, would as usual come straight to
her mamma’s boudoir. Such a diversion would be invaluable, as it must
for the present prevent any decided result from her interview with the
Prince-Marshal. She had resolved not to accept him for a husband, we
know, and sooner or later, she must come to a definite understanding with
her faithful old suitor; but she seemed in this instance strangely given
to procrastination, and inclined from time to time to put off the evil
day.

Why she did not prefer to have done with it once for all, why she could
not wait calmly for his proposal and refuse him with a polite reverence,
as she had refused a score of others, it is not for me to explain.
Perhaps she would not willingly abdicate a sovereignty that became year
by year more precious and more precarious. Perhaps she loved a captive,
as a cat loves a mouse, allowing it so much liberty as shall keep it
just within reach of the cruel velvet paw. Perhaps she shrunk from any
decided step that would force her own heart to confess it was interested
elsewhere. A woman’s motives may be countless as the waves on the shore,
her intention fathomless as mid-ocean by the deep-sea lead.

Hearing the march of her auxiliaries, she made light of an engagement at
closer quarters now. Looking affectionately in the Prince-Marshal’s face,
she drew her chair a little nearer, and observed in a low voice—

“I am pretty sure to approve of any plan, my Prince, that conduces to
your comfort—to your welfare, nay”—for she heard the rustle of her
daughter’s dress, and the lock of the door move—“to your happiness!”

The tone and accompanying glance were irresistible. Any male creature
must have fallen a victim on the spot. The Prince-Marshal, sitting
opposite the door, dropped his hat, sprang from his chair a yard at a
bound, made a pounce at the white hand of the Marquise, and before he
could grasp it, stopped midway as if turned to stone, his mouth open,
his frame rigid, his very moustaches stiffening, and his eyes staring
blankly at the figure of Cerise in the doorway, who, although a good deal
discomposed, for she thought to find mamma alone, rose, or rather _sank_,
to the occasion, and bestowed on him the lowest, the most voluminous,
and the longest reverence that was ever practised for months together
at their _pension_ by the best brought-up young ladies in France. The
Prince-Marshal was too good a soldier to neglect such an opportunity for
retreat, and retired in good order, flattering himself that though he had
suffered severely, it might still be considered a drawn battle with the
Marquise.

When he had made his bow with a profusion of compliments to the fresh and
beautiful Mademoiselle, whom he wished at a worse place than back in her
convent, mother and daughter sat down to spend the morning together.

Contrary to custom, the pair were silent and preoccupied; each, while
she tried to seem at ease, immersed in her own thoughts, and yet, though
engrossed with the same subject or meditation, it was strange that
neither of them mentioned it to the other.




CHAPTER XIII

THE MOTHER OF SATAN


Malletort, leaving his cousin’s house by its principal egress, did
not enter his coach at once, but whispering certain directions to the
servants, proceeded leisurely down a narrow lane or alley, leading, after
a variety of windings, into one of the great thoroughfares of Paris.
The street was well adapted for such an interview, either of love or
business, as it was desirable to keep secret, consisting, on one side,
only of the backs of the houses, in which the windows were built up, and
on the other, of the high dead wall that bounded the extensive premises
of the Hôtel Montmirail. Casting a hasty glance before and behind, to
make sure he was not watched, the Abbé, when he reached the narrowest
part of the narrow passage—for it was hardly more—halted, smiled, and
observed to himself: “A man’s character must be either very spotless
or very good for nothing if he can thus afford to set the decencies of
life at defiance. A churchman with an assignation! and at noon in this
quarter of Paris! My friend, it is rather a strong measure, no doubt! And
suppose, nevertheless, she should fail to appear? It would be the worse
for her, that’s all! Ah! the sweet sultana! There she is!”

While he spoke, a woman, wrapped in a large shawl, with another folded
round her head, came swiftly down the alley, and stopped within two
paces of him. It was the Quadroon, agitated, hurried, a good deal out of
breath, and, perhaps, also a little out of temper.

“It’s no use, Monsieur l’Abbé!” were the first words she gasped. “I
cannot, and I dare not, and I _will_ not. Besides, I have no time, I
must be back directly. There’s Mademoiselle, most likely, wanting me this
minute. The idea of such a thing! It’s out of the question altogether!”

Malletort laughed good-humouredly. He could afford to be good-humoured,
for the woman was in his power.

“And the alternative?” said he. “Not that I want to _drive_ you, my Queen
of Sheba, but still, a bargain is a bargain. Do you think Mademoiselle
would engross your time much longer if the Marquise knew all I know, and,
indeed, all that it is my duty to tell her?”

Célandine clasped her hands imploringly, and dropped at once into
complete submission.

“I will go with you, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said she, humbly. “But you will
not forget your promise. If you were to betray me I should die.”

“And I, too,” thought Malletort, who knew the nature with which he had to
deal, and treated it as a keeper treats the tigress in her cage. “It is
no question of betrayal,” he said, aloud. “Follow me. When we reach the
carriage, step in. My people know where to drive.”

He walked on very fast, and she followed him; her black eyes glancing
fierce misgivings, like those of a wild animal that suspects a snare.

Two or three more windings with which he seemed thoroughly familiar, a
glance around that showed not a passenger visible, nor indeed a living
soul, save a poor old rag-picker raking a heap of refuse with her hook,
and the Quadroon suddenly emerged in mid-stream, so to speak, surrounded
by the life and bustle of one of the main streets in Paris. At a few
paces distant stood a plain, well-appointed coach, and the Abbé, pointing
to its door, which a servant was holding open, Célandine found herself,
ere she could look round, rumbling, she knew not where, over the noisy
pavement, completely in that man’s power, for whom, perhaps, of all men
in the world, she entertained the strongest feelings of terror, stronger
even than her aversion.

She did not take long, however, to recover herself. The strain of savage
blood to which she owed those fierce black eyes and jetty locks gave
her also, with considerable physical courage, the insensibility of rude
natures to what we may term _moral_ fear. She might shudder at a drawn
knife if she were herself unarmed, or cower before a whip if her hands
were tied and her back bared; but to future evil, to danger, neither
visible nor tangible, she was callous as a child.

They had not travelled half a mile ere she showed her delight in every
feature of her expressive face at the rapid motion and the gay scenes
through which she was driven. In a few minutes she smiled pleasantly, and
asked their destination as gaily as if they had been going to a ball.

Malletort thought it a good opportunity for a few impressive words.

“Célandine,” said he, gravely, “every one of us has a treasure somewhere
hidden up in the heart. What is it that you love better than everything
else in the world?”

The dark face, tanned by many a year of sun, yet comely still, saddened
and softened while he spoke, the black eyes grew deeper and deeper as
they seemed to look dreamily into the past. After a pause she drew a
sorrowful sigh, and answered, “Mademoiselle!”

“Good,” replied the Abbé. “You are bound on an errand now for which
Mademoiselle will be grateful to you till her dying day.”

She looked curiously in his face. “Cerise is dear to me as my own,” said
she. “How can I do more for her to-day than yesterday, and to-morrow, and
every day of my life?”

He answered by another question.

“Would you like to see your darling a Princess of France?”

The Quadroon’s eyes glistened and filled with tears.

“I would lay down my life for the child,” was all she said in reply.

But he had got her malleable now, and he knew it. Those tear-drops showed
him she was at the exact temperature for fusion. A little less, she would
have remained too cold and hard. A little more, and over-excitement would
have produced irritation, anger, defiance: then the whole process must
have been begun again. It was a good time to secure her confederacy, and
let her see a vague shadowy outline of his plans.

In a few short sentences, but glowing and eloquent, because of the
tropical nature to which they were addressed, Malletort sketched out
the noble destiny he had in view for her mistress, and the consequent
elevation of Cerise to the rank of royalty. He impressed on his listener
the necessity of implicit, unquestioning obedience to his commands. Above
all, of unbroken silence and unvaried caution till their point was gained.

“As in your own beautiful island,” said the Abbé, soaring for the
occasion to the metaphorical; “if you would pass by night through its
luxuriant jungles, you must keep the star that guides you steadily
in view, nor lose sight of it for an instant; so in the path I shall
indicate, never forget, however distant and impracticable it may seem,
the object to which our efforts are directed. In either case, if your
attention wanders for a moment, in that moment your feet stray from the
path; you stumble amongst the tangled creepers—you pierce yourself with
the cruel cactus—you tread on some venomous reptile that turns and stings
you to the bone; nay, you may topple headlong down a precipice into the
deep, dark, silent waters of the lagoon. Once there, I tell you fairly,
you might wait for a long while before the Marquise, or Mademoiselle, or
myself would wet a finger to pull you out!”

Thus urging on his listener the importance of her task, now in plain
direct terms, now in the figurative language of parables, their drive
seemed to have lasted but a few minutes, when it was brought to an abrupt
termination by the stoppage of the coach before Signor Bartoletti’s
residence.

It appeared that the visitors were expected, for a couple of his
heavily-decorated footmen waited on the stairs, and Célandine, following
the Abbé with wondering eyes and faltering steps, found herself received
with as much pomp and ceremony as if she had been a Princess of the Blood.

They were ushered into the room that communicated with his laboratory.
It was empty, but wine and fruit stood on the table. Malletort pressed
the Quadroon to taste the former in vain. Then he passed without ceremony
into the adjoining apartment, assuring her of his speedy return.

Left to herself, Célandine drank greedily from the water-jug ere she
crossed the floor on tiptoe, stealthy as a wild cat, and pressing her
ear to the door, applied all her faculties intently to the one act of
listening.

She heard the Abbé’s greeting distinctly enough, and the sentence
immediately following, spoken laughingly, as usual.

“The parts are cast,” said he, “and the stage prepared. It remains but to
dress the principal actress and make her perfect in her cue.”

“Have you brought her?” answered an eager voice, hurried, agitated, and
scarcely above a whisper.

Indistinct as were the syllables, their effect on the Quadroon was like
magic. She started, she passed her hand wildly across her face; her
very lips turned white, and she trembled in every limb. Her attitude
was no longer the simple act of listening. In concentrated eagerness it
resembled the crouch of a leopard before its spring.

The door opened, and she sprang in good earnest. As Bartoletti crossed
the threshold she flew at him, and with one pounce had him fast by the
throat.

“Where is he?” she screamed, with foaming lips and flashing eyes. “Where
is he? What have you done with him? I will kill you if you do not tell
me. Man! Beast! Monster! Where have you hid my child?”

It took all the Abbé’s strength, combined with the Italian’s own efforts,
to untwine those nervous fingers. At last he shook himself free, to
stand gasping, panting, wiping his face, exhausted, terror-stricken, and
unmanned.

When her physical powers yielded, her nervous system gave way as well.
Sinking into a chair, she sobbed and wept hysterically, rocking herself
to and fro, murmuring—

“My baby! My fair-faced baby! My own! My only child!”

Bartoletti had by this time found his voice, though still husky and
unstrung.

“Célandine!” he exclaimed, and the tone denoted fear, anxiety, surprise,
even disgust, yet a something of tenderness and interest ran through it
all.

Malletort lifted his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and had recourse
to his snuff-box. A few words had settled his business with the Adept,
and his fine perceptions told him that in a scene like the present,
however it originated, the interference of a third person would do more
harm than good. Had he permitted himself such weaknesses, he felt he
could have been astonished; but the Abbé had long established as an
axiom, that, “he might be disgusted, but could never be surprised.” He
had skill to distinguish, moreover, the nice point at which a delicate
piece of workmanship may be quite spoiled by one additional touch, and
knew the exact moment when it is advisable to leave both well and ill
alone; so he pocketed his snuff-box, and made a bow to the agitated pair.

“An unexpected recognition,” said he, politely, “and agitating, I
perceive, to both. My introduction is then unnecessary. Pardon! You will
permit me to wish you good-day, and leave you to arrange matters between
yourselves!”

Insensibly Bartoletti opened the door for his guest. Insensibly he
returned the parting salutation, and insensibly, like a sleep-walker, he
sat down opposite and gazed blankly in the Quadroon’s face.

She at least was awake, and on the alert. The storm of her emotion had
subsided. She summoned all her energies for the object she had in view.

“Stefano!” she said, in a kindly conciliating tone, “forgive my violence.
You and I have been friends for years. You know my quick temper of old. I
can trust you. You can never be indifferent to my welfare.”

He was sufficiently reassured by this time to fill a large goblet of
wine, which he half emptied at a gulp. His cheek regained its swarthy
bloom, and his little black eye glistened fondly, while he answered—

“Never indifferent, Célandine! Never false! Never changed in all these
years!”

She was, as we know, one-fourth a negress, and past middle age—of an
exterior so wild and weird, that the courtiers called her, as we also
know, “The Mother of Satan.” He was turned fifty, self-indulgent,
dishonest, with oily skin and beady eyes; short, swarthy, thick-set, and
altogether not unlike a mole! Yet was there a spark of true love for his
visitor lurking somewhere not entirely smothered amongst all the mass of
impurities with which the man’s heart was filled.

She was too much a woman to be quite unconscious of her power. She spoke
in soft and coaxing accents now, while she replied—

“I know it, Stefano. I believe it. I have also a good memory, and am
not likely to forget. And, Stefano, you have a kind heart—you will not
keep me longer in suspense about the child. He is here? In this house?
In the next room? Oh! let me see him! Let me only see him, and I will do
anything you ask!”

She had slid from her chair, and knelt before him, holding the Adept’s
scarred, burned fingers to her lips.

His face betrayed the pain he suffered in inflicting pain on her. “What
can I tell you?” he answered. “It is cruel to deceive you. It is cruel to
speak the truth. I have never seen the boy since he left me. Do you think
I would have kept him from you? How can I find him? How can I bring him
back? You talk as if I was King of France!”

A horrible fear came across her. She rose to her feet, and shook both
fists in his face.

“Man!” she exclaimed, “do not tell me he is dead! You shall answer for
it, if heaven or hell have any power on earth!”

There were tears in his little beady eyes, unaccustomed tears, that
vouched for his truth, even to _her_, while he replied—

“You are unjust, Célandine; and you would see your injustice if you did
but think for a moment. What had I to gain by taking care of the boy?
What had I to gain by ridding myself of him? Had I been to blame, do you
suppose I should have sent you the earliest information of his flight?
Have I not felt your sorrows keenly as if they were my own? Do I not feel
for you now? Listen. I am the same Stefano Bartoletti who told you the
secret of his life, the desire of his heart, by the side of that sweet
serene lagoon, in the beautiful island which probably neither of us may
ever see again. I have learned many strange lessons—I have witnessed
many strange scenes since then. Many years have passed over my head, and
wisdom has not despised me as the least apt among her pupils. Statesmen,
nobles, princes themselves have been glad to visit me in person, and reap
the fruit of my studies and my experience. But I tell you, Célandine,”
and here the little man smote his breast, and for the moment looked every
inch a champion, “I am the same Stefano Bartoletti. I swear to you that
if you will but join me heart and hand in this, the last and greatest of
my schemes, I will never rest till I have found the boy, and brought him
back into his mother’s arms!”

She gave a wild, fierce cry of joy, and was hugging the brown hand to her
bosom once more.

“Money,” observed the Signor, walking thoughtfully up and down the room
as soon as she had sufficiently composed herself to listen, “money, you
perceive, is the one thing we require. Money alone can overcome this,
like all other difficulties on earth. Money in sufficient quantity would
make me independent, contented, perhaps happy.” Here he stole a tender
look in the Quadroon’s face. “Money would enable me to quit these cold,
dull regions; this constrained, confined, unnatural life. Money would
restore _me_ my liberty, and _you_ your child. Célandine, will you help
me to get it?”

He had touched the right chord. There was eager hope and wild
unscrupulous energy in her face while she answered—

“I will! I swear it! Heart and hand I go in with you for this object, and
neither fire nor water, nor steel nor poison shall turn me now. You know
me, Stefano. I will shrink from nothing. But it is—it is not a question
of blood?”

“No, no!” he replied, laughing. “You, too, are unchanged, Célandine.
Always in extremes. Make yourself easy on that score. It is but a trick
of your former trade. None but yourself can do it half so well. I will
explain it all in five minutes when I have finished this cup of wine.
But, Célandine,” and here her old admirer drew closer and whispered in
her ear.

“I cannot tell,” she laughed. “It is impossible to give an answer yet.”

“And the price?” continued he, earnestly. “Surely it must have fallen
now, though the Marquise is hard to deal with on such matters.”

The Quadroon shook her head archly, indeed, coquettishly for her years
and replied—

“Certainly not less than a couple of thousand francs?”

“But suppose she knew everything!” urged the lover.

“Then I think she would be so angry, she would have me flogged and give
me away for nothing!”

He shook his head, pondering deeply. The flogging was indeed a serious
consideration. But then, what a reduction it would make in the price!

There was grave matter, he thought, for reflection in the whole business,
and his manner was more sedate than usual, while he instructed Célandine
in a certain part that the Abbé and he had agreed she should perform.




CHAPTER XIV

THE DÉBONNAIRE


“It is good to be superior to mortal weakness,” said Malletort to himself
as he re-entered his coach and drove from Bartoletti’s door. “In the
human subject I cannot but observe how few emotions are conducive to
happiness. That which touches the heart seems always prejudicial to the
stomach. How ridiculous, how derogatory, and how uncomfortable to turn
red and pale, to burst into tears, to spring at people’s throats, nay,
even to feel the pulse beat, the head swim, the voice fail at a word, a
look, a presence! What, then, constitutes the true well-being of man,
the _summum bonum_, the vantage point, the grand _desideratum_ to which
all philosophy is directed? Self-command! But self-command leads to the
command of others—to success, to victory, to power! and power, with none
to share it, none to benefit by it, is it worth the labour of attainment?
Can it be that its eminence is but like the crest of a mountain, from
which the more extended the horizon the flatter and the more monotonous
appears the view. It may, but what matter? Let me only get to the summit,
and I can always come down again at my leisure. _Basta!_ here we are. Now
to gain a foothold on the slippery path that leads to the very top!”

The Abbé’s carriage was brought to a halt while he spoke by a post of
Grey Musketeers stationed in front of the Palais-Royal. The churchman’s
plain and quiet equipage had no right of entrance, and he alighted to
pass through the narrow ingress left unguarded for foot-passengers. Hence
he crossed a paved court, turned short into a wing of the building with
which he seemed well acquainted, and stopped at the foot of a narrow
staircase, guarded by one solitary sentry of the corps.

It was our acquaintance, Bras-de-Fer, beguiling the tedium of his watch
by a mental review of his own adventures in love and war.

The Abbé knew everybody, and the grim Musketeer saluted his holy friend
cordially enough, excusing himself, while he balanced his heavy weapon
across his breast, that his orders forbade him to allow any one to pass.

“Lay down your arms, my son,” said the churchman, good-humouredly. “How
your wrists must ache by supper-time! I have but three words to say to
your captain, and if you will bend your tall head lower by a few inches I
can give you the countersign.”

With that he whispered it in his ear, and Bras-de-Fer, again excusing
himself, bade him pass on, regaining an attitude of extreme stiffness
and martial severity, as if to make amends for past civility somewhat at
variance with established discipline.

A green-baize door at the head of the staircase swung open to the Abbé’s
push, admitting him to an ante-room, of which Captain George was the only
occupant. He, too, seemed weary of his watch, which was tedious from
its dull unvarying routine—void of excitement, yet entailing grave and
oppressive responsibilities. His greeting to Malletort, however, was more
cordial, so thought that keen observer, than is afforded by a man who
merely wearies of his own society; and the Abbé was right in his general
impression, only wrong in detail.

Captain George was indeed favourably affected to everybody connected,
however distantly, with the house of Montmirail. So far the Abbé judged
correctly enough, but he missed the true cause by a hair’s-breadth, and
attributed to the magic of black eyes an effect exclusively owing to blue.

There was little leisure, however, for exchange of compliments, and the
Musketeer’s solitude was to be relieved but for a few precious moments at
a time.

“His Highness has already twice asked for you,” said he, in the tone of
an injured man. “You had better go in at once.” So Malletort, leaving
the ill-used warrior to his own companionship, passed on to an inner
apartment, taking with him a stool in his hand, as was the custom, in
case the interview should be protracted, and the Regent require him to
sit down.

The room he entered was small, gloomy, panelled with a dark-coloured
wood, octagonal in shape, relieved by very little furniture, and having
another door, opposite that which admitted the visitor, concealed by
heavy velvet curtains. At the solitary table, and on the single chair the
apartment contained, a man was seated, writing busily, with his back to
the Abbé. A general air of litter pervaded the place, and although the
table was heaped with papers, several more were scattered in disorder
over the floor.

The writer continued his occupation for several minutes, as if
unconscious of the Abbé’s presence. Suddenly he gave a sigh of relief,
pushed his chair back from the table, and looked up joyously, like a
schoolboy interrupted in his task.

“You are welcome, monsieur, you are welcome,” said he, rising and
pacing to and fro with short, quick steps, while Malletort performed a
series of courtly and elaborate bows. “I am about wearied of figures,
and I have been saying to myself, with every passing step for the
last half-hour, ‘Ah! here comes my little Abbé, who confines himself
exclusively to facts—my material and deep-thinking churchman, the best
judge in Christendom of wine, pictures, carriages, cutlets, ankles,
eyelashes, probabilities, dress, devilry, and deeds of darkness. Here are
calculations of Las, to show us all how we need only be able to write our
names, and so acquire boundless wealth; but the miserable Scotchman knows
no more than the dead how to spend his millions. Would you believe it, my
dear fellow, Vaudeville dined with him last night, and they served olives
with the stewed ortolans? Olives, I tell you, with ortolans! The man must
be a hog!” And the Regent wrinkled up his forehead while he spoke in a
favourite grimace, that he flattered himself resembled the portraits of
Henri Quatre.

He bore, indeed, a kind of spurious resemblance to that great king and
gallant soldier, but the resemblance of the brach to the deer-hound, the
palfrey to the war-horse, the hawk to the eagle. He made the most of it,
however, such as it was; brushed his dark hair into a cluster on the top
of his head, contracted the point of his nose, elongated his chin, and
elevated his eyebrows, till he almost fancied himself the first Bourbon
who sat on the throne of France. Nay, he even went so far as to wear his
stockings and the knees of his breeches extremely tight, while the latter
were gathered and puckered loosely about the waist, to approach as nearly
as possible the costume in which the hero was usually portrayed.

In all the worst points of his paragon’s character he copied him to the
life, only exaggerating to habitual vice the love of pleasure that was
Henry’s principal weakness. As the Duke’s face was broad, high-coloured,
good-humoured, nay, notwithstanding the marks it bore of his excesses,
tolerably well-favoured, while his figure, though scarcely tall enough
for dignity, was robust and in fair proportion, the imitation seemed,
perhaps, not entirely unfaithful to its original. Both possessed in a
high degree the charm of an exquisite manner; but while the King of
Navarre combined with a monarch’s condescension the frank and simple
bearing of a soldier, the Duke of Orleans was especially distinguished
for the suavity and external ease that mark the address of an
accomplished gentleman.

This prince possessed, no doubt, the germ of many good qualities, but
how could the most promising seed bear fruit when it was choked up and
overgrown by such rank weeds as gluttony, drunkenness, and sensuality?
vices which seem to sap the energy of the mind as surely, if not so
rapidly, as they destroy the vigour of the body.

Yet the Regent was gifted with a certain persuasive eloquence, a
certain facility of speech and gesture, invaluable to those who have
the conduct of public affairs. He possessed a faithful memory, ready
wit, imperturbable good-humour, and quickness of perception in seizing
the salient points of a subject, which made him appear, at least, a
capable politician, if not a deep and far-seeing statesman. Neither was
he wanting in that firmness which was so much required by the state
of parties at the time when he assumed the Regency, and this was the
more remarkable, that his nervous system could not but have been much
deteriorated and deranged by the frequency and extravagance of his
debauches. Meantime, we have left the Abbé bowing and the Duke grimacing
at the bare idea of brown game and olives in the same stew-pan, a subject
that occupied his attention for several minutes. Rousing himself after
a while, he began, as usual, to detail the proceedings of the morning’s
council to Malletort, who had grown by degrees, from a mere comrade
of his pleasures, into the confidential and principal adviser of his
schemes. It promised to be a long report, and he motioned the Abbé,
who had fortunately prepared himself with a stool, to sit down. There
were many complaints to make—many knots to unfasten—many interests to
reconcile, but the Abbé listened patiently, and suggested remedies for
each in turn.

The parliament had been refractory. Nothing could bring them to
subjection but a Bed of Justice, or full assemblage of peers and
representatives in presence of the young king.

The Keeper of the Seals was unreasonable. He must be forced into
collision with the parliament, whom he had always held in antagonism, and
they might be left to punish each other.

The Duc du Maine and Marshal de Villeroy, constant thorns in the Regent’s
side, had applied for more powers, more pomp, and, worse still, more
money, on the score of the young king. His Majesty must be set against
his governors, and it could best be done by making a festival for him
to which these would not trust his person, and from which an enforced
restriction would cause the royal pupil to feel himself shamefully
aggrieved. In short, conflicting interests were to be reconciled, if
their disunion seemed to threaten the Government; political parties to be
dissolved by a judicious apple of discord thrown in their midst at the
Abbé’s instigation; and a general balance of power to be established, in
which the Regent could always preponderate by lending his own weight to
the scale. Altogether a dozen difficulties of statecraft were disposed
of in as many minutes, and the Duke, rising from the table, pressed his
hand familiarly on the confidant’s shoulder, to keep him in his seat, and
exclaimed, gaily—

“They may well call me the ‘Débonnaire,’ little Abbé. Hein! There have
been but two Bourbons yet who ever _understood_ France. One was a king,
and the other—well, the other is only a regent. No matter. Cric! Crac!
Two snaps of the fingers, and everything fits into its place like a game
at dominoes. But, little Abbé,” added the exulting politician, while
his brow clouded and he forgot to look like Henri Quatre, “to govern
the nation signifies but ruling _men_. Such matters arrange themselves.
The state machine can go without a push. But I have worse complications
than these. Counsel me, my dear Abbé. There is discord dire this morning
throughout the women. I tell you the whole heap are at daggers drawn with
one another, and my life is hardly safe amongst them all.”

Malletort smiled and shook his head. The difficulty was natural enough,
but the remedy required consideration. So he opened his snuff-box.

“There is a tribe of Arabs,” he replied, “Highness, far up in the desert,
of whom I have heard that their religion permits each man to marry two
wives, but with the stipulation, at first sight reasonable enough, that
he should live with them both in one tent. The practice of bigamy, I
understand, has in that tribe so fallen into disuse as to be completely
unknown.”

The Regent laughed loudly. “I believe it,” said he, “I believe it
implicitly. Powers of strife! and parts of speech. A man should be blind
and deaf also to endure the Parabére and the Sabran in neighbouring
_faubourgs_, not to speak of the same tent! Ah! these Orientals
understand domestic government thoroughly. The harem is a place for
repose, and a noisy woman soon quits it, I believe, by the river-gate. We
too have the Seine, but alas! where is the sack? I tell you, Malletort, I
am tired of them both. I am tired of them all. Madame la Duchesse may be
cold, pompous, stiff, contradictory, and, oh! as wearisome as a funeral!
but at least she remains half the day in her own apartments, and can
command herself sufficiently to behave with decency when she leaves them.”

“Madame la Duchesse,”replied the Abbé, bowing reverentially, “is an
exemplary and adorable princess. She has but one fault, perhaps I should
say less her fault than her misfortune—she is your Highness’s wife.”

The Débonnaire laughed again, loud and long. “Well said, little Abbé!”
he exclaimed. “_My_ fault, _her_ misfortune. Nevertheless the crime is
unpardonable—so no more of _her_. How shall I reconcile Madame de Sabran
and Madame de Parabére? I tell you, they sup with us this very night.
You make one, Abbé, of course!” Malletort bowed lower than ever. “But
think of these two at enmity across my narrow table! Why the Centaurs
and Lapithæ would be a love-feast compared to it. Like my ancestor of
Navarre, Monsieur l’Abbé, I fear neither man nor devil, but there are
some women, I honestly confess, whose anger I dare not encounter, and
that is the truth!”

“I know nothing of women and their ways,” answered Malletort, humbly.
“It is a science my profession and my inclinations forbid me alike
to understand, but I imagine that in gallantry as in chemistry,
counteracting influences are most effectual when of a cognate nature to
the evil. _Similia similibus curantur_; and your Highness can have no
difficulty, surely, in applying a thousand smiling soft-spoken antidotes
to two scowling women.”

The Regent shook his head gravely. It was a subject of which he had
diligently studied both theory and practice, yet found he knew little
more about it than when he began.

“They are all so different,” he complained, peevishly, “and yet all so
alike in their utter insensibility to reason, their perverted wilfulness
in looking on impossibilities as accomplished facts. There is Madame de
Sabran wants me to make her a duchess of France! ‘How can I make you
a duchess of France, madame?’ said I. ‘Would you have your “mastiff,”
as you call him, created a duke for _your_ services?’ ‘He would make
a better than so and so, and so and so,’ she answered, as coolly as
possible, naming half-a-dozen, who it must be confessed are not one bit
more respectable! That is another thing about the woman, she always
contrives to have a distorted shadow of reason, like a stick in the
water, on her side. It was only the other day I made him one of my
chamberlains, and now she declares he ought to be given a step of rank to
uphold the dignity of the office. How can you reason with such a woman as
that?”

“Waste of time, Highness!” answered Malletort, composedly. “They are born
not to be instructed, but admired!”

“I used to admire her more than I do now,” observed the Regent,
thoughtfully. “Still the woman is amusing and witty; there is no denying
it. Besides, she speaks her mind freely, and however violent the passions
she puts herself in, they are over in five minutes. But what am I to
do with the other? I give you the honour of a Bourbon, my friend, she
has not uttered a syllable beyond ‘Yes, monsieur,’ ‘No, monsieur,’
since yesterday afternoon, when she dropped at once from the height of
good-humour into a fit of impenetrable sulks.”

“Without the slightest cause, of course!” observed the Abbé.

“Without the slightest cause,” repeated the Prince, “at least that I
could discover. There was indeed a slight difficulty about some flowers.
I had promised her a bouquet of stephanotis for the masked ball to-night.
It is rare—its smell is to me overpowering, but it is her favourite
perfume. Well, my people scoured the country for half-a-dozen leagues
round Paris, and none was to be procured. With you or me, Abbé, the
conclusion would seem natural enough, that if the stephanotis has not yet
bloomed, the stephanotis cannot yet be in flower. But to a woman—bah—such
an argument is no reason at all! It is quite possible she may even refuse
to accompany me to the ball to-night!”

Malletort did not think so, and his hopes, just now so buoyant, lost
nothing by a suggestion which only betrayed his patron’s ignorance of the
female mind.

“Ah, Highness,” he exclaimed, throwing a gleam of sympathy into his
eyes, which contrasted much with their usual expression, “how completely
is your condescension misjudged! how utterly your kind heart thrown
away! You say truly, women are so different. These think of their own
aggrandisement even while they bask in your affection. Others here
at Court would throw themselves body and soul at your feet were you
to-morrow changed into a simple page from Duke of Orleans and Master of
France!”

“How?” exclaimed the Regent, unable to conceal that his vanity was
gratified. “Do you speak from your own knowledge? Are you laughing at me?
How can you possibly have found this out?”

“It is indeed a matter quite beyond my province,” answered the Abbé; “but
circumstances have thrown me so frequently into the society of one of the
ladies in question, that I must indeed have been blind not to perceive
the truth. Excuse me, Highness, I had rather not pursue the subject any
farther.”

But the Regent was not so to be put off. With all his shrewdness, he had
considerable personal vanity, and but for his debaucheries, might perhaps
have shown some sensibility of heart. In his mind he ran over the leading
beauties of the Court, and as he had been little scrupulous in paying
them attention, one and all, the riddle was perhaps the less difficult to
solve. His eye sparkled, and he clapped his hands like a schoolboy, while
he shouted out—

“I have it! I have it! Little Abbé, you have let the cat out of the bag.
Now I know why the proudest names in France have been offered her in
vain. Now I understand her defiance, her coldness, her unapproachable
dignity. Do you know, my friend, what you tell me is a veritable romance,
and, in return, I assure you I have never been insensible to the charms
of Madame de Montmirail!”

“You are speaking of my kinswoman, Monsieur le Duc,” replied the Abbé,
haughtily; “and a member of the proudest house in the kingdom. Your
Highness will be good enough to reflect that I mentioned no names, and
I have been too faithful a servant, I think, to deserve a gratuitous
insult.”

“Pardon, my dear Abbé!” exclaimed the Regent, with an affectation of deep
concern, though accepting Malletort’s protest, no doubt, at its real
value. “None can respect the house of Montmirail more than I do. None
can value the friendship of Abbé Malletort so much; but these women and
their whims turn my poor head. What did you advise about the Parabére? I
forget.”

“Dismiss her!” answered the churchman, shortly. “It will be one
embarrassment the less in your Highness’s career.”

“But she is so beautiful,” whimpered the Regent. “There is not such
another complexion in France. If I were to leave her, do you not think
half my nobility would be mad to pay their court to her? She is so white,
you see—so exceedingly white and soft. Such a skin, my dear Abbé. Such a
skin!”

“Skin her then!” replied Malletort, “and make a covering of her
integument for your arm-chair. It is the best advice I can offer your
Highness, and what I should do myself in your case.”

Then they both laughed at the brutal jest. The one because he was in high
good-humour with the prospect of his hinted conquest; the other because
he had not forgotten the bouquet, of which a few inhalations could turn
the whole face black; and because, reflecting on the rapid progress of
his schemes, he thought it only fair that those should laugh who win.

But in order thoroughly to act his part out, he returned to business
before he took his leave. “Those _Lettres de Cachet_!” he exclaimed, as
if he had just recollected them. “Did your Highness express your views on
the subject to your council?”

“I did indeed,” answered the Regent, significantly; “and the good old
custom is revived by an edict. But though he who seeks finds, I think he
is more sure to find who _hides_, and I will take care no man in France
shall use them but myself.”

Then Malletort bowed himself out, well satisfied, and found Captain
George in the ante-room, putting on his belts to receive the Black
Musketeers, whose band could be heard playing and their arms clashing as
they marched into the court to relieve guard.




CHAPTER XV

THE MASKED BALL


That night much noise and confusion reigned outside the Grand Opera
House. Torches flared, linkmen shouted, horses plunged, backed, and
clattered; oaths flew here and there, whips were plied, carriage-wheels
grated, coachmen swore, and, at short intervals, tall figures of the
Black Musketeers were called in to keep order, a duty they fulfilled in
a summary manner, with little forbearance to the public, dealing kicks,
cuffs, and such remonstrances freely around, and clearing a space,
wherever space was required, by dropping the butts of their heavy weapons
on the feet of the recoiling crowd. With such powerful assistance, coach
after coach deposited its load at the grand entrance, around which were
congregated valets and lackeys wearing the liveries of the noblest
families in France.

Beautiful and gorgeous were the dresses thus emerging for an instant
under the red glare of torchlight, to disappear through the folding-doors
within. Shimmering the satin, and sparkling with jewels, the loveliest
women of the capital passed in review for three paces before the
populace, little loth, perhaps, to submit their toilets to the scientific
criticism of a Parisian crowd, a criticism that reached, however, no
higher than the chin, for every one of those fair French faces was hidden
in a black mask. Their gallants, on the contrary, came unprovided with
these defences, and the male bird, indeed, though without question the
uglier animal, was on the present occasion equal in brilliancy of plumage
to his mate.

It is, however, with the interior that we have to do; behind the
folding-doors that swallowed up these radiant visions in succession so
greedily. That interior was flooded in a warm yellow light. A hundred
glittering lustres shone and twinkled at narrow intervals, to stud the
curves of white and gold and crimson that belted the ample circle of the
building, while high in the centre of its dome an enormous chandelier
flashed and gleamed and dazzled, like some gigantic diamond shivered
into a thousand prismatic fragments. From roof to flooring fresh bright
colours bloomed in the boxes, as bloom the posies on a flower-stall;
while pit, stage, and orchestra, boarded to a level, had become a
shifting sea of brilliant hues, whirling, coiling, undulating, ebbing,
flowing, surging into a foam of light and snowy plumes, bearing in turn
each colour of the rainbow to its surface—flashing and glistening through
all its waters with a blaze of gems and gold.

Captain George was wading about in it, more preoccupied and less inclined
to take advantage of its gaieties than a musketeer usually found himself
in such a scene of revelry. His distinguished air and manly bearing drew
on him, indeed, gibes and taunts, half-raillery, half-compliment, from
many a rosy mouth smiling under its black mask; but to these he answered
not a word.

He was unlike himself to-night—dull, abstracted, and out of spirits. Even
Bras-de-Fer, he felt, would have composed and propounded his heaviest
retorts in less time than it took his captain to understand any one of
the jests levelled at a taciturnity so out of place. He was in no mood
for banter, nor intrigue, nor amusement—not even for supper. He wanted to
see Cerise; he confessed it to himself without reserve, yet he neither
expected nor wished to find her in such a scene as this.

An attachment between two young persons, if of a nature to arrive at
maturity, seems to gain growth and vigour in an inverse proportion to the
amount of care bestowed on its cultivation. The plant is by no means an
exotic, scarce even a garden-flower. Nay, I think a chance seedling of
this tribe comes to fuller perfection than either graft or cutting. It
is good for it also to be crushed, mangled, mown over, or trodden down.
Storms and snows and bitter frosts bring it rapidly into flower, and it
is astonishing, though a tropical blaze could not satisfy its wants, how
little sunshine is required to keep it alive.

Captain George’s meetings with Cerise were indeed as numerous as five
or six in the week; but they took place at an interval of twenty feet,
and consisted of low bows and eager glances from a gentleman on a gravel
walk, returned by the formal reverence and deep blush of a young lady in
a window-seat. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread,
I presume crumbs are acceptable when crusts are not to be obtained. So
the Musketeer had felt ill at ease all day, and was now in the most
unsuitable frame of mind possible for a masquerade, because the girl
had been absent from her window when he passed, which was indeed his
own fault, since, in his impatience, he had crossed the gardens of the
Hôtel Montmirail a quarter of an hour before his usual time, and had thus
perhaps inflicted as much disappointment as he sustained.

Now people in the irritable frame of mind caused by a little anxiety,
a little disappointment, and a good deal of uncertainty, seldom betake
themselves to solitude, which is indeed rather the resort of real
happiness or the refuge of utter despair. The simply discontented are
more prone to rush into a crowd, and Captain George had no idea of
abstaining from the Great Masked Ball at the Opera House, but rather made
his appearance somewhat earlier than his wont at this festivity, though
when there, he roamed about in a desultory and dissatisfied manner, first
dreading, then faintly hoping, and lastly ardently desiring to meet
Mademoiselle de Montmirail amongst that brilliant, shifting, bantering,
and mysterious throng. Disguised indeed! He would know her, he felt sure,
by her pretty feet alone, if she were masked down to her very ankles.

He was not so well versed in feminine arts but that he had yet to learn
how a lady who really wished to remain unknown at these gatherings would
alter her voice, her gestures, her figure, her gait—nay, the very shape
of her hands and feet, to deceive those on whom she wished to practise.

The majority, on the contrary, were most unwilling thus to sink their
identity, and only wore masks, I imagine, to hide the absence of blushes
at such direct compliments as were sure to be addressed to them, also as
an excuse for considerable freedom of speech in return.

The orchestra was pealing out a magnificent “Minuet de la Cour,” and
that stately measure, performed by a few couples of the handsomest
gallants and ladies of the Court, was eliciting the applause of a large
and critical circle, amongst whom Captain George made one, when a voice
thrilled in his ear, the tone of which brought the blood to his cheek,
while a masked figure beside him passed her hand lightly through his
arm. A tremendous flourish of brass instruments rendered the moment
well-chosen for secret communication; but the mask had apparently nothing
more confidential to say than this—

“_Qui cherche trouve!_ You seek something, fair Musketeer. If you are in
earnest, you shall find what you require!”

The voice reminded him almost painfully of Cerise, yet was it deeper and
fuller than the girl’s in tone. He scanned the figure at his side with
a quick penetrating glance; but she was so shrouded in a black satin
cloak reaching to the flounces of her ball-dress, that he gathered but
little from her inspection. He noted, however, a leaf of the stephanotis,
peeping from under the folds that concealed her bouquet, and recollecting
the events of the morning, made a shrewd guess at his companion.

Perhaps she would have thought him very stupid had it been otherwise.
All this elaborate artifice of disguise may have been for her own
deception, not his. She might talk to him more freely under protest, as
it were, that he had no right to know her; and she was, moreover, so well
enveloped and altered, that she could scarcely be identified by passing
acquaintances, or, indeed, by any one with whom she refused to converse.

“I seek only amusement,” answered the Musketeer, with the natural
instinct of mankind to disavow sentiment. “I have not yet found much, I
confess, though Point d’Appui’s airs and graces in the dance there would
afford it to any one who had not seen them as often as I have.”

She laughed scornfully, leaning on his arm. “And they call that thing
_a Man_!” said she, with an accent on the substantive extremely
uncomplimentary to Count Point d’Appui, who was indeed a handsome,
conceited, pleasant, young good-for-nothing enough; “and these are the
objects women break their hearts about—dress for them, dance for them,
die for them; nay, even come to masked balls, disfigured and disguised
for their unworthy sakes. What fools you must think us, Captain George;
and what fools we are!”

“You know me, madame,” exclaimed the Musketeer, affecting surprise,
rather as entering into the spirit of the scene than with any deeper
motive. “You must know, then, that I am amongst the most devoted and
respectful admirers of your sex.”

She laughed again the low soft laugh that was one of her greatest charms,
and lost, moreover, none of its attraction from her disguise.

“Know you!” she repeated, still leaning on his arm perhaps a little
heavier than before. “What lady in Paris does not know you as the citadel
to resist all her efforts of attack?—as the Orson, the woman-hater,
the man of marble, who has no vanity, no feelings, no heart?—the only
creature left in this uninteresting town worth conquering? And all those
who have tried it, no small number, vow that victory is impossible.”

“It shows how little they comprehend me,” he replied, in a tone of jest,
and still pretending not to recognise his companion, who held her head
down and took refuge studiously beneath her mask. “If you, madame, would
condescend to become better acquainted with me, you would soon learn the
falsehood of these ladies’ reports to my discredit!”

“Discredit!” she echoed, and to his surprise, nay, to his dismay, a tear
fell on the gloved hand within his arm. What could he do but dry it with
a kiss? “Discredit!” she said again, in a tone of increasing emotion.
“How little you must understand us if you can make use of such a term!
Who would care to possess that which half the town has worn and thrown
away? What is the value of a heart that has been cut into little scraps
and shreds, and left in portions at different friends’ houses like gifts
on New-year’s-day? No, monsieur, if I must give all I am worth for a
diamond, let it be such a diamond as the Regent’s—large, clear, and
entire—not a collection of fragments only held together by their golden
setting, like a necklace of Madame de Sabran or Madame de Parabére.”

Captain George did not quite follow out the metaphor, his attention being
at this moment somewhat distracted by a figure that reminded him of
Cerise, yet that he felt was as unlike Cerise as possible. The Musketeer
was also a very moderate proficient in the lighter accomplishments of
gallantry, being of a self-contained though energetic nature, that was
disposed to do its work thoroughly or not at all. He was one of those
men, of whom there are more in the world than ladies suppose, whose
respect for the sex restrains them from taking that initiative which
they forget the latter are especially privileged to decline. Unless,
therefore, a woman throws herself at their heads, they make no advances
at all, and then these wretches are just the sort of characters with
which such a course, repugnant to their instinctive sense of fitness, is
least likely to succeed, after all. They are consequently very difficult
birds to tame, and either escape altogether, or are lured into the cage,
accidentally as it were, by a pretty face, a shy manner, and some rare
combination of circumstances which nobody on earth could have foreseen.
When a lady has fairly started, however, and got warmed to her subject, I
imagine little is to be gained by interrupting her, and that no efforts
of eloquence find so much favour as the forbearance of a good listener.

The Marquise thought she had turned her last phrase very prettily,
and applied the image of the necklace with considerable art, so she
continued, without waiting for an answer, “You do not know me, Captain
George, though I know _you_. Also, I mention no names, therefore I break
no confidences. Do you remember the day the late king was taken ill, and
brought home, never to recover?”

His English blood stirred at the recollection of that gallant stag-hunt,
and his eye brightened. She observed it, and not sharing the insular
passion for an _innocent_ pursuit, drew her conclusions accordingly.

“I have not forgotten it,” he replied, calmly, “nor the beautiful
Marquise and her barb!”

She trembled with pleasure, but commanded her voice, and repeated
indifferently, “Ah! the beautiful Marquise! I fancy she nearly rode the
poor barb to death that day. What will a woman not do when her heart is
interested? Well, monsieur, have you ever spoken since to the beautiful
Marquise, as you call her, doubtless in ridicule?”

He began to think he _had_ been somewhat remiss, and that to prosecute
his intimacy with the mother would have been the easiest way of obtaining
access to the daughter. He was not given to self-examination, and did not
perceive that his very love for Cerise had prevented him yet entering the
house. “Do you know the Marquise de Montmirail?” was all he could find at
the moment to say.

“A little!” answered the mask, nodding her head. “But I have an intimate
friend who is very intimate with her indeed. You think women cannot be
friends, monsieur; you think they have no hearts; you little know the
lady of whom we speak. You see her as the world does, and you judge
her accordingly. How blind men are! If your eyes are not dazzled by
self-conceit, they are bandaged by an impenetrable and cold egotism. A
thing must touch your very noses, close like that,” and she thrust her
pretty hand up within an inch of his face, “or you will not believe in
its existence. Nevertheless, I could sometimes find it in my heart to
envy you your callousness, your stupidity, your indifference, and to wish
that I had been born a man.”

I think at the moment he almost wished it too, for although the voice was
very fascinating, and the situation not without its charm, she encumbered
him sadly in his search for the young lady whom yet he did not the least
expect to find.

The Marquise, however, was quite satisfied with her position, and
disposed to improve the occasion.

“A woman can have no _friends_,” she proceeded, speaking in a low tone
that the music rendered inaudible to all but her companion. “How I wish
she could! I know the sort of one I should choose—brave, steadfast,
constant, self-controlled; a gallant soldier, a loyal gentleman; above
all, a man uninfluenced by every eye that flashes, every lip that smiles.
And yet—and yet,” she added, while her soft voice sank to a whisper as
the music rose and swelled, “such an one would soon cease to be a friend.
Because—because―”

“Because why?” he asked, bending tenderly over her, for it was not in
man’s nature to remain uninfluenced by such words now spoken.

The dark eyes flashed through their mask, and the hand that rested on his
arm clenched tight while she replied—

“Because I should love him foolishly, madly, if he cared for me; and if
not—I should hate him so fiercely that―”

“You come with me from here!” said a loud good-humoured voice at this
interesting juncture, while a man’s hand was laid familiarly on the
Musketeer’s shoulder. “In a quarter of an hour my coach will be waiting
at the stage entrance. Not one of my _roués_ dare face it! I want a
fellow like you, who fears neither man nor devil!”

Captain George bowed low, with the mask, still leaning on his arm
curtsied to the ground.

“Highness,” said he, “I shall have the honour! It is a mere duty to
serve under his orders but it becomes _a pleasure_ when Monsieur le Duc
commands in person.”

“And to supper afterwards, of course,” added very graciously a lady who
was hanging on the Regent’s arm, and who carried her mask in her hand.
“Captain George is always welcome, as he knows, and we shall not be more
than a half-a-dozen at the outside.”

Again the Musketeer bowed low, and the Marquise, scanning the last
speaker intently, could not but acknowledge that to-night Madame de
Parabére looked more than usually beautiful. The _brunette_, too,
probably overrated the charms of the _blonde_, the exceeding delicacy of
complexion, the softness of skin, and the innocent baby face which so
fascinated the Regent. Also she thought she detected on that baby face a
decided preference for the Musketeer, and Madame de Montmirail was not
a woman to entertain the strongest passions of her sex and leave out
jealousy.

Had it not been for these suspicions, the bouquet of stephanotis might
have remained all night innocuous beneath her cloak, to be consumed in
the stove that warmed her chocolate when she got home. But the Marquise
allowed no one to cross her designs with impunity, and watching her new
enemy narrowly, began to handle her weapons and prepare for action.

The Regent had been traversing the throng of revellers with Madame de
Parabére on his arm; the latter, proud of her disgrace, and exulting
in her infamous position as his acknowledged mistress, had bared her
face, in order to receive the full tribute of admiration which her
beauty really deserved. Now, while the Duke stood still for a moment,
and exchanged a few jesting compliments and well-bred sarcasms with
the passing maskers, an encounter in which he acquitted himself with
considerable tact and ingenuity, his companion, dearly loving mischief,
turned all her batteries on Captain George.

The Marquise was, therefore, left planted as one too many; a situation to
which she, the spoiled child of society, was so unaccustomed, that she
could have cried with vexation, but for the revenge now literally within
her grasp.

So she peered, and watched, and waited, like a Grey Musketeer skirmishing.

Madame de Parabére, observing the Regent’s attention engaged elsewhere,
whispered something to George, looking insolently the while at his
companion, and laughed.

Then the Marquise primed her weapon, as it were, and shook the powder
well up in the pan. A leaf of the rare bouquet peeped from under its
covering.

Madame de Parabére, flirting and ogling outrageously, as was her
custom, whispered again in Captain George’s ear, with a little affected
laugh. It seemed to the eager watcher that her lips shaped the hated
syllables—“Mulatto.”

It was time to take aim now, sure and deadly, preparatory to giving fire.
A cluster of stephanotis showed out like ivory against the smooth black
satin.

Madame de Parabére clapped her hands, and exclaimed with a child’s glee,
“But madame, what a bouquet! Madame is indeed fortunate! Such flowers are
not to be procured within leagues of Paris. How exquisite! How ravishing!
Madame is so good. Madame will permit me to have one little breath of
their fragrance. Only one!”

The Marquise hesitated. An instinct of womanly forbearance prompted mercy
even to another woman. Vindictive as she felt, and with her finger on the
trigger, she would yet spare her, she thought; but the insolent creature
should know her enemy, and should be taught that even the Regent’s
favourite could not command such bouquets as the acknowledged beauty of
the Court.

“They were sent me as a gift, madame,” she observed, haughtily, and
withholding the flowers. “I value them because ours are not yet blown at
the Hôtel Montmirail.”

“Pardon, madame!” retorted the other, unable, now that she knew her, to
forego this opening for a thrust. “Tropical, of course! From an admirer,
madame? or perhaps a kinsman? Very dark, no doubt, and with close curled
hair. I offer you my compliments from the bottom of my heart!”

No quarter now. She had rushed upon her fate, and must be shot down
without the least compunction. “If madame will deign to accept my
bouquet,” said the Marquise, “she will do me the highest honour.” And she
displayed the whole of it, a wonder of nature, brought to perfection by
art.

Madame de Parabére, giddy, thoughtless, fond of flowers, stretched her
hand out eagerly, and Captain George, whose attention the Regent’s
conversation had diverted from this passage of arms between the ladies,
turned round while she was in the act of putting them enthusiastically to
her face.

He saw the situation at a glance, and his promptitude served him as usual.

“I must be ready for your Highness!” he exclaimed hurriedly, addressing
the Regent, but with his eye fixed on the treacherous flowers. “Madame,
I have the honour of wishing you a good-night!” he added in the same
breath; while with an energetic flourish of his cocked hat he knocked
them clean out of the lady’s hands to a few paces’ distance on the floor,
letting the hat follow; and as he recovered the latter, crushing the
bouquet to pieces, as if inadvertently, beneath his foot. It was the
second time he had practised this manœuvre within twelve hours, and he
was perfect in his lesson.

Rising with an affectation of great confusion, he made his excuses to
Madame de Parabére, contriving, amongst a torrent of phrases, to convey,
unobserved, the single word “Beware!” And she understood him, contenting
herself with a glance of intense gratitude, and an inward vow she would
never rest till she had found opportunity to repay both friend and foe.

The Regent laughed heartily at the joke. “You must have supped already,
my friend,” said he, “and not spared the wineflask. So much the better;
you are all the fitter for your night’s work. Come! let us be moving. It
is time we were off!”

Madame de Montmirail stood a while, stupefied, paralysed, as it were,
at the failure of an attack thus foiled by the last person in whom she
expected to find an opponent. The first instant she could have hated him
with all the fierceness of baffled rage. The next, she felt she had never
loved him half so well as now. He had thwarted her; he had tamed her; he
had saved her from crime, from ruin, from _herself_! All in one glance of
the keen eye, one turn of the ready hand. She acknowledged him for her
master, and to her such a sentiment was as fascinating as it was new. She
would have liked to burst out crying, and kneel at his feet, imploring to
be forgiven, had time and place permitted so romantic an exhibition. At
least, she could not let him go without another word, and Captain George,
following the Regent through the crowd towards the door, felt a hand laid
timidly on his arm, heard a broken voice whispering softly in his ear.

She trembled all over. Her very lips shook while she murmured, “Forgive
me, monsieur! I must explain all. I _must_ see you again. Where do you go
to-night?”

“To sup with his Highness,” answered the Musketeer, keeping the Duke’s
figure in sight as it threaded the jostling, shifting throng of noisy
revellers.

“But that is not till midnight,” she urged. “He said something about
duty. You are brave! You are rash! For heaven’s sake, promise you will
not rush into needless danger!”

He laughed good-humouredly, and reassured her at once. “Danger! madame!
Nothing of the kind. I can trust you not to gossip. It is a mere frolic.
We are going a league or two out of Paris, _to raise the devil_!” And
observing the Duke turning back for him, he escaped from her and was lost
in the crowd.

She looked longingly after him, and sighed. “To raise the devil!” she
repeated, pressing both hands on her heart. “And not the only one
to-night. Alas! you have raised one here that none but yourself can lay!”

Then the Marquise, still retaining her disguise, passed hastily through
the ball, till she reached the street, and gaining her carriage, was
driven straight home to the Hôtel Montmirail, weeping, softly and
patiently, behind her mask.




CHAPTER XVI

RAISING THE DEVIL


The Black Musketeers on duty cleared a lane for the Regent at the door,
and the lower orders, with whom, despite his bad character, a certain
joviality of manner made him no small favourite, cheered vociferously as
he passed. “The Débonnaire goes home early,” said one. “He has a child in
the pot for supper,” shouted another. “I wish his Highness would ask me
to eat with him!” exclaimed a third. “Or drink with him!” added a fourth.
While a little hunchback, hideous and distorted, observed, in a dry,
shrill voice, that made itself heard above all the clamour, “His Highness
has a _rendezvous_, I tell you! Lads, where are your manners? Débonnaire!
send me the bones to pick when you’ve done with them!”

A peal of laughter and a volley of cheers followed his state-coach
as it rolled off at a slow, lumbering trot, with which a man on foot
could easily keep up. Captain George had been directed to do so, and
accompanied it to the entrance of a gloomy narrow street, where the tall
cloaked figure of Bras-de-Fer was waiting, according to orders. Here
it stopped, the Regent alighted rapidly, and signing to his coachman
to drive on, dived into a gulf of darkness, closely attended by the
Musketeer and his comrade.

A few paces brought them to an open _calèche_, drawn by a pair of English
horses, driven from the saddle, and containing one solitary occupant,
also enveloped in a cloak, who leaped out when he heard footsteps, and
uncovered while he assisted the Regent to his place. He then seated
himself opposite; Bras-de-Fer followed, his example; Captain George,
at a signal from the Duke, placed himself by his Highness; and in a few
minutes the whole party were across the Seine, beyond the barrier, which
had been thrown back, and clattering along a paved road at a gallop
through the open country.

The moon came out as they cleared Paris, and each man looked in the
other’s face to read, according to their respective temperaments, signs
of amusement, self-confidence, anxiety, or alarm. The Duke, though
nervous, seemed strung to a certain pitch of resolution. Bras-de-Fer
swelled with pride at the royal confidence thus reposed in him;
and Captain George smiled quietly to mark the trepidation of their
fourth companion, none other than Signor Stefano Bartoletti—chemist,
philosopher, astrologer, professor of medicine, mathematics, and
magic—black or white as required.

It is strange how the most effective impostors become so saturated, as
it were, with their profession, that they cannot resist the influence of
a vague enthusiasm which breeds artificial belief, fascinating, though
transparently absurd, in the tricks they themselves practise. Perhaps
there is something of the true artist in every man who succeeds, whatever
be the nature of his enterprise; and the true artist can never place
himself entirely apart from, or outside of, his art. Signor Bartoletti,
who had engaged to raise the enemy of mankind for the Regent’s
gratification, was unquestionably the most nervous of the whole party
lest they should be taken at their word.

Captain George, to begin with, anticipated nothing but a trick, and took
the matter, therefore, as coolly as he did everything else unconnected
with Cerise de Montmirail. Bras-de-Fer, on the contrary, was persuaded he
should be called on to confront the arch-fiend in person; but believing
himself a good Catholic, while he knew he was an excellent swordsman,
his courage rose, and he smiled grimly in his moustache at the thought
of so distinguished an adversary. Even the devil, he argued, could not
be much worse than Marlborough’s Grenadiers, and he had faced them many
a time without getting the worst of the encounter. He even calculated
whether he might not bring into play, with considerable effect, the
thrust lately introduced into the corps by Beaudésir, but postponed
further consideration of the point till he should know what kind of
weapons were to be used in the field. The Regent, excited, credulous,
impressible, loving the marvellous, and inclined to believe anything that
was _not_ in the Bible, found his spirits rise with the anticipation of a
new distraction; and being in that exalted state which those experience
at rare intervals whose orgies are alternated with strong intellectual
labour, found himself actually dreading a disappointment in the vision he
anticipated.

Bartoletti felt how uncomfortably it would turn out, if, after all the
pains of Malletort and himself to instruct the actress in her part, after
all their care in scenery, decorations, and rehearsal, the original
should take it into his head to assist at the performance in person!

Ere they were a league out of Paris his teeth began to chatter, though
his breath smelt strong of the last suck of brandy that had comforted him
before they started.

The English horses drew them swift as the wind. It seemed but a short
half-hour ere they stopped at a gate opening into a wood, shadowy,
dark, and dreadful, after the dusty road and level meadows glistening
silver-white in the moonlight. The two Musketeers, accustomed to look
about them, perceived at their feet a track of wheels, which had
obviously preceded their carriage. Bras-de-Fer felt a little disappointed.

“_L’affaire commence!_” whispered the Regent, loosening his sword, as
he prepared to follow Bartoletti through the wood. “Keep close to me,
gentlemen, and look that we be not taken in rear!”

The path was narrow, winding, and exceedingly dark; but after a furlong
or two the party emerged on an open space, and found their progress
stopped by a level wall of rock, hewn perfectly smooth, and several
yards in height. Bathed in a strong moonlight, every particle on its
gritty surface glistened like crystal, and its crest of stunted trees and
thick-growing shrubs cut clear and black against the cloudless sky.

Here the adept halted and looked round. “Highness,” he whispered, “we
have reached our journey’s end; have you courage to enter the cave?”

The Duke’s face was pale, but he glanced at his two Musketeers, and
answered, “After you, monsieur!”

Then the four, in Indian file, turned through an opening, or rather a
mere hole in the rock, to follow a low, narrow passage, in which, ere
they had advanced three paces, the darkness became impenetrable. They
groped their way in silence, each listening to the hard breathing of his
predecessor. Bras-de-Fer, who was last, fervently hoping their ghostly
enemy might not attack them until, as he would have expressed it, they
could “deploy into line.”

The corridor, however, as we may call it, grew wider and loftier at
every step. Presently they marched upright, and two abreast. There was
a constant drip from the damp stone that encircled them, and the hard
smooth surface on which they trod felt cool and refreshing to their feet.

Bras-de-Fer could not restrain a sneeze. It resounded above their heads,
and died away farther and fainter in a hundred whispering echoes.

Bartoletti started violently, and the Duke’s hand went to his sword. Then
the magician halted, pulled a vial from his breast, and dipping a match
in it, produced a strong rose-coloured flame, from which he lit the small
lamp that hung at his belt.

Whilst the match flared and shone, they saw plainly for several yards
in every direction. They were in a low vaulted cavern, hewn, to all
appearance, by no mortal hands, out of the rock. They stood on a
slightly-elevated platform, and at their feet lay a glistening sheet of
black that could only be water. It was, however, a hasty examination, for
the match soon spent itself, and Bartoletti’s lamp gave but light enough,
as Bras-de-Fer observed, “to show how dark it was.”

“Are we on the banks of the Seine or the Styx?” asked the Regent,
jestingly, yet with a slight tremor in his voice.

“Man knoweth not whither this dark stream may lead,” replied Bartoletti,
solemnly, lighting at the same time a spare wick of his lamp, to embark
it on a morsel of wood which he pushed into the current.

For several minutes, as it seemed to their watching eyes, the light
floated farther and farther, till swallowed up by degrees in the black
distance.

All were now somewhat impressed with the gloom and mysterious silence of
the place. Bartoletti took courage, and informed the Regent he was about
to begin.

“Not till you have drawn a pentacle!” objected the Duke, apprehensively.
“Such a precaution should on no account be neglected.”

“It is unnecessary, Highness,” answered the other. “Against the
lesser fiends, indeed, it forms an impregnable defence; but he who is
approaching now, the very Prince of Darkness himself, cares no more for a
pentacle than you do!”

The Regent would not be satisfied, however, till, under Malletort’s
superintendence, he had drawn with the point of his sword a circle and
triangle in magic union on the bare rock. Then he ensconced himself
carefully within his lines, and bade the magician “go on.”

After a considerable display of mummery, and the repetition of many
sentences, which, as they were couched in Latin, Bartoletti felt would be
liable to little criticism from his listeners, he produced a small bundle
of shavings from under his cloak, and piling these on the water’s edge,
poured over the heap certain essences, ere he set the whole on fire. The
cavern now became filled with a thick cloud of smoke, fragrant in smell,
and though stupefying to the senses, not suffocating the lungs. Reflected
in the black water beneath, as the flames waved and leaped and flickered,
the unsteady light produced an effect of vast and shadowy distance on the
dim recesses of the cavern, and prepared the minds of the spectators for
some vague, uncertain, yet awful result.

Plunging it once more into his bundle, Bartoletti spread his hand over
the embers. A blue lurid glare, that turned all their faces ashen white,
now replaced the shifting wavering light of the flames.

“It is the death-fire!” whispered the Italian; and touching the Duke’s
shoulder, he pointed to the roof of the cavern.

A gigantic arm and hand, with forefinger pointed downwards, were shadowed
distinctly on its ribbed and slimy surface.

The Duke trembled, and sweat stood on his brow; Bartoletti, too,
shivered, though with less reason. Captain George nodded approvingly, and
Bras-de-Fer pulled the buckle of his sword-belt to the front.

“You may ask three questions,” whispered the shaking Italian. “Not
another syllable, if you would leave the cave alive!”

The Duke cleared his throat to speak, and his voice came dry and husky,
while he formed the words with effort, like a man using a foreign tongue.

“I adjure you, tell me truly, who is my chief enemy?”

Not one of them drew breath whilst they waited for the answer; and the
questioner himself looked down to see that his feet were scrupulously
within the pentacle.

It came sad, solemn, and as if from a distance, chanted in a full,
mournful and melodious tone:—

  “The foes a prince behoves to dread, that turn and tear their lord,
  Are those that haunt about his bed, and blush beside his board.”

Then the Regent, gaining courage, asked in a firmer voice, “Who is my
best friend?”

The reply was more distinct, and its clear emphasis seemed to vouch for
the speaker’s truth, Father of Lies though he might be called:—

  “One friend is thine, whose silent kiss clings subtle, sure, and fast;
  When all shall fail, yet shall not this, the swiftest, though the last.”

Thus encouraged, the royal questioner gathered heart with every fresh
answer, and it was in his customary unrestrained tone that he propounded
his last inquiry, “Shall I live to wear the crown of France?”

This time, however, the phantom arm waved backwards and forwards,
clenching its gigantic hand, while the demon’s voice seemed again to rise
from distant and mysterious depths, as it replied:—

  “When woman’s love can trust thy vows, when woman’s guileless glance
  Can thrill thy breast, bind on thy brows the diadem of France!
  Enough! For more I dare not tell. Glad life, and lusty reign!
  Predestined Prince, and fare thee well!—till we shall meet again!”

In five minutes all were once more in the open air. The Regent, grave
and preoccupied, spoke not a word while they passed swiftly through the
wood to gain their carriage; but Bras-de-Fer whispered in his comrade’s
ear, “It seems the devil is like the rest, and had rather not come to
close quarters with the Grey Musketeers.” To which professional remark
Captain George replied, thoughtfully—

“He is an adversary for whom I would choose a weapon that kept me as far
off him as possible!”




CHAPTER XVII

A QUIET SUPPER


In less than an hour, how changed the scene for two of the actors in that
mysterious drama—of which Bartoletti was chief manager and Malletort sat
in the prompter’s box! The Captain of Musketeers had been invited to sup
with the Regent, and found in his prince’s private apartments a little
party collected, whose mirth and high spirits were well calculated to
drive away any remains of superstitious gloom left by the incantations of
the cavern and their result.

The select suppers of the Duke of Orleans were conducted with an absence
of ceremony or restraint that indeed degenerated on occasion into the
grossest license; but even under the Regency men did not necessarily
conclude every night in the week with an orgy, and the mirth of the
_roués_ themselves was not always degraded into drunkenness, nor their
wit pushed to profanity and shameless indecency of speech.

Captain George found himself seated at a round table in an oval room,
of which the only other occupants, besides his royal host, were Madame
de Parabére, Madame de Sabran, Malletort, and Count Point d’Appui. The
latter, be it observed, excelled (for no one was admitted to these
reunions who had not some marked speciality) in the grace with which he
danced a minuet and the gravity with which he propounded the emptiest and
silliest remarks. Some of the courtiers affected to think this simplicity
only masked an intriguing disposition, and that Point d’Appui was, after
all “not quite such a fool as he looked.” A charitable suggestion,
endorsed by Madame de Sabran, with the observation, “The saints forbid he
should be!”

Altogether it was generally admitted that the Count’s strong point must
be sought rather in his heels than his head. He sat directly opposite
the Musketeer, and next to Abbé Malletort, who was between him and
Madame de Sabran. The latter was thus placed opposite the Regent, at
whose right hand Madame de Parabére had taken up her usual post. Captain
George found himself accordingly with a lady on either side, and as he
was distinguished, manly, quiet in manner, and above all, supposed to be
impenetrable of heart, he became an object of interest to both.

These hated each other, of course, but in a treacherous, well-bred
manner, and not so rancorously as to spoil their appreciation of an
excellent repast, served in pleasant company, under all the most
promising conditions for success. They were therefore, outwardly,
wondrous affectionate, and under protest as it were, with the buttons on
their foils, could be good companions enough.

The Duke prided himself on his suppers. Working at state affairs during
the day, and with a digestion considerably impaired by habitual excess,
dinner was a mere matter of form, often restricted indeed to a morsel of
bread and a cup of chocolate, served in the cabinet where he wrote. But
when the hours of business were past, and his system, too much gorged
over-night, had recovered from the fumes of wine and the torpor of
repletion, it was his delight to rush once more into those excesses of
appetite which unfitted his mornings for exertion, which robbed him of
half his existence while he lived, and killed him in the prime of manhood
at last.

But he understood well how the sacrifice should be offered. The
supper-room, we have said, was oval, panelled in a light cheerful wood,
highly-varnished, and decorated only by short pithy sentences, inlaid
in gaudy colours, of which the purport was to crop the flower while it
bloomed, to empty the cup while it sparkled, practically, to eat the
cutlet while it was hot, and consume as eagerly as possible the good
things provided for the senses. No pictures, no vases, no works of art
were suffered upon the walls to distract the attention of the guests from
their main object. The intellect, as seated at the farthest distance
from the stomach, might indeed be gently stimulated with wit, but the
imagination, the feelings, above all, the emotions that affect the
heart, were on no account to be disturbed during the ecstacies of the
palate or the pleasing languor and subsequent comfort of digestion. Not a
lackey nor servant of any kind entered the room. When one course had been
consumed, deliberately, methodically, and with much practical comment on
its merits, the table sank slowly through the floor, to be replaced by
another, bearing fresh dishes, fresh flowers, fresh napkins, everything
fresh prepared, to the very bills of fare, beautifully emblazoned, that
lay beside the cover of each guest. A strong light from above was shaded
to throw its rays directly on the board; but as plenty of this enlivener
is conducive to festivity, numerous lamps with bright reflectors flashed
at short distances from the walls. No pealing band deafened the ears
of the sitters, or drowned their conversation in its overpowering
strains; only ever and anon a faint long-drawn note, like the tone of a
far-distant organ, rose and fell and wavered, ere it died sweetly and
calmly away.

On these occasions, Point d’Appui never failed to pause, even with a
tempting morsel on his fork, and intimate to his neighbours that “he was
passionately given to music, and it reminded him of heaven!”

The Regent seemed much impressed with the visit he had made to the cavern
before supper, and it was not till he had emptied several goblets of
champagne that he regained his usual spirits. With the influence of wine,
however, his nerves recovered their tone, his eye brightened, his hand
steadied, and he joined in conversation as heretofore.

By this time a favourite dish had made its appearance, which went by the
name of the _pâté d’Orleans_. It consisted of the wings of pheasants
and other white game, boned, stuffed, and so manipulated as to resemble
the limbs of children; a similarity that gave rise to the most hideous
rumours amongst the lower classes. Many a worthy gossip in Paris believed
firmly that two or three infants were consumed nightly at the Regent’s
table, and none seemed to relish the report more than himself. He ate
vigorously of the _pâté_, emptied another goblet, and began to talk.
Madame de Parabére watched him closely. Something was going on she had
not fathomed, but she resolved to be at the bottom of it.

“Abbé!” shouted the Duke, “what are you about? Do you think I would
suffer little heathens on my table, that you baptize them with water?
They are the best of Christians, I tell you, my friend, and should be
well soused, like all good Christians, in wine.” Malletort, who had been
pouring stealthily out of a carafe at his elbow, accepted his host’s
challenge, and filled up from a flask.

“To your health, Highness! and confusion to your enemies—White and Red,”
said he, pointing to two measures of those Burgundies that happened to
stand before the ladies.

The Duke started. Malletort’s observation, simple as it seemed, brought
the diabolical prophecy to his mind, and again he sought courage from his
glass.

“Do you mean that for _us_, monsieur?” asked Madame de Sabran; “since his
Highness loves the Burgundy too well to count it a foe, though it has put
him on his back, I doubt not, often enough.

“Nay, madame,” answered the Abbé, bowing politely; “such as you can never
be foes, since you are born to be conquerors. If it did come to a fight,
I presume you would grant no quarter.”

“None,” said she, laughing. “Church and laymen, we should put you all to
the sword.”

“But the Church are non-combatants,” interposed Count Point d’Appui, with
perfect sincerity. “You would be excommunicated by our Father the Pope.
It is a different species, madame, altogether—a separate race.”

“Not a bit of it!” answered the lady. “Men to the tips of their fingers,
every one of them! Are you not, Abbé? No! When all is said and done,
there are but two distinct creations, and I never can believe they have a
common origin. Men and women I put in the one, princes and lackeys in the
other. What say _you_, madame?”

But Madame de Parabére said nothing. She sat in silence, pouting, because
it suited the shape of her mouth, and listening, for other reasons of her
own.

The Regent, who had now drunk wine enough to be both easily offended and
appeased, felt that the shaft aimed at him was not entirely undeserved.
So he asked, in anger, “How mean you, madame? I see not the drift of your
jest. In what are princes and lackeys so alike, and so different from the
rest of mankind?”

“Other bipeds” answered the lady, bitterly, “lie from habit, with
intention, or on occasion; but this variety never speaks the truth at
all, even by accident.”

The Duke’s face turned purple. Captain George, hoping to divert an
explosion, and feeling that he had been invited rather as a compliment
than for the sake of his society, rose and took his leave, on the score
of military duty; receiving, as he went out, a glance from Madame de
Parabére’s beautiful eyes, that assured him of her gratitude, her
interest, and her good-will.

His departure changed the subject of conversation. In two minutes the
Regent forgot he had been offended, and Madame de Sabran was busied in
the unworthy task of mystifying Count Point d’Appui, an employment which
her rival contemplated with a drowsy, languid air, as if she could hardly
keep herself awake.

The Abbé had watched her for some time with increasing interest and
considerable misgivings; the poison, he thought, should long ere this
have taken effect, and he expected every moment to observe a disturbance
of the placid features, a discolouration of the beautiful skin. Before
supper was over, he concluded that, as far as the flowers were concerned,
his plot had failed; but Malletort did not now need to learn the archer’s
want of another arrow in the quiver, a spare string for the bow: it
behoved him only to make the more use of such implements as he had kept
in reserve.

All his energy and all his cunning had been brought into play during the
night. Without his assistance, he felt sure the mummery of the cavern
must have failed, for he could trust neither the shaking nerves of the
Italian nor the superstitious self-deception of the quadroon. It was no
easy task to return to Paris so swiftly as to change his dress, show
himself at a reception in the Faubourg St. Germain, and thence proceed
leisurely to sup with the Regent. Well-bred horses, however, and a
well-broke valet, had accomplished this part of the undertaking, with a
few seconds to spare. It now remained to play the last and most difficult
strokes of the game. He felt equal to the occasion.

Moving round the table with his glass, in unceremonious fashion, he
took advantage of George’s departure to place himself between Madame de
Parabére and her host, whispering in that lady’s ear, “I have a favour
to ask of the Regent, in which you, too, are interested!” She made room
for him carelessly, listlessly, and her face looked so innocent and
unsuspicious as to delude even his acuteness into the belief that the
few faculties she could command were engrossed by Point d’Appui and his
tormentor.

These were in full swing at a game called, in England, Flirtation. It
is an elastic process, embracing an extensive area in the field of
gallantry, and so far resembling the tournaments of the Middle Ages, that
while its encounters are presumed to be waged with weapons of courtesy,
blunted for bloodless use, such fictitious conflicts very frequently
bring on the real combat _à l’outrance_ with sharp weapons, and then, as
in other death-struggles, _væ victis_! If girth breaks, or foot slips,
the fallen fighter must expect no mercy.

Pitted against Point d’Appui, Madame de Sabran might be likened to an
accomplished swordsman practising cut and thrust on a wooden trunk. But
the block was good-natured and good-looking. When such is the case, I
have observed that a witty woman takes no small delight in the exercise
of her talent. There is a generosity about the sex not sufficiently
appreciated, and if a man will only keep quiet, silent, receptive, and
immoveable, it will pour its treasures at his feet in a stream of lavish
and inexhaustible profusion.

Point d’Appui contented himself with looking very handsome and drinking
a great deal of Burgundy. His neighbour hacked and hewed him without
intermission, and Madame de Parabére’s attention seemed entirely
engrossed by the pair.

Malletort, in possession of the Regent’s ear, proceeded diligently with
the edifice for which he had so artfully laid the foundations.

“I must ask permission to take my leave early to-night, Highness,”
observed the churchman. “Like our friend the Musketeer, who has served
his purpose, by the way, as I learn, so may I be rubbed out of the
calculation; and I must drink no more of this excellent Burgundy, for I
have promised to present myself in a lady’s drawing-room, late as it is,
before I go to bed.”

Though somewhat confused by wine, the Regent understood his confidant’s
meaning perfectly well, and his eye kindled as he gathered its purport.
“I will accompany you, little Abbé,” he whispered with a hiccough, and a
furtive glance at the ladies, lest they should overhear.

“Too late, my Prince,” answered the other, “and useless besides, even for
you, since I have not yet obtained permission. Oh! trust me. The fortress
is well guarded, and has scarce ever been summoned; much less has it
offered a parley.”

The Duke looked disappointed, but emptied another bumper. He was rapidly
arriving at the state Malletort desired, when a well-turned compliment
would have induced him to sign away the crown of France.

“To-morrow then,” he grunted, with his hands on the Abbé’s shoulder. “The
great Henry used to say—what used he to say? Something about waiting; you
remember, Abbé. _Basta!_ Reach me the Burgundy.”

“To-morrow, Highness,” answered Malletort, more and more respectfully, as
his patron became less able to enforce respect. “At the hour agreed on, I
will be at your orders with everything requisite. There is but one more
detail, and though indispensable, I fear to press it with your Highness
now, for it trenches on business, and your brain, like mine, must be
somewhat heated with the Burgundy.”

Probably no other consideration on earth would have induced the Duke to
look at a paper after supper, but this remark about the Burgundy touched
him nearly.

He took pride in his convivial powers, and remembering that Henri Quatre
was said to have drunk a glass of red wine before his infant lips had
tasted mother’s milk, always vowed that he inherited from that ancestor
a constitution with which the juice of the grape assimilated itself
harmlessly as food.

“Burgundy, little Abbé!” he repeated, staring vacantly at Malletort, who
had produced a small packet and an ink-horn from his pockets. “Burgundy,
Beaune, brandy—these do but serve to _clear_ the brains of a Bourbon!
Give me the paper!”

“It is only your signature, Highness,” said Malletort, sitting completely
round, so as to interpose his person between Madame de Parabére and the
sheet under his hand. “I can fill it up afterwards, to save you further
trouble.”

But a drunkard’s cunning is the last faculty that forsakes him. Though
the paper danced and wavered beneath his gaze, he detected at once that
it was a _Lettre de cachet_, formidable, henceforth, from the edict
issued that day in Council.

Without troubling himself to inquire how the document came into
Malletort’s possession, who had indeed free access to his _bureau_, he
wagged his head gravely, exclaiming, with the good-humoured persistency
of inebriety—

“No! no! little Abbé. A thousand times no! I fill in the names myself.
Oh! I am Regent of France. I know what I am doing. Here, give me the pen.”

He scrawled his signature on the page, and waited for Malletort to speak.

The latter glanced furtively round—Madame de Sabran was laughing, the
Count listening, Madame de Parabére yawning. No one seemed to pay
attention. Nevertheless he was still cautious. Mentioning no names,
he looked expressively at the Musketeer’s vacant place, while he
whispered—“We have done with him. He has fulfilled his task. Let him be
well taken care of. He deserves it, and it is indispensable.”

“What is indispensable, must be!” answered the Duke carelessly, and
filled in the name of the victim on the blank space left for it.

Then he sprinkled some blue sand from the Abbé’s portable writing-case
over the characters; and because they did not dry fast enough, turned the
sheet face downwards on the white table-cloth, and passed his wrist once
or twice across the back.

When he lifted it, the ink had marked the damask, which was of the finest
texture and rarest pattern in Europe.

Malletort never neglected a precaution. Reaching his hand to a flask
of white Hermitage, and exclaiming, “We chemists are never without
resource,” he was about to pour from it on the table, when a soft voice
murmured languidly, “Give me a few drops, monsieur, I am thirsty,” and
Madame de Parabére, half turning round, held her glass out to be helped.

He was forced to comply, but in another second had flooded the ink-marks
with Hermitage, and blurred the stains on the cloth into one faded
shapeless blot.

Madame de Parabére’s face remained immoveable, and her fine eyes looked
sleepy as ever, yet in that second she had read a capital _G_, with a
small _r_, reversed, and had drawn her own conclusions.

There is but one sentiment in a woman’s mind stronger than gratitude—its
name is Love. Nevertheless, her love for the Regent was not so
overpowering as to shake her determination that she would save the
Captain of Musketeers at any sacrifice.

Meanwhile, the object of her solicitude returned to his quarters by way
of the Hôtel Montmirail, coasting the dead wall surrounding that mansion
very slowly, and absorbed in his own reflections. To reach it he diverged
considerably from his direct road, although the guard posted in its
vicinity consisted that night of Black Musketeers, who were not to be
relieved till the next afternoon by their comrades of the Grey Company.
To prove their vigilance seemed, however, the aim of Captain George’s
walk, for after a brief reconnoitre, he retired quietly to rest about the
time that his royal host, with the assistance of two valets, staggered
from banqueting-room to bed-chamber.

And no wonder, for notwithstanding a liberal consumption of champagne,
the flasks of red and white Burgundy stood empty on the supper-table.




CHAPTER XVIII

BAITING THE TRAP


In transactions with womankind, the sharpest of men are apt to overlook
in their calculations the paramount influence of dress.

Malletort had long ago expressed an opinion on the despotism of King
Chiffon, but he little expected to be thwarted by that monarch in
dealing with one of his most devoted subjects. When Captain George
knocked the poisoned bouquet out of Madame de Parabére’s hand, with
a happy awkwardness seldom displayed in ball-rooms, a cluster of its
blossoms caught in the flounces of her dress. Despite languor of manner
and immobility of feature, this lady possessed coolness, resolution,
and resource in emergency. She concealed the stray cluster in her
handkerchief, said nothing about it, took it home, put it under glass,
and then locked it carefully away in a cabinet. After she had heard mass
next morning, she walked quietly off to Bartoletti’s house, attended
by two armed domestics and accompanied by her maid, as if going to buy
cosmetics, and produced the blossoms for that unwilling chemist to
analyse. The Signor, to tell the truth, was always averse to tampering
with poisons, although in the way of business it was difficult to keep
clear of them. As, on the present occasion, he felt nothing was to be
gained by falsehood, as Madame de Parabére was a dangerous enemy to
provoke, and above all, as she paid him liberally, he produced his tests
without delay, and informed her she had narrowly escaped loss of beauty,
if not of life, by the inhalation of a subtle and effectual poison.

The Signor argued in this way. He compromised nobody, neither was it any
business of his that certain ingredients, sold to a brother student in
separate quantities, had been scientifically mingled and sprinkled over
these treacherous exotics. With the sums he had lately received from
the Abbé on different accounts—with the liberal reward now brought him
by Madame de Parabére—with the proceeds from his shares in Mississippi
stock, of a feverish rise in which he had, by his friend’s advice,
taken immediate advantage—with the sale of his wine, pictures, plate,
and furniture—lastly, with the firm determination to abscond promptly,
leaving his debts unpaid, he should find himself master of so much wealth
as would enable him to purchase the freedom of Célandine (at a damaged
valuation), to marry her, and settle down somewhere, perhaps under the
glowing sky of the tropics, in luxury and scientific indolence for the
rest of his life.

Sensualist and impostor though he was, the man had yet some glimmering of
a better and nobler existence than his necessities had hitherto permitted
him to lead. He saw himself basking in the sun, sleeping in the shade,
eating luxuriantly, drinking of the best, lying soft, yet devoting his
leisure to the interests of science, and, when it did not interfere with
his gratifications, giving those who needed help the benefit of his
medical experience and advice. There are few but can be pitiful while
they want occupation, and generous while it costs them nothing but a word.

When Bartoletti attended his visitor to the door, he felt it would be
neither wise nor prudent to remain longer in Paris.

Madame de Parabére did not act without reflection. She possessed in his
own handwriting, with his own signature attached, the chemist’s analysis
of the noxious essences that had been offered her in a nosegay; and
although Bartoletti extorted the price of a necklace for it, she felt the
document was cheap at the money. Instinct told her that in the Marquise
de Montmirail she had found a rival; but reason assured her also that
with such proofs as she now possessed she could ruin any rival in the
Regent’s good graces as soon as he had slept off the effects of last
night’s wine. Though his whole afternoon, as often happened, might be
engaged, she must meet her royal admirer that evening at the opera. He
should then be put in possession of the facts, and woe to the traitress
when he knew the truth!

“We shall see, madame!” said the lady, between her small white teeth,
under the sweet, calm face, and crossing herself as she passed a crucifix
in the street. “We shall see! A _lettre de cachet_ is a very compromising
_billet-doux_, but it may be sent to a lady quite as appropriately as a
gentleman. That reminds me! Business first—pleasure afterwards; gratitude
to-day—vengeance to-night. I will preserve that brave Musketeer, if it
costs me my rank and my reputation. Oh! if men were all prompt, generous,
honourable, like him, how differently we poor women should behave; I
wonder if we should be much better or much worse?”

The maid walking at her side thought she was repeating an “Ave,” and
appreciating the temptations of her mistress, greatly admired so edifying
a display of piety under difficulties.

Madame de Parabére was perfectly right in believing she would have no
opportunity for conversation with the Regent till they met at the opera.
The whole of that prince’s morning was employed in struggling with the
drowsy fiend who on a sensualist’s couch represents sleep, and is such a
hideous mockery of its original. At these hours the tendency to apoplexy,
which the Duke strengthened and pampered by indulgence, displayed itself
in alarming colours, and none of his attendants could have been surprised
when, a few years later, the destroyer swooped down and carried off his
prey at a stroke. It took him many an hour of heavy, unhealthy, and
disturbed slumber to regain sufficient clearness of mind for the duties
of the day, but once in exercise, his intellect, which was doubtless
above mediocrity, soon reasserted itself, and the Prince, shaved, bathed,
dressed, and seated over a pile of papers in his cabinet, seemed quite
capable of grasping the political helm, and guiding with a steady hand
the destinies of France. But it was only by a strong mental effort he
thus overcame the effects of his pernicious habits; such an effort as,
when often repeated, saps the vital energies beyond the power of nature
to restore them, and the wasting effects of which are best conveyed by
the familiar expression—“burning the candle at both ends.”

When business was concluded, and the Regent, leaving his cabinet, entered
the adjoining dressing-room to prepare for amusement, he was generally
much fatigued, but in excellent spirits. A thorough Bourbon, he could
work if it was necessary, but his native element was play. When he shut
up his portfolio the virtual King of France felt like a boy out of school.

It was in such a mood the Abbé Malletort found him the afternoon
succeeding his necromantic visit to the cavern. The valets were
dismissed, the wardrobe stood open, various suits of clothes hung on
chairs or lay scattered about the floor, yet it seemed the visitor was
expected; for no sooner did he enter than the door was locked, and
his Highness, taking him by the shoulders, accosted him with a rough,
good-humoured welcome.

“True to time,” said he, in a boisterous yet somewhat nervous tone. “True
and punctual as a tailor, a confessor, and a creditor should be!—since
for me, little Abbé, you combine these several characters in one! A
tailor, for you must dress me; a confessor, for you know most of my sins
already, and I have no desire to conceal from you the remainder; and a
creditor, because I owe you a heavy debt of gratitude which you need not
fear I shall forget to pay!”

“Tailor and confessor as much as your Highness pleases,” answered the
Abbé, “but creditor, no! I had rather possess the free assurance of the
Regent’s good-will than his name to a blank assignment on the Bank of
France! It is my pride and my pleasure to be at your service, and only
when the Duke shall propose a scheme to his own manifest disadvantage
will the Abbé find courage to expostulate or refuse.”

“I can trust you, I believe,” answered the Regent, “none the less, my
friend, that your interests and mine are identical. If d’Orleans were at
Dourlens, and Du Maine at the Tuileries, it is just possible Malletort
might find himself at Vincennes. What say you, my adventurous Abbé? Such
an _alerte_ would call every man to his post! No; where I gain an inch
I pull you up a metre; but in return, if I make a false step in the
_entresol_, you tumble down two pair of stairs and break your neck in
the street! Yes—I think I can trust you.”

Malletort laughed pleasantly. “Your Highness’s ethics are like my own,”
said he. “There is no tie so close as self-interest, and it is certainly
none the looser when accompanied by inclination. I trust the events of
to-night will render it yet more binding on us both.”

“Have you prepared everything?” asked the Regent, with anxiety. “The
slightest omission might be not only inconvenient, but dangerous.”

“I have but a short note to write,” answered the Abbé, “and I can
accomplish that while your Highness finishes dressing. It must be sealed
with the arms of the royal Body-guard, and you may believe I have no such
uncanonical trinkets in my possession.”

The Duke looked in a drawer and shook his head. Then he called a valet,
who appeared from the adjoining chamber.

“Go to the officer of the guard,” said he, “and ask him for the
regimental seal. Say it is for _me_.”

The man returned almost immediately, indeed before the Abbé had finished
a note on which he was engaged, writing it slowly and with great care.

“Who is on guard?” he asked, carelessly, while the servant set the
massive seal on the table.

“Monsieur George,” was the answer, “Captain of the Company of Grey
Musketeers.”

The Abbé did not look up, but continued assiduously bent over his task,
smiling the while as at some remarkable and whimsical coincidence.

When he had folded his letter carefully, and secured it with the military
seal, he begged his Highness, in a tone of great simplicity, to lend him
an orderly.

“As many as you please,” answered the Regent; “but may I ask the nature
of a missive that requires so warlike a messenger?”

“It is a challenge,” answered the Abbé, and they both laughed heartily;
nor was their mirth diminished when the required orderly, standing gaunt
and rigid in the doorway, turned out to be the oldest, the fiercest, and
the ugliest veteran in the whole Body-guard.

The sun was now declining, and it would soon be dusk. Malletort urged on
the Regent to lose no time in preparing for his enterprise.

“And the opera?” observed the latter, suddenly recollecting his
appointment with Madame de Parabére at that entertainment.

“Must be given up for to-night,” answered Malletort. “There is no time
for your Highness to show yourself in public, and return here for a
change of dress. Moreover, your disguise cannot be properly accomplished
in a hurry, and to be late by five minutes would render all our plans
useless. You have promised to trust everything to me, and if your
Highness will be guided by my directions, I can insure you an undoubted
success. Give me your attention, I entreat, monsieur, whilst once more I
recapitulate my plan.”

“You dismiss, now, on the instant, all your valets, except Robecque, on
whom we can depend. With his assistance and mine, you disguise yourself
as an officer of Musketeers—Grey, of course, since that company furnishes
the guard of to-night. Your Highness can thus pass through their posts,
without remark, on giving the countersign supplied this morning by
yourself. An escort will be provided from the barracks, at the last
moment, by Marshal de Villeroy’s orders, without consulting the officer
of the guard. This arrangement is indispensable in case of accidents.
Every contingency has been anticipated, yet swords might be drawn, and
though your Highness loves the clash of steel, the most valuable life in
France must not be risked even for such a prize. Ah! you may trust us men
of peace to take precautions; and, in _our_ profession, when we act with
the strong hand, we think we cannot make the hand _too_ strong.

“Nevertheless, I anticipate no difficulties whatever. Your Highness, as
a gallant Musketeer, will enter the garden of the Hesperides without
opposition. There is no dragon that I know of, though people sometimes
pay your humble servant the compliment of believing him to hold that
post; and once within, it wants but a bold hand to pluck the fruit from
the bough. Win it then, my Prince, and wear it happily. Nay, forget
not hereafter, that many a man less favoured would have bartered life
willingly but to lie prostrate under the tree and look his last on the
tempting beauty of the golden apple he might never hope to reach.”

There was something unusual in the Abbé’s tone, and the Duke, glancing in
his face, thought he had turned very pale; but in another moment he was
smiling pleasantly at his own awkwardness, while he assisted the Regent
into the uniform, and fitted on the accoutrements of a Musketeer.

It took some little time, and cost many remonstrances from Robecque,
who was not gifted with a military eye, to complete the transformation.
Nevertheless, by dint of persuasion and perseverance, the moustaches were
at length blacked and twisted, the belts adjusted, the boots wrinkled,
and the hat cocked with that mixture of ease, fierceness, good-humour
and assumption, which was indispensable to a proper conception of the
character—a true rendering of the part.

It was somewhat against the grain to resign for a while the attitudes and
gestures of Henri Quatre, but even such a sacrifice was little regretted
when the Duke scanned himself from top to toe in a long mirror, with a
smile of undisguised satisfaction at the result of his toilet.

“’Tis the garrison type to the life!” said he, exultingly. “Guard-room,
parade, and bivouac combined. Abbé! Abbé! what a flower of Musketeers she
spoiled when blind Fortune made me Regent of France!”




CHAPTER XIX

MATRE PULCHRÂ, FILIA PULCHRIOR


Since Horace wrote that musical ode in which he expresses a poet’s
admiration pretty equally divided between mother and daughter, how many
similes have been exhausted, how many images distorted to convey the
touching and suggestive resemblance by which nature reproduces in the
bud a beauty that has bloomed to maturity in the flower! Amongst all the
peculiarities of race, family likeness is the commonest, the most prized,
and the least understood. Perhaps, because the individuality of women
is more easily affected by extraneous influences, it seems usually less
impressed upon the sons than the daughters of a House. Then a girl often
marries so young, that she has scarcely done with her girl’s graces,
certainly lost none of her woman’s charms, ere she finds a copy at her
side as tall as herself; a very counterpart in figure, voice, eyes,
hair, complexion; all the externals in which she takes most pride; whose
similarity and companionship are a source of continual happiness, alloyed
only by the dread of a contingency that shall make herself a grandmother!

As they sat in the boudoir of the Hôtel Montmirail, enjoying the cool
evening breeze at an open window, the Marquise and her daughter might
have been likened to a goddess and a nymph, a rose and a rosebud—what
shall I say?—a cat and her kitten, or a cow and her calf! But although
in voice, manner, gestures, and general effect, this similarity was
so remarkable, a closer inspection might have found many points of
difference; and the girl seemed, indeed, an ideal sketch rather than
a finished portrait of the woman, bearing to her mother the vague,
spiritualised resemblance that memory bears to presence—your dreams to
your waking thoughts.

Cerise was altogether fairer in complexion and fainter in colouring,
slenderer, and perhaps a little taller, with more of soul in her blue
eyes but less of intellect, and a pure, serene face that a poet would
have fallen down and worshipped, but from which a painter would have
turned to study the richer tones of the Marquise.

Some women seem to me like statues, and some like pictures. The latter
fascinate you at once, compelling your admiration even on the first
glance, while you pass by the former with a mere cold and critical
approval. But every man who cares for art must have experienced how the
influence of the model or the marble grows on him day by day. How, time
after time, fresh beauties seem to spring beneath his gaze as if his very
worship called them into life, and how, when he has got the masterpiece
by heart, and sees every curve of the outline, every turn of the chisel
in his dreams, he no longer wonders that it was not a painter, but a
sculptor, who languished to death in hopeless adoration of his handiwork.
These statue-women move, in no majestic march, over the necks of captive
thousands to the strains of all kinds of music, but stand in their leafy,
shadowy nooks apart, teaching a man to love them by degrees, and he never
forgets the lesson, nor would he if he could.

It is scarcely necessary to say that the Marquise loved her daughter
very dearly. For years, the child had occupied the first place in her
warm impassioned heart. To send Cerise away was the first lesson in
self-sacrifice the proud and prosperous lady had ever been forced to
learn, and many a tear it used to cost her, when her ball-dress had been
folded up and Célandine dismissed for the night. Nor, indeed, was the
Quadroon’s pillow quite dry when first she lost her nursling; and long
after Cerise slept calmly and peacefully between those quiet convent
walls, far off in Normandy, the two women would lie broad awake, calling
to remembrance the blue eyes and the brown curls and the pretty ways of
their darling, till their very hearts ached with longing to look on her
once more. Now, since mademoiselle had returned, the Marquise thought
she loved her better than ever, and perhaps all the feelings and impulses
of a heart not too well disciplined had of late been called into stronger
play.

[Illustration: “I LIKE GOING OUT SO MUCH, MAMMA.”

(_Page 169._)]

Madame de Montmirail threw herself back in her chair with an exclamation
of pleasure, for the cool, soft breeze lifted the hair from her temples,
and stirred the delicate lace edging on her bosom. “It is delightful, my
child!” she said, “after the heat of to-day, which was suffocating. And
we have nothing for to-night, I thank the saints with my whole heart!
Absolutely nothing! Neither ball, nor concert, nor opera (for I could
not sit out another of Cavalli’s), nor even a horrid reception at the
Luxembourg. This is what I call veritable repose.”

Like all people with a tinge of southern blood, the Marquise cried out at
the slightest increase of temperature. Like all fashionable ladies, she
professed to consider those gaieties without which she could not live,
duty, but martyrdom.

Mademoiselle, however, loved a ball dearly, and was not ashamed to
say so. She entered such gatherings, indeed, with something of the
nervousness felt by a recruit in his first engagement. The prospect of
triumph was enhanced by the chance of danger; but the sense of personal
apprehension forcibly overcome, which is, perhaps, the true definition
of courage, added elasticity to her spirits, keenness to her intellect,
and even charms to her person. Beauty, moving gracefully amongst admiring
glances, under a warm light in a cloud of muslin, carries, perhaps, as
high a heart beneath her bodice as beats behind the steel cuirass of
Valour, riding his mailed war-horse in triumph through the shock of
opposing squadrons.

“And I like going out so much, mamma,” said the girl, sitting on a
footstool by her chair, and leaning both elbows on her mother’s lap.
“With you I mean; that must, of course, be understood. Alone in a
ball-room without the petticoats of Madame la Marquise, behind which to
run when the wolf comes, I should be so frightened, I do believe I should
begin to cry! Seriously, mamma, I should not like it at all. Tell me,
dear mother, how did you manage at first, when you entered a society by
yourself?”

“I was never afraid of the wolf,” answered the Marquise, laughing, “and
lucky for me I was not, since the late king could not endure shy people,
and if you showed the slightest symptoms of awkwardness or want of tact
you were simply not asked again. But you are joking, my darling; you
who need fear no criticism, with your youth, your freshness, the best
dressmaker in Paris, and all that brown hair which Célandine talks of
till the tears stand in her eyes.”

“I hate my hair!” interrupted Cerise. “I think it’s hideous! I wish
it was black, like yours. A horrid man the other night at ‘Madame’s’
took me for an Englishwoman! He did, mamma! A Prince somebody, all over
decorations. I could have run a pin into the wretch with pleasure. One of
the things I like going out for is to watch my beautiful mamma, and the
way to flatter me is to start back and hold up both hands, exclaiming,
‘Ah! mademoiselle, none but the blind could take you for anything but the
daughter of Madame la Marquise!’ The Prince-Marshal does it every time we
meet. Dear old man! that is why I am so fond of him.”

The young lady illustrated this frank confession by an absurd little
pantomime that mimicked her veteran admirer to the life, causing her
mother to laugh heartily.

“I did not know he was such a favourite,” said the Marquise. “You are in
luck, my daughter. I expect him to pay us a visit this very evening.”

Cerise made a comical little face of disgust.

“I shall go to bed before he catches me, then,” she answered; “not that
he is in the least out of favour; on the contrary, I love him dearly; but
when he has been here five minutes I yawn, in ten I shut my eyes, and
long before he gets to that bridge which Monsieur de Vendôme ought, or
ought not, to have blown up—there—it’s no use! The thing is stronger than
I am, and I go fast asleep.”

“And so my little rake is disappointed,” said the elder lady, taking her
child’s pretty head caressingly between her hands. “She would like to
have a ball, or a reception, or something that would make an excuse for
a sumptuous toilet, and she finds it very wearisome to sit at home, even
for one night, and take care of her old mother!”

“Very!” repeated the girl playfully, while her tone made so ungracious
an avowal equivalent to the fondest expression of attachment. “My
old mother is so cross and so tiresome and so very _very_ old. Now,
listen, mamma. Shall I have a dress exactly like yours for the ball
at the Tuileries? The young king is to dance. I know it, for my dear
Prince-Marshal told me so while I was still awake. I have never seen a
king, only a regent, and I _do_ think Monsieur d’Orleans so ugly. Don’t
tell him, mamma, but our writing-master at the convent was the image
of him, and had the same wrinkles in his forehead. He used to wipe our
pens in his wig, and we called him ‘Pouf-Pouf!’ I was the worst writer
amongst all the girls, and the best arithmetician. ‘Pouf-Pouf’ said
I had a geometrical head! Well, mamma, you must order me a dress the
exact pattern of yours; the same flounces, the same trimmings, the same
ribbons, and I will present myself before the Prince-Marshal the instant
he arrives in the ball-room, to receive his accustomed compliment.
Perhaps on that occasion he will take me for _you_! Would it not be
charming? My whole ambition just now is to be exactly like my mother in
every respect!”

As she finished, her eyes insensibly wandered to the picture of the
Prince de Chateau-Guerrand, which adorned the boudoir, but falling short
of its principal figure, rested on the dead musketeer in the foreground.
The Marquise also happened to be looking at the same object, so that
neither observed how the other’s gaze was employed, nor guessed that
besides figure, manner, features, voice, and gestures, there was yet a
stronger point in which they bore too close and fatal a resemblance.
Deep in the heart of each lurked the cherished image of a certain Grey
Musketeer. The girl draping her idol, as it were, even to herself,
not daring so much as to lift a corner of its veil; yet rejoicing
unconsciously in its presence, and trusting with a vague but implicit
faith to its protection. The woman alternately prostrating herself at
its pedestal, and spurning it beneath her feet, striving, yielding,
hesitating, struggling, losing ground inch by inch, and forced against
her judgment, against her will, to love him with a fierce, eager, anxious
love, embittered by some of the keenest elements of hate.

These two hearts were formed in the same mould, were of the same blood,
were knit together by the fondest and closest of ties, and one must
necessarily be torn and bruised and pierced by the happiness of the other.

It was so far fortunate that neither of them knew the very precarious
position in which Captain George found himself placed. Under such a
ruler as the Débonnaire, it was no jesting matter for any man that
his name should be written in full on a _lettre de cachet_, formally
signed, sealed, and in possession of an ambitious intriguer, who, having
no feelings of personal enmity to the victim, would none the less use
his power without scruple or remorse. A woman was, of course, at the
bottom of the scrape in which Captain George found himself; but it was
also to a woman that he was indebted for timely warning of his danger.
Madame de Parabére had not only intimated to him that he must make his
escape without delay, but had even offered to sell her jewels that he
might be furnished with the means of flight. Such marks of gratitude
and generosity were none the less touching that the sacrifice proved
unnecessary. A Musketeer was seldom overburdened with ready money, but
our Captain of the Grey Company not only bore a Scottish surname, he had
also a cross of Scottish blood in his veins. The first helped him to
get money, the second enabled him to keep it. Monsieur Las, or Law, as
he should properly have been called, like his countrymen, “kept a warm
side,” as he expressed it, towards any one claiming a connection, however
remote, with his native land, and had given Captain George so many
useful hints regarding the purchase and sale of Mississippi stock, that
the latter, who was by no means deficient in acuteness, found himself
possessed of a good round sum, in lawful notes of the realm, at the
moment when such a store was absolutely necessary to his safety.

He laid his plans accordingly with habitual promptitude and caution. He
knew enough of these matters to think it improbable he would be publicly
arrested while on guard, for in such cases profound secrecy was usually
observed, as increasing the suddenness and mystery of the blow. He had,
therefore, several hours to make his preparations, and the messenger whom
he at once despatched to prepare relays of horses for him the whole way
to the coast was several leagues on his road long before the sun went
down. A valise, well packed, containing a change of raiment, rested on
the loins of his best horse, ready saddled, with pistols in holsters
and bridle hanging on the stall-post, to be put on directly he was fed.
Soon after dark, this trusty animal was to be led to a particular spot,
not far from the Hôtel Montmirail, and there walked gently to and fro in
waiting for his master. By daybreak next morning, the Musketeer hoped to
be half-way across Picardy.

Having made his dispositions for retreat like a true soldier, he divested
his mind of further anxiety as to his own personal safety, and turned all
his attention to a subject that was now seldom absent from his thoughts.
It weighed on his heart like lead, to reflect how soon he must be parted
from Cerise, how remote was the chance of their ever meeting again. In
his life of action and adventure he had indeed learned to believe that
for a brave man nothing was impossible, but he could not conceal from
himself that it might be years before he could return to France, and his
ignorance in what manner he could have offended the Regent only made his
course the more difficult, his future the more gloomy and uncertain. On
one matter he was decided. If it cost him liberty or life he would see
the girl he loved once more, assure her of his unalterable affection, and
so satisfy the great desire that had grown lately into a necessity of his
very being.

So it fell out that he was thinking of Cerise, while Cerise, with her
eyes on the Musketeer in the picture, was thinking of him; the Marquise
believing the while that her child’s whole heart was fixed on her
ball-dress for the coming gaieties at the Tuileries. With the mother’s
thoughts we will not interfere, inasmuch as, whatever their nature, the
fixed expression of her countenance denoted that she was keeping them
down with a strong hand.

The two had been silent longer than either of them would have allowed,
when Célandine entered with a note—observing, as she presented it to her
mistress, “Mademoiselle is pale; mademoiselle looks fatigued; madame
takes her too much into society for one so young; she had better go to
bed at once, a long sleep will bring back the colour to her cheeks.”

The Marquise laughed at her old servant’s carefulness. “You would like to
put her to bed as you used when she was a baby. Who brought this?” she
added, with a start, as, turning the note in her hand, she observed the
royal arms of the Body-guard emblazoned on its seal; bending her head
over it the while to conceal the crimson that rose to her very temples.

What a wild gush of happiness filled her heart while she read on—her
warm wilful heart, that sent tears of sheer pleasure to her eyes so that
she could scarcely decipher the words, and that beat so loud, she hardly
heard Célandine’s disapproving accents in reply.

“The fiercest soldier, and the ugliest I have yet set eyes on. Nine feet
high at least, and the rudest manners I ever encountered, even in a
Musketeer!”

Cerise was no longer to be pitied for want of colour, but Célandine,
though she observed the change, took no notice of it, only urging on her
young lady the propriety of going immediately to bed.

Meanwhile, the Marquise read her note again. It was not (what letter ever
was?) so enchanting on the second perusal as the first.

It ran thus:—

    “MADAME,

    “I am distressed beyond measure to trouble a lady with a
    question of military discipline. I cannot sufficiently regret
    that my duty compels me to post a sentry in the grounds of the
    Hôtel Montmirail. In order that this inconvenient arrangement
    may interfere as little as possible with the privacy of Madame,
    I urgently request, as the greatest favour, that she will
    indicate by her commands the exact spot on which she will
    permit one of my Musketeers to be stationed, and I will be at
    Madame’s orders at the usual time of going my rounds to-night.
    I have the honour to remain, with assurances of the most
    distinguished consideration, the humblest of Madame’s humble
    servants.

                                       (Signed) “GEORGE,
                            “Captain, Grey Musketeers of the King.”


It was a polite document enough, and obviously the merest affair of
military arrangement, yet the Marquise, after a third perusal, kept it
crumpled up in her hand, and when she thought herself unobserved, hid it
away, probably for security, in the bosom of her dress.

“There is no answer, Célandine,” said she, with well-acted calmness,
belied by the fixed crimson spot in each cheek. “My darling,” she added
caressingly, to her daughter, “your old _bonne_ is quite right. The
sooner you are in bed the better. Good-night, my child. I shall come and
see you as usual after you are asleep. Ah! Cerise, how I used to miss
that nightly visit when you were at the convent. You slept better without
it than your mother did, I am sure!”

Then, after her daughter left the room, she moved the lamp far back into
a recess, and sat down at the open window, pressing both hands against
her bosom, as though to restrain the beating of her heart.

How her mind projected itself into the future! What wild inconceivable,
impracticable projects she formed, destroyed, and reconstructed once
more! She overleaped probability, possibility, the usages of life, the
very lapse of time. At a bound she was walking with him through her woods
in Touraine, his own, his very own. They had given up Paris, the Court,
ambition, society, everything in the world for each other, and they were
so happy! so happy! Cerise, herself, and _him_. Ah! she felt now the
capabilities she had for goodness. She knew what she could be with a man
like that—a man whom she could respect as well as love. She almost felt
the pressure of his arm, while his kind, brave face looked down into her
own, under just such a moon as that rising even now through the trees
above the guard-house. Then she came back to her boudoir in the Hôtel
Montmirail, and the consciousness, the triumphant consciousness that,
come what might, she must at least see him and hear his voice within an
hour; but recalling the masked ball at the Opera House the night before,
she trembled and turned pale, thinking she would never dare to look him
in the face again.

There was yet another subject of anxiety. The Prince-Marshal was to come,
as he often did of an evening, and pass half-an-hour over a cup of coffee
before he retired to rest. It made her angry to think of her old admirer,
as if she did indeed already belong to some one else. How long that some
one seemed in coming, and yet she had sat there, hot and cold by turns,
for but five minutes, unless her clock had stopped.

Suddenly, with a great start, she sprang from her chair, and listened,
upright, with parted lips and hair put back. No! her ear was not
deceived! It had caught the clink of spurs, and a faint measured
footfall, outside in the distant street.




CHAPTER XX

A GENERAL RENDEZVOUS


Meanwhile Cerise, not the least sleepy, though sent prematurely to bed,
dismissed her attendant protesting vehemently, and sat herself down also
at an open window, to breathe the night air, look at the moon, and dream,
wide-awake, on such subjects as arise most readily in young ladies’ minds
when they find themselves alone with their own thoughts in the summer
evening. However exalted these may have been, they can scarcely have
soared to the actual romance of which she was an unconscious heroine,
or foreseen the drama of action and sentiment she was about to witness
in person. Little did she imagine, while she leaned a sweet face, pale
and serene in the moonlight, on an arm half hidden in the wealth of her
unbound hair, that two men were watching every movement who could have
kissed the very ground she trod on; for one of whom she was the type of
all that seemed best and loveliest in woman, teaching him to look from
earth to heaven; for the other, an angel of light, pure and holy in
herself, yet luring him irresistibly down the path to hell.

The latter had been hidden since dusk, that he might but see her shadow
cross the windows of the gallery, one by one, when she sought her
chamber; the other was visiting his guard two hours earlier than usual,
with a silent caution that seemed mistrustful of their vigilance, in
order that he might offer her the heart of an honest man, ere he fled for
his life to take refuge in another land.

Captain George, entering the garden through a private door, could see
plainly enough the figure of Mademoiselle de Montmirail brought into
relief by the lamp-light in her room. She must have heard his step in the
street, he thought, for she had risen and was looking earnestly out into
the darkness; but from some cause or another, at the instant the door in
the garden wall closed behind him, she shrank back and disappeared.

His heart beat high. Could she have expected him? Could she know
intuitively why he was there to-night? Was it possible she would run
down and grant him a meeting in the garden? The thought was rapture! Yet
perhaps with all its intoxication, he scarcely loved her so dearly as
he had done a moment before, as he did a moment after, when he actually
distinguished a white dress flitting along the terrace at the farthest
corner of the building.

Then indeed he forgot duty, danger, exile, uncertainty, the future,
the past, everything but the intense happiness of that moment. He was
conscious of the massive trees, the deep shadows, the black clusters of
shrubs, the dusky outlines of the huge indistinct building traversed
here and there by a broad shimmer of light, the stars above his head,
the crescent moon, the faint whisper of leaves, the drowsy perfume of
flowers, but only because of _her_ presence who turned the whole to a
glimpse of fairyland. He stole towards the terrace, treading softly,
keeping carefully in the shadow of the trees. So intent was he, and so
cautious, that he never observed Cerise return to her post of observation.

She had resumed it, however, at the very moment when the Musketeer,
having advanced some ten paces with the crouching stealthy gait of a Red
Indian drawing on his game, stopped short—like the savage when he has
gone a step too far—rigid, motionless, scarcely breathing, every faculty
called up to _watch_.

The attention of Mademoiselle de Montmirail was aroused at the same
moment by the same cause.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that the Duke of Orleans, Regent of
France, was no less ambitious of distinction in the fields of love than
of war. That in the one, though falling far short of his heroic ancestor,
whom he so wished to resemble, his prowess was not below the average,
scandal itself must admit; but that, if experience ought to count for
anything, his encounters in the other should have made him the most
successful campaigner of his time, history cannot conscientiously deny.

Like all such freebooters, however, he met with many a bitter reverse,
many a signal defeat never mentioned in despatches. His rebuffs, we
may be sure, were written on water, though his triumphs were carved in
stone; and it was for those on whom he could make least impression that
he cherished the greatest interest. The way to captivate the Regent
was not so much to _profess_, as to _entertain_ a thorough contempt
for his character, an utter disregard of his position. The noble mind,
the stout heart, the strong will, the sagacious, deep-thinking, yet
open disposition, true type of manhood, is to be won by love; but the
sensualist, the coward, the false, the wicked, and the weak, are all
best tamed by scorn. With a new face, the Regent was captivated, as a
matter of course, for an hour or two; seldom during a whole day; though
on occasion, if the face were very beautiful, and strictly guarded, he
besieged its owner for a week; but Madame de Montmirail was the only
long-established beauty of the Court who had seriously captivated his
fancy, and, indeed, what little was left of his miserable self-indulgent
heart. This triumph she owed to her perfect unconsciousness of it, and
complete disregard for her admirer, therefore it became more firmly
established day by day; and when Malletort, who thoroughly comprehended
the nature he wished to rule, hinted that his kinswoman was not
insensible to the Prince’s merits, he did but blow into flame a fire that
had been smouldering longer than even he was aware.

Now the Abbé had sufficient confidence in her powers and her attractions
to be sure that if Madame de Montmirail once obtained an acknowledged and
ostensible influence over the Regent she would become the virtual ruler
of France; and the Abbé, in his own way, loved his cousin better than
anything but the excitement of ambition and the possession of political
power. He believed that her disgrace would be of infinite advantage to
herself as well as to him, and thought he could see her way clearly, with
his own assistance, to an eventual throne. He was a man without religion,
without principle, without honour, without even the common sympathies
of humanity. It is difficult in our days to conceive such a character,
though they were common enough in France during the last century; but
in his views for his cousin, evil as they were, he seemed at least
honest—more, self-sacrificing, since she was the only creature on earth
for whom he cared.

With his knowledge of her disposition, he did not conceal from himself
that great difficulties attended his task. However lightly the cynical
Abbé might esteem a woman’s virtue, his experience taught him not to
underrate the obstinacy of a woman’s pride. That his cousin, in common
with her family, possessed an abundance of the latter quality, he was
well aware, and he played his game accordingly. It was his design to
compromise her by a _coup-de-main_, after he had sapped her defences
to the utmost by the arguments of ambition and self-interest. Like
all worldly men in their dealings with women, he undervalued both her
strength and her weakness—her aversion to the Regent, and her fancy for
the Musketeer; this even while he made use of the latter to overcome
the former sentiment. If she could be induced by any means, however
fraudulent, to grant the Prince an interview at night in her own gardens,
he argued, that first step would have been taken, which it is always so
difficult to retract; and to bring this about, he had forged Captain
George’s signature to the polite note which had proved so effectual in
luring the Marquise down the terrace steps, and across the velvet lawn,
under the irresistible temptation of a meeting by moonlight with the
man she loved. As a measure of mere politeness, connected with certain
military precautions, of course!

But under such circumstances it would appear that _one_ Musketeer ought
to be company enough for _one_ lady at a time. Cerise, viewing the
performances from her window above, might have come to the conclusion,
had she not been too anxious, agitated, terrified, to retain full
possession of her faculties, that the arrival of a few more of these
guardsmen on such a scene, at such a crisis, was conducive rather to
tumult and bloodshed than appropriate conversation.

Captain George, stopping short in his eager though stealthy advance
towards the white figure flitting noiselessly across the lawn, first
thought he was dreaming; next, that he beheld a spectral or illusive
image of himself, denoting near approach of death; lastly, that the
discipline of the corps had become relaxed to a degree which his military
indignation resolved should be severely visited within an hour, though he
abandoned his command the next.

A Grey Musketeer, hatted, cloaked, booted precisely like himself, was
advancing from the direction of the guard-house towards the white figure,
that now stopped short as if expecting him. While yet a few feet apart,
both stood still, and Captain George, in dark shadow at ten paces’
distance, not only recognised the Marquise by her voice, but saw her face
distinctly, as she turned it towards the moonlight, framed in its masses
of black hair.

His heart beat calmly now, and he was the cool resolute man of action
once more.

She was the first to speak, and though they trembled a little, very soft
and musical fell her tones on the listener’s ear.

“I received monsieur’s note. It was most kind and considerate on his
part. I have been expecting him for this hour past.”

The cloaked figure uncovered. George, watching Madame de Montmirail,
observed her start and raise her head defiantly.

“Madame will forgive the intrusion then,” said her companion, “since
it is not unexpected. She will consider also the temptation, and the
discretion of her visitor.”

There was no mistaking the tones of the Regent, good-humoured, easy, and,
though a little husky, pleasant as if mellowed by Bourdeaux. She drew
back hastily, but the speaker at the same time possessed himself of her
hand, almost by force, and, drawing her towards him, whispered in her ear.

The Marquise broke from him furiously. Her eyes glittered like steel, and
she stamped upon the turf, while she exclaimed—

“What have I ever done that your Highness should offer me this insult?
And here, in the midst of my own people! The Montmirails have been always
loyal,” she added, in a tone of bitter scorn, “and know how to spare a
Bourbon! Quit the garden instantly by that door, and your Highness shall
suffer no further humiliation for an act that is at once a folly and an
impertinence.”

She extended her white hand with the gesture of one who orders a
disobedient hound to kennel, and Captain George, in his hiding-place,
felt the blood mounting to his brain. But the Regent was not so easily
discouraged. Clasping both her hands in his own, he knelt at her feet,
and while cloak and hat fell off, proceeded to pour out a stream
of professions, promises, and protestations, with a good-humoured
carelessness that was in itself an outrage.

Nevertheless, though she struggled fiercely to get free, cool,
courageous, and self-possessed, she made no outcry; but in her efforts a
bracelet flew from her arm, and the skirt of her muslin dress was torn to
its hem.

Captain George could stand it no longer. In two strides he was upon him,
hovering over the aggressor with his drawn sword.

Then the Regent’s nerve failed. Shaken, excited, irritated, he suspected
a plot; he shrank from assassination; he imagined himself surrounded.

“Help! help!” he shouted loudly, staggering to his feet, and looking
wildly about him. “To me! my Musketeers, to me! Down with them! fire on
them all! The traitors! the assassins!”

Lights twinkled in the hotel, and servants came rushing out in great
alarm, but long ere they could reach the scene of action, half-a-dozen
Musketeers had arrived, with Bras-de-Fer at their head.

“Why, ’tis the Captain!” exclaimed the latter, stopping short with his
point lowered, in sheer bewilderment—a lack of promptitude that probably
saved his officer’s life.

“Arrest him, I tell you, idiots!” shrieked the Regent, with a horrible
oath, trembling and glaring about him for a fresh enemy.

The Marquise had plenty of courage. Still she was but a woman, and not
actually hemmed in a corner; so, when the Musketeers ran in with levelled
weapons, she turned and fled; only as far as the terrace steps, however,
where she took up her post and watched the sequel with a wild fixed face,
white and stony as the balustrades themselves.

The servants hovered round, chattering, flinching, and doing nothing.

Half-a-dozen blades flashed in Captain George’s eyes; as many points
were levelled at his heart. His own men had been bid to take him, and
they must obey. He knew well they were some of the best swordsmen in the
French army; but his good horse should by this time be waiting in the
street beyond, and if he could fight his way to the garden-gate there was
yet a chance left.

Even in this extremity he was conscious that the light still streamed
from Cerise’s window. Catching a couple of thrusts in his cloak, and
engaged with a third adversary, he was aware of Bras-de-Fer’s tall figure
advancing upon him. For an instant his heart sank, and he felt he was
over-matched.

But an unexpected auxiliary, who seemed to have risen out of the very
ground, stood at his side. With a thrill of triumph he recognised
Beaudésir’s voice in his ear.

“Courage, my captain!” said the professional coolly, as if giving a
lesson. “Carte and counter-carte—carte and counter-carte! Keep the wrist
going like a windmill, and we shall fight through them all.”

He was yet speaking when Bras-de-Fer went down with an ugly thrust
through the lower ribs, exclaiming as he lost his footing—

“_Peste!_ Had I known _you_ were in it, I’d have parried _your_ blade
with a pistol-shot!”

A few flashing passes, a clink of rapiers, an oath or two, a shriek
from upstairs, shouts, groans, a scuffling of feet, and George was safe
through the garden-door and out in the street. He looked for Beaudésir:
the youth had disappeared. He looked for his horse; the good beast was
walking quietly off in the custody of two Musketeers. A patrole of the
same corps were entering the street from the other end. It seemed hard to
be taken here after all.

But, once more to-night, Captain George found a friend where he least
expected one. A coach was drawn up within six paces. A lackey, with
a lighted torch in one hand, held the door open with the other. Old
Chateau-Guerrand caught him by the arm.

“You are a brave lad,” said he, “and, Regent or _roué_, I am not going
to turn my back on my aide-de-camp! I watched you from the roof of my
coach over the wall. By the cross of St. Louis, I never saw so good a
fight, and I have had fifty years of it, my boy. Here! take my carriage.
They dare not stop _that_ at their barriers. Those English horses can go
like the wind: bid them carry you where you will.”

George pressed his hand and whispered in his ear.

“Relays!” exclaimed the Prince-Marshal. “Then you are safe. Shut him in!
And you, coachman, be off! Drive as if you had the devil or old Turenne
in your rear!”

It was about this moment that Célandine, rushing into her young lady’s
room to comfort her, in the alarm, found Cerise extended, motionless and
unconscious, on the floor.




CHAPTER XXI

THE FOX AND FIDDLE


Three dirty children with blue eyes, fair locks, and round, chubby
faces, deepened by a warm peach-like tint beneath the skin, such as are
to be seen in plenty along our southern seaboard, were busily engaged
building a grotto of shells opposite their home, at the exact spot where
its construction was most in the way of pedestrians passing through
the narrow ill-paved street. Their shrill cries and blooming looks
denoted the salubrious influence of sea air, while their nationality was
sufficiently attested by the vigour with which the eldest, a young lady
less than ten years of age, called out “Frenchie! Frenchie! Froggie!
Froggie!” after a foreign-looking man with a pale face and dark eyes,
who stepped over the low half-door that restrained her infant brothers
and sisters from rolling out into the gutter, as if he was habitually
a resident in the house. He appeared, indeed, a favourite with the
children, for while they recalled him to assist their labours, which he
did with a good-nature and address peculiarly winning to architects of
that age, they chanted in his praise, and obviously with the intention
of doing him high honour, a ditty of no particular tune, detailing the
matrimonial adventures of an amphibious animal, supposed in the last
century to bear close affinity to all Frenchmen, as related with a
remarkable chorus by one Anthony Rowley; and the obliging foreigner,
suspecting neither sarcasm nor insult, but only suffering torture from an
utter absence of tune, hummed lustily in accompaniment.

Over the heads of these urchins hung their paternal sign-board, creaking
and swinging in the breeze now freshening with an incoming tide. Its
representation of a fox playing the fiddle was familiar to seafaring men
as indicating a favourite house of call for the consumption of beer,
tobacco, and that seductive compound known to several generations by the
popular name of punch.

The cheerful fire, the red curtains, the sanded floor, the wooden chairs,
and liberal measures of their jovial haunt, had been present to the
mind’s eye of many an honest tar clinging wet and cold to a slippery
yard, reefing topsails in a nor’-wester, or eating maggoty biscuit and
sipping six-water grog, on half rations, homeward bound with a headwind,
but probably none of them had ever speculated on the origin of the sign
they knew so well and thought of so often. Why a fox and fiddle should
be found together in a seaport town, what a fox had to do with a fiddle,
or, however appropriate to their ideas of jollity the instrument might
appear, wherefore its player should be represented as the cunning animal
whom destiny had already condemned to be hunted by English country
gentlemen, was a speculation on which they had no wish to embark. Neither
have I. It is enough to know that the Fox and Fiddle sold loaded beer,
strong tobacco, and scalding punch, to an extent not even limited by the
consumer’s purse; for when Jack had spent all his _rhino_, the landlord’s
liberality enabled him to run up a score, hereafter to be liquidated from
the wages of a future voyage. The infatuated debtor, paying something
like two hundred _per cent._ on every mouthful for this accommodation,
by a farther arrangement, that he should engage with any skipper of
the landlord’s providing, literally sold himself, body and soul, for a
nipperkin of rum and half-a-pound of tobacco.

Nevertheless, several score of the boldest hearts and readiest hands in
England were to be bought at this low price, and Butter-faced Bob, as
his rough-spoken customers called the owner of the Fox and Fiddle, would
furnish as many of them at a reasonable tariff, merchant and man-of-war’s
men, as the captain wanted or the owners could afford to buy. It was no
wonder his children had strong lungs, and round, well-fed cheeks.

“That’s a good chap!” observed a deep hoarse voice, which made the
youngest grotto-builder start and shrink behind its sister, while a broad
elderly figure rolled and lurched after the obliging foreigner into the
house. It would have been as impossible to mistake the new-comer for
a landsman as Butter-faced Bob himself for anything but a publican.
His gait on the pavement was that of one who had so thoroughly got his
_sea-legs_ that he was, to the last degree, incommoded by the uneven
though stable surface of the shore; and while he trod the passage, as
being planked, with more confidence, he nevertheless ran his hand, like a
blind man, along tables and other articles of furniture while he passed
them, seeming, in every gesture, to be more ready with his arms than his
legs.

Broad-faced, broad-shouldered, broad-handed, he looked a powerful, and at
the same time a strong-constitutioned man, but grizzled hair and shaggy
eyebrows denoted he was past his prime; while a reddened neck and tanned
face, with innumerable little wrinkles round the eyes, suggested constant
watchfulness and exposure in hard weather afloat, no less than swollen
features and marked lines told of deep drinking and riotous living ashore.

The seamen of that period, though possessing an undoubted claim to
the title, were far more than to-day a class distinct and apart from
their fellow-countrymen. The standing army, an institution of which our
parliaments had for generations shown themselves so jealous, could boast,
indeed, a consolidation and discipline under Marlborough which made them,
as the Musketeers of the French king allowed, second to no troops in
Europe. But their triumphs, their organisation, even their existence,
was comparatively of recent date. The navy, on the other hand, had been
a recognised and constitutional force for more than a century, and had
enjoyed, from the dispersion of the Spanish Armada downwards, a series of
successes almost uninterrupted. It is true that the cannonade of a Dutch
fleet had been heard in the Thames, but few of the lowest seamen were so
ignorant as to attribute this national disgrace to want of courage in
their officers or incapacity in themselves.

Their leaders, indeed, were usually more remarkable for valour than
discretion, nor was this surprising under the system by which captains
were appointed to their ships.

A regiment and a three-decker were considered by the Government
equivalent and convertible commands. The cavalry officer of to-day might
find himself directing the manœuvres of a fleet to-morrow. The relics of
so untoward an arrangement may be detected in certain technical phrases
not yet out of use. The word “squadron” is even now applied alike to a
handful of horse and a powerful fleet, numbering perhaps a dozen sail of
the line. Raleigh, himself, began his fighting career as a soldier, and
Rupert finished his as a sailor.

With such want of seamanship, therefore, amongst its commanders, our
navy must have possessed in its construction some great preponderating
influence to account for its efficiency. This compensating power was to
be found in its masters, its petty-officers, and its seamen.

The last were thoroughly impregnated with the briny element on which they
passed their lives. They boasted themselves a race apart. “Land-lubber”
was for them a term conveying the utmost amount of derision and contempt.
To be an “old salt” was the ideal perfection at which alone it was worth
while for humanity to aim. The seaman, exulting in his profession, was
never more a seaman than when rolling about on shore, swearing strange
oaths, using nautical phrases, consuming vast quantities of beer and
tobacco, above all, flinging his money here and there with a profuse and
injudicious liberality especially distinctive of his kind.

The popularity of such characters amongst the lower classes may be
readily imagined; for, with the uneducated and unreflecting, a reckless
bearing very generally passes for courage; a tendency to dissipation
for manliness; and a boastful expenditure for true generosity of heart.
Perhaps, to the erroneous impressions thus disseminated amongst the
young, should be attributed the inclination shown towards a service of
which the duties entailed continual danger, excessive hardship, and daily
privation. Certainly at a period when the worst provision was made, both
physical and moral, for the welfare of men before the mast, there never
seems to have been found a difficulty in keeping up the full complement
of the British navy.

They were, indeed, a race apart, not only in their manners, their
habits, their quaint expressions, their simple modes of thought, but in
their superstitions and even their religious belief. They cultivated a
rough, honest kind of piety, well illustrated in later years by Dibdin,
himself a landsman, when he sang of

    “The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft
    To take care of the life of poor Jack.”

But it was overloaded and interspersed with a thousand strange fancies
not more incongruous than unreasonable and far-fetched.

No power would induce them to clear out of port, or, indeed, commence
any important undertaking on a Friday. Mother Carey’s chickens were
implicitly believed to be messengers sent express from another world
to warn the mariner of impending storm, and bid him shorten sail ere
it began to blow. Carlmilhan, the famous pirate, who, rather than be
taken alive, had in default of gunpowder scuttled his own ship and gone
down with it, all standing, was still to be heard giving notice in deep
unearthly tones from under her very keel when the ship approached shoal
water, shifting sands, or treacherous coral reefs in the glittering seas
beneath the tropics. That phantom Dutchman, who had been provoked by
baffling winds about the Cape to speak “unadvisedly with his lips,” was
still to be seen in those tempestuous latitudes careering through the
storm-drift under a press of sail, when the best craft that swam hardly
dared show a stitch of canvas. The speaking-trumpet was still to be
heard from her deck, shouting her captain’s despairing request to take
his letters home, and the magic ship still disappeared at half-a-cable’s
length and melted into air, while the wind blew fiercer and the sea rose
higher, and sheets of rain came flashing down from the black squall
lowering overhead.

Nor was it only in the wonders of this world that the tar professed his
unaccountable belief. His credulity ran riot in regions beyond the grave,
or, to use his own words, after he had “gone to Davy Jones.” A mystical
spot which he called Fiddler’s Green was for him both the Tartarus and
Elysium of the ancients—a land flowing, not indeed with milk and honey,
but with rum and limejuice; a land of perpetual music, mirth, dancing,
drinking, and tobacco; a land in which his weary soul was to find an
intervening spell of enjoyment and repose, ere she put out again for her
final voyage into eternity.

In the meantime, the new arrival at the Fox and Fiddle, seating himself
at a small table in the public room, or tap as it would now be called,
ordered a quart of ale and half-a-pint of rum. These fluids he mingled
with great care, and sipped his beverage in a succession of liberal
mouthfuls, dwelling on each with an approving smack as a man drinks a
good bottle of claret. Butter-faced Bob, who waited on him, remarked that
he pulled out but one gold piece in payment, and knowing the ways of his
patrons, concluded it was his last, or he would have selected it from a
handful. The landlord remembered he had a customer in the parlour who
wanted just such articles as this burly broad-shouldered seaman, with
pockets at low water.

The man did not, however, count his change when it was brought him, but
shovelled it into his seal-skin tobacco pouch, a coin or two short,
without looking at it. He then filled carefully, drank, and pondered with
an air of grave and imposing reflection. Long before his measure was
finished a second guest entered the tap-room, whose manners, gait, and
gestures were an exact counterpart of the first. He was taller, however,
and thinner, altogether less robust and prosperous-looking, showing a
sallow face and withered skin, that denoted he had spent much of his life
in hot climates. Though he looked younger than the other, his bearing was
more staid and solemn, nor did he at once vociferate for something to
drink. Beer seemed his weakness less than ’baccy, for he placed a small
copper coin on a box ingeniously constructed so that, opening only by
such means, it produced exactly the money’s worth of the fragrant weed,
and loading a pipe with a much-tattooed hand, proceeded to puff volumes
of smoke through the apartment.

Butter-faced Bob, entering, cheerfully proffered all kinds of liquids as
a matter of course, but was received with surly negatives, and retired to
speculate on the extreme of wealth or poverty denoted by this abstinence.
A man, he thought, to be proof against such temptations must be either so
rich, and consequently so full of liquor that he was unable to drink any
more, or so poor that he couldn’t afford to be thirsty.

So the last comer smoked in silence at a little table of his own, which
he had drawn into a corner, and his predecessor drank at _his_ table,
looking wiser and wiser, while each glanced furtively at the other
without opening his lips. Presently the eyes of the elder man twinkled:
he had got an idea—nay, he actually launched it. Filling his glass, and
politely handing it to the smoker, but reserving the jug to drink from
himself, he proposed the following comprehensive toast—

    “All ships at sea!”

They both drank it gravely and without farther comment. It was a social
challenge, and felt to be such; the smoker pondered, put out the glass
he had drained to be refilled, and holding it on a level with his eyes,
enunciated solemnly—

    “All ships in port!”

When equal justice had been done to this kindred sentiment, and the
navies of the world were thus exhausted, they came to a dead-lock and
relapsed into silence once more.

This calm might have remained unbroken for a considerable time but for
the entrance of a third seaman, much younger than either of the former,
whose appearance in the passage had been received by a round of applause
from the children, a hearty greeting from the landlady—though that portly
woman, with her handsome face, would not have left her arm-chair to
welcome an admiral—and a “good-morrow,” louder, but not more sincere,
from Bob himself. It appeared that this guest was well known and also
trusted at the Fox and Fiddle, for, entering the public room with a
sea-bow and a scrape of his foot on its sanded floor, he called lustily
for a quart of strong ale and a pipe, while he produced an empty purse,
and shook it in the landlord’s face with a laugh of derision that would
have become the wealthiest nobleman in Great Britain.

“Ay, lad,” said Bob, shaking his head, but setting before his customer
the beer and tobacco as desired. “’Tis well enough to begin a fresh score
when the old one’s wiped out; but I saw that purse, with my own eyes,
half full of broad pieces at the ebb. See now; you’ve gone and cleared it
out—not a blessed groat left—and it’s scarce high-water yet!”

“What o’ that, old shiney?” laughed the other. “Isn’t there plenty more
to be yarned when them’s all gone? Slack water be hanged! I tell you I’ll
have a doubloon for every one of these here rain-drops afore a month’s
out. I know where they grows, old man; I know where they grows. My
sarvice to ye, mates! Here’s ‘Outward bound and an even keel!’”

While he spoke he whirled the rain-drops off his shining hat upon the
floor, and nodding to the others, took a long pull at his ale, which
nearly emptied the jug; then he filled a pipe, winked at the retiring
landlord, and smoked in silence. The others scanned him attentively. He
was an active, well-built young fellow of two or three-and-twenty, with
foretopman written on every feature of his reckless, saucy, good-looking
face—in every gesture of his wiry, loose, athletic limbs. He was very
good-looking; his eyes sparkled with fun and his teeth were as white as a
lady’s; his hair too might have been the envy of many a woman, clustering
as it did in a profusion of curls over a pair of real gold earrings—a
fashion now beginning to find considerable favour amongst the rising
generation of seamen, though regarded with horror by their seniors as a
new and monstrous affectation, proving, if indeed proof were needed for
so self-evident a fact, that, as in all previous and subsequent ages,
“the service was going to the devil.”

Even his joviality, however, seemed damped by the taciturnity of his
comrades. He too smoked in silence and gave himself up to meditation. The
rain pattered outside, and gusts of wind dashed it fitfully against the
window-pane. The tide moaned sullenly, and a house-dog, chained in the
back-yard, lifted up his voice to howl in unison. The three seamen smoked
and drank and brooded, each occasionally removing his pipe from his mouth
as if about to break the silence, on which the others looked in his face
expectant, and for a time this was the whole extent of the conversation.




CHAPTER XXII

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN


As in a council of war, the youngest spoke first. “Mates!” said he,
“here be three of us, all run for the same port, and never a one sported
bunting. I ain’t a chap, I ain’t, as must be brought to afore he’ll show
his number. When I drinks with a man I likes to fit his name on him
ship-shape, so here’s my sarvice to you messmates both! They calls me
Slap-Jack. That’s about what they calls _me_ both ashore and afloat.”

It was absolutely necessary after such an exordium that more liquor
should be brought in, and a generous contention immediately arose between
the three occupants of the tap-room as to who should pay for it; at
once producing increased familiarity, besides a display of liberality
on the part of the eldest and first comer, who was indeed the only one
possessing ready money. Butter-faced Bob being summoned, the jugs were
replenished and Slap-Jack continued his remarks.

“I’ve been cruising about ashore,” said he, between the whiffs of his
pipe, “and very bad weather I made on it standing out over them Downs,
as they calls ’em, in these here latitudes. Downs, says I, the Downs is
mostly smooth water and safe anchorage; but these here Ups and Downs
is a long leg and a short one, a head wind and an ebb tide all the
voyage through. I made my port, though, d’ye mind me, my sons, at last,
and—and—well, we’ve all had our sweethearts in our day, so we’ll drink
her health by your leave. Here’s to Alice, mates! and next round it shall
be _your_ call, and thank ye hearty.”

So gallant a toast could not but be graciously accepted. The second
comer, however, shook his head while he did it justice, and drank, so
to speak, under protest, thereby in no measure abating the narrator’s
enthusiasm.

“She’s a trim-built craft is my Alice,” continued the other reflectively.
“On a wind or off a wind, going large or close hauled, moored in dock or
standing out in blue water, there’s not many of ’em can show alongside
of she. And she’s weatherly besides, uncommon weatherly she is. When I
bids her good-bye at last, and gives her a bit of a squeeze, just for a
reminder like, she wipes her eyes, and she smiles up in my face, and,
‘God bless you, Jack!’ says she; ‘you won’t forget me,’ says she; ‘an’
you’ll think of me sometimes, when it’s your watch on deck; and as for
me, Jack, I’ll think of you every hour of the day and night till you
comes back again; it won’t be so very long first.’ She’s heart of oak,
is that lass, mates, and I wouldn’t be here now but that I’m about high
and dry, and that made me feel a bit lubberly, d’ye see, till I got under
weigh for the homeward trip; an’ you’ll never guess what it was as raised
my spirits, beating to windward across them Downs, with a dry mouth and
my heart shrunk up to the size of a pea.”

“A stiff glass of grog nor’-nor’-west?” suggested the oldest sailor, with
a grunt. “Another craft on the same lines, with new sails bent and a lick
of fresh paint on,” snarled the second, whose opinion of the fair sex,
derived chiefly from seaport towns, was none of the highest.

“Neither one nor t’other,” replied Slap-Jack, triumphantly. “Scalding
punch wouldn’t have warmed my heart up just then, and I wasn’t a-goin’
to clear out from Alice like that, and give chase to a fresh sail just
because she cut a feather across my fore-foot. It was neither more nor
less than a chap swinging in chains; a chap as had been swinging to
all appearance so long he must have got used to it, though I doubt he
was very wet up there in nothing but his bones. He might have been a
good-looking blade enough when he began, but I can’t say much for his
figure-head when I passed under it for luck. It wanted painting, mates,
let alone varnish, and he grinned awful in the teeth of the wind. So I
strikes my topmast as I forges ahead, and I makes him a low bow, and,
says I, ‘Thank ye kindly, mate,’ says I, ‘for putting it in my mind,’
says I; ‘you’ve been “on the account,” in all likelihood, and that’s
where I’ll go myself next trip, see if I won’t;’ and I ask your pardon,
by sons, for you’re both older men than me by a good spell, if that isn’t
the trade for a lad as looks to a short voyage and good wages, every man
for himself, grab what you see, an’ keep all you can?”

Thus appealed to, the elder seaman felt bound to give an opinion; so he
cleared his throat and asked huskily—

“Have you _tried_ it, mate? You seems like a lad as has dipped both hands
in the tar-bucket, though you be but young and sarcy. Look ye, now, you
hoisted signals first, an’ I ain’t a-going to show a false ensign, I
ain’t. You may call me Bottle-Jack; you won’t be the first by a many, and
I ain’t ashamed o’ my name.”

The next in seniority then removed the pipe from his lips, and smiting
the table with a heavy fist, observed, sententiously—

“And me, Smoke-Jack, young man. It’s a rum name, ain’t it, for as smart a
foretopman as ever lay out upon a yard? but I’ve yarned it, that’s what I
sticks to. I’ve yarned it. Here’s your health, lad; I wish ye well.”

The three having thus gone through all the forms necessary to induce a
long and staunch friendship amongst men of their class, Slap-Jack made a
clean breast of it, as if he had known his companions for years.

“I _have_ tried it, mates,” said he; “and a queer game it is; but I
don’t care how soon I try it again. I suppose I must have been born a
landsman somehow, d’ye see? though I can’t make much of that when I
come to think it over. It don’t seem nat’ral like, but I suppose it was
so. Well, I remember as I runned away from a old bloke wot wanted to
make me a sawbones—a sawbones! and I took and shipped myself, like a
young bear, aboard of the ‘Sea Swallow,’ cabin-boy to Captain Delaval.
None o’ your merchantmen was the ‘Sea Swallow,’ nor yet a man-o’-war,
though she carried a royal ensign at the gaff, and six brass carronades
on the main-deck. She was a waspish craft as ever you’d wish to see,
an’ dipped her nose in it as though she loved the taste of blue water,
the jade!—wet, but weatherly, an’ such a picture as you never set eyes
on, close-hauled within five points of the wind. First they gammoned
me as she was a slaver, and then a sugar-merchant’s pleasure-boat, and
sometimes they said she was a privateer, with letters of marque from the
king; but I didn’t want to know much about that; King George or King
Louis, it made no odds, bless ye; I warn’t a goin’ to turn sawbones, an’
Captain Delaval was _my_ master, that was enough for me! Such a master
he was, too! No seaman—not he. His hands were as white as a lady’s,
an’ I doubt if he knew truck from taffrail; but with old Blowhard, the
master, to sail her, and do what the skipper called swabbing and dirty
work, there wasn’t a king’s officer as ever I’ve heard of could touch
him. Such a man to fight his ship was Captain Delaval. I’ve seen him run
her in under a Spanish battery, with a table set on deck and a awning
spread, and him sitting with a glass of wine in his hand, and give his
orders as cool and comfortable as you and me is now. ‘Easy, Blowhard!’
he’d sing out, when old ‘Blow’ was sweating, and cursing, and stamping
about to get the duty done. ‘Don’t ye speak so sharp to the men,’ says
he; ‘spoils their ear for music,’ says he. ‘We’ll be out o’ this again
afore the breeze falls, and we’ll turn the fiddles up and have a dance in
the cool of the evening.’ Then he’d smile at me, and say, ‘Slap-Jack, you
little blackguard, run below for another pineapple; not so rotten-ripe
as the last;’ and by the time I was on deck again, he’d be wiping his
sword carefully, and drawing on his gloves—that man couldn’t so much as
whistle a hornpipe without his gloves; and let who would be _second_ on
board the prize, be she bark, schooner, brig, galleon, or square-rigged
ship, Captain Delaval he would be _first_. Look ye here, mates: I made
two voyages with Captain Delaval, and when I stepped on the quay at
Bristol off the second—there! I was worth a hundred doubloons, all in
gold, besides as much silk as would have lined the foresail, and a
pair of diamond earrings that I lost the first night I slept ashore. I
thought, then, as perhaps I wasn’t to see my dandy skipper again, but I
was wrong. I’ve never been in London town but once, an’ I don’t care if I
never goes no more. First man I runs against in Thames Street is Captain
Delaval, ridin’ in a cart with his hands tied; and old Blowhard beside
him, smelling at a nosegay as big as the binnacle. I don’t think as old
‘Blow’ knowed me again, not in long togs; but the skipper he smiles, and
shows his beautiful white teeth as he was never tired of swabbing and
holystoning, and ‘There’s Slap-Jack!’ says he; ‘Good-bye, Slap-Jack;
I’ll be first man over the gunwale in this here scrimmage, too,’ says
he, ‘for they’ll hang me first, and then Blowhard, when he’s done with
his nosegay.’ I wish I could find such another skipper now; what say ye,
mates?”

Smoke-Jack, who was sitting next him, did not immediately reply. He was
obviously of a logical and argumentative turn of mind, with a cavilling
disposition, somewhat inclined to speculative philosophy; such a
character, in short, as naval officers protest against under the title of
a lawyer. He turned the matter over deliberately ere he replied, with a
voluminous puff of smoke between each sentence—

“Some likes a barky, and some wouldn’t touch a rope in any craft but a
schooner; and there’s others, again, swears a king’s cutter will show her
heels to the liveliest of ’em, with a stiffish breeze and a bobble of
sea on. I ain’t a-goin’ to dispute it. Square-rigged, or fore-and-aft,
if so be she’s well-found and answers her helm, I ain’t a-goin’ to say
but what she’ll make good weather of it the whole voyage through. Men
thinks different, young chap; that’s where it is. Now you asks me _my_
opinion, and I’ll give it you, free. I’m a old man-of-war’s man, I am.
I’ve eat the king’s biscuit and drank the king’s allowance ever since I
were able to eat and drink at all. Now I’ll tell you, young man, a-cause
you’ve asked me, free. The king’s sarvice is a good sarvice; I ain’t
a-goin’ to say as it isn’t, but for two things: there’s too much of one,
and too little of the other. The fuss is the work, and the second is the
pay. If they’d halve the duty, and double the allowance, and send all
the officers before the mast, I ain’t goin’ to dispute but the king’s
sarvice would be more to my fancy than I’ve ever found it yet. You see
the difference atwixt one of our lads when he gits ashore and the Dutch!
I won’t say as the Dutchman is the better seaman, far from it; though
as long as he’s got a plank as’ll catch a nail, an’ a rag as’ll hold
a breeze, he’ll weather it _somehow_; nor I won’t say but what Mynheer
is as ugly a customer as a king’s ship can get alongside of, yard-arm
to yard-arm, and let the best man win! But you see him ashore! Spree,
young man? Why, a Dutchman _never_ has his spree out! You take and hail
a man before the mast, able seaman or what not, when he’s paid off
of a cruise—and mind ye, he doesn’t engage for a long spell, doesn’t
Mynheer—and he’ll tow you into dry dock, and set you down to your grub,
and blow you out with _schnaps_ as if he was a admiral. Such a berth as
he keeps ashore! Pots and pans as bright as the Eddystone; deck scoured
and holystoned, till you’d like to eat your rations off of it. Why, Black
Sam, him as was boatswain’s mate on board of the ‘Mary Rose,’ sitting
with me in the tap of the Golden Lion, at Amsterdam, he gets uneasy,
and he looks here and there an’ everywhere, first at the white floor,
then at the bright stove, turning his quid about and about, till at last
he ups and spits right in the landlord’s face. There _was_ a breeze
then! I’m not a-goin’ to deny it, but Sam he asks pardon quite gentle
and humble-like, ‘for what could I do?’ says he; ‘it was the only dirty
place I could find in the house,’ says he. Young chap, I’m not a-goin’
to say as you should take and ship yourself on board a Dutchman; ’cause
why—maybe if he struck his colours and you was found atween decks, you’d
swing at the yard-arm, but if you be thinking of the king’s sarvice, and
you asks my advice, says I, think about it a little longer, says I. Young
chap, I gives you _my_ opinion, free. What say you, messmate? Bear a hand
and lower away, for I’ve been payin’ of it out till my mouth’s dry.”

Bottle-Jack, who did not give his mouth a chance of becoming dry, took a
long pull at the beer before he answered; but as his style was somewhat
involved, and obscured besides by the free use of professional metaphors,
applied in a sense none but himself could thoroughly appreciate, I will
not venture to detail in his own words the copious and illustrative
exposition on which he embarked.

It was obvious, however, that Bottle-Jack’s inclinations were adverse to
the regular service, and although he would have scouted such a notion,
and probably made himself extremely disagreeable to the man who broached
it, there was no question the old sailor had been a pirate, and deserved
hanging as richly as any ghastly skeleton now bleaching in its chains
and waving to the gusts of a sou’-wester on the exposed sky-line of
the Downs. By his own account he had sailed with the notorious Captain
Kidd, in the ‘Adventure’ galley, originally fitted out by merchants and
traders of London as a scourge for those sea-robbers who infested the
Indian Ocean, and whose enormities made honest men shudder at their bare
recital. The ‘Adventure,’ manned by some of the most audacious spirits
to be procured from the banks of the Thames and the Hudson, seemed, like
her stout commander, especially qualified for such a purpose. She carried
heavy guns, was well found in every respect, and possessed the reputation
of a fast sailer and capital sea boat. Kidd himself was an experienced
officer, and had served with distinction. He was intimately acquainted
with the eastern seas, and seemed in all respects adapted for an
expedition in which coolness, daring, and unswerving honesty of purpose
were indispensable qualifications.

Accordingly, Captain Kidd sailed for the Indian coast, and Bottle-Jack,
by his own account, was boatswain’s mate on board the ‘Adventure.’

There is an old proverb, recommending the selection of a “thief to
catch a thief,” which in this instance received a new and singular
interpretation. Kidd was probably a thief, or at least a pirate, at
heart. No sooner had he reached his destination off the coast of Malabar,
than he threw off his sheep’s clothing, and appeared at once the
master-wolf in the predatory pack he was sent to destroy. Probably the
temptation proved too much for him. With his seamanship, his weight of
metal, and his crew, he could outsail, out-manœuvre, and outfight friends
and foes alike. It soon occurred to him that the former were easy and
lucrative prizes, the latter, bad to capture, and often not worth the
trouble when subdued. It was quicker work to gain possession at first
hand of silk and spices, cinnamon and sandal-wood, gold, silver, rum,
coffee, and tobacco, than to wait till the plunder had been actually
seized by another, and then, after fighting hard to retake it, obtain
but a jackal’s share from the Home Government. In a short space of
time there was but one pirate dreaded from the Cape of Good Hope to the
Straits of Malacca, and his name was Kidd.

From Surat down to the mouth of the Tap-tee, Captain Kidd ruled like a
petty sovereign; Bottle-Jack, if he was to be believed, like a grand
vizier. Not only did they take tax and toll from every craft that swam,
but they robbed, murdered, and lorded it as unmercifully on dry land.
Native merchants, even men of rank and position, were put to torture,
for purposes of extortion, by day; peasants burned alive in their huts
to illuminate a seaman’s frolic by night. Her crew behaved like devils
broke loose ashore, and the ‘Adventure,’ notwithstanding a certain
discipline exacted by her commander, was, doubtless, a hell afloat.
Money, however, came in rapidly. Kidd, with all his crimes, possessed the
elements of success in method, organisation, and power of command. His
sailors forgot the horrors they had inflicted and their own degradation
when they counted the pile of doubloons that constituted their share of
plunder. Amongst the swarm of rovers who then swept the seas, Captain
Kidd was considered the most successful, and even in a certain sense,
notwithstanding his enormities, the most _respectable_ of all.

Bottle-Jack did not appear to think the relation of his adventures in
any way derogatory to his own credit. He concluded with the following
peroration, establishing his position in the confident tone of a man who
is himself convinced of its justice:—

“Wot I says, is this here. The sea was made for them as sails upon it,
and you ain’t a-goin’ to tell me as it can be portioned out into gardens
an’ orchards, and tobacco plantations, like the dirt we calls land. Werry
well, if the sea be free, them as sails upon it can make free with wot
it offers them. If in case now, as I’m look-out man, we’ll say, in the
maintop, and I makes a galleon of her, for instance, deep in the water
under easy sail, you’re not to tell me as because she shows Spanish
colours I’m not to take what I want out of her. Stow that, mates, for
it’s clean nonsense! The way old Kidd acted was this here—First, he
got her weather-gage; then he brought her to with a gun, civil and
reasonable; arter that, whether she showed fight, or whether she showed
friendly, he boarded her, and when he’d taken all he wanted, captain,
crew, and passengers just walked the plank, easy and quiet, and no words
about it.”

“And the craft?” asked Slap-Jack, breathless with interest in the old
pirate’s reminiscences.

“Scuttled her!” answered the other, conclusively. “Talking’s dry work.
Let’s have some more beer.”




CHAPTER XXIII

THE PARLOUR-LODGER


There was a tolerably snug parlour under the roof of the Fox and Fiddle,
notwithstanding that its dimensions were small, its floor uneven, and its
ceiling so low that a solitary inmate could not but feel enlivened by
the company of the landlord’s family, who inhabited the rooms overhead.
This apartment, which was usually occupied by some skipper from beyond
seas, put forward certain claims to magnificence as well as comfort;
and although the vaguest attempts at cleanliness seemed to have been
suppressed, there was no little pretension apparent in the furniture, the
chimney ornaments, and the “History of the Prodigal Son” on the walls.
China shepherdesses stood on the mantelpiece, surmounted by the backbone
of a shark. Two gilt chairs, with frayed velvet cushions, supported an
unframed representation of a three-decker, with every available sail set,
and British colours flying at the main, stemming a grass-green sea, under
a sky of intense blue. A contracted square of real Turkey carpet covered
a few feet in the middle, and the rest of the floor, ornamented at
regular intervals by spittoons, stood inch-deep in dust. The hearth could
not have been swept for days, nor the smouldering fire raked out for
hours; but on a mahogany sideboard, that had obviously sustained at least
one sea-voyage, stood a dozen different drinking-measures, surrounding a
punch-bowl capacious enough to have baptized a full-grown pirate.

The occupant of this chamber was sitting at the table engrossed by a task
that seemed to tax all his energies and employ his whole attention. He
was apparently no adept at accounts, and every time he added a column
afresh, and found its result differed from his previous calculation, he
swore a French oath in a whisper and began again. It was nearly dusk
before the landlord came in with the candles, when his guest looked up,
as if much relieved at a temporary interruption of work.

Butter-faced Bob was a plausible fellow enough, well fitted for the
situation he filled, crimp, publican, free-trader, and, on occasion,
receiver of stolen goods. From the seaman in the tap, to the skipper in
the parlour, he prided himself on his facility in making conversation to
his customers, saying the right thing to each; or, as he expressed it,
“oiling the gear so as the crank should work easy.”

Setting down the candles, therefore, he proceeded to lubrication without
delay.

“Sorry shall we be to lose ye, Captain! and indeed it will drive me out
of the public line at last, to see the way as the best o’ friends must
part. My dame, she says to me, it was but this blessed day as I set down
to my nooning, says she, Bob, says she, whatever we shall do when the
Captain’s gone foreign, says she, I, for one, can’t tell no more than the
dead. You step round to the quay, says she, when you’ve a-taken a drink,
and see if ‘The Bashful Maid’ ha’n’t histed her blue-Peter at the fore,
and the Captain he’ll make a fair wind o’ this here sou’-wester, see if
he won’t, and maybe weigh at the ebb; an’ it’ll break my heart, let alone
the chil’en’s, to wish him a good voyage, it will. She’s about ready for
sea, Captain, _now_; I see them gettin’ the fresh water aboard myself.”

The Captain, as his host called him, smiled good-humouredly.

“Your dame will have many a better lodger than I have been, Bob,” said
he, fixing his bold eyes on the landlord, which the latter, who never
seemed comfortable under an honest man’s gaze, avoided by peering into
every corner of the room; “one that will stay longer with you, and
entertain more friends than I have done. What of that? The heaviest purse
makes the best lodger, and the highest score, the merriest landlord, at
every hostelry in Europe. Well, I shall be ready for sea now, when I’ve
got my complement; but I’m not going to cruise in the”—here the speaker
stopped short and corrected himself—“not going to cruise _anywhere_,
short-handed.”

Bob’s eyes glistened, and he stole a look in the Captain’s face.

“How many would you be wanting?” said he, cautiously, “and where would
they have to serve? First-class men is very bad to get hereaway, just
now.”

“If I had a gunner, a boatswain’s-mate, and a good captain of the
foretop, I’d weigh next tide, and chance it,” replied the other,
cheerfully, but his chin fell while his eye rested on the pile of
accounts, and he wondered how he could ever comb them into shape for
inspection.

Bob thought of the seamen still drinking in his tap-room, and the
obviously low state of their finances. It would work he decided, but it
must be done under three influences, viz., beer, secrecy, and caution.

“Captain,” said he, shutting the door carefully, “I’d rather do you
a turn than any lodger I’ve had yet. If I can help you to a hand or
two, I’m the man as’ll do it. You’ll be willing to pay the expenses, I
suppose?”

The Captain did not appear totally inexperienced in such matters, for,
on asking the amount and receiving for answer a sum that would have
purchased all the stock of liquors in the house over and over again, he
showed neither indignation nor surprise, but observed quietly—

“Able seamen, of course?”

“Of course!” repeated Bob. “Honour, you know, Captain, honour!” If he had
added “among thieves,” he would none the less clearly have expressed the
situation. Reflecting for a moment, he approached his guest and whispered
in his ear, “For the account?”

“Ask me no questions,” answered the Captain, significantly. “You know as
well as I do that your price covers everything. Is it a bargain?”

“That would make a difference, you see, Captain,” urged Bob, determined
to get all he could. “It’s not what it used to be, and the Government
is uncommon hard upon a look-out man now, if he makes a mistake in the
colours of a prize. In King James’s time, I’ve seen the gentlemen-rovers
drinking at this very table with the mayor and the magistrates, ay, and
sending up their compliments and what not, maybe, to the Lord-Lieutenant
himself. Why, that very mug as you see there was given me by poor
Captain Delaval; quite the gentleman he was! An’ he made no secret
where he took it from, nor how they cut the Portuguese chap’s throat
as was drinking from it in the after-cabin. And now, it’s as likely as
not the Whigs would hang a man in chains for such a thing. I tell you,
Captain, the hands don’t fancy it. They can’t cruise a mile along-shore
without running foul of a gibbet with a pi—I mean, with a skeleton on
it, rattling and grinning as if he was alive. It makes a difference,
Captain—it makes a difference!”

“Take it or leave it,” replied the other, looking like a man who had made
his highest bid, which no consideration would induce him to increase by a
shilling.

Bob evidently thought so. “A bargain be it,” said he, with a villainous
smile on his shining face, and muttering something about his wish to
oblige a customer and the high respect he entertained for his guest’s
character, in all its relations, public, private, and nautical, he
shambled out of the room, leaving the latter to tackle once more with his
accounts.

A shade of melancholy crossed the Captain’s brow, deeper and darker than
was to be attributed to the unwelcome nature of his employment or the
sombre surroundings of his position. The light of two tallow-candles,
by which he worked was not indeed enlivening, bringing into indistinct
relief the unsightly furniture and the gloomy pictures on the walls.
The yard-dog, too, behind the house, had not entirely discontinued his
lamentations, and the dip and wash of a retiring tide upon the shingle
no farther off than the end of the street was like the voice from some
unearthly mourner in its solemn and continuous wail. It told of lonely
nights far out on the wild dark sea; of long shifting miles of surf
thundering in pitiless succession on the ocean shore; of mighty cliffs
and slabs of dripping rock, flinging back their defiance to the gale in
the spray of countless hungry, leaping waves, that toss and madden round
their prey ere she breaks up and goes to pieces in the storm. More than
all, it told of desolation, and doubt, and danger, and death, and the
uncertainty beyond.

But to him, sitting there between the candles, his head bent over his
work, it seemed the voice of a counsellor and a friend. Each wave that,
fuller than ordinary, circled up with a fiercer lash, to ebb with a
louder, angrier, and more protracted hiss, seemed to brighten the man’s
face, and he listened like a prisoner who knows the step that leads him
out to life, and liberty, and love. At such times he would glance round
the room, congratulating himself that his charts, his instruments, his
telescope, were all safe on board, and perhaps, would rise, take a turn
or two, and open the window-shutter for a consoling look at a certain
bright speck in the surrounding darkness, which might be either in earth,
or sea, or air, and was indeed the anchor-light in the foretop of his
ship. Then he would return, refreshed and comforted, to his accounts.

He was beginning to hope he had really got the better of these, and had
so far succeeded that two consecutive columns permitted themselves to be
added up with an appearance of probability, when an unusually long-drawn
howl from the house-dog, following the squeak of a fiddle, distracted him
from his occupation, and provoked him to swear once more in a foreign
tongue.

It was difficult to make calculations, involving a thousand
probabilities, with that miserable dog howling at regular intervals.
It was impossible to speculate calmly on the value of his cargo, the
quantity of his powder, and the chances of peace and war. While he sat
there he knew well enough that his letters of marque would bear him out
in pouncing on any unfortunate merchantman he could come across under
Spanish colours, but there had been whispers of peace in London, and the
weekly news-letter (substitute for our daily paper), read aloud that
afternoon in the coffee-house round the corner, indorsed the probability
of these rumours. By the time he reached his cruising-ground, the treaty
might have been signed which would change a privateer into a pirate, and
the exploit that would earn a man his knighthood this week might swing
him at his own yard-arm the next. In those times, however, considerable
latitude, if not allowed, was at least claimed by these kindred
professions, and the calculator in the parlour of the Fox and Fiddle
seemed unlikely to be over-scrupulous in the means by which he hoped to
attain his end.

He had resolved on earning, or winning, or taking, such a sum of money
as would render him independent of fortune for life. He had an object in
this which he deemed worthy of any sacrifice he could offer. Therefore he
had fitted out and freighted his brigantine partly at his own expense,
partly at that of certain confiding merchants in Leadenhall Street, so as
to combine the certain gains of a peaceful trader with the more hazardous
venture of a licensed sea-robber who takes by the strong hand. If the
license should expire before his rapacity was satisfied, he would affect
ignorance while he could, and when that was no longer practicable, throw
off all disguise and hoist the black flag openly at the main.

To this end he had armed his brigantine with the heaviest guns she could
carry; had taken in store of provisions, water, spare tackle, gunpowder,
pistols, cutlasses, and musquetoons; had manned her with the best seamen
and wildest spirits he could lay hands on. These items had run up a
considerable bill. He was now preparing a detailed statement of the cost,
for the information of his friends in Leadenhall Street.

And all this time, had he only known it, fortune was preparing for him,
without effort on his part, the independence he would risk life and
character to gain. That very sou’-wester wailing up the narrow street was
rattling the windows of a castle on a hill hundreds of miles away, and
disturbing the last moments of a dying man in his lordly bed-chamber; was
driving before it, over a bleak, barren moor, pelting storms of rain to
drench the cloaked and booted heir, riding post to reach that death-bed;
sowing in a weak constitution the seeds of an illness that would allow
him but a brief enjoyment of his inheritance; and the next in succession,
the far-off cousin, was making up his accounts in the humble parlour of a
seaport pot-house, because he was to sail for the Spanish main with the
next tide.

“One, two, tree!”—thump—“one, two, tree!”—thump—“_Balancez! Chassez. Un,
deux, trois!_” Thump after thump, louder and heavier than before. The
rafters shook, the ceiling quivered. The Captain rose, irritated and
indignant, to call fiercely for the landlord.

Butter-faced Bob, anticipating a storm, wisely turned a deaf ear,
ensconcing himself in the back kitchen, whence he refused to emerge.

The Captain shouted again, and receiving no answer walked into the
passage.

“Stow that noise!” he hallooed from the foot of the half-dozen wooden
steps that led to the upper floor. “Who is to get any business done with
a row like that going on aloft, as if the devil was dead and the ship
gone overboard?” The Captain’s voice was powerful and his language plain,
but the only reply he received was a squeak from the fiddle, a wail from
the dog, and a “One, two, tree”—thump—louder than ever.

His patience began to fail.

“Zounds! man,” he broke out; “will you leave off that cursed noise, or
must I come up and _make_ you?”

Then the fiddle stopped, the dog was silent, and children’s voices were
heard laughing heartily.

The last sound would have appeased the Captain had his wrath been ever so
high, but a strange, puzzled expression overspread his features while he
received the following answer in an accent that denoted the speaker was
no Englishman.

“You are a rude, gross man. I sall continue my instructions to my
respectable young friends in the dance wizout your permission.
_Monsieur_, you are insolent. _Tiens!_”

The last word carried with it such an amount of anger, defiance, and
contempt as can only be conveyed in that monosyllable by a Frenchman. The
Captain’s frown changed to a broad smile, but he affected wrath none the
less, while he exclaimed in a coarse, sailor-like voice—

“Insolent! you dancing dog of a Mounseer! Insolent! I’ll teach _you_
manners afore I’ve done with you. If you don’t drop it _now_, this
instant, I’ll come aloft in a pig’s whisper, and pull you down by the
ears!”

“Ears! _Les oreilles!_” repeated the voice above stairs, in a tone
of repressed passion, that seemed to afford his antagonist intense
amusement. “_Soyez tranquil, mes enfants._ My children, do not derange
yourselves. Sir, you have insulted me; you have insulted my society. You
shall answer me. _Monsieur! vous allez me rendre raison!_”

Thus speaking, the dancing-master, for such was the foreign gentleman
whose professional avocations the parlour-lodger had interrupted, made
his appearance at the head of the stairs, with a small fiddle under
his arm and a sheathed rapier in his hand; the passage below was quite
dark, but the light from an open door behind him brought his figure into
relief, whilst the skipper, on the contrary, remained unseen in the
gloom. Notwithstanding that the one was in a towering passion, the other
shook with suppressed laughter.

“Come on,” he shouted roughly, though he could scarce command his voice,
adding in a more natural tone, and with a perfect French accent—“_On
prétend, dans les Mousquetaires du Roi, que Monsieur est de la première
force pour l’epée!_”

The effect was instantaneous. With one spring the dancing-master was upon
him, kissing both his cheeks, hugging him in his arms, and repeating,
with eyes full of tears—

“Captain George! Captain George! My comrade, my captain, my officer; and
I thought I was without a friend in this miserable country; without a
friend and without a _sou_! Now I have found the one, I don’t care about
the other. Oh, what happiness! What fortune! What luck!”

The former Captain of Musketeers seemed equally pleased, if in a less
demonstrative manner, at this unexpected meeting, though he had been
better prepared for so strange a termination of their dispute by his
recognition of the other’s voice before he caught sight of his figure.
Now he pulled him into the parlour, sent for Butter-faced Bob to fill the
capacious punch-bowl, pressed him into a chair with both hands on his
shoulders, and looked gravely into his face, saying—

“Eugène, I owe you my life, and I am a man who never left a debt unpaid.”




CHAPTER XXIV

A VOLUNTEER


Beaudésir, by the wretched light of two tallow-candles, looked paler,
thinner, more dejected, than even that pale, thin, anxious recruit who
had joined the Grey Musketeers with so formidable a character as a
master of defence some months before. No wonder. He was an enthusiast at
heart, and an enthusiast can seldom withstand the pressure of continuous
adversity. A temporary gleam of sunshine, indeed, warms him up to the
highest pitch of energy, daring, and intellectual resource; nay, he will
battle nobly against the fiercest storm so long as the winds blow, the
thunder peals overhead, and less exalted spirits fly cowering to the
nearest shelter; but it is in a bitter, bleak, protracted frost that he
droops and fades away. Give him excitement, even the excitement of pain,
and he becomes a hero. Put him to mere drudgery, though it be the honest
drudgery of duty, and he almost ceases to be a man.

There is, nevertheless, something essentially elastic in the French
character, which even in such a disposition as Beaudésir’s preserved
him from giving way to utter despair. Though he might well be excused
for repining, when thus compelled to gain his bread by teaching the
landlord’s children to dance at a low pot-house, yet this young man’s
natural temperament enabled him to take interest even in so unworthy an
occupation, and he was jealous enough of their progress to resent that
rude interruption he experienced from the parlour with a flash of the old
spirit cherished in the King’s Musketeers.

Still he looked pale and wan, nor was it till George had forced on him a
beaker of steaming punch that his eye recovered its brightness and the
blood mantled once more in his clear sallow cheek.

“And you escaped them?” said the Captain, reverting to the fatal night
of their affray in the Montmirail gardens. “Escaped them without a
scratch! Well, it was ten to one against you, and I cursed the Duke with
all my heart as I galloped on towards the coast when I thought of your
predicament. Guard-room, court-martial, confession, and a firing party
was the best I could wish you; for on the reverse of the card I pictured
a _lettre de cachet_, and imprisonment for life in Vincennes or the
Bastile! But how did you get away? and above all, how did you elude the
search afterwards?”

Eugène wet his lips with the hot punch, which he seemed to relish less
than his more robust comrade, and looked distrustfully about him while he
replied—

“I had little difficulty in extricating myself from the gardens, my
Captain, for when I had disposed of Bras-de-Fer, there was no _real_
swordsman left. The Musketeers fight well, no doubt; but they are yet
far from true perfection in the art, and their practice is more like our
fishermen’s cudgel-play than scientific fencing. I wounded two of them
slightly, made a spring at the wall, and was in the street at the moment
you entered the Prince-Marshal’s carriage. My difficulty then was, where
to conceal myself. I do not know Paris thoroughly, to begin with, and I
confess I shuddered at the idea of skulking for weeks in some squalid
haunt of vice and misery. I think I had rather have been taken and shot
down at once.”

“You would not have been safe even in dens like those,” interrupted
the other. “Our Débonnaire is not so refined in his orgies but that I
believe every garret in the Faubourgs is frequented by himself and his
_roués_. Bah! when we drew pay from Louis le Grand at least we served a
_gentleman_. The Jesuits would have been your best chance. Why did you
not take refuge with _them_?”

Eugène shuddered, and the pale face turned paler still, but he did not
answer the question.

“When we used to hunt the hare in Normandy,” he resumed, “I have
observed that, if hard pressed, she would return to her form, and often
thus made her escape, whereas the wolf and the stag, flying straight
away, were generally run down. Like the hare, then, I doubled back and
lay hid in the very house where I habitually lodged. It was the first
place they searched, but they never came near it again; and the second
day an old comrade found me out, took me to his own home, and furnished
me with a disguise.”

“An old comrade!” repeated the Captain. “_Bravo!_ Ah! we had always
plenty of _esprit de corps_ in the Musketeers. It was Adolphe, I’ll wager
a crown, or the young Count de Guiches, or Bellegarde!”

“None of these, my Captain,” explained Eugène. “It was no Musketeer;
Black, Red, or Grey. When I said comrade, I meant an old college friend.
It was an Abbé. I know not why I should keep it secret. Abbé Malletort.”

The Captain pondered. “Abbé Malletort!” said he. “That is more than
strange. The Regent’s confidant; his chief adviser, men said; his
principal favourite! He must have had some reason—some deep-laid scheme
of double treachery. I know the man. A smooth-spoken churchman; a
pleasant fellow to drink with, and a good judge of drill. But if it was
his interest to betray the poor thing, I wouldn’t trust him with the life
of a dog!”

“You little know him,” urged the other, eagerly. “Generous, kind, and
secret—had it not been for his advice and his exertions I should never
have got away alive. He kept me a fortnight in his apartment, till the
heat of the pursuit was over and Paris had ceased to talk of our affray,
which everybody believed an organised conspiracy of the Huguenots—of the
Jansenists—of the young King’s party—of the British Government. What
shall I say?—of the Great Mogul. I did not dare show myself, of course.
I could only hear the news from my friend, and I saw him but seldom. I
was forced to leave Paris at last without knowing how far the disturbance
affected the ladies in whose grounds it took place. I tried hard to find
out, but it was impossible.”

The Captain glanced sharply in his face, and took a strong gulp at the
punch. Eugène continued:—

“I got through the barrier with an Italian company of jugglers, disguised
as a Pantaleone. It was not too amusing to be obliged to perform antics
for the amusement of the Guard, fortunately they were of the Prince de
Condé’s regiment, which had just marched into Paris. But the mountebanks
were good people, kindly, and perfectly trustworthy. They were polite
enough to say that I might make an excellent livelihood if I would but
take in earnest to the business. I left them at Rouen, and from that
place reached the seaboard on foot. My object was to take refuge in
England. Here alone I felt I should be safe for a time, and when the
storm should blow over I hoped to return again. I little knew what a
climate it is! what a country! what people! They are somewhat better
when you are used to them, and I own I accustom myself more easily
than I could have believed to their beef, their beer, their barbarous
language, and their utter want of politeness. But they have been kind to
me, these rough islanders. It was an English fishing-boat that landed
me from Havre, and the fisherman made me stay a week in his house for
nothing because he discovered accidentally that I had exhausted my purse
to pay for my passage. Since then, my Captain, I have supported myself
by teaching these awkward English to dance. It is a noble exercise after
all, were they not so stiff, so ungraceful! And yet my pupils make
progress! These children above stairs have already begun the minuet.
Egotist that I am! Tell me, my Captain, how you too come to find yourself
in this miserable town, without gardens, without barriers, without
barracks, without _Hôtel de Ville_, without a church, even without an
opera!”

The Captain smiled. “You have a good right to ask,” said he, “since, but
for you, I should not have been here at this moment. When I drew on the
Regent that night, as I would have drawn on the young King himself had
I seen him guilty of such an outrage, I was, as you know, surrounded
and attacked by an escort of my own men. I tell you, Beaudésir, I never
expected to leave the gardens alive, and I do not believe there is
another fencer in France who could have helped me out of so awkward a
scrape. I was sorry to see our old Bras-de-Fer go down, I admit; but
what would you have? When it’s give and take, thrust and parry, ten
against two, one cannot stand on these little delicacies of feeling. As I
vanished through the garden-gate I looked for you everywhere, but there
was no time to lose, and I thought we could escape more easily separate
than in company. I knew you were neither down nor taken, because there
was no shout of triumph from the men to announce the fact. The Prince du
Chateau-Guerrand, my old general, was standing at the door of his coach
when I gained the street. How he came there I am at a loss to guess, for
you may believe I asked no questions; but that you and he should have
dropped from the clouds at the Hôtel Montmirail, in the moment of my
need, is one of those happy strokes of accident by which battles are won,
and which we call fortune of war. I thought him a martinet when I was on
his staff, with his everlasting parades, and reports, and correspondence,
to say nothing of his interminable stories about Turenne, but I always
knew his heart was in the right place. ‘Jump in!’ said he, catching me by
the arm. ‘Drive those English horses to death, and take the coach where
you will!’ In five minutes we were out of Paris, and half a league off on
our way to the coast.

“I hope the English horses may have survived the journey, but they
brought me to my first relay as fast as ever I went in the saddle, and I
knew that with half an hour’s start of everything I was safe. Who was to
question a Captain of King’s Musketeers riding post for England on the
Regent’s business? The relays were even so good that I had time to stop
and breakfast comfortably, at leisure, and to feed my horse, half-way
through the longest stage.

“I had little delay when I reached the Channel. The wind was easterly,
and before my horse had done shaking himself on the quay, an honest
fellow had put his two sons, a spare oar, and a keg of brandy, on board a
shallop about as weatherly as an egg-shell, hoisted a sail the size of a
pocket-handkerchief, and stood out manfully with a following wind and an
ebb tide. I know the Channel well, and I was as sure as he must have been
that the wind would change when the tide turned, and we should be beating
about, perhaps in a stiffish breeze, all night. It was not for me to
baulk him, however, and I only stipulated for a loaf or two of bread and
a beaker of water in the bows. I tell you before they led my horse to the
stable, we were a cable’s length off shore.

“A fair wind, Eugène, does not always make a short voyage. At sundown
it fell to a dead calm. The lads and the old man, and I, who speak to
you, took our turns, and pulled like galley-slaves at the oars. With the
moon-rise, a light breeze came up from the south-west, and it freshened
by degrees till at midnight it was blowing half a gale. The egg-shell
behaved nobly, and swam like a duck, but it took all the old man’s time
to steer her, and the sons said as many _Aves_ before dawn as would have
lasted a whole convent for a month.

“At one time I feared we must put her head about, and run for it, on the
chance of making Ambleteuse, or even Calais, but the old fellow who owned
her had a conscience, and to give him his due he was a first-rate sailor.
The wind moderated at sunrise, drawing round by the south, and at noon we
had made Beachy Head, when it fell a dead calm, with a ground swell that
was no child’s play when we laid out on our oars. By dint of hard pulling
we ran her ashore on the English coast about sundown, and my friend put
off again with his two sons, none the worse for the voyage, and all the
better for some twenty gold pieces with which I paid my passage. He
deserved it, for he earned it fairly. She was but an egg-shell, as I said
before, but she swam like a duck; it’s only fair to allow that.”

“And now, my Captain,” asked Beaudésir, looking round the
strangely-furnished apartment, “you are living here? you are settled? you
are a householder? Are you reconciled to spend your life in this dirty
little town, ill-paved, ill-lighted, smelling of salt water and tar,
where it always rains, and they bring you nothing to drink but black beer
and hot punch?”

Captain George laughed heartily. “Not such a bad thing that hot punch,”
said he, “when you can get neither Chambertin, Burgundy, nor Bourdeaux.
But I understand you nevertheless, comrade. It is not likely that a man
who has served Louis le Grand in the Musketeers would be content to
vegetate here like a wisp of seaweed left at high-water mark. It was
lucky I met you to-night. In twenty-four hours, at most, I hope to be off
the Needles if the wind holds.”

Beaudésir looked interrogatively at the pile of accounts on the table.

“You have turned trader, my Captain?” said he. “You will make a fortune
in two voyages. At College they pretended I had some skill in reading
characters. You have luck written on your forehead. I wish I was going
with you, were it only as a clerk.”

Captain George pondered for a while before he answered, nay, he filled
and emptied his glass, took two or three turns in the narrow apartment,
which admitted indeed but of what sailors called “a fisherman’s walk—two
steps and overboard,” and finally, pulling back the shutter, pointed to
the light in the foretop of his brigantine.

“You won’t catch me afloat again,” said he, “in a craft like a
walnut-shell, with a scrap of paper for a sail. No, no. There she rides,
my lad, the lady that would take me round the world, and never wet a
stitch on my back from head to heel. Why, close-hauled, in a stiff
breeze, there’s not a King’s cutter in the Channel can hold her own with
her; and off a wind, she’d have the whole fleet hull-down in six hours,
making such good weather of it, too, all the while! I wish you could see
her by daylight, with her straight run, and her raking masts, and bran
new spars, and a fresh lick of paint I gave her in dock before we came
round. She looks as trim as a pincushion, and as saucy as a dancing-girl.
She carries a few popguns too, in case of accidents; and when she shows
her teeth, she means to bite, you may take your oath! I’ll tell you what,
Eugène, you must come on board to-morrow before I weigh. I should like to
show you over ‘The Bashful Maid’ myself, and I hope to get my anchor up
and shake out my foretopsail with the afternoon tide.”

Landsman, Frenchman, though he was, Beaudésir’s eyes kindled, and he
caught his friend’s enthusiasm like wildfire.

“I would give my right arm to be going with you,” said he. “Excitement,
adventure, storms, seamanship, and all the wonders of the tropics!
While for me, muddy beer, gloomy fogs, dirty streets, and clumsy English
children learning to dance! Well! every man to his trade. Here’s a good
voyage to you and my best wishes!”

Again he wet his lips with the punch, now grown cold and sticky in his
glass. Captain George was so preoccupied, he forgot to acknowledge the
courtesy.

“Can you keep accounts?” he asked abruptly, pointing to the papers on the
table.

“Any schoolboy might keep such as these,” answered Eugène, running
his eye over one of the columns, and adding, as he examined it,
“Nevertheless, my Captain, here is an error that will falsify the whole
sum.”

He pointed to a mistake in the numerals that had repeatedly escaped
the other’s observation, and from which much of his labour had arisen.
In a few minutes, he had gone through, and corrected as many pages of
calculation. The figures came right now, as if by magic. Captain George
had found what he wanted.

“Where did you learn all this?” he inquired in astonishment.

“At Avranches, in Normandy,” was the answer.

“Where they taught you to fence?”

“Precisely; and to shoot with musquetoon or pistol. I can pick the ace of
diamonds off a card at fifteen paces with either weapon.”

He spoke modestly, as he always did of his proficiency in such feats of
skill. They came so easily to him.

“Will you sail with me?” asked George frankly. “You can help me with my
papers, and earn your share of the plun―I should say of the profits. No,
my friend! you shall not leap blindfold. Listen. I have letters of marque
in my cabin, and I mean them to hold good whether peace be proclaimed or
not. It may be, we shall fight with a rope round our necks. The gains are
heavy, but the risk is great.”

“I never count risk!” was the reply.

“Then finish the punch!” said Captain George; and thus the bargain was
ratified, which added yet one more to the _rôle_ of characters Beaudésir
was destined to enact on the stage of life.




CHAPTER XXV

THREE PRESSED MEN


While the occupants of the parlour were sipping punch those of
the tap-room had gone systematically through the different stages
of inebriety—the friendly, the argumentative, the captious,
the communicative, the sentimental, the quarrelsome, the
maudlin-affectionate, and the extremely drunk. By nightfall, neither
Smoke-Jack, Bottle-Jack, nor Slap-Jack could handle a clay-pipe without
breaking it, nor fix their eyes steadily on the candle for five
consecutive moments. Notwithstanding, however, the many conflicting
opinions that had been broached during their sitting, there were certain
points on which they agreed enthusiastically—that they were the three
finest fellows under the sun, that there was no calling like seamanship,
no element like salt water, and no craft in which any one of them had yet
sailed so lively in a sea-way as this, which seemed now to roll and pitch
and stagger beneath their besotted senses. With a confirmed impression,
varied only by each man’s own experience, that they were weathering a
gale under considerable difficulties, in a low latitude, and that it was
their watch on deck, though they kept it somewhat unaccountably below,
all three had gone through the abortive ceremony they called “pricking
for the softest plank,” had pulled their rough sea-coats over their
heads, and lain down on the floor among the spittoons, to sleep out the
dreamless sleep of intoxication.

Long before midnight, Butter-faced Bob, looking in, well satisfied,
beheld his customers of the afternoon now transformed into actual goods
and chattels, bales of bone and sinew and courage, that he could
sell, literally by weight, at an enormous price, and for ready money.
While he turned the light of his candle from one sleeper to another,
he was running over a mental sum comprising all the elementary rules
of arithmetic. He added the several prices of the recumbent articles
in guineas. He subtracted the few shillings’-worth of liquor they
had consumed. He multiplied by five the hush-money he expected, over
and above, from the purchaser, and finally, he divided the total, in
anticipation, between himself, his wife, the tax-gatherer, and the most
pressing of his creditors.

When he had finished these calculations, he returned to the parlour,
where Captain George sat brooding over the remains of his punch, the late
enlisted recruit having retired to pack up his fiddle and the very small
stock of clothes he possessed.

Their bargain was soon concluded, although there was some little
difficulty about delivering the goods. Notwithstanding, perhaps in
consequence of, the many cases of oppression that had stained the last
half of the preceding century, a strong reaction had set in against
anything in the shape of “kidnapping”; and a press-gang, even for a
king’s ship, was not likely to meet with toleration in the streets of a
seaport town. Moreover, suspicions had already been aroused as to the
character of ‘The Bashful Maid.’ A stricter discipline seemed to be
observed on board that wicked-looking craft than was customary even in
the regular service, and this unusual rigour was accounted for by the
lawless conduct of her “liberty-men” when they _did_ come ashore. Nobody
knew better than her Captain that, under the present aspect of political
affairs in London, it would be wise to avoid notice by the authorities.
The only thing he dreaded on earth and sea was a vision, by which he was
haunted daily, till he could get all his stores shipped. It represented
a sloop-of-war detached from the neighbouring squadron in the Downs,
coming round the Point, dropping her anchor in the harbour, and sending a
lieutenant and boat’s crew on board to overhaul his papers, and, maybe,
summarily prevent his beautiful craft from standing out to sea.

Neither was Butter-faced Bob rash or indiscreet where his own interests
were affected. Using a metaphor he had picked up from his customers, it
was his boast that he could “keep a bright look-out, and steer small”
with the best of them; and he now impressed on Captain George, with
great earnestness, the necessity of secrecy and caution in getting the
three fresh hands down to the quay and tumbling them up the side of the
brigantine.

Had the Captain known their inclinations, he might have made his own
bargain, and saved three-fourths of the expense, but his landlord took
care that in such cases the principals should never come together,
telling the officers they could make what terms they chose when the men
found themselves fairly trapped and powerless in blue water, while he
kept the latter in a state of continuous inebriety so long as they dwelt
in his house, which rendered them utterly reckless of everything but
liquor and tobacco.

His shining face wore the well-satisfied expression of a man who has
performed a good action, while he motioned with his thumb to the
adjoining tap-room.

“I’ve a cart ready in the back yard,” said he, “and a few empty casks to
tumble in along with our chaps. It will only look like the fresh water
going aboard, so as you may weigh with the morning tide. Will they send a
boat off if you show a light?”

Captain George nodded. The boatswain whom he had left in charge, and on
whom he could rely, had directions for a certain code of signals, amongst
which, the waving of a lantern thrice from the end of the quay was to be
answered by a boat ashore.

“We’d best get them in at once, then,” said Bob, only anxious now to be
rid of his guests. “I’ll go and put the horse to, and perhaps you and me
and the French gentleman, as he seems a friend of yours, can manage it
between us.”

Accordingly, Bob betook himself to the back yard and the stable, while
Beaudésir was summoned to assist the process of embarkation. In ten
minutes all was prepared, and it was only necessary to lift the three
drunken tars into the carriage provided for them.

With the two elder and heavier men there was no difficulty. They grunted,
indeed, impatiently, though without opening their eyes, and seemed to
sleep as soundly, while being dragged along a dusty passage and hoisted
into a narrow cart amongst empty water-casks, as if they took their rest
habitually under such disadvantages; but Slap-Jack’s younger constitution
had not been so completely overcome, and it was necessary to soothe him
by a fiction which has possessed in all times an indescribable charm for
the seafaring imagination.

Bob whispered impressively in his ear that he had been sent for, thus
in the dead of night, by the Admiral’s daughter, who had conceived for
him a fatal and consuming passion, having seen him in his “long togs” in
the street. Muttering inarticulately about “Alice,” Slap-Jack at once
abandoned himself to the illusion, and dropped off to sleep again, with
delightful anticipations of the romantic fate in store for him.

As the wheels rumbled over the rough streets, through the rainy gusts
and the dark night, followed by Captain George and Beaudésir, the latter
could not but compare the vehicle to a dead-cart, carrying away its
burden through some city stricken with the plague. This pleasing fancy he
communicated to his comrade, who made the following inconsequent reply—

“I only hope the harbour-watch may be as drunk as they are. It’s our best
chance to get them aboard without a row. There’s her light Eugène. If the
sky would lift a little, you might make out her spars, the beauty! but
I’m almost afraid now you’ll have to wait for dawn.”

The harbour-watch was drunk, or at least fast asleep in the sentry-box on
wheels that afforded him shelter, and the sky did _not_ lift in the least
degree; so very soon after the waving of the lantern a boat from ‘The
Bashful Maid’ touched the stone steps of the quay, having been cunningly
impelled thither by a screw-driving process, worked with one oar at the
stern, and which made far less noise than the more powerful practice of
pulling her with even strokes.

Two swarthy ill-looking fellows sat in the boat, and a scowl passed over
their features when they saw their Captain’s attitude of precaution,
with one hand on the pistol he wore at his belt. Perhaps they were
disappointed not to be able to elude his vigilance, and have one more
run on shore before they sailed. It was no use trying to “gammon the
skipper,” though. They had discovered that already, and they lent their
aid with a will, when they found it must be so, to place their future
comrades in the same predicament as themselves.

The whole affair was managed so quietly that, even had the harbour-guard,
a brandy-faced veteran of sixty, remained wide-awake and perfectly sober,
he might have been excused for its escaping his vigilance. Bob himself,
standing with his empty cart on the quay, could hardly hear the dip of
the oars as his late guests were pulled cautiously away. He did not
indeed remain there very long to listen. He had done with them one and
all—for was not the score paid? and it behoved him to return home and
prepare for fresh arrivals. He turned, therefore, with a well-satisfied
glance towards the light in the foretop of the brigantine, and wished
‘The Bashful Maid’ a good voyage, while at the same moment Beaudésir
stumbled awkwardly up her side. To the latter this was, indeed, a new and
startling phase of life, but it was full of excitement, and consequently
very much to his taste. Captain George, taking him below, and pointing
out a couch in his cabin on which to pass the rest of the night, though
he had seen a good deal of worse material for a privateer’s-man, or
even a pirate, than this pale gentle young adventurer, late of the Grey
Musketeers.

Covered by a boat-cloak, and accommodated with two or three cushions,
Eugène’s bed was quite as comfortable as that which he occupied at the
Fox and Fiddle. It was long past sunrise when he awoke, and realising
his position he ran on deck with a landsman’s usual conviction that
he was already miles out at sea. It was startling, and a little
disappointing, to observe the quay, the straggling buildings of the town,
the lighthouse, and other well-known objects within musket-shot, and to
find that the brigantine, in spite of her lively motions, still rode at
anchor, not half a cable’s length from a huge, smooth, red buoy, which
was dancing and dipping in the morning sun as if it were alive. There was
a fresh breeze off shore, and a curl on the green sparkling water that,
far away down Channel, beyond the point, swelled into a thousand varying
lines of white, while a schooner in the offing might be observed standing
out to sea with a double reef in her topsails. One of the crew, sluicing
the deck with a bucket of water, that eddied round Eugène’s feet, pointed
her out to his mate with an oath, and the mate, a tall strong negro,
grinning hideously, replied “Iss! very well!”

‘The Bashful Maid’ herself, rising buoyantly to each succeeding wave, ere
with a dip and toss of her bows she sent the heavy spray-drops splashing
over her like a seabird, seemed chafing with eagerness to be off. There
was but little of the bustle and confusion on board usually produced by
clearing out of port. The deck, though wet and slippery, was as clean as
a dinner-plate, the yards were squared, the ropes coiled, new sails had
been bent, and the last cask of fresh water was swinging over the hold:
trim and taut, every spar and every sheet seemed to express “Outward
bound,” not to mention a blue-Peter flying at the fore.

All this Eugène observing, began to suffer from an uncomfortable
sensation in the pit of his stomach, which parched his mouth, depressed
his spirits, and destroyed his appetite. He was not, however, so much
affected by it but that he could take note of his fellow-voyagers, an
occupation sufficiently interesting when he reflected on the probable
result of their preparations. In his experience of life he had never
yet seen such an assemblage. The crew had indeed been got together with
considerable care, but with utter disregard to nationality or uniformity
of any kind. The majority were Englishmen, but there were also Swedes,
Dutch, French, Portuguese, a negro, and even a Spaniard on board. The
brigantine was strongly manned for her size, and the hands, with scarcely
an exception, were stout daring fellows, capable of any exploit and a
good many enormities, but such as a bold commander, cool, judicious, and
determined, might bring into a very efficient state of discipline. Eugène
could not but remark, however, that on the face of each was expressed
impatience of delay, and an ardent desire to be in blue water. The
liberty to go on shore had been stopped, and indeed the pockets of these
gentlemen-adventurers, as the humblest of them called themselves, were
completely cleaned out. Obviously, therefore, it would be well to lose no
time in refilling them.

Leaning over the side, lazily watching the lap and wash of the leaping
water, Eugène was rapidly losing himself in his own thoughts, when,
rousing up, he felt the Captain’s hand on his shoulder, and heard the
Captain’s voice whisper in his ear:—

“Come below with me; I shall want your assistance by-and-by, and you have
had no breakfast yet.”

His qualms took flight at the prospect of fresh excitement, though the
offer of breakfast was received with little enthusiasm, and he followed
the Captain into his comfortable and well-furnished cabin. Here he
learned that, while he was sleeping, George had hailed a fishing-boat
returning warily into harbour, and, under pretence of buying fresh fish,
boarded her with a bottle or two of spirits and a roll of tobacco. In ten
minutes he extracted all the fisherman had to tell, and discovered that a
large King’s ship was cruising in the offing, watching, as his informant
opined, the very port in which they lay. Under these circumstances,
Captain George considered it would be prudent to wait till midnight, when
they might run out of the harbour, with wind and tide in their favour,
and so showing the man-of-war a clean pair of heels, be hull-down and out
of sight before sunrise.

“There’s nothing that swims can touch her in squally weather like this,”
continued the Captain, “if she can get an hour’s start; and I wouldn’t
mind running under his very boltsprit, in the dark, if this wind holds.
My chief difficulty is about the men. There will be black looks, and
something very like mutiny, if I keep them twelve more hours in sight of
the beer-shops without liberty for shore. Those drunken rascals too, that
we hove aboard last night, will have come to themselves by that time,
and we shall perhaps have some trouble in persuading them they are here
of their own free will. You must help me, Eugène, all day. Between us we
must watch the crew like a cat watches a mouse. Once we’re in blue water,
you’ll have nothing to do but sit in my cabin and amuse yourself.”

The skipper understood the nature of those with whom he had to deal.
When the men saw no disposition to get the anchor up, when noon passed
and they went to dinner as usual with the brigantine’s head pointing
steadily to windward, when another tide ebbed and flowed, but failed to
waft them away from the temptations of port, they began to growl freely,
without however proceeding to any overt acts of insubordination, and
towards evening they became pacified with the anticipation of weighing
anchor before the following day. The hours passed wearily to all on
board, excepting perhaps the three Jacks, who, waking simultaneously at
sunrise, turned round, perfectly satisfied, to go to sleep again, and so
recovered complete possession of their faculties towards the dusk of the
evening.

They had been stowed away on some spare bunting outside the door of the
Captain’s cabin. Their conversation, therefore, though carried on in a
low tone, was distinctly audible both to him and Beaudésir, as they sat
waiting for midnight and the turn of the tide.

After a few expressions of astonishment, and vague inquiries how they
got there, each sailor seemed to realise his position pretty clearly
and without much dissatisfaction. Bottle-Jack shrewdly suspected he was
once more at the old trade. Smoke-Jack was comforted by the prospect
of refilling his empty pockets, and Slap-Jack, whilst vowing eternal
fidelity to Alice, seemed impressed with the flattering notion that
somehow his own attractions and the good taste of the Admiral’s daughter
were at the bottom of it all.

The craft, they agreed, was a likely one, the fittings ship-shape
Bristol-fashion, the cruise promised to be prosperous; but such an
unheard-of solecism as to weigh without one more drinking bout in honour
of the expedition, was not to be thought of; therefore Bottle-Jack opined
it was indispensable they should immediately go ashore.

The others agreed without scruple. One difficulty alone presented itself:
the quay stood a good quarter of a mile off, and even in harbour it was
rather a stormy night for a swim. As Slap-Jack observed, “it couldn’t be
done comfortable without a plank of some kind; but most like, if they
waited till dark, they might make free with the skipper’s dingy hanging
over the starn!”

“’Tis but totting up another figure or two on the score with old
Shiney-face,” argued Smoke-Jack, who, considering his profession,
was of a frugal turn of mind, and who little knew how completely the
purchase-money of his own body and bones had wiped off the chalk behind
the door. “Such a voyage as we’re a-goin’ to make will square longer
accounts than ours, though I am uncommon dry, considerin’. Just one more
spree on the quiet, you know, my sons, and back to duty again as steady
as a sou’-wester. There’s no fear they’ll weigh without us, a-course?”

“A-course not,” grunted old Bottle-Jack, who could scarce have been
half sober yet, to hazard such a suggestion. “The skipper is quite the
gentleman, no doubt, and most like when he misses us he’ll send the
ship’s pinnace ashore with his compliments.”

“Pinnace be blowed!” retorted Slap-Jack; “anyway you may be sure he won’t
sail without the dingy;” and in this more reasonable conclusion the
others could not but acquiesce.

With a smile on his face, the Captain listened to the further development
of their plan. One by one they would creep aft without their shoes,
unobserved by the anchor-watch, now sure to be on the forecastle (none
of the Jacks had a clear idea of the craft in which they were plotting);
if any one could put his hand on a bit of grease it would be useful to
make the tackle work noiselessly. When they reached the stern, Slap-Jack
should seat himself in the dingy, as being the lightest weight; the
others would lower away, and as soon as she touched water, shin down
after him, and shove off. There was no time to lose, best set about it at
once.

Captain George whispered in his companion’s ear, “Take my hat and cloak,
and go forward to the hold with a lantern in your hand. Make plenty of
noise as you pass those lubbers, but do not let them see your face.”

Eugène obeyed, and Captain George, blowing out the lights, set himself to
watch at the stern windows.




CHAPTER XXVI

“YO-HEAVE-YO!”


It was pitch dark in the cabin, but although under a cloudy sky there
was light enough to discern objects on deck or alongside. As Smoke-Jack
observed, stealing aft with bare feet, and in a louder whisper than was
prudent, “A good pair of eyes might see as far as a man could heave a
bull by the tail.” George had determined to give the crew a lesson, once
for all, in the matter of discipline, and felt well pleased to make
example of the new-comers, who must be supposed as yet ignorant of his
system.

So he sat in the dark, pistol in hand, at the stern window, which was
open, and watched like the hunter for his prey.

He heard the three Jacks creeping along the deck overhead, he heard low
whispers and a smothered laugh, followed by a few brief expostulations
as to priority of disembarkation, the language far less polite than the
intention; lastly, he heard the tackle by which his boat was made fast
running gently over its blocks.

Then he cocked his pistol without noise, and laughed to himself.

Gradually the cabin window was obscured. A dark object passed smoothly
down, and revealed in its progress a human figure indistinctly visible
above its black horizontal mass, which was indeed the slow-descending
boat, containing no less a personage than the adventurous Slap-Jack; also
two lines of tackle were dimly visible supporting that boat’s head. A
turn of the body, as he covered them steadily with his pistol, enabled
the Captain to bring these two lines into one.

Hand and eye were equally true. He was sure of his mark before he pulled
the trigger. With a flash that lighted up the cabin, and an explosion
that filled it with smoke, the bullet cut clean through the “falls,”
or ropes, supporting the boat’s head, bringing her perpendicularly on
end, and shooting every article she contained—planks, bottom-boards,
stretchers, oars, boat-hook, an empty hen-coop, and the astonished
occupant—plump into seven fathom of water.

Nor was the consternation created by this alarming capsize confined to
the unfortunate Slap-Jack. His comrades, lowering away industriously from
the taffrail, started back in the utmost bewilderment, the anchor-watch
rushed aft, persuaded a mutiny had broken out, and in grievous indecision
whether to take the skipper’s part or assist in cutting his throat. The
crew tumbled up the hatchway, and blundered about the deck, asking each
other absurd questions, and offering wild suggestions, if anything were
really amiss, as to breaking open the spirit-room. Nay, the harbour-guard
himself awoke from his nap, emerged from his sentry-box, took a turn on
the quay, hailing loudly, and receiving no answer, was satisfied he had
been dreaming, so swore and turned in again.

Captain George reloaded his pistol, and sang out lustily, “Man overboard!
Show a light on the deck there, and heave a rope over the side. Bear a
hand to haul him in, the lubber! I don’t much think he’ll want to try
that game in a hurry again!”

Meanwhile, hapless Slap-Jack was incapacitated for the present from that,
or indeed any other game involving physical effort. A plank, falling with
him out of the boat, had struck him on the head and stunned him; seventy
fathom of water would have floated him no better than seven, and with the
first plunge he went down like a stone. Captain George had intended to
give him a fright and a ducking; but now, while he stretched his body out
of the cabin window, peering over the gloomy water and listening eagerly
for the snort and gasp of a swimmer who never came up, he wished with all
his heart that his hand had been less steady on the pistol.

Fortunately, however, Beaudésir, after he had fulfilled the Captain’s
orders by personating him at the hold, remained studiously on watch. It
was a peculiarity of this man that his faculties seemed always on the
stretch, as is often to be observed with those over whom some constant
dread impends, or who suffer from the tortures of remorse. At the moment
he heard the shot, he sprang to the side, threw off hat and cloak, as if
anticipating danger, and kept his eyes eagerly fixed on the water, ready,
if need be, for a pounce. The tide was still flowing, the brigantine’s
head lay to seaward, where all was dark, and fortunately the little light
on the ruffled surface was towards the shore. Slap-Jack’s inanimate form
was carried inwards by the flood, and crossed the moorings of that huge
red buoy which Eugène remembered gazing on listlessly in the morning.
Either the contact with its rope woke an instinctive consciousness in the
drowning man, or some swirl of the water below brought his body to the
surface, but for a few seconds Slap-Jack’s form became dimly visible,
heaving like a wisp of seaweed on a wave. In those few seconds Eugène
dashed overboard, cleaving the water to reach him with the long springing
strokes of a powerful swimmer.

A drowning man is not to be saved but at the imminent risk of his life
who goes in for the rescue, and this gallant feat indeed can only be
accomplished by a thorough proficient in the art; so on the present
occasion it was well that Beaudésir felt as much at home in the water as
on dry land.

How the crew cheered the Frenchman while he was hauled on board with his
dripping burden; how the two Jacks who had remained in the brigantine,
and were now thoroughly sobered, vowed eternal gratitude to the landsman
who had dived for their messmate; how the harbour-guard was once more
disturbed by the cheering, and cheered lustily in reply; how Captain
George clapped his comrade on the shoulder while he took him below to
change his wet garments, and vowed he was fit to be King of France,
adding, with a meaning smile, “If ever I go to school again, I’ll ask
them to give me a berth at Avranches in Normandy!”—all this it is
unnecessary to relate; but if the Captain gained the respect of the crew
by the promptitude with which he resented an attempt at insubordination,
the gallant self-devotion of his friend, clerk, supercargo,
cabin-passenger, or whatever he was, won their affection and good-will
for the rest of the voyage.

This was especially apparent about sunrise, when Captain George beat to
quarters and paraded his whole crew on deck, preparatory to weighing
anchor and standing out down Channel with a fair wind and a following
tide. He calculated that the King’s ship, even if on watch, must be
still some distance from land, and he had such implicit confidence in
the sailing qualities of his brigantine that if he could only get a fair
start he feared a chase from no craft that swam.

Owing to his early education and the experiences of his boyhood,
notwithstanding his late career in the service of King Louis, he was a
seaman at heart. In nothing more so than a tendency to idealise the craft
he commanded as if it were a living creature, endowed with feelings and
even reason. For him ‘The Bashful Maid,’ with her exquisite trim, her
raking masts, her graceful spars, her long fluttering pennon, and her
elaborately-carved figure-head, representing a brazen-faced beauty baring
her breast boastfully to the breeze, was less a triumph of design and
carpentering, of beams, and blocks, and yarn, and varnish, and tar, than
a metaphorical mistress, to be cajoled, commanded, humoured, trusted,
above all, admired. He spoke of her as possessing affections, caprices,
impulses, and self-will. When she answered her helm steadily, and made
good weather of it, in a stiff breeze and a heavy sea, she was “behaving
admirably”—“she liked the job”—“a man had only to trust her, and give her
a new coat of paint now and then, she’d never fail him—not she!” While,
on the other hand, she might dive and plunge, and dip her boltsprit in
the brine, shipping seas that swept her decks fore and aft, and she was
“only a trifle saucy, the beauty! Carried a weather-helm like the rest of
her sex, and must be humoured a bit, till she came round!”

As was the skipper, so were the crew. All these different natures, men
of various nations, dispositions, and characters, were equally childlike
in their infatuation about ‘The Bashful Maid.’ The densest of them had
imagination enough to invest her with a thousand romantic qualities; even
the negro would have furiously resented a word in her disparagement—nay,
the three newly-shipped Jacks themselves, men of weighty authority
in such matters, caught the infection, and were ready to swear by the
brigantine, while it was yet so dark they could scarcely see whether she
was a three-masted merchantman or a King’s cutter.

But when the breeze freshened towards sunrise, and the tide was once
more on the turn, the regard thus freely accorded to their ship was
largely shared by their new shipmate. Beaudésir, passing forward in the
grey light of morning, truth to tell moved only by the restlessness of
a man not yet accustomed to perpetual motion, accompanied by the odours
of bilge-water and tar, was greeted with admiring glances and kind
words from all alike. Dutchman, Swede, Spaniard, vied with each other
in expressions of good-will. Slap-Jack was still below, swaddled in
blankets, but his two comrades had tumbled up with the first streaks of
dawn, and were loud in their praises, Bottle-Jack vowing Captain Kidd
would have made him first-lieutenant on the spot for such a feat, and
Smoke-Jack, with more sincerity than politeness, declaring “he couldn’t
have believed it of a Frenchman!” Nay, the very negro, showing all his
teeth as if he longed to eat him, embarked on an elaborate oration in
his honour, couched partly in his native language as spoken on the
Gold Coast, partly in a dialect he believed to be English, obscured by
metaphor, though sublime doubtless in conception, and prematurely cut
short by the shrill whistle of the boatswain, warning all hands without
delay to their quarters.

It was an enlivening sight, possessing considerable attractions for
such a temperament as Beaudésir’s. The clear gap of morning low down on
the horizon was widening and spreading every moment over the sky; the
breeze, cold and bracing, not yet tempered by the coming sun, freshened
sensibly off shore, driving out to sea a grand procession of dark rolling
clouds, moving steadily and continuously westward before the day. The
lighthouse off the harbour showed like a column of chalk against the dull
background of this embankment, vanishing so imperceptibly into light;
while to landward, far beyond the low level line of coast, a faint quiver
of purple already mingled with the dim grey outline of the smooth and
swelling downs.

In harbour, human life had not yet woke up, but the white sea-birds
were soaring and dipping, and wheeling joyously on the wing. The breeze
whistled through the tackle, the waves leaped and lashed merrily against
her sides, and the crew of the brigantine took their places, clean, well
dressed, brown-faced, and bare-footed, on her deck. While the boatswain,
who from sheer habit cast an eye continually aloft, observed her truck
catch the first gleams of the morning sun, Captain George, carefully
attired, issued from his cabin with a telescope under his arm, and made
his first and last oration to the crew.

“My lads!” said he, “I’ve beat to quarters, this fine morning, before
I get my anchor up, because I want to say a few words to you, and the
sooner we understand each other the better! You’ve heard I’m a soldier.
So I am! That’s right enough; but, mark, you! I dipped my hand in the
tar-bucket before I was old enough to carry a sword; so don’t you ever
think to come over me with skulking, for I’ve seen that game played out
before. Mind you, I don’t believe I’ve got a skulker on board; if I have,
let him step forward and show himself. Over the side he goes, and I sail
without him! Now, my lads, I know _my_ duty and I know _yours_. I’ll
take care both are done. I’ll have no grumbling and no quarrelling. If
any man has a complaint to make, let him come to me, and out with it.
A quarrelsome chap with his messmates is generally a shy cock when you
put him down to fight. I’ll have man-of-war’s discipline aboard. You all
know what that is, and those that don’t like it must lump it. Last night
there were three of you tried to take French leave and to steal my boat;
I stopped that game with a little friend I keep in my belt. Look ye, my
sons, next bout I’ll cover the _man_ instead of the tackle! I know who
they are, well enough, but I mean to forget as soon as ever the anchor’s
up. I’ll have a clean bill of health to take out into blue water. Now,
my lads, attend to me! We’ve a long cruise before us, but we’ve a craft
well-provisioned, well-found, and, I heartily believe, well-manned.
Whatever prizes we take, whatever profit we make on the cargo, from
skipper to ship’s boy, every one shall have his share according to the
articles hung up in my cabin. We _may_ have to fight, and we may _not_;
it’s the last job you’re likely to shirk; but mind this—_one_ skipper’s
enough for _one_ ship. I’ll have no _lawyer_ sail with _me_, and no
opinions ‘whether or no’ before the mast. If you think of disobeying
orders, just remember it’s a short walk from my berth to the powder-room,
and the clink of a flint will square all accounts between captain and
crew. If I’m not to be skipper, nobody else shall, and what I say I mean.
Lastly, no man is to get drunk except in port. And now, my lads, here’s a
fair wind, and a following tide! Before we get the fiddle up for a ‘Stamp
and go, cheerily ho!’ we’ll give three cheers for ‘The Bashful Maid,’ and
then shake out every rag of canvas and make a good run while the breeze
holds!”

The men cheered with a will. The Captain’s notions of sea-oratory were
founded on a knowledge of his audience, and answered his purpose better
than the most finished style of rhetoric. As the shouting died out, a
strong voice was heard, demanding “one cheer more for the skipper.” It
was given enthusiastically—Slap-Jack, who had sneaked on deck with his
head bandaged, having taken this sailor-like method of showing he bore no
malice for a ducking, and was indeed only desirous that his late prank
should be overlooked. Nevertheless, in the hurry and confusion of getting
the anchor up, he contrived to place himself at Beaudésir’s side and to
grasp him cordially by the hand.

“You _be_ a good chap,” said this honest seaman, with a touch of feeling
that he hid under an affectation of exceeding roughness; “as good a chap
as ever broke a biscuit! Look ye, mate; my name’s Slap-Jack; so long as I
can show my number, when anything’s up, you sings out ‘Slap-Jack!’ and if
I don’t answer ‘Slap-Jack _it is_!’ why―”

The imprecation with which this peculiar acknowledgment concluded did
not render it one whit more intelligible to Beaudésir, who gathered
enough, however, from the speaker’s vehemence to feel that he had made at
least one stanch friend among the crew. By the time he had realised this
consoling fact, the brigantine’s head, released from the restraint of
her cable, swung round to leeward, her strong new sails filled steadily
with the breeze, and while the ripple gurgled louder and louder round
her bows, already tossing and plunging through the increasing swell,
the quay, the lighthouse, the long low spit of land, the town, the
downs themselves seemed to glide quietly away; and Beaudésir, despite
the beauty of the scene and the excitement of his position, became
uncomfortably conscious of a strange desire to retire into a corner, lay
himself down at full length, and die, if need be, unobserved.

A waft of savoury odours from the cook’s galley, where the men’s
breakfasts were prepared, did nothing towards allaying this untimely
despondency, and after a short struggle he yielded, as people always do
yield in such cases, and staggering into the cabin, pillowed his head on
a couch, and gave himself over to despair.

Ere he raised it again ‘The Bashful Maid,’ making an excellent run down
Channel in a south-westerly course, was already a dozen leagues out at
sea.




CHAPTER XXVII

‘THE BASHFUL MAID’


If Captain George kept a log, as is probable, or Eugène Beaudésir
a diary, as is possible, I have no intention of copying it. In the
history of individuals, as of nations, the exception is Stir, the rule
Stagnation. There are long links in the Silver Cord, smooth, polished,
uniform, one exactly like the other, ere its sameness is varied by the
carving of a boss or the flash of a gem. It is only here and there that
life-like figures and spirit-stirring scenes start from the dead surface
of the Golden Bowl. Perhaps, when both are broken, neither brilliancy nor
workmanship, but sterling worth of metal, shall constitute the true value
of each.

‘The Bashful Maid’ found her share of favouring winds and baffling
breezes; trim and weatherly, she made the best of them all. Her crew,
as they gained confidence in their skipper and became well acquainted
amongst themselves, worked her to perfection. In squally weather, she
had the great advantage of being over-manned, and could therefore carry
the broadest surface of canvas it was possible to show. After a few
stormy nights all shook into their places, and every man found himself
told off to the duty he was best able to perform. The late Captain of
Musketeers had the knack of selecting men, and of making them obey him.
His last-joined hands were perhaps the best of his whole ship’s company.
Bottle-Jack became boatswain’s mate, Smoke-Jack gunner, and Slap-jack
captain of the foretop. These three were still fast friends and sworn
adherents of Beaudésir. The latter, though he had no ostensible rank or
office, seemed, next to the skipper himself, the most influential and
the most useful person on board. He soon picked up enough knowledge of
navigation to bring his mathematical acquirements into play. He kept the
accounts of stores and cargo. He possessed a slight knowledge of medicine
and surgery. He played the violin with a taste and feeling that enchanted
the Spaniard, his only rival in this accomplishment, and caused many a
stout heart to thrill with unaccustomed thoughts of green nooks and leafy
copses, of laughing children and cottage-gardens, and summer evenings at
home; lastly, the three Jacks, his fast friends, found him an apt pupil
in lessons relating to sheets and tacks, blocks and braces, yards and
spars, in fine, all the practical mysteries of seamanship.

During stirring times, such as the first half of the eighteenth century,
a brigantine like ‘The Bashful Maid,’ well-armed, well-manned, commanded
by a young adventurous captain having letters of marque in his cabin,
and no certain knowledge that peace had yet been proclaimed with Spain,
was not likely long to preserve her sails unbleached by use nor the
paint and varnish undimmed on her hull. Not many months elapsed ere she
was very different in appearance from the yacht-like craft that ran
past the Needles, carrying Eugène Beaudésir prone and helpless as a
log in her after-cabin. He could scarcely believe himself the same man
when, bronzed, robust, and vigorous, feeling every inch a sailor, he
paced her deck under the glowing stars and the mellow moonlight of the
tropics. Gales had been weathered since then, shots fired, prizes taken,
and that career of adventure embarked on which possesses so strange
a fascination for the majority of mankind, partly, I think, from its
permanent uncertainty, partly from its pandering to their self-esteem. A
few more swoops, another prize or two taken, pillaged, but suffered to
proceed if not worth towing into port, and the cruise would have been
so successful, that already the men were calculating their share of
profit and talking as if their eventual return to Britain was no longer
a wild impossibility. Everything, too, had as yet been done according to
fair usage of war. No piracy, no cruelty, nothing that could justify a
British three-decker in capturing the brigantine, to impress her crew
and hang her captain at his own yard-arm. Eugène’s counsels had so far
prevailed with George that he had resolved on confining himself to the
legitimate profits of a privateer, and not overstepping the narrow line
of demarcation that distinguished him from a pirate.

While, however, some of her crew had been killed and some wounded,
‘The Bashful Maid’ herself had by no means emerged scatheless from her
encounters. Eugène was foolish enough to experience a thrill of pride
while he marked the grim holes, planked and caulked, in her sides;
the workmanlike splicing of such yards and spars as had not suffered
too severely for repair, and the carefully-mended foresail, now white
and weather-bleached, save where the breadths of darker, newer canvas
betrayed it had been riddled by round-shot.

But soon his impressionable temperament, catching the influence of the
hour, threw off its warlike thoughts and abandoned itself to those
gentler associations that could hardly fail to be in the ascendant.

The night was such as is only to be seen in the tropics. Above, like
golden lamps, the stars were flaming rather than twinkling in the sky;
while low down on the horizon a broad moon, rising from the sea, spread a
lustrous path along the gently-heaving waves to the very ship’s side; a
path on which myriads of glittering fairies seem to dance and revel, and
disappear in changing sparkles of light.

Through all this blaze of beauty, the brigantine glided smoothly and
steadily on her course. For several days and nights not a sail had been
altered, not a rope shifted, before that soft and balmy breeze. The men
had nothing to do but tell each other interminable yarns and smoke. It
was the fair side of the medal, the bloom on the fruit, the smooth of the
profession, this enchanted voyage over an enchanted sea.

Eugène revelled in its charm, but with his enjoyment was mingled that
quiet melancholy so intimately associated with all beauty in those
hearts (and how many of them are there!) which treasure up an impossible
longing, a dream that can never come to pass. It is a morbid sentiment,
no doubt, which can thus extract from the loveliest scenes of nature,
and even from the brightest triumphs of art, a strange wild ecstasy of
pain, possessing a fascination of its own; but it is a sentiment to which
the most generous and the most noble minds are peculiarly susceptible; a
sentiment that in itself denotes excessive capability, for the happiness
denied or withheld. Were it better for them to be of duller spirit and
coarser fibre, callous to the spur, unequal to the effort? Who knows? I
think Beaudésir would not willingly have parted with the sensibility from
which he experienced so much pain, from the memories on which, at moments
like these, under a moonlit sky, he brooded and dwelt so fondly, yet so
despondently, to have obtained in exchange the inexhaustible good-humour
of Slap-Jack or the imperturbable self-command of Captain George.

Immersed in his own thoughts, he did not observe the latter leave his
cabin, walk from sheer habit to the binnacle in order to satisfy himself
the brigantine was lying her course, and glance over the side to measure
her speed through the water, and he started when the Captain placed his
hand familiarly on his shoulder, and jeered him good-humouredly for his
preoccupation. These men, whose acquaintance had commenced with important
benefits conferred and received on both sides, were now thrown together
by circumstances which brought out the finer qualities of both. They had
learned thoroughly to depend on each other, and had become fast friends.
Perhaps their strongest link was the dissimilarity of their characters.
To Beaudésir’s romantic and impressionable temperament there had been,
from the first, something very imposing in the vigorous and manly nature
of Captain George, and the influence of the latter became stronger day by
day, when he proved himself as calm, courageous, and capable on the deck
of a privateer as he had appeared in his quarters at Paris, commanding a
company of the Royal Guards.

For George, again, with his frank, soldier-like manner and somewhat
abrupt address, which seemed impatient of anything like delicacy or
over-refinement, there was, nevertheless, an unspeakable charm in his
friend’s half-languid, half-fiery, and wholly romantic disposition,
redeemed by a courage no danger could shake, and an address with his
weapons few men could withstand. The Captain was not demonstrative, far
from it, and would have been ashamed to confess how much he valued the
society of that pale, studious, effeminate youth, in looks, in manner,
in simplicity of thought so much younger than his actual years; who was
so often lost in vague day-dreams, and loved to follow up such wild and
speculative trains of thought; but who could point the brigantine’s
bow-chasers more accurately than the gunner himself; who had learned how
to hand, reef, and steer before he had been six weeks on board.

Their alliance was the natural consequence of companionship between two
natures of the same material, so to speak, but of different fabric. Their
respective intellects represented the masculine and feminine types. Each
supplying that which the other wanted, they amalgamated accordingly.
Beaudésir looked up to the Musketeer as his ideal of perfection in
manhood; Captain George loved Eugène as a brother, and trusted him
without reserve.

It was pleasant after the turmoil and excitement of the last few weeks
to walk the deck in that balmy region under a serene and moonlit
sky, letting their thoughts wander freely to scenes so different
on far-distant shores, while they talked of France, and Paris, and
Versailles, and a thousand topics all connected with dry land. But
Eugène, though he listened with interest, and never seemed tired of
confidences relating to his companion’s own family and previous life,
frankly and freely imparted, refrained from such confessions in return,
and George was still as ignorant of his friend’s antecedents as on that
memorable day when the pale, dark youth accompanied Bras-de-Fer to their
Captain’s quarters, to be entered on the roll of the Grey Musketeers,
after running poor Flanconnade through the body. That they had once
belonged to this famous _corps d’élite_ neither of them seemed likely
to forget. Its merits and its services formed the one staple subject
of discourse when all else failed. As in his quarters at Paris he had
kept the model of a similar brigantine for his own private solace, so
now, in the cabin of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ the skipper treasured up with
the greatest care, in a stout sea-chest, a handsome full-dress uniform,
covered with velvet and embroidery, flaunting with grey ribbons, and
having a coating of thin paper over its silver lace.

There was one topic of conversation, however, on which these young men
had never yet embarked, and this is the more surprising, considering
their age and the habits of those warriors amongst whom they were so
proud to have been numbered. This forbidden subject was the charm of the
other sex, and it was perhaps because each felt himself so constituted
as to be keenly alive to its power that neither ventured an allusion
to the great influence by which, during the first half of life, men’s
fortunes, characters, happiness, and eventual destiny, are more or less
affected. It required a fair breeze, a summer sea, and a moonlight
night in the tropics to elicit their opinions on such matters, and the
manly, rough-spoken skipper was the first to broach a theme that had
been already well-nigh exhausted by the watch on deck—gathered on the
forecastle in tranquil enjoyment of a cool, serene air and a welcome
interval of repose.

Old Turenne’s system of tactics had been declared exploded; the Duke of
Marlborough’s character criticised; Cavalli’s last opera canvassed and
condemned. Captain George took two turns of the deck in silence, stopped
short at the taffrail, and looked thoughtfully over the stern—

“What is to be the end of it?” he asked abruptly. “More fighting, of
course! More prizes, more doubloons, and then? After all, I believe there
are things to make a man’s life happier than even such a brigantine as
this.”

“There is heaven on earth, and there is heaven above,” answered the
other, in his dreamy, half-earnest, half-speculative way; “and some men,
not always the hardest-hearted nor the most vicious, are to be shut out
of both. Calvin is a disheartening casuist, but I believe Calvin is
right!”

“Steady there!” replied George. “Nothing shall make me believe but
that a brave man can sail what course he will, provided his charts are
trustworthy and he steers by them. Nothing is _impossible_, Eugène. If I
had thought that I should have lost heart long ago.”

“And then?” asked Beaudésir, sadly.

“And then,” repeated the Captain, with a shudder, “I might have become a
brute rather than a man. Do you remember the British schooner we retook
from those Portuguese rovers, and the _mustee_,[3] who commanded them? I
tell you I _hate_ to think it possible, and yet I believe a man utterly
without hope might come to be such a wretch as that!”

“_You_ never would,” said Beaudésir, “and _I_ never should; I _know_ it.
Even hope may be dispensed with if memory remains. My pity is for those
who have neither.”

“I could not live without hope,” resumed the Captain, cheerily. “I own I
do hope most sincerely, at some future time, for a calmer and happier lot
than this; a lot that would also make the happiness of another; and that
other so gentle, so trusting, and so true!”

Eugène looked in his face surprised. Then he smiled brightly, and laid
his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“It will come!” he exclaimed; “never doubt it for a moment. It will come!
do you remember what I said to you of my skill in fortune-telling? I
repeat, success is written in your face. What you really wish and strive
to attain is as sure to arrive at last as a fair wind in the trades or a
flood-tide at full moon.”

“I hope so,” returned the Captain; “I believe it. I suppose I am as bold
as my neighbours, and luckily it never comes across me when there’s
anything to do; but sometimes my heart fails when I think, if I _should_
go down and lose my number, how she’ll sit and wonder, poor thing, why I
never come back!”

“Courage, my Captain!” said Eugène, cheerily, affecting the tone and
manner of their old corps. “Courage. _En arant! à la Mousquetaire!_ You
will lose nothing, not even the cargo; we shall return with both pockets
full of money. You will buy a _château_. There will be a fête at your
wedding: I shall bring there my violin, and, believe me, I shall rejoice
in your happiness as if it were my own.”

“She is so young, so beautiful, so gentle,” continued the Captain; “I
could not bear that her life should be darkened, whatever comes of me.
If, at last, the great happiness _does_ arrive, Eugène, I shall not
forget my friend. _Château_ or cottage, you will be welcome with your
violin. You would admire her as I do; we both think alike on so many
subjects. So young, so fresh, so beautiful! I wish you could see her. I
am not sure but that you _have_ seen her. Do you remember the day―?”

What further confidences the skipper was about to impart were here cut
short by a round of applause from the forecastle, apparently arising
from some proposal much approved by the whole assemblage. The Captain,
with his friend, paused to listen. It was a request that Bottle-Jack
would sing, and seemed not unfavourably received by that veteran. After
many excuses, and much of a mock modesty to be observed under similar
conditions in the most refined societies, he took his quid from his
cheek, and cleared his voice with great pomp ere he embarked on a ditty
of which the subject conveyed a delicate compliment to the proclivities
of his friend Smoke-Jack, who had originated the call, and which he sang
in that flat, monotonous, and dispiriting key, only to be accomplished,
I firmly believe, by an able seaman in the daily exercise of his
profession. He designated it “The Real Trinidado,” and it ran as follows:—

      “Oh! when I was a lad,
      Says my crusty old dad,
    Says he,—‘Jack! you must stick to the spade, oh!”
      But he grudged me my prog,
      And he grudged me my grog,
    And my pipe of the real Trinidado.

      “Says my Syousan to me,—
      ‘Jack, if you goes to sea,
    I’ll be left but a desolate maid, oh!’
      Then I answers her—‘Sue!
      Can’t I come back to you
    When I’m done with the old Trinidado?”

      “So to sea we clears out,
      And the ship’s head, no doubt,
    Sou’-west and by sou’ it was laid, oh!
      For the isles of the sun,
      Where there’s fiddlers and fun,
    And no end of the real Trinidado.

      “Says our skipper, says he,
      ‘Be she close-hauled or free,
    She’d behave herself in a tornado!’
      So he handles the ship
      With a canful of flip,
    And a pipe of the real Trinidado.

      “She’s a weatherly craft,
      Werry wet, fore-and-aft,
    And she rolls like a liquorish jade, oh!
      But she steers werry kind,
      On a course to her mind,
    When she’s bound for the isle Trinidado.

      “Soon a sail we espies,
      Says the skipper—‘My eyes!
    That’s the stuff for us lads of the trade, oh!
      Bales of silk in his hold,
      Casks of rum—maybe gold—
    Not forgetting the real Trinidado!’

      “Then it’s ‘Stand by! My sons!
      Steady! Run out your guns—
    We’ve the Don’s weather-gage. Who’s afraid, oh!’
      So we takes him aback,
      He is ours in a crack,
    And we scuttles him off Trinidado!

      “Now, here’s to the crew!
      And the skipper! and Sue!
    And here’s ‘Luck to the boys of the blade, oh!
      May they ne’er want a glass,
      A fair wind, a fair lass!
    Nor a pipe of the real Trinidado!’”

The applause elicited by this effort was loud and long. Ere it subsided,
George looked more than once anxiously to windward. Then he went to his
cabin and consulted the barometer, after which he reappeared on deck and
whispered in Eugène’s ear—

“I am going to caulk it for an hour or two. Hold on, unless there’s any
change in the weather, and be sure you come below and rouse me out at
eight bells.”




CHAPTER XXVIII

DIRTY WEATHER


At eight bells the Captain came on deck again, glancing once more
somewhat anxiously astern. Not a cloud was to be seen in the moonlit sky,
and the breeze that had blown so steadily, though so softly, for weeks,
was sinking gradually, dying out, as it were, in a succession of gentle,
peaceful sighs. Eugène, with the weather-wisdom of a man who had been but
a few months at sea, rather inclined to think they might be becalmed.
The crew did not trouble themselves about the matter. Every rag the
brigantine could show was already set, and if a sail flapped idly against
the mast, it soon drew again as before, to propel them smoothly on their
course.

Moreover, a topic had been lately broached on the forecastle, of
engrossing interest to every man before the mast. It affected no less
delicate a subject than the beauty of ‘The Bashful Maid’ herself, as
typified by her figure-head. This work of art had unfortunately suffered
a slight defacement in one of their late exploits, nearly the whole of
its nose having been carried away by an untoward musket-shot. Such a
loss had been replaced forthwith by the ship’s carpenter, who supplied
his idol with a far straighter, severer, and more classical feature
than was ever yet beheld on the human countenance. Its proportions were
proclaimed perfect by the whole crew; but though the artist’s execution
was universally approved, his florid style of colouring originated many
conflicting opinions and much loud discussion on the first principles of
imitative art. The carpenter was a man of decided ideas, and made large
use of a certain red paint nearly approaching vermilion in his flesh
tints. ‘The Bashful Maid’s’ nose, therefore, bloomed with a hue as rosy
as her cheeks, and these, until toned down by wind and weather, had been
an honest scarlet. None of the critics ventured to dispute the position
that the carpenter’s theory was sound. Slap-Jack, indeed, with a lively
recollection of her wan face when he took leave of his Alice, suggested
that for his part he liked them “a little less gaudy about the gills”;
but this heresy was ignominiously coughed down at once. It was merely a
question as to whether the paint was, or was not, laid on a trifle too
thick, and each man argued according to his own experience of the real
human subject.

All the older hands (particularly Bottle-Jack, who protested vehemently
that the figure-head of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ so far from being a
representation of feminine beauty, was in fact an elevated ideal of that
seductive quality, a very model to be imitated, though hardly possible
to be approached) were in favour of red noses, as adding warmth and
expression to the female face. Their wives, their sweethearts, their
sisters, their mothers, their grandmothers, all had red noses, and were
careful to keep up the colouring by the use of comforting stimulants.

“What,” said the principal speaker, “was the pints of a figur’-head, as
laid down in the song? and no man on this deck was a-goin’ to set up his
opinion again _that_, he should think! Wasn’t ’em this here?—

    ‘Eyes as black as sloes,
    Cheeks like any rose.’

And if the song was played out further, which it might or it might _not_,
d’ye see, wouldn’t the poet have naturally added—

    ‘With a corresponding nose?’”

It was a telling argument, and although two or three of the foretopmen,
smart young fellows, whose sweethearts had not yet taken to drinking,
seemed disinclined to side with Slap-Jack, it insured a triumphant
majority, which ought to have set the question at rest, even without the
conclusive opinion delivered by the negro.

“Snowball,” said Bottle-Jack, “you’ve not told us _your_ taste. Now
you’re impartial, you are, a-cause you can’t belong to either side. What
say ye, man? Red or white? Sing out and hoist your ensign!”

The black nodded, grinned, and voted—

“Iss! berry well,” said he; “I like ’em white berry well; like ’em red
berry better!”

At this interesting juncture the men were a good deal surprised by an
order from the Captain to “turn all hands up and shorten sail.” They
rose from the deck, wondering and grumbling. Two or three, who had been
sleeping below, came tumbling up with astonished faces and less willing
steps than usual. All seemed more or less discontented, and muttered to
each other that “the skipper must be mad to shorten sail at midnight with
a bright moon, and in a light breeze, falling every moment to a calm!”

They went about the job somewhat unwillingly, and indeed were so much
less ready than usual as to draw a good deal of animadversion from the
deck. Something in this style—

“Now, my lads, bear a hand, and look smart. Foretop there! What are you
about with that foretopsail? Lower away on your after-haulyards! Easy!
Hoist on those forehaulyards, ye lubbers! Away with it, men! Altogether,
and _with a will_! Why, you are going to sleep over it! I’d have done it
smarter with the crew of a collier!”

To all such remonstrances, it is needless to say, the well-disciplined
Slap-Jack made no reply; only once, finding a moment to look to windward
from his elevated position as captain of the foretop, and observing a
white mist-like scud low down on the horizon, he whispered quietly to his
mate, then busied himself with a reef-knot—

“Blowed if he bain’t right, arter all, Jem! We’ll be under courses afore
the sun’s up. If we don’t strike topmasts, they’ll be struck for us, I
shouldn’t wonder. I see _him_ once afore,” explained Slap-Jack, jerking
his head in the direction of the coming squall; “and he’s a snorter,
mate, that’s about wot _he_ is!”

The Captain’s precautions were not taken too soon. The topsails were
hardly close reefed, all the canvas not absolutely required to steer
the brigantine had been hardly taken in, ere the sky was darkened as if
the moon had been suddenly snuffed out, and the squall was upon them.
‘The Bashful Maid’ lay over, gunwale under, driving fiercely through
the seething water, which had not yet risen to the heavy sea that was
too surely coming. She plunged, she dived, she strained, she quivered
like some living thing striving earnestly and patiently for its life.
The rain hissed down in sheets, the lightning lit up the slippery deck,
the dripping pale-faced men, the bending spars, the straining tackle,
and the few feet of canvas that must be carried at any price. In the
quick-succeeding flashes every man on board could see that the others
did their duty. From the Captain, holding on by one hand, composed and
cheerful, with his speaking-trumpet in the other, to the ship’s boy,
with his little bare feet and curling yellow hair, there was not a
skulker amongst them! They remembered it long afterwards with honest
pride, and ‘The Bashful Maid’ behaved beautifully! Yes, in defiance of
the tempestuous squall, blowing as it seemed from all points of the
compass at once; in defiance of crackling lightning, and thunder crashing
overhead ere it rolled away all round the horizon, reverberating over
the ocean for miles; in defiance of black darkness and lurid gleams, and
drenching rain, and the cruel raging sea rising every moment and running
like a mill-race, Captain and crew were alike confident they would
weather it. And they did.

But it was a sadly worn, and strained, and shattered craft that lay upon
the fast subsiding water, some six hours after the squall, under the
glowing sun of a morning in the tropics; a sun that glinted on the sea
till its heaving surface looked all one sheet of burnished gold; a sun
that was truly comforting to the drenched and wearied crew, although
its glare exposed pitilessly the whole amount of damage the brigantine
had sustained. That poor ‘Bashful Maid’ was as different now from the
trim yacht-like craft that sailed past the Needles, gaudy with paint
and gleaming with varnish, as is the dead seabird, lying helpless and
draggled on the wave, from the same creature soaring white and beautiful,
in all its pride of power and plumage, against the summer sky.

There was but one opinion, however, amongst the crew as to the merits of
the craft, and the way she had been handled. Not one of them, and it was
a great acknowledgment for sailors to make, who never think their present
berth the best—not one of them had ever before sailed in any description
of vessel which answered her helm so readily or could lay her head so
near the wind’s eye—not one of them had ever seen a furious tropical
squall weathered so scientifically and so successfully, nor could call to
mind a captain who seemed so completely master of his trade. The three
Jacks compared notes on the subject before turning in about sunrise, when
the worst was indeed over, but the situation, to a landsman at least,
would have yet appeared sufficiently precarious: The brigantine was still
driving before a heavy sea, showing just so much canvas as should save
her from being becalmed in its trough, overtaken and buried under the
pursuing enemy. The gale was still blowing with a fury that offered the
best chance of its force soon becoming exhausted, and two men were at the
helm under the immediate supervision of the skipper himself.

Nevertheless, the three stout tars betook themselves to their berth
without the slightest anxiety, well aware that each would be sleeping
like a child almost before he could clamber into his hammock.

But while he took off and wrung his dripping sea-coat, Bottle-Jack
observed sententiously to his mates—

“Captain Kidd could fight a ship, my sons, and Captain Kidd could sail
a ship. Now if you asks my opinion, it’s this here—In such a squall as
we’ve a-weathered, or pretty nigh a-weathered, Captain Kidd, he’d a-run
afore it at once, an’ he’d a bin in it now. This here young skipper, he
laid to, so long as she _could_ lay to, an’ he never run till he couldn’t
fight no more. That’s why he’ll be out on it afore the middle watch.
Belay now, I’m a-goin’ to caulk it for a spell.”

Neither Smoke-Jack nor Slap-Jack were in a humour for discussion, and
each cheerfully conceded the Captain’s judicious seamanship. The former
expressing his opinion that nothing in the King’s navy could touch
the brigantine, and the latter, recurring to his previous experience,
rejoicing that he no longer sailed under the gallant but unseamanlike
Captain Delaval.

The honest fellows, thoroughly wearied, were soon in the land of
dreams. Haunted no more by visions of dancing spars, wet slippery ropes,
yards dripping in the waves, and flapping sails struggling wildly for
the freedom that must be their own destruction, and the whole ship’s
company’s doom. No, their thoughts were of warm sanded parlours, cheerful
coal-fires, endless pipes of tobacco, messmates singing, women dancing,
the unrestrained festivities and flowing ale-jugs of the Fox and Fiddle.
Perhaps, to the imagination of the youngest, a fair pale face, loving and
tearful, stood out from all these jovial surroundings, and Slap-Jack felt
a purer and a better man while, though but in imagination, he clasped his
true and tender Alice to his heart once more.




CHAPTER XXIX

PORT WELCOME


It was a refreshing sight to behold Slap-Jack, “rigged,” as he was
pleased to term it, “to the nines,” in the extreme of sea-dandyism,
enacting the favourite part of a “liberty-man” ashore.

Nothing had been left undone for the brilliancy of his exterior that
could be achieved by scrubbing, white linen, and robust health. The smart
young captain of the foretop seemed to glow and sparkle in the vertical
sun, as he stood on the quay of Port Welcome, and cast a final glance of
professional approval on the yards he had lately squared to a nicety and
the trim of such gear and tackle aloft as seemed his own especial pride
and care.

‘The Bashful Maid,’ after all the buffetings she had sustained,
particularly from the late squall, having made her port in one of the
smallest and most beautiful of the West India islands, now lay at anchor,
fair and motionless, like a living thing sleeping on the glistening sea.
It yet wanted some hours of noon, nevertheless the sun had attained a
power that seemed to bake the very stones on the quay, and warmed the
clear limpid water fathom deep. Even Slap-Jack protested against the
heat, as he lounged and rolled into the town, to find it swarming with
negroes of both sexes, sparingly clothed, but with such garments as they
did wear glowing in the gaudiest colours, and carrying on their hard,
woolly heads baskets containing eggs, kids, poultry, fruit, vegetables,
and every kind of market produce in the island. That island was indeed
one of those jewels of the Caribbean Sea to which no description can do
justice.

For the men left on board ‘The Bashful Maid,’ now heaving drowsily
at her anchor, it realised, with its vivid and varied hues, its
fantastic outlines, its massive brakes, its feathery palms, its
luxuriant redundancy of vegetation, trailing and drooping to the
sparkling water’s-edge, a sailor’s idea of Paradise; while for the
three Jacks rolling into the little town of Port Welcome, with its
white houses, straggling streets, frequent drinking-shops, and swarming
population—black, white, and coloured, it represented the desirable haven
of Fiddler’s Green, where they felt, no doubt, they had arrived before
their time. Slap-Jack made a remark to that effect, which was cordially
endorsed by his comrades as they turned into the main thoroughfare of the
town, and agreed that, in order to enjoy their holiday to the utmost, it
was essential to commence with something to drink all round.

Now, ‘The Bashful Maid’ having been already a few days in port, had in
that time disposed of a considerable portion of her cargo, and such an
event as the arrival of a saucy brigantine, combining the attractions of
a man-of-war with the advantages of a free-trader, not being an every-day
occurrence among the population of Port Welcome, much stir, excitement,
and increase of business was the result. The French storekeepers bid
eagerly for wares of European manufacture, the French planters sent their
slaves down in dozens to purchase luxuries only attainable from beyond
sea, while the negroes, grinning from ear to ear, jostled and scolded
each other in their desire to barter yams, plantains, fruit, poultry, and
even, on occasion, pieces of actual money, for scarfs, gloves, perfumes,
and ornaments—the tawdrier the better, which they thought might add to
the gloss of their black skins, and set off their quaint, honest, ugly,
black faces to advantage.

Here and there, too, a Carib, one of the aboriginal lords of the island,
distinguished by his bronze colour, his grave demeanour—so unlike the
African, and his disfigured nose, artificially flattened from infancy,
would stalk solemnly away, rich in the possession of a few glass beads
or a bit of tinsel, for which he had bartered all his worldly wealth,
and which, like more civilised people, he valued, not at its intrinsic
worth, but at its cost price. The three Jacks observed the novelties
which surrounded them from different points of view according to
their different characters, yet with a cool imperturbable demeanour
essentially professional. To men of their calling, nothing ever appears
extraordinary. They see so many strange sights in different countries,
and have so little time to become acquainted with the wonders they
behold, that they soon acquire a profound and philosophical indifference
to everything beyond their ordinary range of experience, persuaded
that the astonishment of to-day is pretty sure to be exceeded by the
astonishment of to-morrow. Neither can they easily discover anything
perfectly and entirely new, having usually witnessed something of the
same kind before, or heard it circumstantially described at considerable
length by a messmate; so that a seaman is but little impressed with the
sight of a foreign town, of which, indeed, he acquires in an hour or two
a knowledge not much more superficial than he has of his native village.

Bottle-Jack was in the habit of giving his opinion, as he expressed it,
“free.” That it was complimentary to Port Welcome, his comrades gathered
from the following sentiment:—

“I’m a gettin’ strained and weatherworn,” observed the old seaman,
impressively, “and uncommon dry besides. Tell ye what it is, mates—one
more cruise, and blowed if I won’t just drop my anchor here, and ride out
the rest of my time all snug at my moorings.”

Smoke-Jack turned his quid with an expression of intense disgust.

“And get spliced to a nigger, old man!” said he, argumentatively. “Never
go for to say it! I’m not a-goin’ to dispute as this here’s a tidy bit of
a island enough, and safe anchorage. Likewise, as I’ve been told by them
as tried it, plenty to drink, and good. Nor I won’t say but what a craft
might put in here for a spell to refit, do a bit of caulking, and what
not. But for dry-dock, mate, never go for to say it. Why you couldn’t get
anything like a decent missis, man, hereaway; an’ think o’ the price o’
beer!”

“Regardin’ a missis,” returned the other, reflectively, “’tain’t the
craft wot crowds the most canvas as makes the best weather, mate, and at
my years a man looks less to raking masts an’ a gay figur’-head than to
good tonnage and wholesome breadth of beam. Now, look ye here, mates—wot
say ye to this here craft?—her with the red ensign at the main, as is
layin’ to, like, with her fore-sheet to windward and her helm one turn
down?”

While he spoke, he pointed to our old acquaintance, Célandine, who was
cheapening fancy articles at a store that spread its goods out under an
awning far into the middle of the modest street. The Quadroon was, as
usual, gorgeously dressed, wearing the scarlet turban that covered her
still black hair majestically, as a queen carries her diadem. Like the
coloured race in general, she seemed to have renewed her youth under
a tropical sun, and at a short distance, particularly in the eyes of
Bottle-Jack, appeared a fine-looking woman, with pretensions to the
remains of beauty still.

The three seamen, of course, ranged up alongside for careful criticism,
but Célandine’s attention was by no means to be distracted from the
delightful business of shopping she had on hand. Shawls, scarfs, fans,
gloves, tawdry jewels, and perfumery, lay heaped in dazzling profusion
on a shelf before her, and the African blood danced in her veins with
childish glee at the tempting sight. The storekeeper, a French Creole,
with sharp features, sallow complexion, and restless, down-looking black
eyes, taking advantage of her eagerness, asked three times its value
for every article he pointed out; but Célandine, though profuse, was
not inexperienced, and dearly loved, moreover, the feminine amusement
of driving a bargain. Much expostulation therefore, contradiction,
wrangling, and confusion of tongues was the result.

The encounter seemed at the warmest, and the French Creole,
notwithstanding his villainous countenance and unscrupulous assertions,
was decidedly getting the worst of it, when Slap-Jack’s quick eye
detected amongst the wares exposed for sale certain silks and other
stuffs which had formed part of ‘The Bashful Maid’s’ cargo, and had,
indeed, been wrested by the strong hand from a Portuguese trader, after
a brisk chase and a running fight, which cost the brigantine a portion
of her boltsprit and two of her smartest hands. The chest containing
these articles had been started in unloading, so that its contents had
sustained much damage from sea-water. It was a breadth of stained satin
out of this very consignment that the Creole storekeeper now endeavoured
to persuade Célandine she would do well to purchase at an exorbitant
valuation.

Slap-Jack, like many of his calling, had picked up a smattering of
negro-French, and could understand the subject of dispute sufficiently
to interfere, a course from which he was not to be dissuaded by his less
impressionable companions.

“Let her be!” growled Smoke-Jack. “Wot call have _you_ now to come
athwart-hawse of that there jabbering mounseer, as a man might say,
dredging in his own fishing-ground? It’s no use hailing her, I tell ye,
mate, I knows the trim on ’em; maybe she’ll lay her foresail aback, and
stand off-and-on till sundown, then just when a man least expects it,
she’ll up stick, shake out every rag of canvas, and run for port. Bless
ye, young _and_ old, fair _and_ foul, black, white, _and_ coloured,
nigger, quadroon, _and_ mustee—I knows ’em all, and not one on ’em but
carries a weather-helm in a fresh breeze, and steers wild and wilful in a
sea-way.”

But Slap-Jack was not to be diverted from his purpose. With considerable
impudence, and an impressive sea-bow, he walked up to Célandine under
the eyes of his admiring shipmates, and, mustering the best negro-French
at his command, warned her in somewhat incomprehensible jargon of the
imposition intended to be practised. Now it happened that Port Welcome,
and the island in which it was situated, had been occupied in its
varying fortunes by French, Spaniards, and English so equally, that
these languages, much corrupted by negro pronunciation, were spoken
indiscriminately, and often altogether. It was a great relief, therefore,
to Slap-Jack that Célandine thanked him politely for his interposition in
his native tongue, and when she looked into the young foretopman’s comely
brown face, she found herself so fascinated with something she detected
there as to continue the conversation in tolerably correct English, for
the purpose of improving their acquaintance. The seaman congratulated
himself on having made so happy a discovery, while his friends looked
on in mute admiration of the celerity with which he had completed his
conquest.

“He’s a smart chap, mate,” enunciated Bottle-Jack, with a glance of
intense approval at the two figures receding up the sunny street, as
Célandine marched their companion off, avowedly for the purpose of
refreshing him with cooling drinks in return for his good-nature—“a smart
young chap, and can hold his own with the best of ’em as ever hoisted a
petticoat, silk or dowlas. See now, that’s the way to do it in these here
latitudes! First he hails ’em, speaking up like a man, then he ranges
alongside, and gets the grapplers out, and so tows his prize into port
in a pig’s whisper. He’s a smart young chap, I tell ye, and a match for
the sauciest craft as ever sailed under false colours, and hoisted a red
pennant at the main.”

But Smoke-Jack shook his head, and led his shipmate, nothing loth, into
a tempting store-house, redolent with the fragrance of limes, tobacco,
decaying melons, and Jamaica rum. He said nothing, however, until he
had quenched his thirst; then after a vigorous pull at a tall beaker,
filled with a fragrant compound in which neither ice nor alcohol had been
forgotten, observed, as if the subject still occupied his thoughts—

“I knows the trim on ’em, I tell ye; I knows the trim on ’em. As I says
to the young chap now, I never found one yet as would steer kind in a
sea-way.”

Meanwhile, Célandine, moved by an impulse for which she could not
account, or perhaps dreading to analyse a sentiment that might after
all be founded on a fallacy, led the young seaman into a cool, quiet
room in a wooden house, on the shady side of the street, of which
the apparent mistress was a large bustling negress, with a numerous
family of jet-black children, swarming and crawling about the floor
like garden-snails after a shower. This proprietress seemed to hold
the Quadroon in considerable awe, and was delighted to bring the best
her house afforded for the entertainment of such visitors. Slap-jack,
accommodated with a deep measure of iced rum-and-water, lit his pipe,
played with the children, stared at his black hostess in unmitigated
astonishment, and prepared himself to answer the questions it was obvious
the Quadroon was burning to put.

Célandine hovered restlessly about the room, fixing her bright black
eyes upon the seaman with an eager, inquiring glance, that she withdrew
hastily when she thought herself observed, and thereby driving into
a state of abject terror the large sable hostess, whose pity for the
victim, as she believed him, at last overcame her fear of the Quadroon,
and impelled her to whisper in Slap-Jack’s ear—

“Obi-woman! _bruxa_,[4] buckra-massa, _bruxa_!
_Mefiez-vous!—Ojo-malo._[5] No drinkee for drunkee! Look out! _Gare!_” A
warning utterly incomprehensible to its object, who winked at her calmly
over his tumbler, while he drank with exceeding relish the friendly
mother’s health, and that of her thriving black progeny.

There is nothing like a woman’s tact to wind the secrets out of a man’s
bosom, gradually, insensibly, and by much the same smooth, delicate
process as the spinning of flax off a distaff. With a few observations
rather than questions, a few allusions artfully put, Célandine drew from
Slap-Jack an account of his early years, and an explanation, offered with
a certain pride, of the manner in which he became a seaman. When he told
her how he had made his escape while a mere child from his protector,
whom he described as “the chap wot wanted to bind him ’prentice to a
sawbones,” he was startled to see the Quadroon’s shining black eyes full
of tears. He consoled her in his own rough, good-humoured way.

“What odds did it make after all,” argued Slap-Jack, helping himself
liberally to the rum-and-water, “when I was out of my bed by sunrise and
down to the waterside to get aboard-ship in the British Channel, hours
afore he was up, and so Westward-ho! and away? Don’t ye take on about it.
A sailor I _would_ be, and a sailor I _am_. You ask the skipper if I’m
not. He knows my rating I should think, and whether I’m worth _my_ salt
or no. Don’t ye take on so, mother, I say!”

But the Quadroon was weeping without concealment now.

“Call me that again!” she exclaimed, sobbing convulsively. “Call me that
again! I have not been called mother for so long. Hush!” she added,
starting up, and laying her hand forcibly on his lips. “Not another
word. Fool! Idiot that I am! Not another word. She can hear us. She can
understand;” and Célandine darted a furious glance at the busy negress,
which caused that poor woman to shake like a jelly down to her misshapen
black heels.

Slap-Jack felt considerably puzzled. His private opinion, as he
afterwards confided to his messmates, was, that the old lady not being
drunk, must be mad—a cheerful view, which was indeed confirmed by what
occurred immediately afterwards.

In struggling to keep her hand upon his mouth, she had turned back the
deep, open collar of his blue shirt till his brawny neck was exposed
nearly to the shoulder. Espying on that neck a certain white mark,
contrasting with the ruddy weather-browned skin, she gave a half-stifled
shriek, like that with which a dumb animal expresses its rapture of
recognition; and taking the man’s head in her arms, pressed it to her
bosom, rocking herself to and fro, while she wept and murmured over him
with an inexplicable tenderness, by which he was at once astonished and
alarmed.

For a few moments, and while the negress’s back was turned, she held him
tight, but released him when the other re-entered the room, exacting from
him a solemn promise that he would meet her again at an indicated place,
and adding that she would then confide to him matters in which, like
herself, he was deeply interested, but which must be kept religiously
secret so long as he remained in the island.

Slap-jack, after he had finished his rum-and-water, rejoined his
comrades, a more thoughtful man than he had left them. To their jests and
inquiries he returned vague and inconclusive answers, causing Bottle-Jack
to stare at him in solemn wonder, and affording Smoke-Jack another
illustration of his theory as to the wilfulness of feminine steerage in a
sea-way.

Célandine, on the contrary, walked through the town with the jaunty step
and bright vigilant eye of one who has discovered some treasure that
must be guarded with a care proportioned to its value. She bought no
more trinkets from the storekeepers now, she loitered no more to gossip
with sallow white, or shining negro, or dandy coloured man. At intervals
her brow indeed clouded over, and the scowl of which it was so capable
deepened ominously, while she clenched her hands and set her teeth; but
the frown soon cleared away, and she smiled bright and comely once more.

She had found her boy at last. Her first-born, the image of her first
love. Her heart warmed to him from the very moment he came near her at
the store. She was sure of it long before she recognised the mark on his
neck—the same white mark she had kissed a thousand times, when he danced
and crowed on her knees. It was joy, it was triumph. But she must be very
silent, very cautious. If it was hard that a mother might not openly
claim her son, it would be harder still that such acknowledgment should
rivet on him the yoke of a slavery to which he was born by that mother,
herself a slave.




CHAPTER XXX

MONTMIRAIL WEST


At a distance of less than a league from Port Welcome stood the large
and flourishing plantation of _Cash-a-crou_, known to the European
population, and, indeed, to many of the negroes, by the more civilised
appellation of Montmirail West. It was the richest and most important
establishment on the island, covering a large extent of cultivation,
reclaimed at no small cost of labour from the bush, and worked by a
numerous gang of slaves. Not a negro was purchased for these grounds till
he had undergone a close inspection by the shrewd and pitiless overseer,
who never missed a good investment, be it Coromantee, Guinea-man, or
Congo, and never bought a hand, of however plausible an appearance, in
whom his quick eye could detect a flaw; consequently, no such cheerful
faces, fresh lips, sound teeth, strong necks, open chests, sinewy arms,
dry, large hands, flat stomachs, powerful loins, round thighs, muscular
calves, lean ankles, high feet, and similar physical points of servile
symmetry, were to be found in any other gang as in that which worked the
wide clearings on the _Cash-a-crou_ estate, which, for convenience, we
will call by its more civilised name. It was said, however, that in the
purchase of female negroes this overseer was not so particular; that
a saucy eye, a nimble tongue, and such an amount of good looks as is
compatible with African colouring and features, found more favour in his
judgment than size, strength, substance, vigorous health, or the prolific
qualities so desirable in these investments. The overseer, indeed, was a
married man, living, it was thought, in wholesome dread of his Quadroon
wife, and so completely did he identify himself with the new character
he had assumed, that even Célandine could hardly believe her present
husband was the same Stefano Bartoletti who had wooed her unsuccessfully
in her girlhood, had met her again under such strange circumstances in
France, eventually to follow her fortunes, and those of her mistress,
the Marquise, and obtain from the latter the supervision of her negroes
on the estate she had inherited by her mother’s will, which she chose to
call Montmirail West.

Bartoletti had intended to settle down for the rest of his life in a
state of dignified indolence with Célandine. He had even offered to
purchase the Quadroon’s freedom, which was generously given to her by
the Marquise with that view; but he had accustomed himself through the
whole of his early life to the engrossing occupation of money-making,
and like many others he found it impossible to leave off. He and his
wife now devoted themselves entirely to the acquisition of wealth; she
with the object of discovering her long-lost son, he, partly from inborn
covetousness, and yet more from force of habit. Quick, shrewd, and indeed
enterprising, where there was no personal risk, he had been but a short
time in the service of the Marquise ere he became an excellent overseer,
by no means neglecting her interests, while he was scrupulously attentive
to his own. The large dealings in human merchandise which now occupied
his attention afforded scope for his peculiar qualities, and Signor
Bartoletti found few competitors in the slave-market who, in caution,
cupidity, and knowledge of business, could pretend to be his equals.
Moreover, he dearly loved the constant speculation, amounting to actual
gambling, inseparable from such transactions, nor was he averse, besides,
to that pleasing sensation of superiority experienced by all but the
noblest natures from absolute authority, however unjustifiable, over
their fellow-creatures.

The Signor was a great man in the plantation, a great man in Port
Welcome, a great man on the deck of a trader just arrived with her
swarthy cargo from the Bight of Benin or the Gold Coast; but his
proportions seemed to shrink and his step to falter when he crossed the
threshold of his own home. The older negroes, who knew he had married
an Obi-woman, and respected him for his daring, were persuaded that
he had been quelled and brought into subjection through some charm put
upon him by Célandine. To the same magical influence they attributed the
Quadroon’s favour with her mistress, and this superstitious dread had
indeed been of service to both; for a strong feeling of dissatisfaction
was gaining ground rapidly amongst the blacks, and then, as now,
notwithstanding all that has been said and written in their favour, they
were less easily ruled by love than fear.

It is not that they are naturally savage, inhuman, brutal. Centuries of
Christianity and cultivation might probably have done for the black man
what they have done for the white; but those centuries have been denied
him; and if he is to be taken at once from a state of utter ignorance and
degradation to be placed on a footing of social equality with those who
have hitherto been his masters—a race that has passed gradually through
the successive stages he is expected to compass in one stride—surely it
must be necessary to restrain him from the excesses peculiar to the lusty
adolescence of nations, as of individuals, by some stronger repressive
influence than need be applied to the staid and sober demeanour of a
people arrived long ago at maturity, if not already past their prime.

Signor Bartoletti did not trouble himself with such speculations.
Intimidation he found answered his purpose tolerably, corporal punishment
extremely well.

Passing from the supervision of some five-score hoes, picking their
labour out with great deliberation amongst the clefts and ridges of a
half-cleared mountain, clothed to its summit in a tangle of luxuriant
beauty, he threaded a line of wattled mud cottages, cool with thick
heavy thatch, dazzling in whitewash, and interspersed with fragrant
almond-trees, breaking the scorching sunlight into a thousand shimmering
rays, as they rustled and quivered to the whisper of the land-breeze, not
yet exhausted by the heat.

At the door of one of these huts he spied a comely negro girl, whose
duties should have kept her in the kitchen of the great house. He also
observed that she concealed something bulky under her snowy apron, and
looked stealthily about as if afraid of being seen.

He had a step noiseless and sure as a cat; she never heard him coming,
but started with a loud scream when she felt his hand on her shoulder,
and incontinently began to cry.

“What have you got there, Fleurette?” asked the overseer, sternly. “Bring
it out at once, and show it up!”

“Nothing, Massa,” answered Fleurette, of course, though she was sobbing
all the time. “It only Aunt Rosalie’s piccaninny, I take him in please,
just now, to his mammy, out of the wind.”

There was but such a light breath of air as kept the temperature below
actual suffocation.

“Wind! nonsense!” exclaimed Bartoletti, perspiring and exasperated. “Aunt
Rosalie’s child was in the baby-yard half an hour ago; here, let me look
at him!” and the overseer snatched up Fleurette’s apron to discover a
pair of plump black hands, clasped over a well-fattened turkey, cleaned,
plucked, and ready for the pot.

The girl laughed through her tears. “You funny man, Signor!” said she,
archly, yet with a gleam of alarm in her wild black eyes; “you no believe
only when you see. Piccaninny gone in wash-tub long since; Fleurette
talkee trash, trash; dis lilly turkey fed on plantation at Maria
Gralante; good father give um to Fleurette a-cause dis nigger say ‘Ave’
right through, and spit so at Mumbo-Jumbo.”

This story was less credible than the last, inasmuch as the adjoining
plantation of Maria Galante, cultivated by a few Jesuit priests, although
in a thriving condition, and capable of producing the finest poultry
reared, was more than an hour’s walk from where they stood, and it
was impossible that Fleurette could have been absent so long from her
duties at that period of the day. So Bartoletti, placing his hand in his
waistcoat, pulled out a certain roll, which the slaves called his “black
book,” and inserted Fleurette’s name therein for corporal punishment to
the amount of stripes awarded for the crime of theft.

It was a common action enough; scarce a day passed, scarce even an
hour, without the production of this black book by the overseer, and a
torrent of entreaties, couched in the mingled jargon of French, Spanish,
and British, I have endeavoured to render through the conventional
negro-English, which, indeed, formed its basis, from the unfortunate
culprit whose name was thus inscribed; but on this occasion Fleurette
seemed to entertain a morbid terror of the ordeal quite out of proportion
to its frequency, and, indeed, its severity—for though sufficiently
brutal, the lash was not dangerous to life or limb. She screamed, she
wept, she prayed, she caught the overseer by his knees and clasped them
to her bosom, entreating him, with a frantic earnestness that became
almost sublime, to spare her this degradation! to forgive her only this
once! to bid her work night and day till crop-time, and then to send her
into the field-gang for the hardest labour they could devise—nay, to sell
her to the first trader that touched at Port Welcome, never to look on
her home at _Cash-a-crou_ again—anything, anything, rather than tie her
to a stake and flog her like a disobedient hound!

But Bartoletti was far too practised an overseer to be in the slightest
degree moved by such entreaties. Replacing the black book in his
waistcoat, he walked coolly away, without deigning to look back at his
despairing suppliant, writhing under such a mixture of grief and shame
as soon maddened into rage. Perhaps, had he done so, he would have been
frightened into mercy, for a bolder man than the Italian might have been
cowed by the glare of that girl’s eyes, when she drew up her slender
figure, and clenching her hands till the nails pierced them, spat after
him with an intensity of hatred that wanted only opportunity to slake its
fierce desire in blood.

The Signor, however, wiping his brow, unconscious, passed quietly on, to
report his morning’s work to the Marquise, and obtain her sanction for
Fleurette’s punishment, because the mistress never permitted any slave on
her estate to be chastised but by her own express command.

Long years ago, when his heart was fresh and high, the Italian had spent
a few months in this very island, a period to which he still looked back
as to the one bright ray that gilded his dreary, wandering, selfish life.
It was here he met Célandine while both were young, and wooed her with
little encouragement indeed, for she confessed honestly enough that he
was too late, yet not entirely without hope. And now in gleams between
the cane-pieces he could catch a glimpse of that silver-spread lagoon
by which they had walked more than once in the glowing evenings, till
darkness, closing without warning like a curtain, found them together
still.

He had conceived for himself then an ideal of Paradise, which had never
in after years faded completely away. To win the Quadroon for his own—to
make himself a peaceful home in easy circumstances, somewhere amidst
this tangled wilderness of beauty from which Port Welcome peeped out on
the Caribbean Sea—to sit in his own porch and watch the tropical sunset
dying off through its blended hues of gold, and crimson, and orange, into
the pale, serene depths of opal, lost ere he could look again, amongst
the gathering shades of night—such were his dreams, and at last he had
realised them to the letter; but he never watched the sunset now, nor
walked by the cool glistening lagoon with the woman whom in his own
selfish way he had loved for half a lifetime. She was his wife, you see,
and a very imperious wife she proved. When he had leisure to speculate
on such matters, which was seldom, he could not but allow that he was
disappointed; that the ideal was a fallacy, the romance a fiction, the
investment a failure; practically, the home was dull, the lagoon damp,
and the sunset moonshine!

Therefore, as he walked on, though the material Paradise was there, as
it had always been, he never wasted a look or thought on its glowing
beauties, intent only on the dust that covered his shoes, the thirst
that fired his throat, and the perspiration that streamed from his brow.
Yet palm, cocoa, orange, and lime-tree were waving overhead; while the
wild vine, pink, purple, and delicate creamy-white, winding here about
his path, ran fifty feet aloft round some bare stem to which it clung in
a succession of convolvulus-like blossoms from the same plant he trod
beneath his very feet. Birds of gaudy feather—purple, green, and flaming
scarlet, flashed from tree to tree with harsh, discordant cries, and a
_Louis d’or_ flitted round him in its bright, golden plumage, looking, as
its name implies, like a guinea upon wings.

The grass-grown road he followed was indeed an avenue to the great house,
and as he neared his destination he passed another glimpse of tropical
scenery without a glance. It was the same view that delighted the eyes of
the Marquise daily from her sitting-room, and that Cerise would look at
in quiet enjoyment for hours.

A slope of vivid green, dotted with almond-trees, stretched away from
the long, low, white building to a broad, clear river, shining between
the plantains and bananas that clothed its banks; beyond these, cattle
pasture and cane-pieces shot upward in variegated stripes through the
tangled jungle of the steep ascent, while at short intervals hog-plum, or
other tall trees of the forest, reared their heads against the cloudless
sky, to break the dark thick mass that clothed the mountain to its very
summit—save where some open, natural savannah, with its crop of tall,
rank, feathering grass, relieved the eye from the vivid colouring and
gaudy exuberance of beauty in which nature dresses these West Indian
islands.

Bartoletti knew well that he should find the Marquise in her
sitting-room, for the sun was still high and the heat intense; none
therefore but slaves, slave-drivers, or overseers would be abroad for
hours. The Signor had however been reduced to such proper subjection by
Célandine that he never ventured to approach the Marquise without making
a previous report to his wife, and as the Quadroon had not yet returned
from the visit to Port Welcome, in which she made acquaintance with
Slap-Jack, some considerable delay took place before the enormity of
Fleurette’s peculations could be communicated to her mistress.

Mother and daughter were inseparable here, in the glowing tropical heat,
as under the cool breezes and smiling skies of their own beautiful
France, a land to which they constantly reverted with a longing that
seemed only to grow more and more intense as every hour of their
unwelcome banishment dragged by.

They were sitting in a large low room, with the smallest possible amount
of furniture and the greatest attainable of air. To insure a thorough
draught, the apartment occupied the whole breadth of the house, and the
windows, scarcely closed from year’s-end to year’s-end, were placed
opposite each other, so that there was free ingress on all sides for
the breeze that, notwithstanding the burning heat of the climate, blows
pretty regularly in these islands from morning till night and from night
till morning. It wafted through the whole apartment the fragrance of a
large granadilla, cut in half for the purpose, that stood surrounded
by a few shaddocks, limes, and pomegranates, heaped together like a
_cornucopia_ on a small table in the corner; it fluttered the leaves of
a book that lay on Mademoiselle de Montmirail’s knee, who was pretending
to read, with her eyes resting wearily on a streak of blue sea, far off
between the mountains; and it lifted the dark hair from the temples of
the Marquise, fanning with grateful breath, yet scarce cooling, the rich
crimson of her cheek.

The resemblance between these two grew closer day by day. While the
mother remained stationary at that point of womanly beauty to which the
daughter was approaching, figure and face, in each, became more and more
alike; and though the type of the elder was still the richer and more
glowing, of the younger, the more delicate and classical, Cerise seemed
unaccountably to have gained some of that spirit and vitality which the
Marquise seemed as unaccountably to have lost.

Also on the countenance of each might be traced the same expression—the
longing, wistful look of those who live in some world of their own, out
of and far beyond the present, saddened in the woman’s face with memory
as it was brightened in the girl’s by hope.

“It is suffocating!” exclaimed the former, rising restlessly from her
seat, and pushing the hair off her temples with a gesture of impatience.
“Cerise, my darling, are you made of stone that you do not cry out at
this insupportable heat? It irritates me to see you sit reading there
as calmly as if you could feel the wind blowing off the heights of
Montmartre in January. It seems as if the sun would never go down in this
oven that they call an island.”

Cerise shut her book and collected her scattered ideas with an obvious
effort. “I read, mamma,” she answered smiling, “because it is less
fatiguing than to think, but I obtain as little result from the one
process as the other. Do you know, I begin to believe the stories we used
to hear in Paris about the West Indies, and I am persuaded that we shall
not only be shrivelled up to mummies in a few more weeks, but that our
tongues will be so dry and cracked as to be incapable of expressing our
thoughts, even if our poor addled brains could form them. Look at Pierrot
even, who is a native; he has not said a syllable since breakfast.”

Pierrot, however, like the historical parrot of all ages, though silent
on the present occasion, doubtless _thought_ the more, for the attitude
in which he held his head on one side, peering at his young mistress with
shrewd unwinking eye, implied perceptions more than human, nay, even
diabolical in their malignant sagacity.

“What can I do?” said the Marquise, vehemently, pacing the long room with
quick steps ill suited to the temperature and the occasion. “While the
Regent lives I can never return to Paris. For myself, I sometimes fancy I
could risk it; but when I think of you, Cerise—I dare not—I _dare_ not;
that’s the truth. An insult, an injury, he might forgive, or at least
forget; but a scene in which he enacted the part of the _Pantaleone_,
whom everybody kicks and cuffs; in which he was discovered as a coxcomb,
an intruder, and a _polisson_, and through the whole of which he is
conscious, moreover, that he was intensely ridiculous—I protest to you I
cannot conceive any outrage so horrible as to satisfy his revenge. No, my
child, for generations my family have served the Bourbons, and we should
know what they are: with all their good qualities there are certain
offences they can never forgive, and this Regent is the worst of the
line.”

“Then, mamma,” observed Cerise cheerfully, though she smothered a sigh,
“we must have patience and live where we are. It might be worse,” she
added, pointing to the streak of deep-blue sea that belted the horizon.
“This is a wider view and a fairer than the dead wall of Vincennes or the
gratings of the Bastile, and some day, perhaps, some of our friends from
France may drop in quite unexpectedly to offer their homage to Madame la
Marquise. How the dear old Prince-Marshal would gasp in this climate, and
how dreadfully he would swear at the lizards, centipedes, galley-wasps,
red ants, and cockroaches! He who, brave as he is, never dared face
a spider or an earwig! Mamma, I think if I could see his face over a
borer-worm, I should have one more good laugh, even in such a heat as
this.”

“You might laugh, my dear,” answered her mother, “but I think I should
be more inclined to cry—yes, to cry for sheer joy at seeing him again. I
grant you he was a little ridiculous; but what courage! what sincerity!
what a true gentleman! I hear that he too is out of favour at the Palais
Royal, and has returned to his estates at Chateau-Guerrand. His coach was
seen near the Hôtel Montmirail the night of Monsieur le Duc’s creditable
_escapade_, and that is crime enough, I conclude, to balance a dozen
battles and forty years of loyal service to the throne. No, Cerise, I
tell you while the monster lives we must remain exiled in this purgatory
of fire. But my friends keep me well informed of passing events. I
hear his health is failing. They tell me his face is purple now in the
mornings when he comes to Council, and he drinks harder than ever with
his _roués_ at night. Of course, my child, it would be wicked to wish for
the death of a fellow-creature, but while there is a Regent in France you
and I must be content with the lizards and the cockroaches for society,
and for amusement, the supervision of these miserable, brutalised negro
slaves.”

“Poor things!” said the younger lady, tenderly. “I am sure they have
kind hearts under their black skins. I cannot but think that if they
were taught and encouraged, and treated less like beasts of burden, they
would show as much intelligence as our own peasants at La Fierté or the
_real_ Montmirail. Why, Fleurette brought me a bouquet of jessamines and
tuberoses yesterday, with a compliment to the paleness of my complexion
that could not have been outdone by Count Point-d’Appui himself. Oh!
mamma, I wish you would let me establish _my_ civil code for the
municipal government of the blacks.”

“You had better let it alone, my child,” answered the Marquise, gravely.
“Wiser brains than yours have puzzled over the problem, and failed to
solve it. I have obtained all the information in my power from those
whose experience is reliable, and considered it for myself besides,
till my head ached. It seems to me that young colonists, and all who
know nothing about negroes, are for encouragement and indulgence; old
planters, and those who are well acquainted with their nature, for
severity and repression. I would not be cruel; far from it; but as
for treating them like white people, Cerise, in my opinion all such
liberality is sheer nonsense. Jaques and Pierre, at home, are ill-fed,
ill-clothed (I wish it were not so), up early, down late, and working
often without intermission from sunrise till sunset; nevertheless, Jaques
or Pierre will doff his red cap, tuck up his blouse, and run a league
bareheaded, after a hard day’s work, if you or I lift up a finger; and
why?—because we are La Fiertés or Montmirails. But Hippolyte or Achille,
fat, strong, lazy, well-fed, grumbles if he is bid to carry a message to
the boiling-house after his eight hours’ labour, and only obeys because
he knows that Bartoletti can order him a hundred lashes by my authority
at his discretion.”

“I do not like the Italian, mamma! I am sure that man is not to be
trusted,” observed Cerise, inconsequently, being a young lady. “What
could make my dear old _bonne_ marry him, I have never been able to
discover. He is an alchemist, you know, and a conjuror, and worse. I
shudder to think of the stories they told about him at home, and I
believe he bewitched her!”

Here Mademoiselle de Montmirail crossed herself devoutly, and her mother
laughed.

“He is a very good overseer,” said she, “and as for his necromancy, even
if he learned it from the Prince of Darkness, which you seem to believe,
I fancy Célandine would prove a match for his master. Between them, the
Signor, as he calls himself, and his wife, manage my people wonderfully
well, and this is no easy matter at present, for I am sorry to say they
show a good deal of insubordination and ill-will. There is a spirit of
disaffection amongst them,” added the Marquise, setting her red lips
firmly together, “that must be kept down with the strong hand. I do not
mind your going about amongst the house negroes, Cerise, or noticing
the little children, though taking anything black on your lap is, in my
opinion, an injudicious piece of condescension; but I would not have you
be seen near the field-gang at present, men or women, and above all,
never trust them. Not one is to be depended on except Célandine, for I
believe they hate her as much as her husband, and fear her a great deal
more.”

The Marquise had indeed cause for uneasiness as to the condition of
her plantation, although she had never before hinted so much to her
daughter, and indeed, like the generality of people who live on the
crust of a volcano, she forced herself to ignore the danger of which she
was yet uncomfortably conscious. For some time, perhaps ever since the
arrival of the Italian overseer, there had been symptoms of discontent
and disaffection among the slaves. The work indeed went on as usual,
for Bartoletti was unsparing of the lash, but scarce a week passed
without a runaway betaking himself to the bush, and vague threats,
forerunners of some serious outbreak, had been heard from the idlest and
most mutinous of the gang when under punishment. It would not have been
well in such difficulties to relax the bonds of discipline, yet it was
scarcely wise to draw them tighter than before. The Marquise, however,
came of a race that had never yet learned to yield, and to which, for
generations, the assertion of his rights by an inferior had seemed an
intolerable presumption that must be resisted to the death. As her
slaves, therefore, grew more defiant she became more severe, and of late
the slightest offences had been visited with the utmost rigour, and under
no circumstances passed over without punishment. It was an unfortunate
time therefore that poor Fleurette had chosen to be detected in the
abstraction of a turkey ready plucked for cooking, and she could not have
fallen into worse hands than those of the pitiless Italian overseer.

The Marquise had scarce concluded her warning, ere Bartoletti entered the
sitting-room with his daily report. His manner was extremely obsequious
to Madame de Montmirail, and polite beyond expression to Mademoiselle.
The former scarcely noticed his demeanour at any time; the latter
observed him narrowly, with the air of a child who watches a toad or any
such object for which it feels an unaccountable dislike.

Cerise usually left the room soon after the Signor entered it, but
something in her mother’s face on the present occasion, as she ran her
eye over the black book, induced her to remain.

The Marquise read the punishment list twice; frowned, hesitated, and
looked discomposed.

“It is her first offence?” said she, inquiringly. “And the girl is
generally active and well-behaved enough.”

“Pardon, Madame la Marquise,” answered Bartoletti. “Madame forgave
her only last week when she lost half-a-dozen of Mademoiselle’s
handkerchiefs, that she had taken to wash; or _said_ she lost them,” he
added pointedly.

“Oh, mamma!” interposed Cerise, but the Marquise checked her with a sign,
and Bartoletti proceeded.

“One of her brothers is at the head of a gang of _Maroons_,[6] who infest
the very mountains above our cane-pieces, and another ran away to join
him last week. They say at the Plantation we _dare_ not punish any of the
family, and I am pledged to make an example of the first that comes into
my hands.”

“Very well,” said the Marquise, decidedly, returning his black book to
her overseer, and observing to Cerise, who was by this time in tears, “A
case, my dear, that it would be most injudicious to pardon. After all,
the pain is not much, and the disgrace, you know, to these sort of people
is nothing!”




CHAPTER XXXI

BLACK, BUT COMELY


Transplanted, like some delicate flower from her native soil, to this
glowing West Indian Island, Mademoiselle de Montmirail had lost but
little of the freshness that bloomed in the Norman convent, and had
gained a more decided colouring and a deeper expression, which added
the one womanly grace hitherto wanting in her beauty. Even the negroes,
chattering to one another as they hoed between the cane-rows, grinned
out their approval of her beauty, and Hippolyte, a gigantic and hideous
Coromantee, imported from Africa, had been good enough to express his
opinion that she only wanted a little more colour, as he called it,
meaning a shade of yellow in her skin, to be handsome enough for his
wife; whereat his audience shouted and showed their white teeth, wagging
their woolly heads applauding, while the savage shook his great black
shoulders, and looked as if he thought more unlikely events might come to
pass.

Had it not been for these very slaves, who gave their opinions so freely
on her personal appearance, Cerise would have been tolerably happy. She
was, indeed, far from the scenes that were most endeared to her by memory
and association. She was very uncertain when or how she should return to
France, and until she returned, there was apparently no hope, however
remote, that she could realise a certain dream which now constituted
the charm of her whole life. Still the dream had been dreamed, vague,
romantic, wild, and visionary; yet the girl dwelt upon it day by day,
with a tenderness and a constancy the deeper and the more enduring that
they seemed so hopeless and so thrown away.

I would not have it supposed, however, that Mademoiselle de Montmirail
was a foolish love-sick maiden, who allowed her fancies to become the
daily business of her life. On the contrary, she went through her duties
scrupulously, making for herself occupation where she did not find it,
helping her mother, working, reading, playing, improving her mind, and
doing all she could for the negroes on the estate, but tinging everything
unconsciously, whether of joy or sorrow, trouble or pleasure, with the
rosy light of a love she had conceived without reason, cherished without
reflection, and now brooded over without hope, in the depths of her own
heart.

But although the welfare of the slaves afforded her continual occupation,
and probably prevented her becoming utterly wearied and overpowered by
the sameness of her daily life, their wilfulness, their obstinacy, their
petulant opposition to every experiment she was disposed to try for their
moral and physical benefit, occasioned her many an hour of vexation and
depression. Above all, the frequency of corporal punishment, a necessity
of which she was dimly conscious, but would by no means permit herself to
acknowledge, cut her to the heart. Silently and earnestly she would think
over the problem, to leave it unsolved at last, because she could not but
admit that the dictates of her feelings were opposed to the conclusions
of her reason. Then she would wish she had absolute power on the
plantation, would form vague schemes for the enlightenment of their own
people and the enfranchisement of every negro as he landed, till, having
once entered on the region of romance, she would pursue her journey to
its usual termination, and see herself making the happiness of every one
about her, none the less earnestly that the desire of her own heart was
granted, her schemes, her labours, all her thoughts and feelings shared
by the Grey Musketeer, whom yet it seemed so improbable she was ever to
see again.

It wanted an hour of sunset. The evening breeze had set in with a
refreshing breath that fluttered the skirt of her white muslin dress and
the pink ribbons on her wide straw hat, as Mademoiselle de Montmirail
strolled towards the negro-houses, carrying a _tisane_ she had herself
prepared for Aunt Rosalie’s sick child. The slaves were already down
from the cane-pieces, laughing, jesting, singing, carrying their tools
over their shoulders and their baskets or calabashes on their heads. A
fat little negro of some eight years old, who reminded Cerise of certain
bronze casts that held wax-lights in the Hôtel Montmirail, and who was
indeed little less sparingly clad than those works of art, came running
by, his saucy features shining with a merry excitement, in such haste
that he could only pull himself up to make her a droll little reverence
when he was almost under her feet. She recognised him as an elder brother
of the very infant she was about to visit, and asked if baby was any
better, but the child seemed so intent on some proceeding of his own that
she could not extort an answer.

“What is it, Hercule?” said she, laying her white hand on the little
knotted woolly head. “Where are you off to in such a hurry? Is it a dance
at the negro-houses, or a merry-making in the Square?”

The Square was a clear space, outside the huts of the field negroes,
devoted to occasions of unusual display, and Hercule’s thoughts were as
obviously turned in that direction as his corpulent little person.

“Better bobbery nor dance,” answered the imp, looking up earnestly in her
face. “M’amselle Fleurette tied safe to howling-tree! Massa Hippolyte,
him tall black nigger, floggee criss-cross. So! Make dis good little
nigger laugh, why for, I go see!” and away scampered Hercule as fast as
his short legs would carry him, followed by Cerise, who felt her cheek
paling and her blood tingling to her fingers’-ends.

But Aunt Rosalie’s baby never got the _tisane_, for Mademoiselle de
Montmirail spilt it all as she hurried on.

Coming beyond the rows of negro-houses, she found a large assemblage of
slaves, both men and women, ranged in a circle, many of the latter being
seated on the ground, with their children crawling about their feet,
while the fathers looked over the heads of their families, grinning in
curiosity and delight.

[Illustration: “CERISE BURST THROUGH LIKE A FLASH.”

(_Page 275._)]

They were all eager to enjoy one of those spectacles to which the
Square, as they chose to call it, was especially devoted.

In the centre of this open space, with the saffron light of a setting
sun full upon her closed eyes and contracted features, cowered poor
Fleurette, naked to the waist, secured hand and foot to a strong upright
post which prevented her from falling, with her wrists tied together and
drawn to a level somewhat higher than her head, so that she was unable
even to contract her shoulders for protection from the lash. Though her
shapely dark form and bosom were thus exposed, she seemed to feel less
shame than fear; but the reason was now obvious why she had shrunk with
such unusual terror from her odious and degrading punishment.

Looking on with callous indifference, and holding his black book in his
hand, stood Bartoletti, austerely satisfied with this public recognition
of his authority, but little interested in the result, save as it
affected the length of time, more or less, during which the victim would
be incapacitated from service.

Behind the girl, and careful to remain at such a distance as allowed room
for the sweep of his right arm, was stationed the most hideous figure in
the scene: a tall powerful Coromantee negro, African-born, with all his
savage propensities intensified by food, servitude, and the love of rum.
He brandished a long-lashed, knotted whip in his broad hand, and eyeing
the pliant shrinking figure before him, grinned like a demon in sheer
desire of blood.

He was to take his cue from the overseer. At the moment Cerise rounded
the last of the negro-houses and came into full view of this revolting
spectacle, Bartoletti’s harsh Italian voice grated on the silence—“One!”

Hippolyte, such was the Coromantee’s inappropriate name, drew himself
back, raised his brawny arm, and the lash fell with a dull jerk, deadened
by the flesh into which it cut.

There was a faint moan, and the poor back quivered in helpless agony.

Cerise, in her white dress, burst through the sable circle like a flash.

“Two!” grated that harsh voice, and again the cruel lash came down, but
it was dripping now with blood, and a long wailing shriek arose that
would not be suppressed.

“_Halte là!_” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Montmirail, standing in the
midst, pale, trembling, dilated, and with fire flashing from her blue
eyes. “Take that girl down! this instant! I command it! Let me see who
will dare to disobey!”

Even Hippolyte shrunk back, like some grotesque fiend rebuked. Bartoletti
strove to expostulate, but somehow he was awed by the beauty of that holy
wrath, so young, so fair, so terrible, and he dared not lift his eyes to
meet those scorching looks. He cowered, he trembled, he signed to two
negro women to obey Mademoiselle, and then slunk doggedly away.

Cerise passed her arm caressingly round Fleurette’s neck, she wiped the
poor torn shoulders with her own laced handkerchief, she rested the dark
woolly head on her bosom, and lifting the slave’s face to her own, kissed
her, once, twice, tenderly and pitifully on the lips.

Then Fleurette’s tears gushed out: she sank to her young mistress’s
knees, she grovelled at her very feet, she kissed them, she hugged them,
she pressed them to her eyes and mouth; she vowed, she sobbed, she
protested, and, at least while her passion of gratitude and affection
lasted, she spoke no more than the truth when she declared that she asked
no better than to consecrate every drop of blood in her body, her life,
her heart, her soul, to the service of Mademoiselle de Montmirail.




CHAPTER XXXII

A WISE CHILD


‘The Bashful Maid’ was still lying peacefully at anchor in the harbour of
Port Welcome, yards squared, sails furled, decks polished to a dazzling
white, every article of gear and tackle denoting profound repose, even
the very pennon from her truck drooping motionless in the heat. Captain
George spent much of his time below, making up his accounts, with the
invaluable assistance of Beaudésir, who, having landed soon after their
arrival, remained an hour or two in the town, and returned to the
brigantine, expressing no desire for further communication with the shore.

George himself postponed his visit to the island until he had completed
the task on which he was engaged. In the meantime he gave plenty of
liberty to the crew, an indulgence of which none availed themselves more
freely than Slap-Jack and his two friends.

These last indeed seldom stirred beyond the town. Here they found all
they wanted in the shape of luxury or amusement: strong tobacco, new rum,
an occasional scrape of a fiddle with a thrumming accompaniment on the
banjo, nothing to do, plenty to drink, and a large room to smoke in.

But the foretopman was not so easily satisfied. Much to the disgust of
his comrades, he seemed to weary of their society, to have lost his
relish for fiery drinks and sea stories; nay, to have acquired diverse
tastes and habits foreign to his nature and derogatory to his profession.

“Gone cruisin’ thereaway,” observed Bottle-Jack, vaguely waving his pipe
in the direction of the mountains. “Never taken no soundings, nor kept
no dead reckoning, nor signalled for a pilot, but just up foresail,
drive-ahead, stem on, happy-go-lucky, an’ who cares!” While Smoke-Jack,
puffing out solemn clouds of fragrant Trinidado, enunciated sententiously
that he “Warn’t a-goin’ to dispute but what every craft should hoist
her own ensign, an’ lay her own course; but when he see a able seaman
clearing out from such a berth as this here, leaving the stiffest of grog
and the strongest of ‘bacca’ a-cause of a old yaller woman with a red
burgee; why, _he_ knowed the trim on ’em, that was _where_ it was. See if
it wasn’t. Here’s my service to you, mate—All ships at sea!”

Long ere the two stanch friends, however, had arrived at this
intelligible conclusion, the object of their anxiety was half-way up the
mountain, in fulfilment of the promise he had made Célandine to meet her
at an appointed place.

In justice to Slap-Jack, it is but fair to admit that his sentiments in
regard to the Quadroon were those of keen curiosity mingled with pity for
the obvious agitation under which she seemed to labour in his presence.
Fair Alice herself, far off in her humble home among the downs, need
not have grudged the elder woman an hour of her young seaman’s society,
although every minute of it seemed so strangely prized by this wild,
energetic, and mysterious person, with her swarthy face, her scarlet
head-dress, and her flashing eyes, gleaming with the fierce anxious
tenderness of a leopardess separated from her whelps.

Slap-Jack’s sea legs had hardly time to become fatigued, ere at a turn
in the mountain-path he found Célandine waiting for him, and somewhat to
his disgust, peering about in every direction, as if loth to be observed;
a clandestine interpretation of their harmless meeting which roused the
young seaman’s ire, and against which he would have vehemently protested,
had she not placed her hand over his mouth and implored him urgently,
though in a whisper, to keep silence. Then she bade him follow, still
below her breath, and so preceded him up the steep ascent with cautious,
stealthy steps, but at a pace that made the foretopman’s unaccustomed
knees shake and his breath come quick.

The sun was hot, the mountain high, the path overgrown with cactus and
other prickly plants, tangled with creepers and not devoid of snakes.
Monkeys chattered, parrots screamed, glittering insects quivered like
tinsel in the sun, or darted like flashes of coloured light across the
forest-shade. Vistas of beauty, such as he had never dreamed of, opened
out on either side, and looking back more than once to take breath while
he ascended, the deep blue sea lay spread out beneath him, rising broader
and broader to meet the blue transparent sky.

But Slap-Jack, truth to tell, was sadly indifferent to it all. Uneasiness
of the legs sadly counteracted pleasure of the eye. It was with
considerable gratification that he observed his leader diverge from the
upward path, and rounding the shoulder of the hill, take a direction
somewhat on the downward slope. Then he wiped his brows, with a sigh of
relief, and asked audibly enough for something to drink.

She seemed less afraid of observation now, although she did not comply
with his request, but pointed downward to a dark hollow, from which
ascended a thin, white, spiral line of smoke, the only sign denoting
human habitation in the midst of this luxuriant wilderness of tropical
growth and fragrance. Then, parting the branches with both hands, she
dived into the thicket, to stop at the door of a hut, so artfully
concealed amongst the dense luxuriant foliage that a man might have
passed within five yards and never known it was there but for the smoke.

Célandine closed the door cautiously behind her visitor, handed him a
calabash of water, into which she poured some rum from a goodly stone
jar—holding at least a gallon—watched him eagerly while he drank, and
when he set the measure down, flung both arms round his neck, and kissing
him all over the eyes and face, murmured in fondest accents—

“Do you not know why I have brought you here? Do you not know who and
what you are?”

“I could have told you half an hour back,” answered Slap-Jack, with a
puzzled air, “but so many queer starts happen hereaway, mother, that I’m
blessed if I can tell you now.”

Tears shone in the fierce black eyes that never left his face, but
seemed to feast on its comeliness with the desire of a famished appetite
for food.

“Call me mother again!” exclaimed the Quadroon. “You called me mother
down yonder at the store, and my heart leaped to hear the word. Sit ye
down, my darling, there in the light, where I can see your innocent face.
How like you are to your father, my boy. You’ve got his own bold eyes,
and broad shoulders, and large, strong hands. I could not be deceived. I
knew you from the first. Tell me true; you guessed who I was. You would
never have gone up to a stranger as you did to me!”

Slap-Jack looked completely mystified. Wisely reflecting, however,
that if a woman be left uninterrupted she will never “belay,” as he
subsequently observed, “till she has payed-out the whole of her yarn,” he
took another pull at the rum-and-water, and held his peace.

“Look about you, boy,” continued Célandine, “and mark the wild,
mysterious retreat I have made myself, on your account alone. No other
white man has ever entered the Obi-woman’s hut. Not a negro in the island
but shakes with fear when he approaches that low doorway; not one but
leaves a gift behind when he departs. And now, chance has done for the
Obi-woman that which all her perseverance and all her cunning has failed
to effect. Influence I have always had amongst the blacks, for I am of
their kindred, and they believe that I possess supernatural powers. You
need not smile, boy. I can sometimes foretell the future so far as it
affects others, though blindly ignorant where it regards myself; just
as a man reads his neighbour’s face clearly, though he cannot see his
own. All my influence I have devoted to the one great object of making
money. For that, I left my sunny home to live years in the bleak, cold
plains of France; for that, I sold myself in my old age to one whom I
could not care for, even in my youth; for that I have been tampering of
late with the most desperate and dangerous characters in the island; and
money I only valued because, without it, I feared I could never find my
boy. Listen, my darling, and learn how a mother’s love outlives the fancy
of youth, the devotion of womanhood, and the covetousness of old age.
Look at me now, child. It is not so long since men have told me—even in
France, where they profess to understand such matters—that I retained my
attractions still. You may believe that thirty years ago the Quadroon of
Cash-a-crou, as they called her, had suitors, lovers, and admirers by
the score. Somehow, I laughed at them all. It seemed to me that a man’s
affection for a girl only lasted while she despised him, and I resolved
that no weakness of my own should ever bring me down a single step from
the vantage-ground I held. Planters, overseers, councillors, judges, all
were at my feet; not a white man in the island but would have given three
months’ pay for a smile from the yellow girl at Cash-a-crou; and the
yellow girl—slave though she was—carried her head high above them all.

“Well, one bright morning, a week before crop-time, a fine large ship,
twice the size of that brigantine in the harbour, came and dropped her
anchor off the town. The same night her sailors gave a dance at one of
the negro-houses in Port Welcome. I never hear a banjo in the still,
calm evenings but it thrills to my very marrow still, though it will
be five-and-twenty long years, when the canes are cut, since I went
into that dancing-room a haughty, wilful beauty, and came out a humble,
love-stricken maid. Turn a bit more to the light, my boy, that I may look
into your blue eyes; they shine like his, when he came across the floor
and asked me to dance. I’ve heard the Frenchwoman say that it takes a
long time for a man to win his way into a girl’s heart. Theirs is a cold
country, and they have no African blood in their veins. All I know is,
that your father had not spoken half-a-dozen words ere I felt for him
as I never felt for any creature on earth before. I’d have jumped off
the Sulphur Mountain, and never thought twice about it, if he had asked
me. When we walked home together in the moonlight—for he begged hard to
see me safe to my own door, and you may think I wasn’t very difficult to
persuade—I told him honestly that I had never loved any man but him, and
never would love another, come what might. He looked down into my eyes
for a moment astonished, just as you look now, and then he smiled—no face
ever I saw had such a smile as your father’s—and wound his great strong
arm round my waist, and pressed me to his heart. I was happy then. If
I might live over just one minute of my life again, it should be that
first minute when I felt I belonged no more to myself, but to him.

“So we were married by an old Spanish priest in the little white chapel
between the lighthouse and the town—yes, married right enough, my boy,
never doubt it, though I was but a slave.

“I do not know how a great lady like our Marquise feels who can give
herself and all her possessions, proudly and in public, to the man she
loves, but she ought to be very happy. I was very happy, though I might
only meet your father by stealth, and with the fear of a punishment I
shuddered to think of before my eyes. I thought of it very often, too,
yet not without pride and pleasure, to risk it all for his sake. What
I dreaded far worse than punishment—worse than death, was the day his
ship would sail, and though she lay weeks and months refitting in the
harbour, that day arrived too soon. Never tell me people die of grief, my
boy, since I came off the hill alive when I had seen the last of those
white sails. I could have cursed the ship for taking him away, and yet I
blessed her for his sake.

“There was consolation for me too. I had his solemn promise to come back
again, and I’ll never believe but he would have kept it had he been
alive. Nothing shall persuade me that my brave, blue-eyed Englishman has
not been sleeping many a year, rolled in his hammock, under the deep,
dark sea. It was well the conviction came on me by degrees that I was
never to see him again. I should have gone mad if I had known it that
last night when he bade me keep my heart up, and trust him to the end.
After a while I fretted less, for my time was near, and my beautiful boy
was born. Such an angel never lay on a mother’s knees. My son, my son,
you have the same eyes, and the same sweet smile still. I knew you that
day in the street, long before I turned your collar down, and saw the
little white mark like an anchor on your neck. How proud I was of you,
and how I longed to show my sturdy, blue-eyed boy, who began to speak at
eleven months, to every mother in the island, but I dared not—I dared
not, for your sake more than for my own. I was cunning then—ay, cunning,
and brave, and enduring as a panther. They never found me out—they never
so much as suspected me. I had money, plenty of it, and influence too,
with one man at least, who would have put his hand in the fire, coward as
I think he is, if I had only made him a sign. With his help, I concealed
the existence of my boy from every creature on the plantation—black or
white. In his house I used to come and nurse you, dear, and play with you
by the hour together. That man is my husband now, and I think he deserves
a better fate.

“At last he was forced to leave the island, and then came another
parting, worse than the first. It was only for myself I grieved when I
lost your father, but when I was forced to trust my beautiful boy to the
care of another, to cross the sea, to sleep in strange beds, to be washed
and dressed by other hands, perhaps to meet with hard words and angry
looks, or worse still, to clasp his pretty arms about a nurse’s neck, and
to forget the mother that bore him, I thought my heart would break. My
boy, there is no such thing—I tell you again, these are fables—grief does
not kill.

“For a long time I heard regularly of your welfare, and paid liberally
for the good news. I was sure the man to whom I had entrusted you looked
upon me as his future wife, and though I hated him for the thought, I—who
loved that bold, strong, outspoken sailor—I permitted it, I encouraged
it, for I believed it would make him kinder to my boy. When you were a
little older, I meant to buy my own freedom, and take you with me to live
in Europe—wherever you could be safe.

“At last a ship sailed into Port Welcome, and brought no letter for me,
no news of my child. Another, and yet another, till months of longing,
sickening anxiety had grown to years, and I was nearly mad with fear and
pain. The father I had long despaired of, but I thought I was never to be
used so hardly as to lose the child.

“I tell you again, my boy, grief does not kill. I lived on, but I was
a different creature now. My youth was gone, my beauty became terrible
rather than attractive. I possessed certain powers that rendered me an
object of dread more than love, and here, in this very hut, I devoted
myself to the practice of Obi, and the study of that magic which has
made the name of Célandine a word of fear to every negro in the island.

“One only aim, one only hope, kept me from going mad. Money I was
resolved to possess, the more the better, for by the help of money alone,
I thought, could I ever gain tidings of my boy. The slaves paid well in
produce for the amulets and charms I sold them. That produce I converted
into coin, but it came in too slow. In Europe I might calculate on better
opportunities for gain, and to Europe I took the first opportunity of
sailing, that I might join the mistress I had never seen, as attendant
on her and her child. In their service I have remained to this day. The
mother I have always respected for her indomitable courage; the daughter
I loved from the first for her blue eyes, that reminded me of my boy.

“And now look at me once more, my child—my darling. I have found you when
I had almost left off hoping; I have got you when I never expected to see
you again; and I am rewarded at last!”

Slap-Jack, whose sentiments of filial affection came out the mellower
for rum-and-water, accepted the Quadroon’s endearments with sufficient
affability, and being naturally a good-hearted, easy-going fellow, gladly
enacted the part of dutiful son to a mother who had suffered such long
anxiety on his account.

“A-course,” said he, returning her embrace, “now you’ve got a son, you
ain’t a-goin’ to keep him in this here round-house, laid up in lavender
like, as precious as a Blue Mountain monkey pickled in rum. We’ll just
wait here a bit, you and me, safe and snug, while the land-breeze holds,
and then drop easily down into the town, rouse out my shipmates, able
seamen every man of them, and go in for a regular spree. ’Tain’t every
day as a chap finds his mother, you know, and such a start as this here
didn’t ought to be passed over without a bobbery.”

She listened to him delighted. His queer phrases were sweet in her ears;
to her they were no vulgar sea-slang, but the echo of a love-music that
had charmed her heart, and drowned her senses half a lifetime ago; that
rang with something of the old thrilling vibration still; but the wild
look of terror that had scared him more than once gleamed again in her
eyes, and she laid her hand on his shoulder as if to keep him down by
force, while she whispered—“My child, not so! How rash, how reckless!
Just like your father; but he, at least, had not your fate to fear. Do
you not see your danger? Can you not guess why I concealed your birth,
hid you up in your babyhood, and smuggled you out of the island as soon
as you could run? Born of a slave, on a slave estate, do you not know, my
boy, that you, too, are a slave?”

“Gammon! mother,” exclaimed Slap-Jack, nothing daunted. “What
_me_?—captain of the foretop on board ‘The Bashful Maid,’—six guns on the
main-deck, besides carronades—master and owner, Captain George! and talk
to me as if I was one of them darkies what does mule’s work with monkey’s
allowance! Who’s to come and take me, I should like to know? Let ’em
heave ahead an’ do it, that’s all—a score at a spell if they can muster
’em. I’ll show ’em pretty quick what sort of a slave they can make out of
an able seaman!”

“Hush, hush!” she exclaimed, listening earnestly, and with an expression
of intense fear contracting her worn features; “I can hear them
coming—negroes by the footfall, and a dozen at least. They will be at
the door in five minutes. They have turned by the old hog-plum now. As
you love your life, my boy; nay, as you love your mother, who has pined
and longed for you all these years, let me hide you away in there. You
will be safe. Trust me, you will be safe enough; they will never think of
looking for you there!”

So speaking, and notwithstanding much good-humoured expostulation and
resistance from Slap-Jack, who, treating the whole affair as a jest, was
yet inclined to fight it out all the same, Célandine succeeded in pushing
her son into an inner division of the hut, containing only a bed-place,
shut off by a strong wooden door. This she closed hurriedly, at the very
moment a dozen pattering footsteps halted outside, and a rough negro
voice, in accents more imperative than respectful, demanded instant
admission.




CHAPTER XXXIII

JACK AGROUND


Opening the door with a yawn, and stretching her arms like one lately
roused from sleep, the Quadroon found herself face to face with the
Coromantee, backed by nearly a score of negroes, the idlest and most
dissolute slaves on the estate. All seemed more or less intoxicated,
and Célandine, who knew the African character thoroughly, by no means
liked their looks. She was aware that much disaffection existed in the
plantation, and the absence of this disorderly gang from their work at
so early an hour in the afternoon argued something like open revolt.
It would have been madness, however, to show fear, and the Obi-woman
possessed, moreover, a larger share of physical courage than is usual
with her sex; assuming, therefore, an air of extreme dignity, she
stationed herself in the doorway and demanded sternly what they wanted.

Hippolyte, who seemed to be leader of the party, doffed his cabbage-tree
hat with ironical politeness, and pointing over his shoulder at two
grinning negroes laden with plantains and other garden produce, came to
business at once.

“We buy,—you sell, Missee Célandine. Same as storekeeper down Port
Welcome. Fust ask gentlemen step in, sit down, take something to drink.”

There was that in his manner which made her afraid to refuse, and
inviting the whole party to enter, she accommodated them with difficulty
in the hut. Reviewing her assembled guests, the Quadroon’s heart sank
within her; but she was conscious of possessing cunning and courage, so
summoned both to her aid.

A negro, under excitement, from whatever cause, is a formidable-looking
companion. Those animal points of head and countenance, by which he is
distinguished from the white man, then assume an unseemly prominence. The
lips thicken, the temples swell, the eyes roll, the brow seems to recede,
and the whole face alters for the worse, like that of a vicious horse,
when he lays his ears back, prepared to kick.

Célandine’s visitors displayed all these alarming signs, and several
other disagreeable peculiarities, the result of partial intoxication.
Some of them carried axes, she observed, and all had knives. Their attire
too, though of the gaudiest colours, was extremely scanty, ragged, and
unwashed. They jested with one another freely enough, as they sat huddled
together on the floor of the hut, but showed little of the childish
good-humour common among prosperous and well-ordered slaves; while she
augured the worst from the absence of that politeness which, to do him
justice, is a prominent characteristic of the negro. Nevertheless, she
dissembled her misgivings, affected an air of dignified welcome, handed
round the calabash, with its accompanying stone bottle, to all in turn,
and felt but little reassured to find that the rum was nearly exhausted
when it had completed the circle.

“Thirteen gentlemen, Missee Célandine,” observed the Coromantee, tossing
off his measure of raw spirits with exceeding relish; “thirteen charms,
best Obi-woman can furnish for the price, ’gainst evil eye, snake-bite,
jumbo-stroke, fire, water, and cold steel, all ’counted for, honourable,
in dem plantain baskets. Hi! you lazy nigger, pay out. Say, again,
missee, what day this of the month?”

Célandine affected to consider.

“The thirteenth,” she answered gravely; “the most unlucky day in the
whole year.”

Hippolyte’s black face fell. “Golly?” said he. “Unlucky! for why? for
what? Dis nigger laugh at luck,” he added, brightening up and turning
what liquor was left in the stone bottle down his own throat. “Lookee
here, missee; you Obi-woman, right enough; you nigger too, yaller all
same as black: you go pray Jumbo for luck. All paid for in dat basket.
Pray Jumbo no rain to-night, put um fire out. Our work, make bobbery;
your work, stay up mountain where spirit can hear, and pray Jumbo till
monkeys wake.”

A suspicion that had already dawned on the Quadroon’s mind was now
growing horribly distinct. It was obvious some important movement must
be intended by the gang that filled her hut, and there was every fear a
general rising might take place of all the slaves on the plantation, if
indeed the insurrection spread no further than the Montmirail estate. She
knew, none better, the nature of the half-reclaimed savage. She thought
of her courageous, high-souled mistress, of her delicate, beautiful
nursling, and shivered while she pictured them in the power of this huge
black monster who sat grinning at her over the empty calabash. She even
forgot for the moment her own long-lost son, hidden up within six feet of
her, and the double danger he would run in the event of detection. She
could only turn her mind in one direction, and that was, where Madame
and Mademoiselle were sitting, placid and unconscious, in the rich white
dresses her own fingers had helped to make.

Their possible fate was too horrible to contemplate. She forced it from
her thoughts, and with all her power of self-concentration, addressed
herself to the means of saving them at any cost. In such an emergency
as the present, surrounded, and perhaps suspected, by the mutineers,
dissimulation seemed her only weapon left, and to dissimulation she
betook herself without delay.

“Hippolyte,” said she, “you are a good soldier. You command all these
black fellows; I can see it in your walk. I always said you had the air
of an officer of France.”

The Coromantee seemed not insensible to flattery. He grinned, wagged his
head, rolled his eyes, and was obviously well pleased.

“Dese niggers make me deir colonel,” said he, springing from the floor
to an attitude of military attention. “Hab words of command like buckra
musketeer. _Par file à droite—Marche! Volte-face!_ Run for your lives!”

“I knew it,” she replied, “and you ought to have learned already to trust
your comrades. Are we not in the same ranks? You say yourself, yellow and
black are all one. You and I are near akin; your people are the people
of my mother’s mother; whom you trust, I trust; whom you hate, I hate,
but far more bitterly, because my injuries are older and deeper than
yours.”

He opened his eyes wondering, but the rum had taken effect, and nothing,
not even the Quadroon’s disloyalty to her mistress, seemed improbable
now. An Obi-woman too, if really in earnest, he considered a valuable
auxiliary; so signed his approval by another grin and a grunt of
acquiescence.

“I live but for one object now,” continued Célandine, in a tone of
repressed fury that did credit to her power of acting. “I have been
waiting all my life for my revenge, and it seems to have come at last.
The Marquise should have given me my freedom long ago if she wished me
to forgive. Ay, they may call me _Mustee_, but I am black, black as
yourself, my brave Hippolyte, at heart. She struck me once,—I tell you,
struck me with her riding-whip, far away yonder in France, and I will
have her blood.”

It is needless to observe this imputed violence was a fabrication for the
especial benefit of Hippolyte, and the energy with which he pronounced
the ejaculation, “Golly!” denoted that he placed implicit reliance on its
truth.

“You are brave,” continued Célandine; “you are strong; you are the fine
tall negro whom we call the Pride of the Plantation. You do not know what
it is to hate like a poor weak woman. I would have no scruple, no mercy;
I would spare none, neither Madame nor Mademoiselle.”

“Ma’amselle come into woods with me,” interrupted Hippolyte, with a
horrible leer. “Good enough wife for Pride of Plantation. Lilly-face look
best by um side of black man. Ma’amselle guess me come for marry her.
When floggee Fleurette, look at me so, afore all de niggers, sweet as
molasses!”

Again Célandine shivered. The wretch’s vanity would have been ludicrous,
had he not been so formidable from his recklessness, and the authority he
seemed to hold over his comrades. She prepared to learn the worst.

“They will both be in our power to-night, I suppose,” said she,
repressing with a strong effort her disgust and fierce desire to snatch
his long knife and stab him where he stood. “Tell me your plan of attack,
my brave colonel, and trust me to help you to the utmost.”

The Coromantee looked about him suspiciously, rolling his eyes in
obvious perplexity. The superstition inherent in his nature made him
desirous of obtaining her assistance, while the Quadroon’s antecedents,
and particularly her marriage with the overseer, seemed to infer that
she would prove less zealous than she affected to be in the cause of
insurrection. He made up his mind therefore to bind her by an oath, which
he himself dictated, and made her swear by the mysterious power she
served, and from which she derived her influence, to be true, silent,
and merciless, till the great event had been accomplished, all the
whites in authority massacred, and the whole estate in the power of the
slaves. Every penalty, both horrible and ludicrous, that the grotesque
imagination of a savage could devise, was called down upon her head
in the event of treachery; and Célandine, who was a sufficiently good
Catholic at heart, swallowed all these imprecations imperturbably enough,
pledging herself, without the slightest hesitation, to the conspiracy.

Then Hippolyte was satisfied and unfolded his plans, while the others
gathered round with fearful interest, wagging their heads, rolling their
eyes, grinning, stamping, and ejaculating deep gutturals of applause.

His scheme was feasible enough; nor to one who knew no scruples of
gratitude, no instincts of compassion, did it present any important
obstacles. He was at the head of an organised body, comprising nearly all
the male slaves on the plantation; a body prepared to rise at a moment’s
notice, if only assured of success. The dozen negroes who accompanied him
had constituted themselves his guards, and were pledged to strike the
first blow, at his command. They were strong, able-bodied, sensual, idle,
dissolute, unscrupulous, and well enough fitted for their enterprise,
but that they were arrant cowards, one and all. As, however, little
resistance could be anticipated, this poltroonery was the more to be
dreaded by their victims, that in the hour of triumph it would surely
turn to cruelty and excess.

Hippolyte, who was not deficient in energy, had also been in
communication with the disaffected slaves on the adjoining estates; these
too were sworn to rise at a given signal, and the Coromantee, feeling
that his own enterprise could scarcely fail, entertained a fervent hope
that in a few hours the whole of the little island, from sea to sea,
would be in possession of the negroes, and he himself chosen as their
chief. The sack and burning of Port Welcome, the massacre of the planters
and abduction of their families, were exciting little incidents of the
future, on which he could hardly trust himself to dwell; but the first
step in the great enterprise was to be taken at Montmirail West, and to
its details Célandine now listened with a horror that, while it curdled
her blood, she was forced to veil under a pretence of zeal and enthusiasm
in the cause.

Her only hope was in the brigantine. Her early associations had taught
her to place implicit reliance on a boat’s crew of English sailors,
and if she could but delay the attack until she had communicated with
the privateer, Mademoiselle, for it was of Mademoiselle she chiefly
thought, might be rescued even yet. If she could but speak to her son,
lying within three feet of her! If she could but make him understand
the emergency! How she trusted he overheard their conversation! How she
prayed he might not have been asleep the whole time!

Hippolyte’s plan of attack was simple enough. It would be dark in
a couple of hours. Long before then, he and his little band meant
to advance as far as the skirts of the bush, from whence they could
reconnoitre the house. Doors and windows would all be open. There was
but one white man in the place, and he unarmed. Nothing could be easier
than to overpower the overseer, and perhaps, for Célandine’s sake,
his life might be spared. Then, it was the Coromantee’s intention to
secure the Marquise and her daughter, which he opined might be done with
little risk, and at the expense of a shriek or two; to collect in the
store-room any of the domestic slaves, male or female, who showed signs
of resistance, and there lock them up; to break open the cellar, serve
out a plentiful allowance of wine to his guards, and then, setting fire
to the house, carry the Marquise and her daughter into the mountains.
The former, to be kept as a hostage, slain, or otherwise disposed of,
according to circumstances; the latter, as the African expressed it
with hideous glee, “for make lilly-face chief wife to dis here handsome
nigger!”

Célandine affected to accept his views with great enthusiasm, but
objected to the time appointed.

“The moon,” said she gravely, “is yet in her first quarter. Her spirit
is gone a journey to the mountains of Africa to bless the bones of our
forefathers. It will be back to-morrow. Jumbo has not been sufficiently
propitiated. Let us sacrifice to him for one night more with jar and
calabash. I will send down for rum to the stores. Brave colonel, you
and your guards shall bivouac here outside her hut, while the Obi-woman
remains within to spend the night in singing and making charms. Jumbo
will thus be pleased, and to-morrow the whole island may be ours without
opposition.”

But Hippolyte was not to be deceived so easily. His plans admitted of
no delay, and the flames ascending from the roof of Montmirail West,
that same night, were to be the signal for a general rising from sea to
sea. His short period of influence had already taught him that such a
blow as he meditated, to be effectual, must be struck at once. Moreover,
the quality of cunning in the savage seems strong in proportion to his
degradation; the Coromantee was a very fox for vigilance and suspicion,
nor did he fail to attribute Célandine’s desire for procrastination to
its true motive.

“To-night, Obi-woman!” said he resolutely. “To-night, or no night at
all. Dis nigger no leave yaller woman here, fear of accidents. Perhaps
to-morrow free blacks kill you same as white. You come with us down
mountain-side into clearing. We keep you safe. You make prayer and sing
whole time.”

With a mischievous leer at a couple of his stalwart followers, he pointed
to the Quadroon. They sprang from the ground and secured her, one on each
side. The unfortunate Obi-woman strove hard to disarm suspicion by an
affectation of ready compliance, but it was obvious they mistrusted her
fidelity and had no intention of letting her out of their sight. It was
with difficulty that she obtained a few moments’ respite, on the plea
that night was about to fall, for the purpose of winding her shawl more
carefully round her head, and in that brief space she endeavoured to warn
her son of the coming outbreak, with a maddening doubt the while that
he might not understand their purport, even if he could hear her words.
Turning towards the door, behind which he was concealed, under pretence
of arranging her head-gear at a bit of broken looking-glass against the
panel, she sang, with as marked an emphasis as she dared, a scrap of some
doggrel sea-ditty, which she had picked up from her first love in the old
happy days, long ago:—

    “The boatswain looked upon the land,
      And shrill his whistle blew,
    The oars were out, the boat was manned,
      Says he, ‘My gallant crew,

    “‘Our captain in a dungeon lies,
      The sharks have got him flat,
    But if we fire the town, my boys,
      We’ll have him out of that!

    “‘We’ll stop their jaw, we’ll spike their guns!
      We’ll larn ’em what they’re at—
    You bend your backs, and pull, my sons,
      We’ll have him out of that!’”

This she sang twice, and then professed her readiness to accompany
Hippolyte and his band down the mountain, delaying their departure,
however, by all the means she could think of, including profuse offers
of hospitality, which had but little effect, possibly because the guests
were personally satisfied that there was nothing left to drink.

Nay, even on the very threshold of the hut she turned back once more,
affecting to have forgotten the most important of the amulets she
carried about her person, and, crossing the floor with a step that must
have awakened the soundest sleeper, repeated, in clear loud tones, the
boatswain’s injunction to his men—

    “You bend your backs, and pull, my sons,
    We’ll have him out of that!”




CHAPTER XXXIV

JACK AFLOAT


But Slap-Jack was not asleep; far from it. His narrow hiding-place
offered but little temptation to repose, and almost the first sentence
uttered by Hippolyte aroused the suspicions of a man accustomed to
anticipate, without fearing, danger, or, as he expressed it, “to look out
for squalls.”

He listened therefore intently the whole time, and although the
Coromantee’s jargon was often unintelligible, managed to gather quite
enough of its meaning to assure him that some gross outrage was in
preparation, of which a white lady and her daughter were to be the
victims. Now it is not only on the boards of a seaport theatre that the
British sailor vindicates his character for generous courage on behalf
of the conventional “female in distress.” The stage is, after all, a
representation, however extravagant, of real life, and the caricature
must not be exaggerated out of all likeness to its original. Coarse
in his language, rough in his bearing, reckless and riotous from the
very nature of his calling, there is yet in the thorough-going English
seaman a leavening of tenderness, simplicity, and self-sacrifice, which,
combined with his dauntless bravery, affords no ignoble type of manhood.
He is a child in his fancies, his credulity, his affections; a lion in
his defiance of peril and his sovereign contempt for pain.

With regard to women, whatever may be his practice, his creed is pure,
exalted, and utterly opposed to his own experience; while his instincts
prompt him on all occasions, and against any odds, to take part with the
weaker side. Compared with the landsman, he is always a little behind
the times in worldly knowledge, possessing the faults and virtues of
an earlier age. With both of these in some excess, his chivalry is
unimpeachable, and a sense of honour that would not disgrace the noblest
chapters of knighthood is to be found nerving the blue-streaked arms and
swelling the brawny chests that man the forecastle.

Slap-Jack knew enough of his late-discovered mother’s position to be
familiar with the name of the Marquise and the situation of Montmirail
West. As he was the only seaman belonging to ‘The Bashful Maid’ who
had been tempted beyond the precincts of the port, this knowledge was
shared by none of his shipmates. Captain George himself, postponing his
shore-going from hour to hour, while he had work in hand, little dreamed
he was within two leagues of Cerise. Beaudésir had never repeated his
visit to the town; and every other man in the brigantine was too much
occupied by duty or pleasure—meaning anchor-watch on board, alternated by
rum and fiddlers ashore—to think of extending his cruise a yard further
inland than the nearest drinking-house.

On Slap-Jack, therefore, devolved the task of rescuing the Marquise and
her daughter from the grasp of “that big black swab,” as the foretopman
mentally denominated him, whom he longed ardently to “pitch into” on the
spot. He understood the position. His mother’s sea-song was addressed to
no inattentive nor unwilling ears. He saw the difficulties and, indeed,
the dangers of his undertaking; but the latter he despised, while the
former he resolved to overcome; and he never lay out upon a yard to reef
topsails in the fiercest squall with a clearer brain or a stouter heart
than he now summoned to his aid on behalf of the ladies whom his mother
loved so well.

Creeping from his hiding-place, he listened anxiously to the retreating
footfall of the blacks, and even waited several minutes after it had
died away to assure himself the coast was clear. Discovery would have
been fatal; for armed though he was with a cutlass and pistols, thirteen
to one, as he sagely reflected, was long odds; and “if I should be
scuttled,” thought he, “before I can make signals, why, what’s to become
of the whole convoy?” Therefore he was very cautious and reflective.
He pondered, he calculated, he reckoned his time, he enumerated his
obstacles, he laid out his plans before he proceeded to action. His only
chance was to reach the brigantine without delay, and report the whole
matter to the skipper forthwith, who he was convinced would at once
furnish a boat’s crew to defend the ladies, and probably put himself at
their head.

Emerging from the hut, he observed to his consternation that it was
already dusk. There is but a short twilight in these low latitudes, where
the evening hour—sweetest of the whole twenty-four—is gone almost as soon
as it arrives—

    “The sun’s rim dips,
    The stars rush out,
    At one stride comes the dark.”

And that dark, in the jungle of a West Indian island, is black as
midnight.

It was well for Slap-Jack that a seaman’s instinct had prompted him to
take his bearings before he came up the mountain. These, from time to
time, he corrected during his ascent, at the many places where he paused
for breath. He knew, therefore, the exact direction of the town and
harbour. Steering by the stars, he was under no apprehension of losing
his way, and could make for the brigantine where she lay. Tightening his
belt, then, he commenced the descent at a run, resolving to keep the path
as long as he could see it, and when it was lost in the bush at last, to
plunge boldly through till he reached the shore.

The misadventure he foresaw soon came to pass. A path which he could
hardly have followed by daylight, without Célandine to pilot him, soon
disappeared from beneath his feet in the deepening gloom. He had not left
the hut many minutes ere he was struggling, breast-high, amongst the
wild vines and other creepers that twined and festooned in a tangle of
vegetable network from tree to tree.

The scene was novel and picturesque, yet I am afraid he cursed and
swore a good deal, less impressed with its beauty than alive to its
inconveniences. Overhead, indeed, he caught a glimpse of the stars, by
which he guided his course through the interlacing boughs of the tall
forest trees, and underfoot, the steady lamp of the glow-worm, and the
sparks of a thousand wheeling fire-flies shed a light about his path; but
these advantages only served to point out the dangers and difficulties
of his progress. With their dubious help, every creeper thicker than
ordinary assumed the appearance of some glistening snake, swinging from
the branch in a grim repose that it was death to disturb; every rotten
stump leaning forward in its decay, draped with its garment of trailing
parasites, took the form of a watchful savage, poising his gigantic form
in act to strike; while a wild boar, disturbed from his lair between the
roots of an enormous gum-tree, to shamble off at a jog-trot, grumbling,
in search of thicker covert, with burning eye, gnashing tusks, and most
discordant grunt, swelled to the size of a rhinoceros. Slap-Jack’s
instincts prompted him to salute the monster with a shot from one of
the pistols that hung at his belt, but reflecting on the necessity
of caution, he refrained with difficulty, consoling himself by the
anticipation of several days’ leave ashore, and a regular shooting party
with his mates, in consideration of his services to-night.

Thus he struggled on, breathless, exhausted, indefatigable—now losing
himself altogether, till a more open space in the branches, through which
he could see the stars, assured him that he was in a right direction—now
obtaining a glimpse of some cane-piece, or other clearing, white in
the tender light of the young moon, which had already risen, and thus
satisfying himself that he was gradually emerging from the bush, and
consequently nearing the shore—now tripping over a fallen tree—now held
fast in a knot of creepers—now pierced to the bone by a prickly cactus,
torn, bleeding, tired, sore, and drenched with perspiration, but never
losing heart for a moment, nor deviating, notwithstanding his enforced
windings, one cable’s length from the direct way.

Thus at last he emerged on a clearing already trenched and hoed for
the reception of sugar-canes, and, to his infinite joy, beheld his own
shadow, black and distinct, in the trembling moonlight. The bush was now
behind him, the slope of the hill in his favour, and he could run down,
uninterrupted, towards the pale sea lying spread out like a sheet of
silver at his feet. He crossed a road here that he knew must lead him
into the town, but it would have taken him somewhat out of his course for
the brigantine, and he had resolved to lose no time, even for the chance
of obtaining a boat.

He made, therefore, direct for the shore, and in a few minutes he was
standing on a strip of sand, with the retiring tide plashing gratefully
on his ear, while his eyes were fixed on the tapering spars of ‘The
Bashful Maid,’ and the light glimmering in her foretop.

He stepped back a few paces to lay his arms and some of his garments
behind a rock, a little above high-water mark. There was small chance he
would ever find them again, but he belonged to a profession of which the
science is essentially precautionary, and the habit of foresight was a
second nature to Slap-Jack. In a few more seconds he was up to his knees,
his middle, his breast-bone, in the cooling waters, till a receding wave
lifted him off his feet, and he struck out boldly for the brigantine.

How delightful to his heated skin was the contact of the pure, fresh,
buoyant element! Notwithstanding his fatigue, his hurry, his anxiety, he
could have shouted aloud in joy and triumph, as he felt himself wafted
on those long, regular, and powerful strokes nearer and nearer to his
object. It was the exultation of human strength and skill and daring,
dominant over nature, unassisted by mechanical art.

Yet was there one frightful drawback, a contingency which had been
present to his mind from the very beginning, even while he was beating
laboriously through the jungle, but which he had never permitted himself
to realise, and on which it would now be maddening to dwell: Port Welcome
was infested with sharks! He forced himself to ignore the danger, and
swam gallantly on, till the wash and ripple of the tide upon the shore
was far behind him, and he heard only his own deep measured breathing,
and the monotonous plash of those springing, regulated strokes that
drove him steadily out to sea. He was already tired, and had turned on
his back more than once for relief, ere the hull of the brigantine rose
black and steep out of the water half a cable’s length ahead. He counted
that after fifty more strokes he would summon breath to hail the watch on
deck. He had scarce completed them ere a chill went curdling through his
veins from head to heel, and if ever Slap-Jack lost heart it was then.
The water surged beneath him, and lifted his whole body, like a wave,
though the surrounding surface was smooth as a mill-pond. One desperate
kick, that shot him two fathoms at a stroke, and his passing foot grazed
some slimy, scaly substance, while from the corner of his eye he caught
a glimpse the moment after of the back-fin of a shark. Then he hailed in
good earnest, swimming his wickedest the while, and ere the voracious
sea-scourge, or its consort, could turn over for a leisurely snap at him,
Slap-Jack was safe in the bight of a rope, and the anchor-watch, not a
little astonished, were hauling their exhausted shipmate over the side.

“Come on board, sir!” exclaimed the new arrival, scrambling breathless
to his feet, after tumbling head-foremost over the gunwale, and pulling
with ludicrous courtesy at his wet hair. “Come on board, sir. Hands
wanted immediate. Ax your honour’s pardon. So blown I can hardly speak.
First-class row among the niggers. Bobbery all over the island. Devil to
pay, and no pitch hot!”

Captain George was on deck, which perhaps accounted for the rapidity
of the foretopman’s rescue, and although justly affronted by so
unceremonious a return on the part of a liberty-man who had out-stayed
his leave, he saw at a glance that some great emergency was imminent, and
prepared to meet it with habitual coolness.

“Silence, you fool!” said he, pointing to a negro amongst the crew. “Lend
him a jacket, some of you. Come below at once to my cabin, and make your
report. You can be punished afterwards.”

Slap-Jack followed his commander nothing loth. The after-punishment,
as being postponed for twenty-four hours at least, was a matter of no
moment, but a visit to the Captain’s cabin entailed, according to the
_etiquette_ of the service, a measure of grog, mixed on certain liberal
principles, that from time immemorial have regulated the strength of that
complimentary refreshment.

In all such interviews it is customary for the skipper to produce his
spirit-case, a tumbler, and a jug of water. The visitor helps himself
from the former, and esteems it only good breeding that he should charge
his glass to the depth of three fingers with alcohol, filling it up with
the weaker fluid. When the thickness of a seaman’s fingers is considered,
and the breadth to which he can spread them out on such occasions, it
is easy to conceive how little space is left near the rim of the vessel
for that insipid element, every additional drop of which is considered
by competent judges to spoil the beverage. Slap-Jack mixed as liberally
as another. Ere his draught, however, was half-finished, or his report
nearly concluded, the Captain had turned the hands up, and ordered a boat
to be manned forthwith, leaving Beaudésir to command in his absence; but
true to his usual system, informing no one, not even the latter, of his
intentions, or his destination.




CHAPTER XXXV

BESIEGED


In the meantime poor Célandine found herself hurried down the mountain
by Hippolyte and his band, in a state of anxiety and alarm that would
have paralysed the energies of most women, but that roused all the savage
qualities dormant in the character of the Quadroon. Not a word of her
captors, not a look escaped her; and she soon discovered, greatly to her
dismay, that she was regarded less as an auxiliary than a hostage. She
was placed in the centre of the band, unbound indeed, and apparently at
liberty; but no sooner did she betray, by the slightest independence of
movement, that she considered herself a free agent, than four stalwart
blacks closed in on her with brutal glee, attempting no concealment of a
determination to retain her in their power till they had completed their
merciless design.

“Once gone,” said Hippolyte, politely affecting great reverence for the
Obi-woman’s supernatural powers, “never catchee no more!—Jumbo fly away
with yaller woman, same as black. Dis nigger no ’fraid of Jumbo, so
long as Missee Célandine at um back. Soon dark now. March on, you black
villains, and keep your ranks, same as buckra musketeer!”

With such exhortations to discipline, and an occasional compliment to his
own military talents, Hippolyte beguiled their journey down the mountain.
It seemed to Célandine that far too short a space of time had elapsed ere
they reached the skirts of the forest, and even in the deepening twilight
could perceive clearly enough the long low building of _Cash-a-crou_, now
called Montmirail West.

The lamps were already lit in the sitting-room on the ground floor. From
where she stood, in the midst of the band, outwardly stern and collected,
quivering with rage and fear within, the Quadroon could distinguish the
figures of Madame la Marquise and her daughter, moving here and there
in the apartment, or leaning out at window for a breath of the cool,
refreshing evening air.

Their commander kept his men under covert of the woods, waiting till it
should be quite dark. There was little to fear from a garrison consisting
of but two ladies, backed by Fleurette and Bartoletti, for the other
domestic slaves were either involved in the conspiracy or had been
inveigled out of the way by its chief promoters; yet notwithstanding the
weakness of the besieged, some dread of their ascendancy made the negroes
loth to encounter by daylight even such weak champions of the white race
as two helpless women and a cowardly Italian overseer.

Nevertheless, every moment gained was worth a purse of gold. Célandine,
affecting to identify herself with the conspirators, urged on them the
prudence of delay. Hippolyte, somewhat deceived by her enthusiasm,
offered an additional reason for postponing the attack, in the brilliancy
of a conflagration under a night sky. He intended, he said, to begin by
setting fire to the house—there could then be no resistance from within.
There would be plenty of time, he opined, for drink and plunder before
the flames gained a complete ascendancy, and he seemed to cherish some
vague half-formed notion that it would be a fine thing to appear before
Cerise in the character of a hero, who should rescue her from a frightful
death.

A happy thought struck the Quadroon.

“It was lucky you brought me with you,” said she earnestly. “Brave as you
are, I fancy you would have been scared had you acted on your own plan.
You talk of firing _Cash-a-crou_, as you would of roasting a turtle in
its shell. Do you know that madame keeps a dozen barrels of gunpowder
stowed away about the house—nobody knows where but herself. You would
have looked a little foolish, I think, my brave colonel, to find your
long body blown clean over the Sulphur Mountain into the sea on the
other side of the island. You and your guard here are as handsome a set
of blacks as a yellow woman need wish to look on. Not a morsel would have
been left of any one of you the size of my hand!”

“Golly!” exclaimed Hippolyte in consternation. “Missee Célandine, you
go free for tanks, when this job clean done. Hi! you black fellows,
keep under shadow of gum-tree dere—change um plan now,” he added,
thoughtfully; and without taking his keen eyes off Célandine, walked from
one to the other of his band, whispering fresh instructions to each.

The Quadroon counted the time by the beating of her heart. “Now,” she
thought, “my boy must have gained the edge of the forest—ten minutes more
to cross the new cane-pieces—another ten to reach the shore. He can swim
of course—his father swam like a pilot-fish. In forty minutes he might
be on board. Five to man a boat—and ten more to pull her in against the
ebb. Then they have fully a league to march, and sailors are such bad
walkers.” At this stage of her reflections something went through her
heart like a knife. She thought of the grim ground-sharks, heaving and
gaping in the warm translucent depths of the harbour at Port Welcome.

But meanwhile Hippolyte had gathered confidence from the bearing of his
comrades. Their numbers and fierceness inspired him with courage, and he
resolved to enter the house at the head of his chosen body-guard, whilst
he surrounded it with a score of additional mutineers who had joined him
according to previous agreement at the head of the forest. These, too,
had brought with them a fresh supply of rum, and Célandine observed with
horror its stimulating effects on the evil propensities of the band.

While he made his further dispositions, she found herself left for a
few seconds comparatively unwatched, and at once stole into the open
moonlight, where her white dress could be discerned plainly from the
house. She knew her husband would be smoking his evening tobacco,
according to custom, in the verandah. At little more than a hundred paces
he could hardly fail to see her; and in an instant she had unbound the
red turban and waved it round her head, in the desperate hope that he
might accept that warning for a danger signal. The quick-witted Italian
seemed to comprehend at once that something was wrong. He imitated her
gesture, retired into the house, and the next minute his figure was seen
in the sitting-room with the Marquise and her daughter. By this time
Hippolyte had returned to her side, and she could only watch in agony
for the result. Completely surrounded by the intoxicated and infuriated
negroes, there seemed to be no escape for the besieged, while the looks
and gestures of their leader, closely copied by his chosen band, denoted
how little of courtesy or common humanity was to be expected from the
Coromantee, excited to madness by all the worst passions of his savage
nature bursting from the enforced restraints that had so long kept them
down.

A bolder spirit than the Signor’s might have been excused for betraying
considerable apprehension in such a crisis, and in good truth Bartoletti
was fairly frightened out of his wits. In common with the rest of the
whites on the island, he had long suspected a conspiracy amongst the
negroes, and feared that such an insurrection would take place; but no
great social misfortune is ever really believed in till it comes, and he
had neither taken measures for its prevention, nor thoroughly realised
the magnitude of the evil. Now that he felt it was upon him he knew not
where to turn for aid. There was no time to make phrases or to stand on
ceremony. He rushed into the sitting-room with a blanched cheek and a
wild eye, that caused each of the ladies to drop her work on her lap, and
gaze at him in consternation.

“Madame!” he exclaimed, and his jaw shook so that he could hardly form
the syllables, “we must leave the house at once—we must save ourselves.
There is an _émeute_, a revolt, a rebellion among the slaves. I know
them—the monsters! They will not be appeased till they have drunk our
blood. Oh! why did I ever come to this accursed country?”

Cerise turned as white as a sheet—her blue eyes were fixed, her lips
apart. Even the Marquise grew pale, though her colour came back, and she
held her head the more erect a moment afterwards. “Sit down,” she said,
imperiously, yet kindly enough. “Take breath, my good man, and take
courage also. Tell me exactly what you have seen;” and added, turning to
Cerise, “don’t be frightened, child—these overseers are sad alarmists. I
daresay it is only what the negroes call a ‘bobbery,’ after all!”

Then Bartoletti explained that he had seen his wife waving a red shawl
from the edge of the jungle; that this was a preconcerted signal by which
they had agreed to warn each other of imminent danger; that it was never
to be used except on great emergencies; and that he was quite sure it was
intended to convey to him that she was in the power of the slaves, and
that the rising they had so often talked about had taken place at last.

The Marquise thought for a moment. She seemed to have no fear now that
she realised her danger. Only once, when her eye rested on her daughter,
she shuddered visibly. Otherwise, her bearing was less that of a tender
woman in peril of her life, than of some wise commander, foiled and beset
by the enemy, yet not altogether without hope of securing his retreat.

So might have looked one of her warlike ancestors when the besiegers set
fire to his castle by the Garonne, and he resolved to betake himself,
with his stout veterans, to the square stone keep where the well was
dug—a maiden fortress, that had never yet succumbed to famine nor been
forced by escalade.

“Is there any one in the house whom we can trust?” said the Marquise; and
even while she spoke a comely black girl came crawling to her feet, and
seized her hand to cover it with tears and kisses.

“Iss, missis!” exclaimed Fleurette, for Fleurette it was, who had indeed
been listening at the door for the last five minutes. “You trust _me_!
Life for life! Blood for blood! No fear Jumbo, so lilly ma’amselle go out
safe. Trust Fleurette, missis. Trust Fleurette, ma’amselle. Fleurette die
at um house-door, so! better than ugly black floggee-man come in.” The
Marquise listened calmly.

“Attend to me, Fleurette,” said she, with an authoritative gesture. “Go
at once through the kitchen into the dark path that leads to the old
summer-house. See if the road to Port Welcome is clear. There is no
bush on that side within five hundred paces, and if they mean to stop
us, they must post a guard between the house and the gum-trees. Do not
show yourself, girl, but if they take you, say Célandine sent you down
to the negro-houses for eggs. Quick, and come back here like lightning.
Bartoletti—have you any firearms? Do not be afraid, my darling,” she
repeated, turning to her daughter, “I know these wretched people well.
You need but show a bold front, and they would turn away from a lady’s
fan if you only shook it hard at them.”

“I am not afraid, mamma,” answered Cerise, valiantly, though her face
was very pale, and her knees shook. “I—I don’t _like_ it, of course, but
I can do anything you tell me. Oh, mamma! do you—do you think they will
kill us?” she added, with rather a sudden breakdown of the courage she
tried so gallantly to rally.

“Kill us, mademoiselle!” exclaimed the overseer, quaking in every limb.
“Oh, no! never! They cannot be so bad as that. We will temporise, we will
supplicate, we will make terms with them; we will offer freedom, and rum,
and plunder; we will go on our knees to their chief, and entreat his
mercy!”

The girl looked at him contemptuously. Strange to say, her courage rose
as his fell, and she seemed to gather strength and energy from the abject
selfishness of his despair. The Marquise did not heed him, for she heard
Fleurette’s footsteps returning, and was herself busied with an oblong
wooden case, brass-bound, and carefully locked up, that she lifted from
the recess of a cupboard in the room.

Fleurette’s black feet could carry her swiftly and lightly as a bird.
She had followed her instructions implicitly, had crept noiselessly
through the kitchen, and advanced unseen to the old summer-house. Peering
from that concealment on the moonlit surface of the lawn, she was
horrorstruck to observe nearly a score of slaves intently watching the
house. She hurried back panting to her mistress’s presence, and made her
discouraging report.

Madame de Montmirail was very grave now. The affair had become more than
serious. It was, in truth, desperate. Once again, as she looked at her
daughter, came that strange quiver over her features, that shudder of
repressed horror rather than pain. It was succeeded, as before, by a
moment of deep reflection, and then her eye kindled, her lips tightened,
and all her soft voluptuous beauty hardened into the obstinate courage of
despair.

Cerise sank on her knees to pray, and rose with a pale, serene, undaunted
face. Hers was the passive endurance of the martyr. Her mother’s the
tameless valour of the champion, inherited through a long line of the
turbulent La Fiertés, not one of whom had ever blenched from death nor
yielded an inch before the face of man.

“Bartoletti!” said the Marquise. “Bar the doors and windows; they can be
forced with half-a-dozen strokes, but in war every minute is of value.
Hold this rabble in parley as long as you can. I dare not trust you with
my pistols, for a weak heart makes a shaking hand, and I think fighting
seems less your trade than mine. When you can delay them no longer,
arrange your own terms with the villains. It is possible they may spare
you for your wife’s sake. Quick, man! I hear them coming now. Cerise, our
bedroom has a strong oaken door, and they cannot reach the window without
a ladder, which leaves us but one enemy to deal with at a time. Courage,
my darling! Kiss me! Again, again! my own! And now. A woman dies but
once! Here goes for France, and the lilies on the White Flag!”

Thus encouraging her child, the Marquise led the way to the bed-chamber
they jointly occupied, a plainly-furnished room, of which the only
ornament was the Prince-Marshal’s portrait, already mentioned as
having occupied the place of honour in Madame’s _boudoir_ at the Hôtel
Montmirail. Both women glanced at it as they entered the apartment. Then
the Marquise, laying down the oblong box she carried, carefully shaded
the night-lamp that burned by her bedside, and peered stealthily from the
window to reconnoitre.

“Four, six, ten,” said she, calmly, “besides their leader, a tall, big
negro, very like Hippolyte. It _is_ Hippolyte. _You_ at least, my friend,
will not leave this house alive! I can hardly miss so fair a mark as
those broad black shoulders. This of course is the _corps d’élite_. Those
at the back of the house I do not regard so much. The kitchen door is
strong, and they will do nothing if their champions are repulsed. Courage
again, my child! All is not lost yet. Open that box and help me to load
my pistols. Strange, that I should have practised with them for years,
only to beat Madame de Sabran, and now to-night we must both trust our
safety to a true eye and a steady hand!”

Pale, tearless, and collected, Cerise obeyed. Her mother, drawing the
weapons from their case, wiped them with her delicate handkerchief, and
proceeded to charge them carefully, and with a preoccupied air, like a
mother preparing medicine for a child. Holding the ramrod between her
beautiful white teeth, while her delicate and jewelled fingers shook the
powder into the pan, she explained to Cerise the whole mystery of loading
and priming the deadly weapons. She would thus, as she observed, always
have one barrel in reserve. The younger woman listened attentively. Her
lip was steady, though her hand shook, and now that the worst was come
she showed that peculiar quality of race which is superior to the common
fighting courage possessed indiscriminately by all classes—the passive
concentrated firmness, which can take every advantage so long as a chance
is left, and die without a word at last, when hope gives place to the
resignation of despair.

She even pointed out to her mother, that by half closing the shutter, the
Marquise, herself unseen, could command the approach to the front door.
Then taking a crucifix from her bosom, she pressed it to her lips, and
said, “I am ready now, mamma. I am calm. I can do anything you tell me.
Kiss me once more, dear, as you used when I was a child. And if we _must_
die, it will not seem so hard to die together.”

The Marquise answered by a long clinging embrace, and then the two women
sat them down in the gloomy shadows of their chamber, haggard, tearless,
silent, watching for the near approach of a merciless enemy armed with
horrors worse than death.




CHAPTER XXXVI

AT BAY


In obedience to his mistress, Bartoletti had endeavoured to secure the
few weak fastenings of the house, but his hands shook so, that without
Fleurette’s aid not a bolt would have been pushed nor a key turned.
The black girl, however, seconded his efforts with skill and coolness,
so that Hippolyte’s summons to surrender was addressed to locked doors
and closed windows. The Coromantee was now so inflamed with rum as to
be capable of any outrage, and since neither his band nor himself were
possessed of firearms, nothing but Célandine’s happy suggestion about the
concealed powder restrained him from ordering a few faggots to be cut,
and the building set in a blaze. Advancing with an air of dignity, that
would at any other time have been ludicrous, and which he would certainly
have abandoned had he known that the Marquise covered his body with her
pistol the while, he thumped the door angrily, and demanded to know why
“dis here gentleman comin’ to pay compliment to buckra miss,” was not
immediately admitted; but receiving no answer, proceeded at once to
batter the panels with an iron crowbar, undeterred by the expostulations
of Fleurette, who protested vehemently, first, that her mistress was
engaged with a large party of French officers; secondly, that she lay
sick in bed, on no account to be disturbed; and lastly, that neither she
nor ma’amselle were in the house at all.

The Coromantee of course knew better. Shouting a horrible oath, and a
yet more hideous threat, he applied his burly shoulders to the entrance,
and the whole wood-work giving way with a crash, precipitated himself
into the passage, followed by the rest of the band, to be confronted by
Fleurette alone, Bartoletti having fled ignominiously to the kitchen.

“I could have hit him through the neck,” observed the Marquise,
withdrawing from her post behind the shutter, “but I was too directly
above him to make sure, and every charge is so valuable I would not waste
one on a mere wound. My darling, I still hope that two or three deadly
shots may intimidate them, and we shall escape after all.”

Cerise answered nothing, though her lips moved. The two ladies listened,
with every faculty sharpened, every nerve strung to the utmost.

A scream from Fleurette thrilled through them like a blow. Hippolyte,
though willing enough to dally with the comely black girl for a minute or
two, lost patience with her pertinacity in clinging about him to delay
his entrance, and struck her brutally to the ground. Turning fiercely on
him where she lay, she made her sharp teeth meet in the fleshy part of
his leg, an injury the savage returned with a kick, that after the first
shriek it elicited left poor Fleurette stunned and moaning in the corner
of the passage, to be crushed and trampled by the blacks, who now poured
in behind their leader, elated with the success of this, their first step
in open rebellion.

Presently, loud shouts, or rather howls of triumph, announced that the
overseer’s place of concealment was discovered. Bartoletti, pale or
rather yellow, limp, stammering, and beside himself with terror, was
dragged out of the house and consigned to sundry ferocious-looking
negroes, who proceeded to amuse themselves by alternately kicking,
cuffing, and threatening him with instantaneous death.

The Marquise listened eagerly; horror, pity, and disgust succeeding each
other on her haughty, resolute face. Once, something like contempt swept
over it, while she caught the tone of Bartoletti’s abject entreaties for
mercy. He only asked for life—bare life, nothing more; they might make a
slave of him then and there. He was their property, he and his wife, and
all that he had, to do what they liked with. Only let him live, he said,
and he would join them heart and hand; show them where the rum was kept,
the money, the jewels; nay, help them cheerfully to cut every white
throat on the island. The man was convulsed with terror, and the negroes
danced round like fiends, mocking, jeering, flouting him, exulting in the
spectacle of a _buckra_ overseer brought so low.

“There is something in _race_ after all,” observed the Marquise, as if
discussing an abstract proposition. “I suppose it is only the _canaille_
that can thus degrade themselves from mere dread of death. Though our
families have not always _lived_ very decently, I am glad to think that
there was never yet a Montmirail or La Fierté who did not know how _to
die_. My child, it is the pure old blood that carries us through such
moments as these; neither of us are likely to disgrace it now.”

Again her daughter’s lips moved, although no sound escaped them. Cerise
was prepared to die, but she could not bring herself to reason on the
advantages of noble birth at such a moment, like the Marquise; and
indeed the girl’s weaker frame and softer heart quailed in terror at the
prospect of the ordeal they had to go through.

From their chamber of refuge the two ladies could hear the insulting
jests and ribald gibberish of the slaves, now bursting into the
sitting-room, breaking the furniture, shivering the mirrors, and wantonly
destroying all the delicate articles of use and ornament, of which they
could neither understand the purpose nor appreciate the value. Presently
a discordant scream from Pierrot announced that the parrot had protested
against the intrusion of these riotous visitors, while a shout of pain,
followed by loud bursts of laughter, proclaimed the manner in which he
had resented the familiarity of one more daring than the rest. Taking the
bird roughly off its perch, a stout young negro named Achille had been
bitten to the bone, and the cross-cut wound inflicted by the parrot’s
beak so roused his savage nature, that twisting its neck round with a
vindictive howl, he slew poor Pierrot on the spot.

The Marquise in her chamber above could hear the brutal acclamations
that greeted this exploit, and distinguished the smothered thump of her
favourite’s feathered body as it was dashed into a corner of the room.

Then her lips set tight, her brows knit, and the white hand clenched
itself round her pistol, firm, rigid, and pitiless as marble.

Heavy footsteps were now heard hurrying on the stairs, and whispered
voices urging contrary directions, but all with the same purport.
There seemed to be no thought of compassion, no talk of mercy. Even
while hearing their victims, Hippolyte and Achille, who was his second
in command, scrupled not to discuss the fate of the ladies when they
should have gained possession of their persons—a fate which turned the
daughter’s blood to ice, the mother’s to fire. It was no time now to
think of compromise or capitulation, or aught but selling life at the
dearest, and gaining every moment possible by the sacrifice of an enemy.

Even in the last extremity, however, the genius of system, so remarkable
in all French minds, did not desert the Marquise. She counted the charges
in her pistol-case, and calculated the resources of her foes with a cool,
methodical appreciation of the chances for and against her, totally
unaffected by the enormous disproportion of the odds. She was good, she
argued, for a dozen shots in all. She would allow for two misses; sagely
reflecting that in a chance medley like the present she could hardly
preserve a steadiness of hand and eye that had heretofore so discomfited
Madame de Sabran in the shooting galleries of Marly and Versailles.
Eight shots would then be left, exclusive of two that she determined at
all risks to reserve for the last. The dead bodies of eight negroes she
considered, slain by the hand of one white woman, ought to put the whole
black population of the island to the rout; but supposing that the rum
they had drunk should have rendered them so reckless as to disregard even
such a warning, and that, with her defences broke down, she found herself
and daughter at their mercy, then—and while the Marquise reasoned thus,
the blood mounted to her eyes, and a hand of ice seemed to close round
her heart—the two reserve shots should be directed with unerring hand,
the one into her daughter’s bosom, the other through her own.

And Cerise, now that the crisis had arrived at last, in so far as
they were to be substantiated by the enforced composure of a passive
endurance, fully vindicated her claims to noble blood. She muttered
many a prayer indeed, that arose straight from her heart, but her eyes
were fixed on her mother the while, and she had disposed the ammunition
on a chair beside her in such a manner as to reload for the Marquise
with rapidity and precision. “We are like a front and rear rank of the
Grey Musketeers,” said the latter, with a wild attempt at hilarity, in
which a strong hysterical tendency, born of over-wrought feelings, was
with difficulty kept down. “The affair will soon commence now, and, my
child, if worst comes to worst, remember there is no surrender. I hear
them advancing to the assault. Courage! my darling. Steady! and _Vive la
France_!”

The words were still upon her lips, when a swarm of negroes, crowding
and shouldering up the narrow passage, halted at her door. Hippolyte
commenced his summons to the besieged by a smashing blow with the
crowbar, that splintered one of the panels and set the whole wood-work
quivering to its hinges. Then he applied his thick lips to the keyhole,
and shouted in brutal glee—

“Time to wake up now, missee! You play ’possum no longer, else cut down
gum-tree at one stroke. Wot you say to dis nigger for buckra bridegroom?
Time to come out now and dance jigs at um wedding.”

There was not a quiver in her voice while the Marquise answered in cold
imperious tones—

“You are running up a heavy reckoning for this night’s work. I know your
ringleaders, and refuse to treat with them. Nevertheless, I am not a
severe mistress. If the rest of the negroes will go quietly home, and
resume their duties with to-morrow’s sunrise, I will not be hard upon
_them_. You know me, and can trust my word.”

Cheers of derision answered this haughty appeal, and loud suggestions for
every kind of cruelty and insult, to be inflicted on the two ladies, were
heard bandied about amongst the slaves. Hippolyte replied fiercely—

“Give in at once! Open this minute, or neither of you shall leave the
house alive! For the Marquise—Achille! I give her to you! For lilly
ma’amselle—I marry her this very night. See! before the moon goes down!”

Cerise raised her head in scornful defiance. Her face was livid, but it
was stamped with the same expression as her mother’s now. There could be
no question both were prepared to die game to the last.

The blows of Hippolyte’s crowbar resounded against the strong oaken
panels of the door, but the massive wood-work, though it shook and
groaned, resisted stoutly for a time. It was well for the inmates that
Célandine’s imaginative powers had suggested the concealed gunpowder. Had
it not been for their fears of an explosion the negroes would ere this
have set fire to the building, when no amount of resistance could have
longer delayed the fate of the two ladies. Bartoletti, intimidated by the
threats of his captors, and preoccupied only with the preservation of his
own life, had shown the insurgents where the rum was kept, and many of
these were rapidly passing from the reckless to the stupefied stage of
intoxication. The Italian, who was not deficient in cunning, encouraged
their potations with all his might. He thus hoped to elude them before
morning, and leaving his employers to their fate, reach Port Welcome
in safety; where he doubted not he should be met by Célandine, whose
influence as an Obi-woman, he rightly conjectured, would be sufficient
to insure her safety. A coward rarely meets with the fate he deserves,
and Bartoletti did indeed make his eventual escape in the manner he had
proposed.

Plying his crowbar with vigorous strokes, Hippolyte succeeded at length
in breaking through one of the door panels, a measure to be succeeded
by the insertion of hand and arm for withdrawal of the bolts fastened
on the inside. The Coromantee possessed, however, a considerable share
of cunning mixed with the fierce cruelty of a savage. When he had torn
away enough wood-work to make a considerable aperture, he turned to his
lieutenant and desired him to introduce his body and unbar the door from
within. It is difficult to say what he feared, since even had he been
aware that his mistress possessed firearms, he could not have conceived
the possibility of her using them so recklessly in a house that he had
reason to believe was stored with powder. It was probably some latent
dread of the white race that prompted his command to his subordinate.
“You peep in, you black nigger. Ladies all in full dress now. Bow-’ticks
rosined and fiddlers dry. Open um door, and ask polite company to walk
in.”

Thus adjured, Achille thrust his woolly head and half his shining black
body through the aperture. Madame de Montmirail, standing before her
daughter, was not five paces off. She raised her white arm slowly, and
covered him with steady aim. Ere his large thick hand had closed round
the bolt for which it groped, there was a flash, a loud report, a cloud
of smoke curling round the toilet accessories of a lady’s bed-chamber,
and Achille, shot through the brain, fell back stone dead into the
passage.

“A little lighter charge of powder, my dear,” said the Marquise, giving
the smoking weapon to her daughter to be reloaded, while she poised
its fellow carefully in her hand. “I sighted him _very_ fine, and was
a trifle over my mark even then. These pistols always throw high at so
short a distance.”

Then she placed herself in readiness for another enemy, and during a
short space waited in vain.

The report of her pistol had been followed by a general scramble of the
negroes, who tumbled precipitately downstairs, and in some cases even out
of the house, under the impression that every succeeding moment might
find them all blown into the air. But the very cause of the besiegers’
panic proved, when their alarm subsided, of the utmost detriment to the
garrison. Hippolyte, finding himself still in possession of his limbs and
faculties, on the same side of the Sulphur Mountain as before, argued,
reasonably enough, that the concealed powder was a delusion, and with
considerable promptitude at once set fire to the lower part of the house;
after which, once more mustering his followers, and encouraging them
by his example, he ascended the staircase, and betaking himself to the
crowbar with a will, soon battered in the weak defence that alone stood
between the ladies and their savage enemies.

Cerise had loaded her mother’s pistol to perfection; that mother, roused
out of all thought of self by her child’s danger, was even now reckoning
the last frail chance by which her daughter might escape. During the
short respite afforded by the panic of the negroes, they had dragged
with desperate strength a heavy chest of drawers, and placed it across
the doorway. Even when the latter was forced, this slight breast-work
afforded an additional impediment to the assailants.

“You must drop from the window, my child,” whispered the Marquise, when
the shattered door fell in at length across this last obstruction,
revealing a hideous confusion of black forms, and rolling eyes, and
grinning fiendish faces. “It is not a dozen feet, but mind you turn round
so as to light on your hands and knees. Célandine _must_ be outside.
If you can reach her you are safe. Adieu, darling! I can keep the two
foremost from following you, still!”

The Marquise grasped a pistol in each hand, but she bent her brow—the
haughty white brow that had never been carried more proudly than
now—towards her child, and the girl’s pale lips clung to it lovingly,
while she vowed that neither life nor death should part her from her
mother.

“It is all over, dear,” she said, calmly. “We can but die together as we
have lived.”

Their case was indeed desperate. The room was already darkening with
smoke, and the wood-work on the floor below crackling in the flames that
began to light up the lawn outside, and tip with saffron the sleeping
woods beyond. The door was broken in; the chest of drawers gave way with
a loud crash, and brandishing his crowbar, Hippolyte leaped into the
apartment like a fiend, but stood for an instant aghast, rigid, like that
fiend turned to bronze, because the white lady, shielding her daughter
with her body, neither quailed nor flinched. Her eye was bright, her
colour raised, her lips set, her hand steady, her whole attitude resolute
and defiant. All this he took in at a glance, and the Coromantee felt
his craven heart shrink up to nothing in his breast, thus covered by the
deadly pistol of the Marquise.




CHAPTER XXXVII

JUST IN TIME


Moments are precious at such a time. The negro, goaded by shame, rage,
and alcohol, had drawn his breath for a spring, when a loud cheer was
heard outside, followed by two or three dropping shots, and the ring of a
hearty English voice exclaiming—

“Hold on, mates! Don’t ye shoot wild a-cause of the ladies. It’s yard-arm
to yard-arm, this spell, and we’ll give these here black devils a taste
of the naked steel!”

In another moment Slap-Jack was in the passage, leaving a couple of
wounded ruffians on the stairs to be finished by his comrades, and
cutting another down across the very door-sill of the Marquise’s
bed-chamber. Ere he could enter it, however, his captain had dashed
past him, leaping like a panther over the dead negroes under foot, and
flashing his glittering rapier in the astonished eyes of the Coromantee,
who turned round bewildered from his prey to fight with the mad energy of
despair.

In vain. Of what avail was the massive iron crowbar, wielded even by the
strength of a Hercules, against the deadliest blade but one in the Great
Monarch’s body-guard?

A couple of dazzling passes, that seemed to go over, under, all round the
clumsier weapon—a stamp—a muttered oath, shut in by clenched, determined
teeth, and the elastic steel shot through Hippolyte’s very heart, and out
on the other side.

Spurning the huge black body with his foot, Captain George withdrew his
sword, wiped it grimly on the dead man’s woolly head, and, uncovering,
turned to the ladies with a polite apology for thus intruding under the
pressure of so disagreeable a necessity.

He had scarcely framed a sentence ere he became deadly pale, and began to
stammer, as if he, too, was under the influence of some engrossing and
incontrollable emotion.

The two women had shrunk into the farthest corner of the room. With the
prospect of a rescue, Madame de Montmirail’s nerves, strung to their
utmost tension, had completely given way. In a state of mental and bodily
prostration, she had laid her head in the lap of Cerise, whose courage,
being of a more passive nature, did not now fail her so entirely.

The girl, indeed, pushing her hair back from her temples, looked wildly
in George’s face for an instant, like one who wakes from a dream; but
the next, her whole countenance lit up with delight, and holding out
both hands to him, she exclaimed, in accents of irrepressible tenderness
and self-abandonment, “_C’est toi!_” then the pale face flushed crimson,
and the loving eyes drooped beneath his own. To him she had always been
beautiful—most beautiful, perhaps, in his dreams—but never in dreams nor
in waking reality so beautiful as now.

He gazed on her entranced, motionless, forgetful of everything in the
world but that one loved being restored, as it seemed, by a miracle,
at the very time when she had been most lost to him. His stout heart,
thrilling to its core from her glance, quailed to think of what must have
befallen had he arrived a minute too late, and a prayer went up from it
of hearty humble thanksgiving that he was in time. He saw nothing but
that drooping form in its delicate white dress, with its gentle feminine
gestures and rich dishevelled hair; heard nothing but the accents of that
well-remembered voice vibrating with the love that he felt was deep and
tender as his own. He was unconscious of the cheers of his victorious
boat’s crew, of the groans and shrieks uttered by wounded or routed
negroes, of the dead beneath his feet, the blazing rafters overhead,
the showers of sparks and rolling clouds of smoke that already filled
the house; unconscious even of Madame de Montmirail’s recovery from her
stupor, as she too recognised him, and raising herself with an effort
from her daughter’s embrace, muttered in deep passionate tones, “C’est
lui!”

But it was no time for the exchanges of ceremonious politeness, or the
indulgence of softer emotions. The house was fairly on fire, the negroes
were up in arms all over the island. A boat’s crew, however sturdy, is
but a handful of men, and courage becomes foolhardy when it opposes
itself voluntarily at odds of one against a score. Slap-Jack was the
first to speak. “Askin’ _your_ pardon, ladies,” said he, with seamanlike
deference to the sex; “the sooner we can clear out of this here the
better. If you’ll have the kindness to point out your sea-chests, and
possibles, and such like, Bottle-Jack here, he’ll be answerable for their
safety, and me an’ my mates we’ll run you both down to the beach and have
you aboard in a pig’s whisper. The island’s getting hot, miss,” he added
confidentially to Cerise, who did not the least understand him. “In these
low latitudes, a house afire and a hundred of blacks means a bobbery,
just as sure as at home four old women and a goose makes a market!”

“He is right,” observed the Captain, who had now recovered his presence
of mind. “From what I saw as I came along, I fear there is a general
rising of the slaves through the whole island. My brigantine, I need not
say, is at the disposal of madame and mademoiselle (Cerise thanked him
with a look), and I believe that for a time at least it will be the only
safe place of refuge.”

Thus speaking, he offered his hand to conduct the Marquise from the
apartment, with as much courtliness and ceremony as though they had been
about to dance a minuet at Versailles, under the critical eye of the late
king. Hers trembled violently as she yielded it. That hand, so steady but
a few minutes ago, while levelling its deadly weapon against the leader
of a hundred enemies, now shook as if palsied. How little men understand
women. He attributed her discomposure entirely to fright.

There is a second nature, an acquired instinct in the habits of
good-breeding, irrepressible even by the gravest emergency. Captain
George, conducting Madame de Montmirail down her own blazing staircase,
behaved with as ceremonious a politeness as if they had been descending
in accordance with etiquette to a formal dinner-party. Cerise, following
close, hung no doubt on every word that came from his lips, but it must
be confessed the conversation was somewhat frivolous for so important a
juncture.

“I little thought,” said the Captain, performing another courtly bow,
“that it was Madame la Marquise whom I should have the honour of
escorting to-night out of this unpleasant little _fracas_. Had I known
madame was on the island, she will believe that I should have come ashore
and paid my respects to her much sooner.”

“You could not have arrived at a more opportune moment, monsieur,”
answered the lady, whose strong physical energy and habitual presence
of mind were now rapidly reasserting themselves. “You have always been
welcome to my receptions; never more so than to-night. You found it a
little hot, I fear, and a good deal crowded. The latter disadvantage
I was remedying, to the best of my abilities, when you announced
yourself. The society, too, was hardly so polite as I could have wished.
Oh, monsieur!” she added, in a changed and trembling voice, suddenly
discarding the tone of banter she had assumed, “where should we have been
now, and what must have become of us, but for you? _You_, to whom we had
rather owe our lives than to any man in the world!”

He was thinking of Cerise. He accepted the kind words gratefully,
happily; but, like all generous minds, he made light of the service he
had rendered.

“You are too good to say so, madame,” was his answer. “It seemed to me
you were making a gallant defence enough when I came in. One man had
already fallen before your aim, and I would not have given much for the
life of that ugly giant whom I took the liberty of running through the
body without asking permission, although he is probably, like myself, a
slave of your own.”

The Marquise laughed. “Confess, monsieur,” said she, “that I have a
steady hand on the pistol. Do you know, I never shot at anything but a
playing-card till to-night. It is horrible to kill a man, too. It makes
me shudder when I think of it. And yet, at the moment, I had no pity,
no scruples—I can even imagine that I experienced something of the wild
excitement which makes a soldier’s trade so fascinating. I hope it is
not so; I trust I may not be so cruel—so unwomanly. But you talk of
slaves. Are we not yours? Yours by every right of conquest; to serve and
tend you, and follow you all over the world. Ah! it would be a happy lot
for her who knew its value!”

The last sentence she spoke in a low whisper and an altered tone, as if
to herself. It either escaped him or he affected not to hear.

By this time they were out of the house, and standing on the lawn to
windward of the flames, which leaped and flickered from every quarter
of the building; nor, in escaping from the conflagration, had they by
any means yet placed themselves in safety. Captain George and the three
trusty Jacks, with half-a-dozen more stout seamen, constituting a boat’s
crew, had indeed rescued the ladies, for the moment, from a hideous
alternative; but it was more than doubtful, if even protected by so brave
an escort, they could reach the shore unmolested. Bands of negroes,
ready to commit every enormity, were ere now patrolling all parts of
the island. It was too probable that the few white inhabitants had been
already massacred, or, if still alive, would have enough to do to make
terms for themselves with the infuriated slaves.

A slender garrison occupied a solitary fort on the other side of the
mountains, but so small a force might easily be overmastered, and even
if they had started on the march it was impossible they could arrive for
several hours in the vicinity of Port Welcome. By that time the town
might well be burned to the ground, and George, who was accustomed to
reason with rapidity on the chances and combinations of warfare, thought
it by no means unlikely that the ruddy glare, fleeting and wavering on
the night-sky over the blazing roof of Montmirail West, might be accepted
as a signal for immediate action by the whole of the insurgents.

Hippolyte had laid his plans with considerable forethought, the result,
perhaps, of many a crafty war-path—many a savage foray in his own wild
home. He had so disposed the negroes under his immediate orders, that
Madame de Montmirail’s house was completely surrounded in every direction
by which escape seemed possible. The different egresses leading to the
huts, the mills, the cane-pieces, were all occupied, and a strong force
was posted on the high road to Port Welcome, chiefly with a view to
prevent the arrival of assistance from that quarter. One only path was
left unguarded; it was narrow, tangled, difficult to find, and wound up
through the jungle, across the wildest part of the mountain.

By this route he had probably intended to carry off Mademoiselle de
Montmirail to some secure fastness of his own. Not satisfied with the
personal arrangements he had made for burning the house and capturing
the inmates, he had also warned his confederates, men equally fierce and
turbulent, if of less intelligence than his own, that they should hold
themselves in readiness to take up arms the instant they beheld a glare
upon the sky above _Cash-a-crou_; that each should then despatch a chosen
band of twenty stout negroes to himself for orders; and that the rest of
their forces should at once commence the work of devastation on their own
account, burning, plundering, rioting, and cutting all white throats,
without distinction of age or sex.

That this wholesale butchery failed in its details was owing to no fault
of conception, no scruples of humanity on the part of its organiser. The
execution fell short of the original design simply because confided to
several different heads, acted on by various interests, and all more or
less bemused with rum. The ringleader had every reason to believe that
if his directions were carried out he would find himself, ere sunrise,
at the head of a general and successful revolt—a black emperor, perhaps,
with a black population offering him a crown.

But this delusion had been dispelled by one thrust of Captain George’s
rapier, and the Coromantee’s dark body lay charring amongst the glowing
timbers of Madame de Montmirail’s bed-chamber.

The dispositions that he had made, however, accounted for the large
force of negroes now converging on the burning house. Their shouts
might be heard echoing through the woods in all directions. When George
had collected his men, surrounded the two ladies by a trusty escort of
blue-jackets, and withdrawn his little company, consisting but of a
dozen persons, under cover of the trees, he held a council of war as to
the best means of securing a rapid retreat. Truth to tell, the skipper
would willingly have given the whole worth of her cargo to be once more
on her deck, or even under the guns of ‘The Bashful Maid.’

Slap-Jack gave his opinion unasked.

“Up foresail,” said he, with a characteristic impetuosity: “run out the
guns—double-shotted and depressed; sport every rag of bunting; close in
round the convoy; get plenty of way on, and run clean through, exchanging
broadsides as we go ahead!”

But Smoke-Jack treated the suggestion with contempt.

“That’s wot I call rough-and-tumble fighting, your honour,” he grumbled,
with a sheepish glance at the ladies; for with all his boasted knowledge
of their sex, he was unaccustomed to such specimens as these, and
discomfited, as he admitted to himself, by the “trim on ’em.” “Them’s
not games as is fitted for such a company as this here, if I may make
so bold. No, no, your honour, it’s good advice to keep to windward of
a nigger, and it’s my opinion as we should weather them on this here
tack; get down to the beach with a long leg and a short one—half-a-mile
and more below the town—fire three shots, as agreed on, for the boat,
and so pull the ladies aboard on the quiet. After that, we might come
ashore again, d’ye see, and have it out comfortable. What say _you_,
Bottle-Jack?”

That worthy turned his quid, and looked preternaturally wise; the more
so that the question was somewhat unexpected. He was all for keeping the
ladies safe, he decided, now they had got them. Captain Kidd always did
so, he remembered, and Captain Kidd could sail a ship and fight a ship,
&c.; but Bottle-Jack was more incoherent than usual—utterly adrift under
the novelty of his situation, and gasping like a gudgeon at the Marquise
and her daughter, whose beauty seemed literally to take away his breath.

George soon made up his mind.

“Is there any way to the beach,” said he, addressing himself rather to
Cerise than her mother, “without touching the road to Port Welcome? It
seemed to me, as we marched up, that the high road made a considerable
bend. If we could take the string instead of the bow we might save a good
deal of time, and perhaps escape observation altogether.”

The Marquise and her daughter looked at each other helplessly. Had they
been Englishwomen, indeed, even in that hot climate, they would probably
have known every by-road and mountain path within three leagues of their
home; but the ladies of France, though they dance exquisitely, are not
strong walkers, and neither of these, during the months they had spent at
_Cash-a-crou_, had yet acquired such a knowledge of the locality as might
now have proved the salvation of the whole party.

In this extremity a groan was heard to proceed out of the darkness at a
few paces’ distance. Slap-Jack, guided by the sound, and parting some
shrubs that concealed her, discovered poor Fleurette, more dead than
alive, bruised, exhausted, terrified, scarcely able to stand, and shot
through the ankle by a chance bullet from the blue-jackets, yet conscious
enough still to drag herself to the feet of Cerise and cover them with
kisses, forgetting everything else in her joy to find her young mistress
still alive.

“You would serve me, Fleurette, I know,” said Mademoiselle de Montmirail,
in a cautious whisper; for, to her excited imagination, every shrub that
glistened in the moonlight held a savage. “I can trust you; I feel it.
Tell me, is there no way to the sea but through our enemies? Must we
witness more cruelties—more bloodshed? Oh! have we not had fighting and
horrors enough?”

The black girl twined herself upwards, like a creeper, till her head
was laid against the other’s bosom; then she wept in silence for a few
seconds ere she could command her voice to reply.

“Trust me, lilly ma’amselle,” said she, in a tone of intense feeling that
vouched for her truth. “Trust poor Fleurette, give last drop of blood
to help young missee safe. Go to Jumbo for lilly ma’amselle now. Show
um path safe across Sulphur Mountain down to sea-shore. Fleurette walk
pretty well tank you, now, if only buckra blue-jacket offer um hand. Not
so, sar! Impudent tief!” she added, indignantly, as Slap-Jack, thoroughly
equal to the occasion, at once put his arm round her waist. “Keep your
distance, sar! You only poor foretopman. Dis good daddy help me along
fust.”

Thus speaking, she clung stoutly to Bottle-Jack, and proceeded to guide
the party up the mountain along a path that she assured them was known
but to few of the negroes themselves, and avoided even by these, as being
the resort of Jumbo and several other evil spirits much dreaded by the
slaves. Of such supernatural terrors, she was good enough to inform them,
they need have no fear, for that Jumbo and his satellites were fully
occupied to-night in assisting the “bobbery” taking place all over the
island; and that even were they at leisure they would never approach
a party in the centre of which was walking such an angel of light as
Ma’amselle Cerise.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

MÈRE AVANT TOUT


The path was steep and narrow, leading them, moreover, through the
most tangled and inaccessible parts of the jungle. Their progress was
necessarily tardy and laborious. Fleurette took the lead, supported by
Bottle-Jack, whose sea-legs seemed to carry him uphill with difficulty,
and who stopped to take breath more than once. The black girl’s wound was
painful enough, but she possessed that savage spirit of endurance which
successfully resists mere bodily suffering, and walked with an active
and elastic, though limping step. Blood, however, was still oozing from
her wound, and a sense of faintness, resisted by sheer force of will,
threatened at every moment to overpower her. She might just reach the
crest of the hill, she thought, and then it would be all over with poor
Fleurette; but the rest would need no guide after that point was gained,
and the faithful girl struggled on.

Next came Smoke-Jack, in attendance on the ladies, much exhilarated by
the dignity of his position, yet ludicrously on his good behaviour, and
afraid of committing himself, on the score of manners, by word or deed.
The Marquise and her daughter walked hand in hand, wasting few words,
and busied each with her own thoughts. They seemed to have exchanged
characters with the events of the last few hours. Cerise, ever since her
rescue, had displayed an amount of energy and resolution scarcely to
be expected from her usual demeanour, making light of present fatigue
and coming peril in a true military spirit of gaiety and good-humour;
while her mother, on the contrary, betrayed in every word and gesture
the languor of subdued emotion, and a certain softened, saddened
preoccupation of manner, seldom to be remarked in the self-possessed and
brilliant Marquise.

Captain George, with Slap-Jack and the rest of the blue-jackets, brought
up the rear. His fighting experience warned him that in no previous
campaign had he ever found himself in so critical a position as at
present. He was completely surrounded by the enemy. His own force, though
well-armed and full of confidence, was ridiculously weak in numbers.
He was encumbered with baggage (not to speak it disrespectfully) that
must be protected at any sacrifice, and he had to make a forced march,
through ground of which he was ignorant, dependent on the guidance of a
half-savage girl, who might after all turn out to be a traitress.

Under so many disadvantages, the former captain of musketeers showed that
he had not forgotten his early training. All eyes and ears, he seemed to
be everywhere at once, anticipating emergencies, multiplying precautions,
yet finding a moment every now and then for a word of politeness and
encouragement to the ladies, to regret the roughness of the path, to
excuse the prospective discomforts of the brigantine, or to assure
them of their speedy arrival in a place of safety. On these occasions
he invariably directed his speech to the Marquise and his looks to her
daughter.

Presently, as they continued to wind up the hill, the ascent grew more
precipitous. At length, having crossed the bed of a rivulet that they
could hear tumbling into a cascade many hundred feet below, they reached
a pass on the mountain side where the path became level, but seemed so
narrow as to preclude farther progress. It turned at a sharp angle round
the bare face of a cliff, which rose on one side sheer and perpendicular
several fathoms above their heads, and on the other shelved as abruptly
into a dark abyss, the depth of which, not even one of the seamen,
accustomed as they were to giddy heights, dared measure with his eye.
Fleurette alone, standing on the brink, peered into it without wavering,
and pointing downwards, looked back on the little party with triumph.

“See down there,” said she, in a voice that grew fainter with every
syllable. “No road round up above; no road round down below. Once past
here all safe, same as in bed at home. Come by, you! take hands one by
one—so—small piece more—find white lagoon. All done then. Good-night!”

Holding each other by the hand, the whole party, to use Slap-Jack’s
expression, “rounded the point” in safety. They now found themselves in
an open and nearly flat space, encircled but unshadowed by the jungle.
Below them, over a level of black tree tops, the friendly sea was shining
in the moonlight; and nearer yet, a gleam through the dark mass of forest
denoted that white lagoon of which Fleurette had spoken.

On any other night it would have been a peaceful and a lovely sight;
but now a flickering glare on the sky showed them where the roof-tree
of Montmirail West was burning into ashes, and the yells of the rioters
could be heard, plainer and plainer, as they scoured the mountain in
pursuit of the fugitives, encouraging each other in their search.

Some of these shouts sounded so near in the clear still night, that
Captain George was of opinion their track had been already discovered
and followed up. If this were indeed the case, no stand could be made so
effectually as at the defile they had lately threaded, and he determined
to defend it to the last. For this purpose he halted his party and gave
them their directions.

“Slap-Jack,” said he, “I’ve got a bit of soldier’s work for you to do.
It’s play to a sailor, but you attend to my orders all the same. If these
black devils overhaul us, they can only round that corner one at a time.
I’ll leave you with a couple of your own foretopmen here to stop _that_
game. But we soldiers never want to fight without a support. Smoke-Jack
and the rest of the boat’s crew will remain at your back. What say ye, my
lads? It will be something queer if you can’t hold a hundred darkies and
more in such a post as this, say, for three-quarters of an hour. I don’t
ask ye for a minute longer; but mind ye, I expect _that_, if not a man of
you ever comes on board again. When you’ve killed all the niggers, make
sail straight away to the beach, fire three shots, and I’ll send a boat
off. You won’t want to break your leave after to-night’s work. At all
events, I wouldn’t advise you to try, and I shall get the anchor up soon
after sunrise. Bottle-Jack comes with me, in case the ladies should want
more assistance, and this dark girl—what d’ye call her?—Fleurette, to
show us the way. God bless ye, my lads! Keep steady, level low, and don’t
pull till you see the whites of their eyes!”

Bottle-Jack, slewing his body about with more than customary oscillation,
declared his willingness to accompany the Captain, but pointing to
Fleurette, expressed a fear that “this here gal had got a megrim or
something, and wanted caulkin’ very bad, if not refittin’ altogether in
dry dock.”

The moon shed a strong light upon the little party, and it was obvious
that Fleurette, who had now sunk to the ground, with her head supported
by Bottle-Jack as tenderly and carefully as if the honest tar had been an
experienced nurse of her own sex, was seriously, if not mortally wounded,
and certainly unable to proceed. The Marquise and her daughter were at
her side in an instant, but she took no heed of the former, fixing her
filmy eyes on Cerise, and pressing her young mistress’s hand to her heart.

“You kiss me once again,” said she, faintly, and with a sad smile on her
swarthy face, now turning to that wan leaden hue which makes a pale negro
so ghastly an object. “Once again, so sweet! ma’amselle, same as before.
You go straight on to white lagoon—see! Find canoe tied up. Stop here
berry well, missee—Fleurette camp out all night. No fear Jumbo now. Sleep
on long after monkeys wake! Good-night!”

It was with difficulty that Cerise could be prevailed on to leave the
faithful girl who had sacrificed herself so willingly, and whom, indeed,
she could hardly expect to see again; but the emergency admitted of no
delay, even on the score of gratitude and womanly compassion. George
hurried the ladies forward in the direction of the lagoon, leaving
Fleurette, now prostrate and unconscious, to the care of Slap-Jack, who
pitied her from the depths of his honest heart.

“It’s a bad job,” said he, taking off his jacket and folding it into a
pillow for the poor girl’s head, with as much tender care as if she
had been his own Alice, of whom, indeed, he was thinking at the moment.
“A real bad job, if ever there was one. Such a heart of oak as this
here; an’ a likely lass too, though as black as a nor’-easter. Well,
_somebody_’ll have to pay for this night’s work, that’s sartin. Ay!
yell away, you black beggars. We’ll give you something to sing out for
presently—an’ you shall have it hot and heavy when you _do_ get it, as
sure as my name’s Slap-Jack!”

Captain George, in the meantime, led the two ladies swiftly down the
open space before them, in the direction of the lagoon, which was now in
sight. They had but to thread one more belt of lofty forest-trees, from
which the wild vines hung in a profusion of graceful festoons, and they
were on the brink of the cool, peaceful water, spread like a sheet of
silver at their feet.

“Five minutes more,” said he, “and we are safe. Once across, and if that
girl speaks truth, less than a quarter of a league will bring us to the
beach. All seems quiet, too, on this side, and there is little chance of
our being intercepted from the town. The boat will be in waiting within a
cable’s length off shore, and my signal will bring her in at once. Then I
shall hope to conduct you safe on board, but both madame and mademoiselle
must excuse a sailor’s rough accommodation and a sailor’s unceremonious
welcome.”

The Marquise did not immediately answer. She was looking far ahead into
the distance, as though she heard not, or at least heeded not, and yet
every tone of his voice was music to her ears, every syllable he spoke
curdled like some sweet and subtle poison in her blood. Notwithstanding
the severe fatigue and fierce excitement of the night, she walked
with head erect, and proud imperious step, like a queen amongst her
courtiers, or an enchantress in the circle she has drawn. There was a
wild brilliancy in her eyes, there was a fixed red spot on either cheek;
but for all her assumption of pride, for all her courage and all her
self-command, her hand trembled, her breath came quick, and the Marquise
knew that she had never yet felt so thoroughly a weak and dependent woman
as now, when she turned at last to thank her preserver for his noble
efforts, and dared not even raise her eyes to meet his own.

“You have saved us, monsieur,” was all she could stammer out, “and how
can we show our gratitude enough? We shall never forget the moment of
supreme danger, nor the brave man who came between those ruffians and
their prey. Shall we, Cerise?”

But Cerise made no answer, though she managed to convey her thanks in
some hidden manner that afforded Captain George a satisfaction quite out
of proportion to their value.

They had now reached the edge of the lagoon, to find, as Fleurette had
indicated, a shallow rickety canoe, moored to a post half-buried in the
water, worm-eaten, rotten, and crumbling to decay. The bark itself was
in little better preservation, and on a near inspection they discovered,
much to their discomfiture, that it would hold at best but one passenger
at a time. It had evidently not been used for a considerable period, and
after months of exposure and ill-usage, without repair, was indeed, as
a means of crossing the lagoon, little better than so much brown paper.
George’s heart sank while he inspected it. There was no paddle, and
although such a want might easily be remedied with a knife and the branch
of a tree, every moment of delay seemed so dangerous, that the Captain
made up his mind to use another mode of propulsion, and cross over at
once.

“Madame,” said he to the Marquise, “our only safety is on the other
side of this lagoon. Fifty strokes of a strong swimmer would take him
there. No paddle has been left in that rickety little craft, nor dare I
waste the few minutes it would take to fashion one. Moreover, neither
mademoiselle nor yourself could use it, and you need only look at your
shallop to be sure that it would never carry two. This, then, is what I
propose. I will place one of you in the canoe, and swim across, pushing
it before me. Bottle-Jack will remain here to guard the other. For that
purpose I will leave him my pistols in addition to his own. When my first
trip is safely accomplished, I will return with the canoe and repeat the
experiment. The whole can be done in a short quarter of an hour. Excuse
me, madame, but for this work I must divest myself of coat, cravat, and
waistcoat.”

Thus speaking, Captain George disencumbered himself rapidly of these
garments, and assisted by Bottle-Jack, tilted the light vessel on its
side, to get rid of its superfluous weight of water. Then standing
waist-deep in the lagoon, he prepared it for the reception of its
freight; no easy matter with a craft of this description, little more
roomy and substantial than a cockle-shell, without the advantage of being
water-tight. Spreading his laced coat along the bottom of the canoe, he
steadied it carefully against the bank, and signed to the ladies that all
was now in readiness for embarkation.

They exchanged wistful looks. Neither seemed disposed to grasp at her
own safety and leave the other in danger. Bottle-Jack, leaning over the
canoe, continued bailing the water out with his hand. Notwithstanding
the Captain’s precautions it leaked fast, and seemed even now little
calculated to land a passenger dry on the farther shore.

“Mamma, I _will_ not leave you,” said Cerise, “you shall go first
with George. With monsieur, I mean.” She corrected herself, blushing
violently. “Monsieur can then return for me, and I shall be quite safe
with this good old man, who is, you perceive, armed to the teeth, and as
brave as a lion besides.”

“That is why I do not fear to remain,” returned the Marquise. “Child,
I could not bear to see this sheet of water between us, and you on the
dangerous side. We can neither fly nor swim, alas! though the latter art
we _might_ have learned long ago. Cerise, I _insist_ on your crossing
first. It may be the last command I shall ever lay upon you.”

But Cerise was still obstinate, and the canoe meanwhile filled fast,
in spite of Bottle-Jack’s exertions. That worthy, whose very nose was
growing pale, though not with fear, took no heed of their dilemma, but
continued his task with a mechanical, half-stupefied persistency, like
a man under the influence of opium. The quick eye of the Marquise had
detected this peculiarity of manner, and it made her the more determined
not to leave her daughter under the old seaman’s charge. Their dispute
might have been protracted till even Captain George’s courtesy would
have given way; but a loud yell from the defile they had lately quitted,
followed by a couple of shots and a round of British cheers, warned them
all that not a moment was to be lost, for that their retreat was even now
dependent on the handful of brave men left behind to guard the pass.

“My daughter shall go first, monsieur? Is it not so?” exclaimed the
Marquise, with an eagerness of eye and excitement of manner she had not
betrayed in all the previous horrors of the night.

“It is better,” answered George. “Mademoiselle is perhaps somewhat the
lightest.” And although he strove to make his voice utterly unmoved and
indifferent, there was in its tone a something of intense relief, of
deep, heartfelt joy, that told its own tale.

The Marquise knew it all at last. She saw the past now, not piece by
piece, in broken detail as it had gone by, but all at once, as the
mariner, sailing out of a fogbank, beholds the sunny sky, and the blue
sea, and the purple outlines of the shore. It came upon her as a shot
goes through a wild deer. The creature turns sick and faint, and knowing
all is over, yet would fain ignore its hurt and keep its place, erect,
stately, and uncomplaining, amongst the herd; not the less surely has it
got its death-wound.

How carefully he placed Cerise in the frail bark of which she was to
be the sole occupant. How tenderly he drew the laced coat between the
skirt of her delicate white dress and the flimsy shattered wood-work,
worn, splintered, and dripping wet even now. Notwithstanding the haste
required, notwithstanding that every moment was of such importance in
this life and death voyage, how he seemed to linger over the preparations
that brought him into contact with his precious freight. At last they
were ready. A farewell embrace between mother and daughter; a husky
cheer delivered in a whisper from Bottle-Jack; a hurried thanksgiving
for perils left behind; an anxious glance at the opposite shore, and the
canoe floated off with its burden, guided by George, who in a few yards
was out of his depth and swimming onward in long measured strokes that
pushed it steadily before him.

The Marquise, watching their progress with eager restless glance, that
betrayed strong passions and feelings kept down by a stronger will,
observed that when within a pistol-shot of the opposite shore the bark
was propelled swiftly through the water, as if the swimmer exerted
himself to the utmost—so much so as to drive it violently against the
bank. George’s voice, while his dripping figure emerged into sight,
warned her that all was well; but straining her eyes in the uncertain
light, the Marquise, though she discerned her daughter’s white dress
plainly enough, could see nothing of the boat. Again George shouted, but
she failed to make out the purport of what he said; though a gleam of
intelligence on the old seaman’s face made her turn to Bottle-Jack. “What
is it?” she asked anxiously. “Why does he not come back to us with the
canoe?”

“The canoe will make no more voyages, my lady,” answered the old
man, with a grim leer that had in it less of mirth than pain. “She’s
foundered, that’s wot she’s been an’ done. They’ll send back for us,
never fear; so you an’ me will keep watch and watch till they come; an’
if you please, my lady, askin’ your pardon, I’ll keep _my_ watch first.”




CHAPTER XXXIX

ALL ADRIFT


The Marquise scarcely heard him. She was intent on those two figures
scrambling up the opposite shore, and fast disappearing into the darkness
beyond. It seemed that the darkness was closing in around herself, never
again to be dispelled. When those were gone what was there left on earth
for _her_? She had lost Cerise, she told herself, the treasure she had
guarded so carefully; the darling for whom she would have sacrificed her
life a thousand times, as the events of the last few hours proved; the
one aim and object of her whole existence, without which she was alone
in the world. And now this man had come and taken her child away, and it
would never be the same thing again. Cerise loved him, she was sure of
that. Ah! they could not deceive _her_; and he loved Cerise. She knew it
by his voice in those few words when he suggested that the girl should
cross the water first. The Marquise twined her fingers together, as if
she were in pain.

They must be safe now. Walking side by side on the peaceful beach,
waiting for the boat that should bear them away, would they forget all
about her in the selfishness of their new-found happiness, and leave her
to perish here? She wished they would. She wished the rioters, coming
on in overwhelming numbers, might force the pass and drive these honest
blue-jackets in before them to make a last desperate stand at the water’s
edge. She could welcome death then, offering herself willingly to ensure
the safety of those two.

And what was this man to her that she should give him up her daughter,
that she should be ready to give up her life rather than endanger his
happiness? She winced, she quivered with pain and shame because of the
feelings her own question called up. What was he to her? The noblest,
the dearest, the bravest, the best-beloved; the realisation of her
girl’s dreams, of her woman’s passions, the type of all that she had
ever honoured and admired and longed for to make her happiness complete!
She remembered so well the boy’s gentle brow, the frank kind eyes
that smiled and danced with delight to be noticed by her, a young and
beautiful widow, flattered and coveted of all the Great King’s Court. She
recalled, as if it were but yesterday, the stag-hunt at Fontainebleau;
the manly figure and the daring horsemanship of the Grey Musketeer; her
own mad joy in that wild gallop, and the strange keen zest life seemed
to have acquired when she rode home through those sleeping woods, under
the dusky purple of that soft autumnal night. How she used to watch
for him afterwards, amidst all the turmoil of feasts and pleasures
that constituted the routine of the new Court. How well she knew his
place of ceremony, his turn of duty, and loved the very sentries at the
palace-gate for his sake. Often had she longed to hint by a look, a
gesture, the flirt of a fan, the dropping of a flower, that he had not
far to seek for one who would care for him as he deserved; but even the
Marquise shrank, and feared, and hesitated, woman-like, where she really
loved. Then came that ever-memorable night at the Masked Ball, when
she cried out aloud, in her longing and her loneliness, and never knew
afterwards whether she was glad or sorry for what she had done.

It was soon to be over then, for ere a few more days had elapsed the
Regent ventured on his shameless outrage at the Hôtel Montmirail, and lo!
in the height of her indignation and her need, who should drop down, as
it seemed, from the skies, to be her champion, but the man of all others
whom most she could have loved and trusted in the world!

Since then, had she not thought of him by day and dreamt of him by night,
dwelling on his image with a fond persistency none the less cherished
because sad and desponding—content, if better might not be, to worship it
in secret to the last, though she might never look on its original again?

The real and the ideal had so acted on each other, that while he seemed
to her the perfection of all manhood should be, that very type was
unconsciously but a faithful copy of himself. In short, she loved him;
and when such a man is loved by such a woman it is usually but little
conducive to his happiness, and thoroughly destructive of her own.

If I have mistaken the originator of so beautiful and touching an
illustration, I humbly beg his pardon, but I think it is Alphonse Karr
who teaches, in his remarks on the great idolatry of all times and
nations, that it is well to sow plenty of flowers in that prolific
soil which is fertilised by the heart’s sunshine and watered by its
tears—plenty of flowers, the brighter, the sweeter, the more fragile,
perhaps, the better. Winter may cut them down indeed to the cold earth,
yet spring-time brings another crop as fair, as fresh, as fragile, and as
easily replaced as those that bloomed before. But it is unwise to plant
a tree; _because, if that tree be once torn up by the roots, the flowers
will never grow over the barren place again_!

The Marquise had not indeed planted the tree, but she had allowed it
unwittingly to grow. Perhaps she would never have confessed its existence
to herself had it not thus been forcibly torn away by roots that had
for years twined deeper and deeper among all its gentlest and all its
strongest feelings, till they had become as the very fibres of her heart.

It is needless to say that the Marquise was a woman elevated both by
disposition and education above the meaner and pettier weaknesses of her
sex. If she was masculine in her physical courage and moral recklessness
of consequences, she was masculine also in a certain generosity of
spirit and noble disdain for anything like malice or foul-play. Jealousy
with her—and, like all strong natures, she could feel jealousy very
keenly—would never be visited on the object that had caused it. She would
hate and punish herself under the torture; she might even be goaded to
hate and punish the man at whose hands she was suffering; but she would
never have injured the woman whom she preferred, and, indeed, supported
by a scornful pride, would have taken a strange morbid pleasure in
enhancing her own pain by ministering to that woman’s happiness.

Therefore she was saved a keen pang now. A pang that might have rendered
her agony too terrible to endure. She had not concealed from herself
to-night that the thrill of delight she experienced from the arrival
of succour was due rather to the person who brought it than to the
assistance itself; but almost ere she had time to realise its charm the
illusion had been dispelled, and she felt that, dream as it all was, she
had been wakened ere she had time to dream it out.

And now it seemed to her that nothing would be so good as the excitement
of another skirmish, another struggle, and a sudden death, with the
cheers of these brave Englishmen ringing in her ears. A death that Cerise
would never forget had been encountered for her safety, that _he_ would
sometimes remember, and remembering, accord a smile and a sigh to the
beauty he had neglected, and the devotion he had never known till too
late.

Engrossed with such thoughts, the Marquise was less alive than usual
to surrounding impressions. Presently a deep groan, forced from her
companion by combined pain and weakness, against which the sufferer could
no longer hold out, roused her to a sense of her situation, which was
indeed sufficiently precarious to have warranted much anxiety and alarm.

Hastening to his side, she was shocked to perceive that Bottle-Jack had
sunk to the ground, and was now endeavouring ineffectually to support
himself on his knees in an attitude of vigilance and defence. The
Captain’s pistols lay beside him, and he carried his own in each hand,
but his glazing eye and fading colour showed that the weapons could be
but of little service, and the time seemed fast approaching when the old
sailor should be relieved from his duty by an order against which there
was no appeal.

The Marquise had scarcely listened to the words while he spoke them, but
they came back now, and she understood what he meant when he told her
that, if she pleased, “he would keep _his_ watch first.”

She looked around and shuddered. It was, indeed, a cheerless position
enough. The moon was sinking, and that darkest hour of the night
approached which is followed by dawn, just as sorrow is succeeded by
consolation, and death by immortality. The breeze struck damp and chill
on her unprotected neck and bosom, for there had been no time to think
of cloaks or shawls when she escaped, nor was the air sufficiently cold
before midnight to remind her of such precautions. The surrounding jungle
stirred and sighed faintly, yet sadly, in the night air. The waters of
the deep lagoon, now darkening with a darkening sky, lapped drearily
against their bank. Other noises were there none, for the rioters seemed
to have turned back from the resistance offered by Slap-Jack with his
comrades, and to have abandoned for the present their search in that
direction. The seamen who guarded the defile were peering stealthily into
the gloom, not a man relaxing in his vigilance, not a man stirring on his
post. The only sounds that broke her solitude were the restless movements
of Bottle-Jack, and the groans that would not be suppressed. It was no
wonder the Marquise shuddered.

She stooped over the old seaman and took his coarse, heavy hand in hers.
Even at such an extremity, Bottle-Jack seemed conscious of the contrast,
and touched it delicately, like some precious and fragile piece of
porcelain. “I fear you are hurt,” said she, in his own language, which
she spoke with the measured accent of her countrywomen. “Tell me what it
is; I am not a bad doctor myself.”

Bottle-Jack tried to laugh. “It’s a flea-bite, my lady,” said he, setting
his teeth to conceal the pain he suffered. “’Tis but a poke in the side
after all, though them black beggars does grind their spear-heads to an
edge like a razor. It’s betwixt wind and water, d’ye see, marm, if I may
be so bold, and past caulking, in my opinion. I’m a-fillin’ fast, that’s
where it is, askin’ your pardon again for naming it to a lady like you.”

She partly understood him, and for the first time to-night the tears came
into her eyes. They did her good. They seemed to clear her faculties
and cool her brain. She examined the old man’s hurt, after no small
resistance on his part, and found a deep wound between his ribs, which
even her experience warned her must be mortal. She stanched it as well
as she could, tearing up the lace and other trimmings of her dress to
form a temporary bandage. Then she bent down to the lagoon to dip her
coroneted handkerchief in water and lay it across his brow, while she
supported his sinking frame upon her knees. He looked in her face with
a puzzled, wandering gaze, like a man in a dream. The vision seemed
so unreal, so impossible, so unlike anything he had ever seen before,
Bottle-Jack began to think he had reached Fiddler’s Green at last.

The minutes dragged slowly on. The sky became darker, the breeze colder,
and the strangely matched pair continued in the same position on the
brink of the white lagoon, the Marquise dipping her handkerchief at short
intervals, and moistening the sailor’s mouth. It was all she could do for
him, and like a faithful old dog, wounded to the death, he could only
thank her with his eyes. More than once she thought he was gone, but as
moment after moment crept by, so sad, so slow, she knew he was still
alive.

Would it never be day? She could scarcely see him now, though his heavy
head rested on her knees, though her hand with the moistened handkerchief
was laid on his very lips. At last the breeze freshened, sighing audibly
through the tree-tops, which were soon dimly seen swaying to and fro
against a pale streak of sky on the horizon. Bottle-Jack started and sat
up.

“Stand by!” he exclaimed, looking wildly round. “You in the fore-chains!
Keep you axe ready to cut away when she rounds to. Easy, lads! She’ll
weather it now, and I’ll go below and turn in.”

Then he laid his head once more on Madame de Montmirail’s knees, like a
child who turns round to go to sleep.

The grey streak had grown to a wide rent of pale green, now broadening
and brightening into day. Ere the sky flecked with crimson, or the
distant tree-tops tinged with golden fire, the life of the whole jungle
was astir, waking the discords of innumerable menageries. Cockatoos
whistled, monkeys chattered, parrots screamed, mockingbirds reproduced
these and a thousand other sounds a thousandfold. All nature seemed
renewed, exulting in the freshened energies of another day, but still the
Marquise sat by the lagoon, pale, exhausted, worn out, motionless, with
the dead seaman’s head in her lap.




CHAPTER XL

HOMEWARD BOUND


“But, madame, I am as anxious as you can be! Independent of my own
feelings—and judge if they be not strong—the brigantine should not lie
here another hour. After last night’s work, it will not be long before
a Spanish man-of-war shows herself in the offing, and I have no desire
that our papers should be overhauled, now when my cruise is so nearly
finished. I tell you, my dearest wish is to have it settled, and weigh
with the next tide.”

Captain George spoke from his heart, yet the Marquise seemed scarcely
satisfied. Her movements were abrupt and restless, her eyes glittered,
and a fire as of fever burned in her cheeks, somewhat wasted with all her
late excitement and suspense. For the first time, too, he detected silver
lines about the temples, under those heavy black locks that had always
seemed to him only less beautiful than her child’s.

“Not a moment must be lost,” said she, “not a moment—not a moment,” and
repeating her words, walked across the deck to gaze wistfully over the
side on Port Welcome, with its white houses glistening in the morning
sun. They were safe on board ‘The Bashful Maid,’ glad to escape with life
from the successful revolt that had burned Montmirail West to the ground,
and destroyed most of the white people’s property on the island. Partly
owing to its distance from the original scene of outbreak, partly from
its lying under the very guns of the brigantine, of which the tonnage and
weight of metal had been greatly exaggerated by the negroes, Port Welcome
was yet standing, but its black population were keeping high holiday,
apparently masters of the situation, and its white residents crept about
in fear and trembling, not knowing how much longer they might be allowed
to call their very lives their own. It had been a memorable night, a
night of murder and rapine, and horror and dismay. Few escaped so well as
Madame de Montmirail and her daughter. None indeed had the advantage of
such a rescue. The negroes who tracked them into the bush, and who had
delayed their departure to appropriate such plunder as they could snatch
from the burning house, or to drink from its cellars success to the
revolt, only reached that defile through which the fugitives were guided
by Fleurette after these had passed by. The disappointed pursuers were
there received by a couple of shots from Slap-Jack and his shipmates,
which drove them back in disorder, yelling, boasting, vowing vengeance,
but without any thought of again placing themselves in danger of lead
or steel. In the death of Hippolyte, the revolt had lost its chief, and
became from that moment virtually a failure. The Coromantee was the only
negro concerned really capable of directing such a movement; and when
his leadership was disposed of by a rapid thrust from Captain George’s
rapier, the whole scheme was destined to fall to pieces of itself, after
the reaction which always follows such disorders had taken place, and the
habits of every-day life began to reassert themselves. In the meantime,
the blacks had more congenial amusements in store than voluntary
collision with an English boat’s crew, and soon desisted from a search
through the jungle, apparently as troublesome and hazardous as a hunt for
a hornet’s nest.

By sunrise, therefore, Slap-Jack was able to draw off his party from
their post, and fall back to where the Marquise sat watching by the dead
seaman, on the brink of the lagoon. Nor was Bottle-Jack the only victim
of their escape, for poor Fleurette had already paid the price of her
fidelity with her life.

A strong reinforcement from ‘The Bashful Maid,’ led by her Captain in
person, who had returned at once, after placing Cerise in safety, enabled
Madame de Montmirail and her defenders to take the high road to Port
Welcome in defiance of all opposition. They therefore rounded the lagoon
at once, and proceeding by an easier route than that which her daughter
followed, reached the quay at their leisure, thence to embark on board
the brigantine unmolested by the crowds of rioters with whom the town was
filled.

Therefore it was that Madame de Montmirail now found herself on the deck
of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ urging with a strange persistency, unusual and
even unbecoming in a mother, Captain George’s immediate marriage to her
child, who was quietly sleeping off the night’s fatigues below.

“There is the chapel, madame,” said George, pointing to the little white
edifice that stood between the lighthouse and the town, distinguished
by a cross that surmounted its glistening roof, “and here is the bride,
safe, happy, and I hope sound asleep beneath the very spot where we are
standing. I know not why there should be an hour’s delay, if indeed
the priest have not taken flight. There must have been a prospect of
martyrdom last night, which he would scarce wish to inspect too closely.
Ah! madame, I may seem cold and undemonstrative, but if you could look
into my heart you would see how happy I am!”

His voice and manner carried with them a conviction not to be disputed.
It probed the Marquise to the quick, and true to her character, she
pressed the instrument deeper and deeper into the wound.

“You love her then, monsieur?” she said, speaking very clearly and
distinctly through her set teeth. “You love her as a woman must be loved
if she would be happy—unreservedly, with your whole heart?”

“I love her so well,” he answered, “that I only ask to pass my life in
contributing to her happiness. Mine has been a rude wild career, in
many scenes and many countries. I have lived _in_ society and _out of_
society, afloat and ashore, at bivouac fires and Court receptions, yet I
have always carried the portrait of that one gentle loving face printed
on my heart.”

“I compliment you on your constancy,” she answered, rather bitterly.
“Such gallants have been very rare of late both at the old and new
Courts. You must have seen other women too, as amiable, as beautiful,
who could have loved you perhaps as well.”

Something like a sigh escaped her with the concluding sentence, but there
is no egotist like a happy lover, and he was too preoccupied with his own
thoughts to perceive it. Smiling in his companion’s face, with the old
honest expression that reminded her of what he had been as a boy, he took
her hand and kissed it affectionately.

“Madame,” said he, “shall I make you a frank avowal? Ever since I was a
wild page at Versailles, and you were so kind to me, I have believed in
Madame de Montmirail as my ideal of all that woman should be, and perhaps
might never have loved Cerise so well had she not resembled her mother.”

The Marquise was not without plenty of self-command, but she wanted it
all now. Under pretence of adjusting her glove, she snatched away the
hand he held, that he might not feel it tremble, and forced herself to
laugh while she replied lightly—

“You are complimentary, monsieur, but your compliments are somewhat out
of date. An _old_ woman, you know, does not like to be reminded of her
age, and you were, yes, I honestly confess you were, a dear, mischievous,
good-looking, good-for-nothing boy in that far-off time so long ago. But
all this is nothing to the purpose. Let us send ashore at once to the
priest. The ceremony may take place at noon, and I can give the young
couple my blessing before wishing them good-bye.”

“How, madame?” replied he, astonished. “You will surely accompany us?
You will return with us to Europe? You will never trust yourself amongst
these savages again, after once escaping out of their hands?”

“I shall be safe enough when the garrison has crossed the mountain,”
she answered, “and that must be in a few hours, for they are probably
even now on the march. Till then I will take refuge with the Jesuits on
their plantation at Maria-Galante. I do not think all my people can have
rebelled. Some of them will escort me faithfully as far as that. No,
monsieur, the La Fiertés have never been accustomed to abandon a post
of danger, and I shall not leave the island until this rising has been
completely put down.”

She spoke carelessly, almost contemptuously, but she scarcely knew what
she said. Her actual thoughts, had she allowed herself to utter them,
would have thus framed themselves: “Can there be anything so blind, so
heartless, so self-engrossed—shall I say it?—so entirely and hopelessly
_stupid_ as a man?”

It was not for George to dispute her wishes. Though little given to
illusions, he could scarcely believe that he was not dreaming now, so
strange did it seem to have achieved in the last twelve hours that
which had hitherto formed the one engrossing object of his life,
prized, coveted, dwelt on the more that it looked almost impossible of
fulfilment. There was but one drawback to his joy, one difficulty left,
perplexing indeed, although simple, and doubly annoying because others of
apparently far greater moment had been surmounted. There was no priest to
be found in Port Welcome! The good old Portuguese Curé who took spiritual
charge of the white inhabitants, and such negroes as could be induced
to pay attention to his ministering, had been nearly frightened out of
his wits by the outbreak. This quiet meek old man, who, since he left
his college forty years before, had never known an excitement or anxiety
greater than a visit from his bishop or a blight in his plantain-ground,
now found himself surrounded by swarms of drunken and infuriated slaves,
yelling for his life. It was owing to the presence of mind shown by an
old coloured woman who lived with him as housekeeper, and to no energy
or activity of his own, that he made his escape. She smuggled him out
of the town through a by-street, and when he had once got his mule into
an amble he never drew rein till he reached the Jesuits’ establishment
at Maria-Galante, where he found a qualified welcome and a precarious
refuge. From this shelter, defenceless and uncertain as it was, nothing
would induce him to depart till the colours of a Spanish three-decker
were flying in the harbour, and ere such an arrival could restore
confidence to the colony it would behove ‘The Bashful Maid’ to spread her
wings and flee away.

Captain George was at his wits’ end. In such a dilemma he bethought him
of consulting his second in command. For this purpose he went below to
seek Beaudésir, and found him keeping guard at the cabin door within
which Mademoiselle de Montmirail was reposing, a post he had held without
stirring since she came on board before dawn, and was confided by the
Captain to his care. He had not spoken to her, he had not even seen her
face; but from that moment he had exchanged no words with his comrades,
standing as pale, as silent, and almost as motionless as a statue. He
started violently when the Captain spoke, and collected his faculties
with an obvious effort. George could not but observe his preoccupation.

“I am in a difficulty,” said the latter, “as I have already told you more
than once. Try and comprehend me. I do not often ask for advice, but I
want yours now.”

“You shall have it at any cost,” replied the other. “Do not I owe
everything in the world to you?”

“Listen,” continued George. “The young lady whom my honest fellows
rescued last night, and whom I brought on board, is—is—Mademoiselle de
Montmirail herself.”

“I know—I know,” answered Beaudésir, impatiently. “At least, I mean you
mentioned it before.”

“Very likely,” returned the Captain, “though I do not remember it. Well,
it so happens, you see, that this is the same young lady—the person—the
individual—in short, I have saved the woman of all others who is most
precious to me in the world.”

“Of course—of course,” repeated Beaudésir, impatiently, “she cannot go
back—she _shall_ not go back amongst those wretches. She must stay on
board. You must take her to Europe. There should be no delay. You must be
married—now—immediately—within two hours—before we get the anchor up.”

He seemed strangely eager, restless, excited. Without actually
acknowledging it, George felt instinctively that something in his
friend’s manner reminded him of the Marquise.

“There is a grave difficulty,” said the Captain. “Where can we find a
priest? That fat little Portuguese who looked like a guinea-pig is sure
to have run away, if the negroes have not cut his throat.”

The other reflected, his pale face turning paler every moment. Then he
spoke, in a low determined voice—

“My Captain, there is a Society of Jesuits on the island: I know it for
certain; do not ask me why. I have never failed you, have I? Trust me yet
this once. Order a boat to be manned; I will go ashore instantly; follow
in an hour’s time with a strong guard; bring your bride with you; I will
undertake that everything shall be ready at the chapel, and a priest in
waiting to perform the ceremony.”

George looked him straight in the face. “You are a true friend,” said he,
and gave him his hand. The other bent over it as if he would have put
it to his lips, and when he raised his head again his eyes were full of
tears. He turned away hastily, sprang on deck, and in five minutes the
boat was lowered and Beaudésir over the side.

George tapped humbly at the cabin door, and a gentle face, pale but
lovely, peeped out to greet him. After his whisper the face was anything
but pale, and although the little monosyllable “No” was repeated again
and again in that pleading, yielding tone which robs the negative of all
its harshness, the boon he begged must have been already nearly accorded
if there be any truth in the old Scottish proverb which affirms that
“Nineteen nay-says make half a grant.”

In less than two hours the bridal procession was formed upon the quay,
guarded by some score of stalwart, weather-beaten tars, and presenting
an exceedingly formidable front to the crowds of grinning negroes who
were idling in the sun, talking over the events of the past night, and
congratulating themselves that no such infliction as field-work was ever
to be heard of in the island again.

It was a strange and picturesque wedding, romantic enough in appearance
and reality to have satisfied the wildest imagination. Smoke-Jack
and certain athletic able seamen marched in front; Slap-Jack and his
foretopmen brought up the rear. In the centre walked the Marquise and
her daughter, accompanied by the bridegroom. Four deep on each side
were the special attendants of the bride, reckless in gait, free in
manner, bronzed, bearded, broad-shouldered, and armed to the teeth, yet
cherishing perhaps as deep a devotion for her whom they attended to the
altar as could have been entertained by the fairest bevy of bridesmaids
that ever belonged to her own sex.

Cerise was very grave and very silent; happy indeed beyond expression,
yet a little frightened at the extent as at the suddenness of her own
happiness.

It seemed so strange to be besieged, rescued, carried off by a lover,
and married to him, all within twenty-four hours. The Marquise, on the
contrary, was gay, talkative, brilliant, full of life and spirits; more
beautiful too than usual, in the bright light of that noonday sun.
Slap-Jack, who considered himself no mean judge of such matters, was much
distracted by the conflict in his own mind as to whether, under similar
circumstances, he would have chosen the mother or the child.

Taking little notice of the crowd who followed at a respectful distance,
having received from the free-handed sailors several very intelligible
hints not to come too near, the bridal procession moved steadily through
the outskirts of the town and ascended the hill on which the chapel stood.

Halting at its door, the crew formed a strong guard to prevent
interruption, and the principal performers, accompanied only by
Smoke-Jack, Slap-Jack, and the Marquise, entered the building. There were
flowers on the altar, with wax tapers already lighted, and everything
seemed prepared for the ceremony. A priest, standing with his back
to them, was apparently engaged in putting a finishing touch to the
decorations when they advanced. Cerise, bewildered, frightened, agitated,
clung to her mother’s arm. “Courage, my child,” said the Marquise, “it
will soon be over, and you need never do this again!”

There was something in the voice so hard, so measured, so different from
its usual tone, that the girl glanced anxiously in her face. It betrayed
no symptoms of emotion, not even the little flutter of maternal pride
and anxiety natural to the occasion. It was flushed, imperious, defiant,
and strangely beautiful. Slap-Jack entertained no longer the slightest
doubt of its superiority to any face he had ever seen. And yet no
knightly visor, or Eastern _yashmak_ ever concealed its real wearer more
effectually than that lovely mask which she forced to do her bidding,
though every muscle beneath was quivering in pain the while.

Nor was the Marquise the only person under this consecrated roof who
curbed unruly feelings with a strong and merciless hand. That priest,
with his back to the little congregation, adjusting with trembling
gestures the sacred symbols of his faith, had fought during the last hour
or two such a battle as a man can only fight once in a lifetime; a battle
that, if lost, yields him a prey to evil without hope of rescue; if won,
leaves him faint, exhausted, bleeding, a maimed and shattered champion
for the rest of his earthly life. Since sunrise he had wrestled fiercely
with sin and self. They had helped each other lustily to pull him down,
but he had prevailed at last. Though one insuperable barrier already
existed between himself and the woman he loved so madly at the cost of
his very soul, it was hard to rear another equally insurmountable, with
his own hand; but it would insure her happiness—he resolved to do it, and
therefore he was here.

So when Cerise and her lover advanced to the altar, and the Jesuit
priest, whom they had imagined to be a stranger from Maria-Galante,
turned round to confront them, in spite of his contracted features, in
spite of the wan, death-like hue of his face, they recognised him at
once, and exclaimed simultaneously, in accents of intense surprise,
“Brother Ambrose!” and “Beaudésir!”

The sailors, too much taken aback to speak, gasped at each other in
mute astonishment, nor did Slap-Jack, who had constituted himself in a
manner director of the proceedings, recover his presence of mind till the
conclusion of the ceremony.

If a corpse could be galvanised and set up in priest’s robes to bless
a loving couple whom Heaven has joined together, its benediction could
scarcely be more passionless and mechanical than was that which Florian
de St. Croix—the Brother Ambrose who had been the bride’s confessor, the
Beaudésir who had been the bridegroom’s lieutenant—now pronounced over
George Hamilton and Cerise de Montmirail. Not an eyelash quivered, not a
muscle trembled, not a tone of emotion could be detected in his voice.
Still young, still enthusiastic, still, though it was wild and warped and
wilful, possessing a human heart, he believed honestly that he then bade
farewell at once and for ever to earth and earthly things.

When they left the chapel, he was gone; gone back, so said some negroes
lounging in the neighbourhood, to the other Jesuits at Maria-Galante.
They believed him to be a priest of that order, resident at their
plantation, who had simply come across the island, and returned in the
regular performance of his duty. They cheered him when he emerged from
a side door and departed swiftly through their ranks. They cheered the
bridal party a few minutes later, leaving the chapel to re-embark.
They even cheered the Marquise, when, after bidding them farewell,
she separated from the others, and sought a house in the town, where
Célandine had already collected several faithful slaves who could be
trusted to defend her, and in the cellars of which refuge the Italian
overseer was even then concealed. They cheered Slap-Jack more than any
one, turning round to curse them, not without blows, for crowding in too
close. Lighthearted and impressionable, they were delighted with the
glitter, the bustle, the parade of the whole business, and thought it
little inferior to the “bobbery” of the preceding night.

So Cerise and her husband embarked on board the brigantine without delay.
In less than an hour the anchor was up, and with a following tide and a
wind off shore, ‘The Bashful Maid’ stood out to sea, carrying at least
two happy hearts along with her, whatever she may have left behind.

Before sunset she was hull-down on the horizon, but long after white
sails vanished their last gleam seemed yet to linger on the eyes of two
sad, wistful watchers, for whom, henceforth, it was to be a gloomier
world.

They knew not each other’s faces, they never guessed each other’s
feelings, nor imagined how close a link between the two existed in that
sunny speck, fading to leeward on the deep blue sea.

None the less longingly did they gaze eastward; none the less keenly
did the Marquise de Montmirail and Florian de St. Croix feel that their
loves, their hopes, their better selves-all that brightened the future,
that enhanced the past, that made life endurable—was gone from them in
the Homeward Bound.




CHAPTER XLI

LADY HAMILTON


The daisies we string in chains before ten, we tread under foot without
compunction after twenty. Cerise, pacing a noble terrace rolled and
levelled beneath the windows of her husband’s home, gave no thought to
the humble petals bending to her light footfall, and rising again when it
passed on; gave no thought to the flaring hollyhocks, the crimson roses,
all the bright array of autumn’s gaudier flowers flaunting about her in
the imposing splendour of maturity; gave no thought even to the fair
expanse of moor and meadow, dale and dingle, copse and corn-field, wood,
wold, and water, on which her eyes were bent.

She might have travelled many a mile, too, even through beautiful
England, without beholding such a scene. Overhead, the sky, clear and
pure in the late summer, or the early autumn, seemed but of a deeper
blue, because flecked here and there with wind-swept streaks of misty
white. Around her glowed, in Nature’s gaudiest patch-work, all the
garden beauty that had survived July. On a lower level by a few inches
lay a smooth, trim bowling-green, dotted with its unfinished game; and
downward still, foot by foot, like a wide green staircase, row after
row of terraces were banked, and squared, and spread between their
close-cut black yew hedges, till they descended to the ivy-grown wall
that divided pleasure-ground from park. Here, slopes of tufted grass,
swelling into bolder outlines as they receded, rolled, like the volume of
a freshening sea, into knolls, and dips, and ridges, feathered in waving
fern—dotted with goodly oaks—traversed by deep, narrow glades, in which
the deer were feeding—shy, wild, and undisturbed. Beyond this, again, the
variegated plain, rich in orchards, hedgerows, and enclosures studded
with shocks of corn, seamed too by the silver of more than one glistening
stream, was girdled by a belt of purple moorland; while, in the far
distance, the horizon was shut in by a long low range of hills, lost in a
grey-blue vapour, where they melted into sky.

Behind her stood the grim and weatherworn mansion, with its thick stone
walls, dented, battered, and defaced, as if it had defied a thousand
tempests and more than one siege, which, indeed, was the fact. Every old
woman in the country-side could tell how the square grey keep, at the end
of the south wing, had resisted the Douglas, and there was no mistaking
Cromwell’s handwriting on more than one rent in the comparatively modern
portions of the building. Hamilton Hill, though it had never been
called a fort, a castle, or even a hall, was known far and wide for a
stronghold, that, well supplied and garrisoned, might keep fifty miles of
the surrounding district in check; and the husband of Cerise was now lord
of Hamilton Hill.

No longer the soldier adventurer, the leader of Grey Musketeers, compound
of courtier and bravo—no longer the doubtful skipper of a suspicious
craft, half-trader, half-pirate—Sir George Hamilton, with position,
property, tenants, and influence, found himself a very different person
from the Captain George who used to relieve guard at the Palais Royal,
and lay ‘The Bashful Maid’ broadside on to a Spanish galleon deep in the
water, with her colours down and her foresail aback, a rich prize and an
easy prey. Ere the brigantine had dropped her anchor in the first English
port she made, George received intelligence of his far-off kinsman’s
death, and his own succession to a noble inheritance. It came at an
opportune moment, and he was disposed to make the most of it. Therefore
it was that Cerise (now Lady Hamilton) looked from the lofty terrace
over many a mile of fair English scenery, much of which belonged, like
herself, to the man she loved.

They were fairly settled now, and had taken their established place—no
lowly station—amongst their neighbours. Precedence had not, indeed, been
yielded them without a struggle; for in the last as in the present
century, detraction claimed a fair fling at all new-comers, and not what
they were, but _who_ they were, was the important question amongst a
provincial aristocracy, who made up by minute inquiry for the limited
sphere of their research. At first people whispered that the husband
was an adventurer and the wife an actress. Well, if not an actress, at
least a dancing-girl, whom he had picked up in Spain, in Paris, in the
West Indies, at Tangiers, Tripoli, or Japan! Lady Hamilton’s beauty, her
refined manners, her exquisite dresses, warranted the meanest opinion
of her in the minds of her own sex; and although, when they could no
longer conceal from themselves that she was a Montmirail of the real
Montmirails, they were obliged to own she had at least the advantage of
a high birth, I doubt if they loved her any better than before. They
pitied Sir George, they said, one and all—“He, if you like, was charming.
He had been page to the great King; he had been adored by the ladies of
the French Court; he had killed a Prince of the Blood in a duel; he had
sacked a convent of Spanish nuns, and wore the rosary of the Lady Abbess
under his waistcoat; he had been dreadfully wicked, but he was so polite!
he had the _bel air_; he had the _tourneur Louis Quatorze_; he had the
manners of the princes, and the electors, and the archdukes now passing
away. Such men would be _impossible_ soon; and to think he could have
been entrapped by that tawdry Frenchified Miss, with her airs and graces,
her fans and furbelows, and yards of the best Mechlin lace on the dress
she went gardening in! It was nothing to _them_, of course, that the
man should have committed such an absurdity; but, in common humanity,
they could not help being sorry for it, and, unless they were very much
deceived, so was he!”

With the squires, again, and county grandees of the male sex, including
two or three baronets, a knight of the shire, and the lord-lieutenant
himself, it was quite different. These honest gentlemen, whether fresh
or fasting in the morning, or bemused with claret towards the afternoon,
prostrated themselves before Cerise, and did homage to her charms.
Her blue eyes, her rosy lips, the way her gloves fitted, the slender
proportions of her feet, the influence of her soft, sweet manner,
resulting from a kindly, innocent heart—above all, the foreign accent,
which added yet another grace, childish, mirth-inspiring, and bewitching,
to everything she said—caused men of all ages and opinions to place their
necks voluntarily beneath the yoke. They swore by her; they toasted her;
they broke glasses innumerable in her honour; they vowed, with repeated
imprecations, nothing had ever been seen like her before; and they held
out to her husband the right hand of fellowship, as much for her sake as
for his own.

Sir George’s popularity increased on acquaintance. A man who could fly
a hawk with science—who could kill his game on the wing—who could ride
any horse perfectly straight over any part of their country—who seemed
to care very little for politics, except in so far as that the rights of
_venerie_ should be protected—who was reputed a consummate swordsman,
and seen, on occasion, to empty his bottle of claret with exceeding
good-will—was not likely to remain long in the background amongst the
hardy northern gentlemen with whom his lot was cast. Very soon Sir George
Hamilton’s society was sought as eagerly by both sexes, as his wife’s
beauty was admired by the one and envied—shall I say denied?—by the other.

Notwithstanding female criticism, which female instinct may possibly rate
at its true value, Cerise found herself very happy. Certainly, the life
she led was very different from that to which she had been accustomed in
her youth. An English lady of the last century devoted much of her time
to duties that are now generally performed by a housekeeper, and Cerise
had resolved to become a thorough English lady simply, I imagine, because
she thought it would please George. So she rose early, inspected the
dairies, betrayed contemptible ignorance in the manufacture of butter and
cream, reviewed vast stores of linen, put her white arms through a coarse
canvas apron, and splashed little dabs of jam upon her delicate nose,
with the conviction that she was a perfectly competent and efficient
housewife. Such occupations, if more healthy, were certainly less
exciting than the ever-recurring gaieties of the family hotel in Paris,
less agreeable than the luxurious tropical indolence of Montmirail West.

There were servants, plenty of them, at Hamilton Hill, who would
literally have shed their blood in defence of their mistress, but they
showed neither the blind obedience of the negro nor the shrewd readiness
of the Parisian domestic. On the contrary, they seemed persuaded
that length of service entitled them to be obstinate, perverse, and
utterly negligent of orders. There were two or three seniors of whom
Lady Hamilton positively stood in awe, and an old grey-headed butler,
perfectly useless from gout and obesity, would expostulate angrily with
his mistress for walking bareheaded on the terrace in an east wind. That
same east wind, too, was another trial to Cerise. It gave her cold, it
made her shiver, and she was almost afraid it sometimes made her cross.
There were drawbacks, you see, even to a love-match, a fortune, and
Hamilton Hill!

Yet she was very happy. She continually repeated to herself how happy
she was. To be sure, she missed her mother’s society, missed it far
more than she expected when at first she acquired the freedom of the
Matron’s Guild. Perhaps, too, she may have missed the incense of flattery
so delicately offered at the receptions of the Marquise; nay, even the
ponderous and well-turned compliments of the Prince-Marshal, who, to
do him justice, treated her with a chivalrous affection, compounded of
romantic devotion to her mother, and paternal regard for herself. But I
am sure she would never have allowed that a drop could be wanting in the
full cup of her happiness, for was not George the whole world to her, and
had she not got him here all to herself?

She walked thoughtfully on the terrace, surrounded by the glorious
beauty of earth and sky, looking, and seeing not. Perhaps she was
back in Touraine amongst the vineyards, perhaps she was in the shady
convent-garden, cooling her temples in the pure fresh breeze that
whispered to the beeches how it had gathered perfumes from the orchards
and the hedgerows and the scented meadows of pleasant Normandy. Perhaps
she was rustling through a minuet in the same set with a daughter of
France, or fanning mamma in the hot West Indian evening, or straining her
eyes to windward from the deck of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ with George’s arm
round her waist, and his telescope pointing to the distant sail, that
seemed plain to every eye on board but hers. At any rate, she appeared
to be leagues off in mind, though her dainty feet, with slow, measured
steps, were pacing to and fro on the terrace at Hamilton Hill. All at
once her colour came, her eyes sparkled, she brightened up like one who
wakes from sleep, for her heart still leaped to the trample of boot and
jingle of spur, as it had leaped in the days gone by, when a certain
Musketeer would visit his guard at unseasonable hours, that he might have
an excuse for passing under her window.

She ran across the terrace to meet him, with a little exclamation of
delight. “How long you have been, George!” she said, smiling up in his
face; “_why_ did you not ride faster? It is so dull here without _you_.”

She had him by the arm, and clasped her pretty white hands across his
sleeve, leaning her weight on his wrist. He looked affectionately down in
the fair young face, but he had come at a gallop for five or six miles
across the moor, as the state of his boots no less than his flushed face
indicated, and he did not feel inclined to admit he had been dilatory, so
his answer was less that of the lover than the husband.

“Dull, Cerise! I am sorry you find this place so dull, seeing that you
and I must spend the greater part of our lives here. I thought you liked
England, and a country life!”

Why is a man flattered by those exactions in a mistress that gall him so
in a wife? Perhaps it is because a generous nature concedes willingly
the favour, but is stern to resist the claim. When his mistress says
she cannot do without him, all the protective instincts, so strong in
masculine affection rise in her behalf, but the same sentiment expressed
by one who assumes a right to his time and attention, rather awakes a
sense of apprehension, and a spirit of revolt. Where woman only sees
the single instance, man establishes the broad principle. If he yields
on this occasion, he fears his time will never again be his own, and
such misgivings show no little ignorance of the nature with which he
has to deal, a nature to be guided rather than taught, persuaded rather
than convinced, sometimes advised, but never confuted, and on which
close reasoning is but labour thrown away. I think that woman wise who
is careful never to weary her husband. The little god thrives well on
smiles, and is seldom stronger than when in tears. While he frowns and
sets his teeth, he is capable of a lion’s efforts and a mule’s endurance,
but when he begins to yawn, he is but like other children, and soon falls
fast asleep.

Cerise hated George to speak to her in that grave tone. It grated on
the poor girl’s nerves, and frightened her besides, which was indeed
unreasonable, for he had never said a harsh word to her in his life. She
looked timidly in his face, and answered meekly enough—

“Every place is dull to me, George, without you. I wish I could be
always with you—to help you with the tenants, to dine with you at the
court-house, to sit behind you on Emerald when you go for a gallop across
the moor. Why could I not ride with you this morning?”

He laughed good-humouredly, and stroked the hands clasped on his wrist.

“It would have been the very thing, Cerise!” said he. “I think I see
you assisting at a cock-fight, placing the fowls, picking them up, and
counting them out! I think I can see Sir Marmaduke’s face when you walked
into the pit. I think I can hear the charitable remarks of all our county
ladies, who are not disposed to let you off more easily, my dear, because
you are so much better-looking and better dressed than anything they ever
saw north of the Trent. Yes, my darling, come to the next cock-fight by
all means. _Il ne manquerait que ça!_”

The little French sentence was music to her ears. It was the language
in which he had wooed her; and though she spoke _his_ language now
assiduously, and spoke it well, the other was her mother-tongue. She
laughed, too.

“Perhaps I shall take you at your word,” said she, “though it is a cruel,
horrid, wicked amusement. Did you win, George?”

“Fifty gold pieces!” was his answer; “and the same on a return match next
week, which I am equally sure of. They will get you two new dresses from
Paris.”

“I want no dresses from Paris,” said she, drawing him towards the
bowling-green. “I want you to help me in my garden. Come and look at my
Provence roses.”

But Sir George had no time to spare even for so tempting a pursuit. A
fresh horse was even now waiting to carry him ten miles off to a training
of the militia, in which constitutional force, as became his station, he
took a proper interest. He was the country gentleman now from head to
heel, and frequented all gatherings and demonstrations in which country
gentlemen take delight. Of these, a cock-fight was not the most refined,
but it was the fashion of his time and class, so we must not judge him
more severely than did Cerise, who, truth to tell, thought he could not
possibly do wrong, and would have given him absolution for a worse crime,
in consideration of his accompanying her to the garden to look at her
Provence roses.

“To-morrow,” said he; husbandlike, missing the chance of a compliment
about the roses, which a lover would not have let slip; the latter,
indeed, if obliged to depart, would probably have ridden away with one
of the flowers in his bosom. “To-morrow, Cerise. I have a press of
business to-day, but will get back in time for dinner.” And touching her
forehead lightly with his lips, Sir George was gone before she could stop
him, and in another minute his horse’s hoofs were clattering out of the
stable-yard.

From the terrace where she stood, Cerise watched his receding figure
as he galloped merrily down the park, knee-deep in fern, threading the
old oaks, and sending the deer scampering on all sides across the open;
watched him with a cloud upon her young face, and a quiver about her
mouth, that was near akin to tears; watched long after he was out of
sight, and then turned wearily away with a languid step and a deep-drawn
sigh.

She was but going through the ordeal that sooner or later must be endured
by every young wife who dearly loves her husband. She was but learning
the unavoidable lesson that marriage is not courtship, that reality
is not illusion, that the consistent tenderness of a husband, if more
practical, is less flattering than the romantic adoration of a lover. She
was beginning to shape into suspicion certain vague misgivings which had
lately haunted her, that although George was all the world to _her_, she
was only part of the world to George! It is from the sweetest dreams
that we are most unwilling to awake, and therefore it is no wonder that
Lady Hamilton’s preoccupation prevented her observing a strange horseman
riding up the avenue, slowly and laboriously, as though after a long
journey, of which the final destination seemed to be Hamilton Hill.




CHAPTER XLII

THE DESIRE OF THE MOTH


In the year 1540, five Spaniards and a Savoyard, styling themselves
“Clerks of the Company of Jesus,” left Paris under the leadership of the
famous Ignatius Loyola, to found an establishment at Rome.

Here Pope Paul III. presented them with a church, and in return these
half-dozen of energetic priests gave in an unqualified adhesion to the
Sovereign Pontiff. Their avowed intention in thus forming themselves into
a separate and independent body (except in so far as they owed allegiance
to its supreme head), was the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith,
the conversion of heathens, the suppression of heresy, and the education
of the young. For these purposes a system was at once organised which
should combine the widest sphere of action with the closest surveillance
over its agents, the broadest views with the most minute attention to
details, an absolute unquestioned authority with a stanch and implicit
obedience. To attain universal rule (possibly for a good motive, but
at any sacrifice to attain it) over the opinions of humanity, however
different in age, sex, character, and nationalities, was the object
proposed; and almost the first maxim laid down, and never departed from
in the Order, established that all means were justifiable to such an
end. It was obvious that to win universal dominion over the moral as
over the physical world, every effort must not only be vigorous, but
combined and simultaneous, such waste of power must never be contemplated
as the possibility of two forces acting in opposite directions, and
therefore a code of discipline must be established, minute, stringent,
and comprehensive, like that of an army before an enemy, but with this
difference, that its penalties must never be modified by circumstances,
nor its bonds relaxed by conquest or defeat. In the Order of Jesus must
be no speaking, no questioning, no individuality, and—no forgiveness!

Their constitution was as follows: A “General,” as he was styled,
resided in perpetuity at Rome, and from that central spot sent forth
his directions over the whole civilised world, enjoying absolute
authority and exacting unqualified obedience. Even to the supreme head,
however, was attached an officer entitled his “Admonisher.” It was his
duty to observe the conduct of his chief, and report on it to the five
“Assistants,” who constituted that chief’s council. These, again, were
instructed to watch each other carefully, and thus, not even at the very
head and fountain of supreme authority, could any single individual
consider himself a free agent, even in the most trifling matters of
dress, deportment, or daily conversation.

In every country where the Jesuits obtained a footing (and while there
are few in which they have not been notoriously powerful, even in those
which betray no traces of their presence, who shall say that their
influence has not been at work below the surface?) a “Provincial,” as he
was called, assumed the direction of affairs within a certain district,
and on his administration every one of his subordinates, temporal and
spiritual, was instructed to report. There were three degrees in the
Order, according to the experience and utility of its votaries—these
were “Professors,” “Coadjutors,” both priests and laymen, for their
ramifications extended from the highest to the lowest, through all
classes of society, and “Novices.”

To enter the Order, many severe examinations had to be passed, and while
it numbered among its votaries men of superlative abilities in a thousand
different callings, every member was employed according to his capacity
of useful service.

With such an organisation it may be imagined that the society has been
a powerful engine for good and for evil. It has planted Christianity
in the most remote corners of the earth, and has sent missionaries of
skill, eloquence, piety, and dauntless courage, amongst savages who
otherwise might never have heard the faintest echo of the Glad Tidings,
in which all men claim interest alike; but, on the other hand, it has
done incalculable mischief in the households of Christian Europe, has
wormed itself into the confidence of women, has destroyed the concord of
families, has afforded the assailants of religion innumerable weapons of
offence, and in its dealings with those whom it was especially bound to
succour and protect, has brought on them desolation rather than comfort,
remorse where there should be hope, and war instead of peace.

It is necessary to remember the effect of a constant and reciprocal
supervision, not only on the outward actions and conduct, but on the very
thoughts and characters of men unavoidably fettered by its influence, to
understand the position of two priests walking side by side along one of
the narrow level banks that intersect the marshy country lying near the
town of St. Omer.

These old friends, if, indeed, under such conditions as theirs men can
ever be termed friends, had not met since they sat together, many years
before, beneath the limes at Versailles, when the younger had not yet
taken orders, and the elder, although he accepted the title of Abbé,
neither led the life of an ecclesiastic, nor admitted openly that he was
in any way amenable to the discipline observed by the Jesuits. Now, both
were ostensibly votaries of the Order. Its impress might be seen in their
measured steps, their thoughtful faces, and their downward looks, taking
no heed of the peaceful scene around: the level marshes, the ripening
orchards, the lazy cattle knee-deep in rich wet herbage, the peasant’s
punt pushed drowsily and sluggishly along the glistening ditches that
divided his fields, the mellow warmth of the autumnal sun, and the swarms
of insects wheeling in his slanting, reddening rays.

They saw, or at least they heeded, none of this—deep in conversation,
their subject seemed of engrossing interest; yet each looked only by
stealth in the other’s face, withdrawing his glance and bending it on the
path at his feet the instant it met his friend’s.

At times neither spoke for several paces, and it was during such periods
of silence that the expression of habitual mistrust and constraint
became painfully apparent. In the elder man it was softened and smoothed
over, partly by effort, partly by the acquired polish of society, but
the younger seemed to chafe with repressed ardour, like a rash horse,
impatient but generous, fretting under the unaccustomed curb.

After a longer pause than usual, this one spoke with more energy than he
had yet displayed.

“I only wish to do _right_. What is it to me, Malletort, that the
world should misjudge me, or that I should sink in the esteem of those
whose good opinion I value? I only wish to do right, I say, always in
compliance with the orders of my superiors.”

The other smiled. “In the first place,” said he, “you must not call me
Malletort, at least not within so short a distance of those college
chimneys; but we will let that pass; for though a novice, still you are
worthy of speedy promotion, and it is only for ‘novices’ in the first
period of probation that our rules are so exacting. You wish to do right.
So be it. You have done very wrong hitherto, or you might have been a
‘provincial’ by this time. Well, my son, confession is the first step to
amendment, and then―”

He paused, and bit his lip. It was difficult to keep down the old
sarcastic smile, but he did it, and looked gravely in the other’s face.

“Penance!” replied the younger. “I know it too well. Ah! _mea culpa! mea
culpa!_ I have been a great sinner. I have repented in sackcloth and
ashes. I have confessed freely. I wish, yes, I repeat I _wish_ to atone
humbly, and yet, oh! for mercy’s sake, tell me, is there no way but this?”

His agony of mind was too apparent on his face. Even Malletort felt a
momentary compunction when he remembered the hopeful enthusiastic youth
who had sat with him under the limes at Versailles all those years ago;
when he remembered the desperate career on which he had embarked, his
insubordination, his apostasy, and those paroxysms of remorse that drove
him back into the bosom of the church. Could this depressed and miserable
penitent be the once bright and happy Florian de St. Croix? and had he
been brought to this pass simply because he possessed such inconvenient
superfluities as a heart and a conscience? Malletort, I say, felt a
twinge of compunction, but of pity very little, of indecision, not one
bit.

“Would you go to a doctor,” said he, gravely, “and teach him how to cure
you of a deadly malady? Would you choose your own medicine, my son, and
refuse the only healing draught prescribed, because it was bitter to
the taste? There is but one way of retracing your steps. You must go
back along the very path that led you into evil. That the effort will be
trying, I admit. All uphill work is trying to the utmost, but how else
can men attain the summit? That the task is painful I allow, but were
it pleasant, where would be the penance? Besides, you know our rules,
my son, the time is not far off when I shall be permitted to say, my
brother. We have got you. Will you dare to hesitate ere you obey?”

An expression of intense fear came over Florian’s face, but it seemed
less the physical fear of danger from without than an absorbing dread of
the moral enemy within.

“I _must_ obey,” he answered in a low voice, shuddering while he spoke.
“I _must_ obey, I know, readily, willingly. Alas! Malletort, there is
my unforgiven sin, my mortal peril. _Too_ willingly do I undertake the
task. It is my dearest wish to find myself addressed to it—that is why I
entreat not to be sent—that is why I implore them to spare me. It is my
soul that is in danger. Heart, hope, happiness, home, liberty, identity,
are all gone from me, and now I shall lose my soul.”

“Your soul!” repeated the other, again repressing a sneer. “Do not
distress yourself, my son, about your soul. It is in very safe keeping,
and your superiors are, doubtless, the best judges of its value and
eventual destination. In the meantime, do not give way to a far-fetched
casuistry, or a morbid delicacy of sentiment. If your heart is in your
task, and you go to it willingly, it will be the more easily and the more
effectually accomplished. Congratulate yourself, therefore, that your
penance is not distasteful as well as dangerous, a torture of bodily
weakness, rather than a trial of spiritual strength. Remember, there is
no sin of action where there is none of intention. There can be none of
intention where a deed is done simply in compliance with the superior’s
will. If that deed be pleasurable, it is but so much gained on the
chances of the service. Enjoy it as you would enjoy the sun’s rays if
you were standing sentry on a winter’s day at the Louvre. It is not for
_you_, a simple soldier of the Order, to speculate on your own merits
or your own failures, those above you will take care that neither are
overlooked. Eat your rations and be thankful. Your duty, first and last,
is but to obey!”

It will be seen by these phrases, so carefully worded according to the
rules of the Order, yet bearing the while a covert sarcasm for his own
private gratification, that the real character of Malletort was but
little changed, since he intrigued at the council table or drank at the
suppers of the Regent.

He was a Jesuit priest now in garb and outward semblance; he was still
the clever, unscrupulous, unbelieving, pleasure-loving Abbé at the core.
So necessary had he become to the Regent as the confidant of his secret
schemes, whether their object were the acquisition of a province or the
dismissal of a mistress, that he would have found little difficulty in
making his peace with his Prince, even after the untoward failure of
the Montmirail Gardens, had he chosen to do so. The Regent, maddened
with disappointment, and especially sore because of the ridicule created
by the whole business, turned at first fiercely enough on his trusty
adviser, but found, to his surprise, that the Abbé was beforehand with
him. The latter assumed an air of high-minded indignation, talked of
the honour of an ancient house, of the respect due, at least in outward
courtesy, to a kinswoman of his own, hinted at his fidelity and his
services, protested against the ingratitude with which they had been
requited, and ended by tendering his resignation, with a request for
leave to absent himself from Paris. The result, as usual with the Duke
of Orleans, was a compromise. His outraged servant should quit him for a
time, but would remain at least faithful in heart to the master who now
entreated his pardon. In a few weeks the matter, he thought, would be
forgotten, and for those few weeks he must manage his own affairs without
the Abbé’s assistance.

Malletort had several good reasons for thus detaching himself from
the Court. The first, and most important, was the state of the Duke’s
health. The Abbé had not failed to mark the evil effects produced even
by so slight an excitement as the affair at the Hôtel Montmirail. He
perceived the Regent’s tendency to apoplexy growing stronger day by day;
he observed that the slightest emotion now caused him to flush a dark red
even in the morning, and he knew that at supper his fulness of habit was
so obvious as to alarm the very _roués_, lest every draught should be his
last. If sudden death were to carry off the Regent, Malletort felt all
his labour would have been thrown away, and he must begin at the lowest
round of the ladder again.

His connection with the Jesuits, for he had long ago enlisted himself
as a secret member of that powerful Order, was now of service to him.
They had influence with the advisers of the young king, they were ardent
promoters of the claims to the British crown, laid by that James Stuart,
whom history has called the Old Pretender. It was quite possible that
under a new state of things they might hold some of the richest rewards
in France and England to bestow on their adherents. Above all, the very
keystone of their system, the power that set all their machinery in
motion, was a spirit of busy and unremitting intrigue. Abbé Malletort
never breathed so freely as in an atmosphere of plots and counterplots.
With all the energy of his nature, he devoted himself to the interests
of the Order, keeping up his connection with the Court, chiefly on its
behalf. He was as ready now to betray the Regent to his new allies, as
he had been a few months before to sacrifice honour and probity for the
acquisition of that prince’s good-will.

There are few men, however, who can thoroughly divest themselves of
all personal feelings in pursuit of their own interest. Even Malletort
possessed the weaknesses of pride, pique, and certain injudicious
partialities which he could not quite overcome. He hated his late patron
for many reasons of his own, for none more than that his persecution had
compelled Madame de Montmirail and her daughter to leave France and seek
a refuge beyond the sea. If he cared for anything on earth, besides his
own aggrandisement, it was his kinswoman; and when he thought of the
Marquise, a smile would overspread his features that denoted anything
but Christian charity or good-will to her royal admirer.

He spent much of his time at St. Omer now, where several provincials
and other influential members of the Order were assembled, organising a
movement in favour of the so-called James III.; these were in constant
correspondence with the English Jacobites, and according to their
established principle, were enlisting every auxiliary, legitimate or
otherwise, for the furtherance of their schemes. They possessed lists
of surprising accuracy, in which were noted down the names, resources,
habits, and political tendencies of many private gentlemen in remote
countries, who little dreamed they were of such importance.

An honest squire, whose ideas scarcely soared beyond his harriers, his
claret, and his fat cattle, would have been surprised to learn that his
character, his income, his pursuits, his domestic affections, and his
habitual vices were daily canvassed by a society of priests, numbering
amongst them the keenest intellects in Europe, who had travelled many
hundred leagues expressly to meet in a quiet town in Artoise, of which he
had never heard the name, and give their opinions on himself. Perhaps his
insular love of isolation would have been disgusted, and he might have
been less ready to peril life and fortune, had he known the truth.

But every landholder of importance was the object of considerable
discussion. It was Abbé Malletort’s familiarity with previous
occurrences, and the characters of all concerned, that led him now to put
the pressure on the renegade who had lost his rank with his desertion,
and returned in the lowest grade as a novice, to make his peace with the
Order.

“My friend,” resumed the Abbé, after another long silence, during which
the sun had reached the horizon, and was now shedding a broad red glare
on his companion’s face, giving him an excuse to shade it with his hand;
“your penance has been well begun, and needs but this one culminating
effort to be fully accomplished. I have been at Rome very lately, and the
General himself spoke approvingly of your repentance and your return.
The provincial at Maria-Galante had reported favourably on your conduct
during the disturbances in the island, and your unfeigned penitence, when
you gave yourself up as a deserter from the Order. We have no secrets,
you know, amongst ourselves; or rather, I should say nothing is so secret
but that it has its witnesses. Here, at Paris, in Rome, will be known all
that you do in England; more, all that you leave undone. I need scarcely
charge you to be diligent, trustworthy, secret; but I must warn you not
to be over-scrupulous. Remember, the intention justifies the deed. It is
not only expedient, but meritorious to do evil that good may come.”

They were now approaching the town, and the sentry was being relieved at
its fortified gate. The clash of arms, the measured tramp, the martial
bearing of the soldiers, called up in Florian’s mind such associations
as for the moment drowned the sentiments of religious penitence and
self-accusation that had lately taken possession of his heart. He longed
to throw off the priest’s robe, the grave deportment, the hateful
trammels of an enforced and professional hypocrisy, and to feel a man
once more—a man, adventurous, free, desperate, relying for very life on
the plank beneath his foot or the steel in his hand, but at least able to
carry his head high amongst his fellows, and to know that were it but for
five minutes, the future was his own. It was sin even to dream of such
things.

“_Mea culpa, mea culpa!_” he muttered in a desponding tone, and beat his
breast, and bent his eyes once more upon the ground.

“When am I to go?” said he meekly, reverting to their previous
conversation, and abandoning, as though after deep reflection, the
unwillingness he had shown from the first.

“This evening, after vespers,” answered the Abbé, with a scarce
perceptible inflection of contempt in his voice that denoted he had
read him through like a book. “You will attend as usual. Everything is
prepared, even to a garb less grave than that you wear, and a good horse
(ah! you cannot help smiling now) will be waiting for you at the little
gate. You ought to be half way to Calais before the moon is up.”

His face brightened now, though he strove hard to conceal his
satisfaction. Here was change, freedom, excitement, liberty, at least
for a time, and an adventurous journey, to terminate in _her_ presence,
who was still to his eyes the ideal of womankind. All, too, in the
fulfilment of a penance, the execution of a duty. His heart leaped
beneath his cassock, and warned him of the danger he incurred. Danger,
indeed! It did but add to the intoxication of the draught. With
difficulty he restrained the bounding impatience of his step, and kept
his face averted from his friend.

The precaution was useless. Malletort knew his thoughts as well as if he
had been his penitent in the confessional, and laughed within himself.
The tool at least was sharp and ready, quivering, highly-tempered, and
flexible; it needed but a steady hand to drive it home.

“You will come to the provincial for final instructions half an hour
before you mount,” said he gravely, and added, without altering his tone
or moving a muscle of his countenance, “Your especial duty is to gain
over Sir George. For this object it is essential to obtain the good-will
of Lady Hamilton.”




CHAPTER XLIII

FOR THE STAR


He ought to have known, he _did_ know, his danger. If he was not sure
of it during his ride to the coast, while he crossed the Channel, and
felt the wild spray dash against his face like the greeting of an old
friend, nor in the long journey that took him northward through many
a smiling valley and breezy upland of that country which he had once
thought so gloomy and desolate, which seemed so fair and sunny now,
because it was _hers_, he ought to have realised it when he rode under
the old oaks at Hamilton Hill, and dreaded, even more than he longed, to
see her white dress glancing among their stems. Above all, he ought to
have been warned, when, entering the house, though Lady Hamilton herself
did not appear, he felt surrounded by her presence, and experienced
that sensation of repose which, after all his tumult of anxiety and
uncertainty, pervades a man’s whole being in the home of the woman he
loves. There were her gardening gloves, and plain straw hat, perhaps yet
warm from her touch, lying near the door. There were flowers that surely
must have been gathered by her hands but a few hours ago, on the table
where he laid his pistols and riding-wand. There was her work set aside
on a chair, her shawl thrown over its back, the footstool she had used
pushed half across the floor, and an Iceland hawk, with hood, bell, and
jesses, moving restlessly on the perch, doubtless in expectation of its
mistress’s return.

He tried hard to deceive himself, and he succeeded. He felt that in all
his lawless infatuation for this pure, spotless woman, he had never loved
her so well as now—now, that she was his friend’s wife! But he argued, he
pleaded, he convinced himself in his madness, that such a love as his,
even a husband must approve. It was an affection, he repeated, or rather
a worship, completely spiritualised and self-sacrificing, to outlast the
material trammels of this life, and follow her, still faithful, still
changeless, into eternity. So true, so holy, however hopeless, however
foolish, could such a love as this, deprived of all earthly leaven, be
criminal, even in _him_, the priest, for _her_, the wedded wife? No, no,
he told himself, a thousand times, no! And all the while the man within
the man, who sits, and mocks, and judges, and condemns us all, said Yes—a
thousand times—Yes!

There is but one end to such debate, when the idol is under the same roof
with the worshipper. He put the question from him for the present, and
only resolved that, at least, he might love all belonging to her, for
her sake. All, even to the very flowers she gathered and the floor she
trod. He took up the work she had set aside, and pressed it passionately
to his lips, his heart, his eyes. The door opened, and he dropped it,
scared, startled, guilty, like a man detected in a crime. It was a
disappointment, yet he felt it a relief, to find that the intruder was
not Cerise. He had scarcely yet learned to call her Lady Hamilton.
There was no disappointment, however, in the new-comer’s face, as he
stood for a moment with the door in his hand, looking at Florian with
a quaint comical smile, in which respect for Sir George’s guest was
strangely mingled with a sailor’s hearty welcome to his shipmate. The
latter sentiment soon predominated, and Slap-Jack, hurrying forward with
a scrape of his foot and a profusion of sea-bows, seized the visitor by
both hands, called him “my hearty!” several times over; and, finally,
relapsing with considerable effort into the staid and confidential
servant of the family, offered him, in his master’s absence, liquid
refreshment on the spot.

“It’s a fair wind, whichever way it blowed, as brought _you_ here,”
exclaimed the late foretopman, when the energy of his greeting had
somewhat subsided; “and so the skipper, I mean Sir George, will swear,
when he knows his first lieutenant’s turned up in this here anchorage,
and my lady too, askin’ your reverence’s pardon once more, being that I’m
not quite so sure as I ought to be of your honour’s rating.”

Slap-Jack was becoming a little confused, remembering the part played by
Beaudésir on the last occasion of their meeting.

“Sir George does not expect me,” answered Florian, returning the seaman’s
greeting with cordial warmth; “but unless he is very much altered, I
think his welcome will be no less hearty than your own.”

“That I’ll swear it will—that I’ll swear he doesn’t,” protested
Slap-Jack, taking upon himself the character of confidential domestic
more and more. “Sir George never ordered so much as a third place to be
laid at dinner; but we’ll make that all ship-shape with a round turn
in no time; an’ if you don’t drink ‘Sweethearts and Wives’ to-day in a
flagon of the best, why, say I’m a Dutchman! When I see them towing your
nag into harbour, and our old purser’s steward, butler, as we calls him
ashore, he hails me and sings out as there’s a visitor between decks, I
knowed as something out of the common was aboard. I can’t tell you for
why; but I knowed it as sure as the compass. I haven’t been pleased since
I was paid off. If it wasn’t that my lady’s in the room above this, and
it’s not discipline to disturb her, blowed if I wouldn’t give three such
cheers as should shake the acorns down at the far end of the west avenue.
But I’ll do it to-night after quarters, see if I won’t, Lieutenant
Bo―askin’ your pardon, your honour’s reverence.”

Thus conversing, and occupying himself the whole time with the guest’s
comforts, for Slap-Jack, sailor-like, had not forgotten to be two-handed,
he showed Florian into a handsome bed-chamber, and unpacked with ready
skill the traveller’s valise, taken off his horse’s croup, that contained
the modest wardrobe, which in those days of equestrian journeys was
considered sufficient for a gentleman’s requirements. He then assured him
that Sir George’s arrival could not be long delayed, as dinner would be
served in half an hour, and the waiting-woman had already gone upstairs
to dress her ladyship; also, that there was a sirloin of beef on the spit
and ale in the cellar brewed thirty-five years ago next October; with
which pertinent information he left the visitor to his toilet and his
reflections.

The former was soon concluded; the latter lasted him through his
labours, and accompanied him downstairs to the great hall, where
Slap-Jack had told him he would find dinner prepared. His host and
hostess were already there. Of Lady Hamilton’s greeting he was
unconscious, for his head swam, and he dared not lift his eyes to her
face; but Sir George’s welcome was hearty, even boisterous. Florian could
not help thinking that, had he been in the hospitable baronet’s place, he
would have been less delighted with the arrival of a visitor.

Whatever people’s feelings may be, however, they go to dinner all the
same. Slap-Jack, an old grey-headed butler, and two or three livery
servants stood in attendance. The dishes were uncovered, and Florian
found himself seated at a round table in the centre of the fine old
hall like a man in a dream, confused indeed and vaguely bewildered, yet
conscious of no surprise at the novelty of his situation, and taking in
all its accessories with a glance. He was aware of the stag’s skeleton
frontlet, crowned by its gigantic antlers, beetling, bleached, and grim,
over the door; of the oak panelling and stained glass, the high carved
chimneypiece, with its grotesque supporters, the vast logs smouldering
in embers on the hearth, the dressed deer-skins, that served for rug or
carpet wherever a covering seemed needed on the polished floor; nay, even
of a full-length picture by Vandyck, representing the celebrated Count
Anthony Hamilton, looking his very politest, in a complete suit of plate
armour, with a yard or two of cambric round his neck, and an enormous wig
piling its hyacinthine curls above his forehead, to descend in coarse
cascades of hair below his waist.

All this had Florian taken note of before he could conscientiously
declare that he had looked his hostess in the face.

It made him start to hear the sweet voice once more, frank, cordial, and
caressing as of old. One of the many charms which Cerise exercised over
her fellow-creatures was the gentle, kindly tone in which she spoke to
all.

“You have just come from France, you say, Father Ambrose. Pardon,
Monsieur de St. Croix. How am I to address you? From our dear France,
George. Only think. He has scarcely left it a week.”

“Where they did not give you such ale as that, I’ll be bound,” answered
Sir George, motioning Slap-Jack to fill for the guest, a hospitable rite
performed by the old privateer’s-man with extreme good-will, and a solemn
wink of approval, as he placed the beaker at his hand. “What! You have
not learned to drink our _vin ordinaire_ yet? And now, I remember, you
were always averse to heavy potations. Here, fill him a bumper of claret,
some of you! Taste that, my friend. I don’t think we ever drank better
in the ‘Musketeers.’ Welcome to Hamilton Hill, old comrade. My lady
will drink to your health too, before she hears the latest Paris news.
She has not forgotten her country; and as for me, why, you know our old
principle, _Mousquetaire avant tout!_”

Sir George emptied his glass, and Cerise, bowing courteously, touched
hers with her lips. Florian found himself at once, so to speak “_enfant
de la maison_,” and recovered his presence of mind accordingly.

He addressed himself, however, chiefly to his host. “You forget,”
said he, “that I have been living in the seclusion of a cloister.
Though I have carried a sword and kept my watch under your command,
and spent almost the happiest days of my life in your company, I was
a priest before I was a Musketeer, and a priest I must always remain.
Nevertheless, even at St. Omer, we are not utterly severed from the world
and its vanities; and though we do not participate in them, we hear them
freely canvassed. The first news, of course, for madame (pardon! I must
learn to call you by your English name—for Lady Hamilton), regards the
despotism of King Chiffon. The farthingale is worn more oval; diamond
buckles are gone out; it is bad taste just now to carry a fan anywhere
except to church.”

In spite of his agitation he adopted a light tone of jest befitting
the subject—for was he not a Jesuit?—and stole a look at Cerise while
he spoke. Many a time had he dreamt of a lovely girl blooming into
womanhood, in the Convent of our Lady of Succour. Ever since the tumult
of her hasty wedding, after the escape from _Cash-a-crou_, he had been
haunted by a pale, sweet, agitated face, on which he had invoked a
blessing at the altar from the depths of his tortured heart; but what
did he think of her now? She had reached that queenly standard to which
women only attain after marriage; and while she had lost none of her
early charms, her frankness, her simplicity, her radiant smile, her deep
truthful eyes, she had added to them that gentle dignity, that calm,
assured repose of manner, which completes the graces of mature womanhood,
and adorns the wedded wife as fitly as her purple robe becomes a queen.

She could look him in the face quietly and steadily enough; but while
his very heart thrilled at her voice, his eyes fell, as though dazzled,
beneath her beauty.

“You forget, monsieur,” said she, with an affectionate glance at her
husband, “I am an Englishwoman now; and we have deeper interests here
even than the change of fashions and the revolutions in the kingdom of
dress. Besides, mamma keeps me informed on all such subjects, as well as
those of more importance; but she is in Touraine now, and I am quite in
the dark as regards everything at Paris; above all, the political state
of the Court. You see we are no longer Musketeers.”

She smiled playfully at George, in allusion to the sentiment he had
lately broached, and looked, Florian thought, lovelier than ever.

The excitement of conversation had brought a colour to her cheek. Now,
when she ceased, it faded away, leaving her perhaps none the less
beautiful, that she was a little pale and seemed tired. He observed
the change of course. Not an inflection of her voice, not a quiver of
an eyelash, not one of those silken hairs out of place on her soft
forehead, could have escaped his notice. “Was she unhappy?” he thought;
“was she, too, dissatisfied with her lot? Had she failed to reach that
resting-place of the heart which is sought for eagerly by so many, and
found but by so few?” It pained him; yes, he was glad to feel that it
pained him to think this possible. Yet would he have been better pleased
to learn that her languor of manner, her pale weariness of brow, were
only the effects of her morning’s disappointment, when she waited in vain
for the company of her husband?

But such an under-current of reflection in no way affected the tide of
his conversation; nor had he forgotten the primary cause of his journey,
the especial object for which he was now sitting at Sir George Hamilton’s
table.

“I cannot pretend,” said he, “to be so well informed on political matters
as Madame la Marquise. I can only tell you the news of all the world—the
gossip that people talk in the streets. The Regent is unpopular, and
grows more so day by day. His excesses have at last disgusted the good
_bourgeoisie_ of the capital; and these honest citizens, who think only
of selling spices over a counter, will, as you know, endure a good deal
before they venture to complain of a prince who throws money about with
both hands. As the young King grows older, they are more encouraged to
cry out; and in Paris, as in Persia, they tell me, it is now the fashion
to worship the rising sun. Of course France will follow suit; but we are
quiet people at St. Omer; and I do not think our peasantry in Artois
have yet realised the death of Louis Quatorze. When Jean Baptiste is
thoroughly satisfied on that point, he will, of course, throw up his red
cap, and shout, “Vive Louis Quinze!” Till then the Regency assumes all
the indistinct terrors of the Unknown. Seriously, I believe the Duke’s
day is over, and that the way to Court favour lies through Villeroy’s
orderly-room into the apartment of the young King!”

“And the Musketeers?” asked Sir George, eagerly. “That must be all in
their favour. They have stood so firm by the Marshal and the _real_
throne, their privileges will now surely be respected and increased.”

“On the contrary,” replied Florian, “the Musketeers are in disgrace.
The grey company was actually warned to leave Paris for Marly, although
neither the King nor the Regent were to be there in person. At the last
moment the order was revoked, or there must have been a mutiny. As
it was, they refused to parade on the Duke’s birthday, and were only
brought to reason by Bras-de-Fer, who made them a speech as long as that
interminable sword he wears at his belt.”

“Which was not long enough to reach my ribs, however,” interrupted Sir
George, heartily, “with the Cadet Eugène Beaudésir at my side to parry
it. Oh! that such a fencer should be thrown away on the Church! Well,
fill your glass, Sir Priest, and never blush about it. Cerise here knows
the whole story, and has only failed to thank you because she has not yet
had the opportunity.”

“But I do now,” interposed Lady Hamilton, bending on him her blue eyes
with the pure tenderness of an angel. “I thank you for it with my whole
heart.”

He felt at that moment how less than trifling had been his service
compared with his reward. In his exaltation he would have laid his life
down willingly for them both.

“That was a mere chance,” said he, making light of his exploit with a
forced laugh. “The whole affair was but the roughest cudgel-play from
beginning to end. I, at least, have no cause to regret it, speaking in
my secular capacity, for it led to an agreeable cruise and a sight of
the most beautiful island in the world, where, I hope, I was fortunate
enough to be of some service to Sir George in a manner more befitting my
calling.”

Again he forced himself to smile, addressing his speech to Lady Hamilton,
without looking at her.

“And what of the new Court?” asked Cerise, observing his confusion with
some astonishment, and kindly endeavouring to cover it. “Will the young
King fulfil all the promise of his boyhood? They used to say he would
grow up the image of Louis le Grand.”

“The new Court,” answered Florian, lightly, “like all other new Courts,
is the exact reverse of the old. To be in favour with the Regent is to be
an eyesore to the King; to have served Louis le Grand faithfully, is to
be wearisome, _rococo_, and behind the times; while, if a courtier wishes
to bid for favour with the Duke, he must forswear the rest of the Royal
family—go about drunk by daylight, and set at open defiance, not only the
sacred moralities of life, but all the common decencies of society.”

“The scum, then, comes well to the surface,” observed Sir George,
laughing. “It seems that in the respectable Paris of to-day there is a
better chance than ever for a reprobate!”

“There is a way to fortune for honest men,” answered the Jesuit, “that
may be trodden now with every appearance of safety, and without the loss
of self-esteem. It leads, in my opinion, directly to success, and keeps
the straight, unswerving path of honour all the time. ‘The Bashful
Maid,’ Sir George, used to lay her course faithfully by the compass,
and I have often thought what a good example that inanimate figure-head
showed to those who controlled her movements. But I must ask Lady
Hamilton’s pardon,” he added, with mock gravity, “for thus mentioning her
most formidable rival in her presence. If you can call to mind, madame,
her resolute front, her coal-black hair, her glaring eyes, her complexion
of rich vermilion, mantling even to the tip of her nose, and the devotion
paid to her charms by captain as well as crew, you must despair of
equalling her in Sir George’s eyes, and can never know a moment’s peace
again.”

Slap-Jack, clearing the table with much ceremony, could scarcely refrain
from giving audible expression to his delight.

Lady Hamilton laughed.

“As you have chosen such a subject of conversation,” said she, “it is
time for me to retire. After you have done justice to the charms of ‘The
Bashful Maid,’ whom, when she was not too lively, I admired as much as
any one, and have exhausted your Musketeer’s reminiscences, you will find
_me_, and, what is more to the purpose, a dish of hot coffee, in the
little room at the end of the gallery. Till then, _Sans adieu_!” And her
ladyship walked out, laying her hand on Sir George’s shoulder to prevent
his rising while she passed, with an affectionate gesture that was in
itself a caress.

The Jesuit gazed after her as she disappeared, and, resuming his place at
the table, felt that whatever difficulties he had already experienced,
the worst part of his task was now to come.




CHAPTER XLIV

“BOX IT ABOUT”


When the door had closed on his wife, Sir George settled himself
comfortably in his chair, filled a bumper from the claret jug, and,
passing it to Florian, proposed the accustomed toast, drank at many
hundred tables in merry England about the same hour.

“Church and King!” said the baronet, and quaffed off a goodly draught, as
if he relished the liquor no less than the pledge.

It gave the Jesuit an opening, and, like a skilful fencer, he availed
himself of it at once.

“The _true_ Church,” said he, wetting his lips with wine, “and the _true_
King.”

Sir George laughed, and looked round the hall.

“Ashore,” he observed, “I respect every man’s opinions, though nobody has
a right to think differently from the skipper afloat; but let me tell
you, my friend, such sentiments as your qualification implies had better
be kept to yourself. They might shorten your visit to Hamilton, and even
cause your journey to end at Traitor’s Gate in the Tower of London.”

He spoke in his usual reckless, good-humoured tone. Despite the warning,
Florian perceived that the subject was neither dreaded nor discouraged
by his host. He proceeded, therefore, to feel his ground cautiously, but
with confidence.

“Your English Government,” said he, “is doubtless on the watch, and with
good reason. In the Trades, I remember, we used to say that ‘The Bashful
Maid’ might be left to steer herself but when we got among the squalls
of the Caribbean Sea, we kept a pretty sharp look-out, as you know, to
shorten sail at a moment’s warning. Your ship up there in London is not
making very good weather of it even now, and the breeze is only springing
up to-day that will freshen to a gale to-morrow. At least, so we think
over the water. Perhaps we are misinformed.”

Sir George raised his eyebrows, and pondered. He had guessed as much
for some time. Though with so many new interests, he had busied himself
of late but little with politics, yet it was not in his nature to be
entirely unobservant of public affairs. He had seen plenty of clouds
on the horizon, and knew they portended storms; but the old habits of
military caution had not deserted him, and he answered, carelessly—

“That depends on what you think, you know. These Jesuits—pardon me,
comrade, I cannot help addressing you as a Musketeer—these Jesuits
sometimes know a great deal more than their prayers, but rather than
prove mistaken, they will themselves create the complications they claim
to have discovered. Frankly, you may speak out here. Our oak panels have
no ears, and my servants are most of them deaf, and all faithful. What
is the last infallible scheme at St. Omer? How many priests are stirring
hard at the broth? How many marshals of France are longing to scald their
mouths? Who is blowing the fire up, to keep it all hot and insure the
caldron’s bubbling over at the right moment?”

Florian laughed. “Greater names than you think for,” he replied; “fewer
priests, more marshals. Peers of France to light the fire, and a prince
of the blood to take the cover off. Oh! trust me this is no _soupe
maigre_. The stock is rich, the liquid savoury, and many a tempting
morsel lies floating here and there for those who are not afraid of a
dash with the flesh-hook, and will take their chance of burnt fingers in
the process.”

“That is all very well for people who are hungry,” answered Sir George;
“but when a man has dined, you can no longer tempt with a _ragoût_. The
desire of a full man is to sit still and digest his food.”

“Ambition has never dined,” argued the other; “ambition is always hungry
and has the digestion of an ostrich. Like that insatiable bird, it can
swallow an earl’s patent, parchment, ribbons, seals, and all, thankfully
and at a gulp!”

The baronet considered, took a draught of claret, and spoke out.

“Earls’ patents don’t go begging about in a Jesuit’s pocket without
reason; nor are they given to the first comer who asks, only because he
can swallow them. Tell me honestly what you mean Eugène—Florian. How am
I to call you? With _me_, you are as safe as in the confessional at St.
Omer. But speak no more in parables. Riddles are my aversion. A hidden
meaning is as irritating as an ugly woman in a mask, and I never in my
life could fence for ten minutes with an equal adversary, but I longed to
take the buttons off the foils!”

Thus adjured, Florian proceeded to unfold the object of his mission.

“You were surprised, perhaps,” said he, “to learn from Slap-Jack, who no
doubt thought me a ghost till I spoke first, that your old comrade would
be sitting with his legs at the same table as yourself this afternoon.
You were gratified, I am sure, but you must have been puzzled. Now, Sir
George, if you believe that my only reason for crossing the Channel, and
riding post a couple of hundred miles, was that I might empty a stoup of
this excellent claret in your company, you are mistaken.” He stopped,
blushed violently, somewhat to his host’s astonishment, and hid his
confusion by replenishing his glass.

“I had another object of far more importance both to yourself and to your
country. Besides this, I am but fulfilling the orders of my superiors.
They employed me—Heaven knows why they employed me!” he broke out
vehemently, “except that they thought you the dearest friend I had on
earth. And so you _are_! and so you _shall_ be! Listen, Sir George. The
last person I spoke with before leaving France, had dined with Villeroy,
previous to setting out for St. Omer. The young King had just seen the
Marshal, the latter was charged with his Majesty’s congratulations to the
King of England (the real King of England) on his infant’s recovery. The
boy who had been ailing is still in arms, and his Majesty asked if the
young Prince Charles could speak yet? ‘When he does,’ said Villeroy,
who has been a courtier for forty years, ‘the first sentence he ought to
say is ‘God bless the King of France.’ ‘Not so,’ answered his Majesty,
laughing, ‘let him learn the Jacobite countersign, “Box it about, it
will come to my father!” If they only “box it about” enough,’ he added,
‘that child in arms should be as sure of the British crown as I am of the
French!’ This is almost a declaration in form. It is considered so in
Paris. The King’s sentiments can no longer be called doubtful, and with
the strong party that I have every reason to believe exists in England
disaffected to your present Government, surely the time for action has
arrived. They thought so at St. Omer, in a conclave to which I am a mere
mouthpiece. I should think so myself, might a humble novice presume
to offer an opinion; and when the movement takes place, if Sir George
Hamilton is found where his blood, his antecedents, his high spirit and
adventurous character are likely to lead him, I have authority to declare
that he will be Sir George Hamilton no longer. The earl’s patent is
already made out, which any moment he pleases may be swallowed at a gulp,
for digestion at his leisure. I have said my say; I have made a clean
breast of it; send for Slap-Jack and your venerable butler; put me in
irons; hand me over to your municipal authorities, if you have any, and
let them drag me to prison; but give me another glass of that excellent
claret first, for my throat is dry with so much talking!”

Sir George laughed and complied.

“You are a plausible advocate, Florian,” he observed, after a moment’s
thought, “and your powers of argument are little inferior to your skill
in fence. But this is a lee-shore, my good friend, to which you are
driving, a lee-shore with bad anchorage, shoal water, and thick weather
all round. I like to keep the lead going on such a course, and only to
carry sail enough for steerage-way. As far as I am concerned, I should
wish to see them ‘box it about’ a little longer, before I made up my mind
how the game would go!”

“That is not like _you_!” exclaimed the Jesuit hotly. “The Hamiltons have
never yet waited to draw till they knew which was the winning side.”

“No man shall say that of me,” answered the other, in a stern, almost an
angry tone, and for a space, the two old comrades sat sipping their wine
in silence.

Sir George had spoken the truth when he said that a full man is willing
to sit still—at least as far as his own inclinations were concerned. He
had nothing to gain by a change, and everything to lose, should that
change leave him on the beaten side. Moreover, he relished the advantages
of his present position far more than had he been born with the silver
spoon in his mouth. Then, perhaps, he would have depreciated the luxury
of plate and believed that the pewter he had not tried might be equally
agreeable. People who have never been really hungry hardly understand the
merits of a good dinner. You must sleep on the bare ground for a week
or two before you know the value of sheets and blankets and a warm soft
bed. Sir George had got into safe anchorage now, and it required a strong
temptation to lure him out to sea again. True, the man’s habits were
those of an adventurer. He had led a life of action from the day he first
accompanied his father across the Channel in an open boat, at six years
old, till he found himself a prosperous, wealthy, disengaged country
gentleman at Hamilton Hill. He might grow tired of that respectable
position—it was very likely he would—but not yet. The novelty was still
pleasant; the ease, the leisure, the security, the freedom from anxiety,
were delightful to a man who had never before been “off duty,” so to
speak, in his life. Then he enjoyed above all things the field sports
of the wild country in which he lived. His hawks were the best within
a hundred miles. His hounds, hardy, rough, steady, and untiring, would
follow a lean travelling fox from dawn to dark of the short November day,
and make as good an account of him at last as of a fat wide-antlered stag
under the blazing sun of August. He had some interest, some excitement
for every season as it passed. If all his broad acres were not fertile
in corn, he owned wide meres covered with wild-fowl, streams in which
trout and grayling leaped in the soft May mornings, like rain-drops in
a shower, where the otter lurked and vanished, where the noble salmon
himself came arrowing up triumphant from the sea. Woods, too, in which
the stately red deer found a shelter, and swelling hills of purple
heather, where the moorcock pruned his wing, and the curlew’s plaintive
wail died off in the surrounding wilderness.

All this afforded pleasant pastime, none the less pleasant that his
limbs were strong, his health robust, and the happy, hungry sportsman
could return at sundown to a comfortable house, an excellent table, and
a cellar good enough for the Pope. Such material comforts are not to be
despised—least of all by men who have known the want of them. Ask any old
campaigner whether he does not appreciate warmth, food, and shelter; even
idleness, so long as the effects of previous fatigue remain. These things
may pall after a time, but until they _do_ so pall they are delightful,
and not to be relinquished but for weighty motives, nor even then without
regret.

Sir George, too, in taking a wife, had “given pledges to fortune,”
as Lord Bacon hath it. He loved Cerise very dearly, and although an
elevating affection for a worldly object will never make a man a coward,
it tones down all the wild recklessness of his nature, and bids the
boldest hesitate ere he risks his earthly treasure even at the call of
ambition. It is the sore heart that seeks an anodyne in the excitement of
danger and the confusion of tumultuous change.

Moreover, men’s habits of thought are acted on far more easily than they
will admit, by the opinions of those amongst whom they live.

Sir George’s friends and neighbours, the honest country gentlemen with
whom he cheered his hounds or killed his game abroad, and drank his
claret at home, were enthusiastic Jacobites in theory, but loyal and
quiet subjects of King George in practice. They inherited, indeed, much
of the high feeling, and many of the chivalrous predilections that
had instigated their grandfathers and great-grandfathers to strike
desperately for King Charles at Marston Moor and Naseby Field, but they
inherited also the sound sense that was often found lurking under the
Cavalier’s love-locks, the dogged patriotism, and strong affection for
their church, which filled those hearts that beat so stoutly behind laced
shirts and buff coats when opposed to Cromwell and his Ironsides.

With the earlier loyalists, to uphold the Stuart was to fight for
principle, property, personal freedom, and liberty of conscience, but to
support his grandson now was a different matter altogether. His cause
had but one argument in its favour, and that was the magic of a name. To
take up arms on his behalf was to lose lands, position, possibly life, if
defeated, of which catastrophe there seemed every reasonable prospect;
while, in the event of victory, there was too much ground to suppose that
the reward of these efforts would be to see the Church of England, the
very institution for which they had been taught by their fathers to shed
their blood, oppressed, persecuted, and driven from her altars by the
Church of Rome.

As in a long and variable struggle between two wrestlers, each of the
great contending parties might now be said to stand upon the adversary’s
ground, their tactics completely altered, their positions exactly
reversed.

It was only in the free intercourse of conviviality, with feelings roused
by song, or brains heated by claret, that the bulk of these Northern
country gentlemen ever thought of alluding to the absent family in terms
of affection and regret. They were for the most part easy in their
circumstances and happy in their daily course of life; their heads were
safe, their rents rising, and they were satisfied to leave well alone.

George had that day met some dozen of his new companions, neighbouring
gentlemen with whom he was now on friendly and familiar terms, at a
cock-fight; this little assemblage represented fairly enough the tone of
feeling that prevailed through the whole district, these jovial squires
might be taken as fair representatives of their order in half a dozen
counties north of the Trent. As he passed them mentally in review, one
by one, he could not think of a single individual likely to listen
favourably to such proposals as Florian seemed empowered to make, at
least at an earlier hour than three in the afternoon.

When dinner was pretty well advanced, many men, in those days, were
wont to display an enthusiastic readiness for any wild scheme broached,
irrespective of their inability to comprehend its bearings, and their
impatience of its details; but when morning brought headache and
reflection, such over-hasty partisans were, of all others, the least
disposed to encounter the risk, the expense, and especially the trouble,
entailed by another Jacobite rising in favour of the Stuarts. Sir George
could think of none who, in sober earnest, would subscribe a shilling to
the cause, or bring a single mounted soldier into the field.

There was also one more reason, touching his self-interest very closely,
which rendered Sir George Hamilton essentially an upholder of the
existing state of things. He had broad acres, indeed, but the men with
broad acres have never in the history of our country been averse to
meddling with public affairs—they have those acres to look to in every
event. If worst comes to worst, sequestration only lasts while the enemy
remains in power, and landed property, though it may elude its owner for
a while, does not vanish entirely off the face of the earth. But Sir
George had made considerable gains during his seafaring career, with
the assistance of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ and these he had invested in a
flourishing concern, which, under the respectable title of the Bank of
England, has gone on increasing in prosperity to the present day. The
Bank of England had lent large sums of money to the Government, and as
a revolution would have forced it to stop payment, Sir George, even if
he had chosen to accept his earl’s patent, must have literally bought it
with all the hard cash he possessed in the world.

Such a consideration alone would have weighed but little, for he was
neither a timid man nor a covetous; but when, with his habitual quickness
of thought, he reviewed the whole position, scanning all its difficulties
at a glance, he made up his mind that unless his old lieutenant had
some more dazzling bait to offer than an earl’s coronet, he would not
entertain his proposals seriously for a moment.

“And what have _you_ to gain?” he asked, good-humouredly, after a short
silence, during which each had been busy with his own meditations. “What
do they offer the zealous Jesuit priest in consideration of his services,
supposing those services are successful? What will they give you? The
command of the Body-Guard in London, or the fleet at Sheerness? Will they
make you a councillor, a colonel, or a commodore? Lord Mayor of London,
or Archbishop of Canterbury? On my honour, Florian, I believe you are
capable of filling any one of these posts with infinite credit. Something
has been promised you, surely, were it only a pair of scarlet hose and a
cardinal’s hat.”

“_Nothing_! as I am a gentleman and a priest!” answered Florian, eagerly.
“My advocacy is but for your own sake! For the aggrandisement of yourself
and those who love you! For the interests of loyalty and the true
religion!”

“You were always an enthusiast,” answered the baronet, kindly, “and
enthusiasts in every cause are juggled out of their reward. Take a leaf
from the book of your employers, and remember their own watchword: ‘Box
it about, it will come to my father.’ Do you let them box it about, till
it has nearly reached the—the—well—the claimant of the British crown, and
when he has opened his hands to seize the prize, _you_ give it the last
push that sends it into his grasp—the Pope could not offer you better
counsel. If you have drunk enough claret, let us go to our coffee in Lady
Hamilton’s boudoir.”

But Florian excused himself on the plea of fatigue and business. He had
letters to write, he said, which was perfectly true, though they might
well have been postponed for a day, or even a week—but he wanted an
hour’s solitude to survey his position, to look steadily on the future,
and determine how far he should persevere in the course on which he had
embarked. Neither had he courage to face Cerise again so soon. He felt
anxious, agitated, unnerved, by her very presence, and the sound of her
voice. To-morrow he would feel more like himself. To-morrow he could
learn to look upon her as she must always be to him in future, the wife
of his friend. Of course, he argued, this task would become easier day
by day; and so, to begin it, he leaned out of window, watching the stars
come one by one into view, breathing the perfume from the late autumn
flowers in her garden, and thinking that, while to him she was more
beautiful than the star, more loveable than the flower, he might as well
hope to reach the one as to pluck _her_ like the other, and wear her for
himself.

Still, he resolved that his affection, mad, hopeless as it was, should
never exceed the limits he had marked out. He would watch over her steps
and secure her happiness; he would make her husband great and noble for
her sake; everything belonging to her should be for him a sacred and
inviolable trust. He would admire her as an angel, and adore her as a
saint! It was good, he thought, for both of them, that he was a priest!

Enthusiasm in all but the cause of Heaven is, indeed, usually juggled out
of its reward, and Sir George had read Florian’s character aright when he
called him an enthusiast.




CHAPTER XLV

THE LITTLE RIFT


    _From Lady Hamilton to Madame la Marquise de Montmirail._

“MY VERY DEAR MAMMA,—

“You shall not again have cause to complain of my negligence in writing,
nor to accuse me of forgetting my own dear mother, amongst all the new
employments and dissipations of my English home.

“You figure to yourself that both are extremely engrossing, and so
numerous that I have not many moments to spare, even for the most sacred
of duties. Of employments, yes, these are indeed plentiful, and recur
day by day. Would you like to know what they are? At seven every morning
my coffee is brought by an English maid, who stares at me open-mouthed
while I drink it, and wonders I do not prefer to breakfast like herself,
directly I am up, on salt beef and small beer. She has not learned any
of my dresses by name; and when she fastens my hair, her hands tremble
so, that it all comes tumbling about my shoulders long before I can get
downstairs. She is stupid, awkward, slow, but gentle, willing, and rather
pretty. Somehow I cannot help loving her, though I wish with all my heart
she was a better maid.

“If George has not already gone out on some sporting expedition—and he
is passionately fond of such pursuits, perhaps because they relieve the
monotony of married life, which, I fear, is inexpressibly tedious to men
like him, who have been accustomed to constant excitement—I find him
in the great hall eating as if he were famished, and in a prodigious
hurry to be off. I fill him his cup of claret with my own hands, for
my darling says he can only drink wine in the morning when I pour it
out for him myself; and before I have time to ask a single question he
is in the saddle and gallops off. Mamma, I never _have_ time to ask him
any questions. I suppose men are always so busy. I sometimes think I
too should like to have been a man. Perhaps, then, this large, dark,
over-furnished house would not look so gloomy when he is gone.

“Perhaps, too, the housekeeper would not tell me such long stories about
what they did in the time when Barbara, Lady Hamilton, reigned here. By
all accounts she must have been an ogress, with a mania for accumulating
linen. You will laugh at me, dear mamma—you who never feared the face of
any human being—but I am a little afraid of this good Dame Diaper, and so
glad when our interview is over. I wish I had more courage. George must
think me such a coward, he who is so brave. I heard him say the other
day that the finest sight he ever saw in his life was the _beautiful
Marquise_ (meaning you, mamma) at bay. I asked him if he did not see
poor frightened me at a sad disadvantage? and he answered by—No, I won’t
tell you how he answered. Ah! dear mother, I always wished to be like
you from the time I was a little girl. Every day now I wish it more and
more. After my release from Dame Diaper I go to the garden and look at my
Provence roses—there are seven buds to flower yet; and the autumn here,
though finer than I expected, is much colder than in France. Then I walk
out and visit my poor. I wish I could understand their _patois_ better,
but I am improving day by day.

“The hours do not pass by very quick till three o’clock; but at three we
dine, and George is sure to be back, often bringing a friend with him who
stays all night, for in this country the gentlemen do not like travelling
after dinner, and perhaps they are very right. When we have guests I see
but little of George again till supper-time, and then I am rather tired,
and he is forced to attend to his company, so that I have no opportunity
of conversing with him. Would you believe it, mamma, for three days I
have wanted to speak to him about an alteration in my garden, and we have
never yet had a spare five minutes to go and look at it together?

“Our employments in England, you see, are regular, and perhaps a little
monotonous, but they are gaiety itself, compared with our amusements. I
like these English, or rather, I should say, I respect them (mind, mamma,
I do not call my husband a regular Englishman), but I think when they
amuse themselves they appear to the greatest disadvantage.

“We were invited, George and I, the other day, to dine with our
neighbour, Sir Marmaduke Umpleby. Heavens! what a strange name! We
started at noon, because he lives three leagues off, and the roads are
infamous; they are not paved like ours, but seem mere tracts through
the fields and across the moor. It rained the whole journey; and though
we had six horses, we stuck twice and were forced to get out and walk.
George carried me in his arms that I might not wet my feet, and swore
horribly, but with good humour, and only, as he says, _en Mousquetaire_!
I was not a bit frightened—I never am with _him_. At last there we are
arrived, a party of twenty to meet us, and dinner already served. I am
presented to every lady in turn—there are nine of them—and they all shake
hands with me; but, after that, content themselves with hoping I am not
wet, and then they stare—how they stare! as if I were some wild animal
caught in a trap. I do not know where to look. You cannot think, mamma,
what a difference there is between a society in England and with us. The
gentlemen are then presented to me, and I like these far better than the
ladies; they are rather awkward perhaps and unpolished in manner, but
they seem gentlemen at heart, terribly afraid of a woman, one and all,
yet respecting her, obviously because she _is_ a woman; and though they
blush, and stammer, and tread on your dress, something seems to tell you
that they are really ready to sacrifice for you their own vanity and
convenience.

“This is to me more flattering than the external politeness of our French
gallants, who bow indeed with an air of inimitable courtesy, and use the
most refined phrases, while all the time they are saying things that make
you feel quite hot. Now, George never puts one in a false position—I
mean, he never used. He has an Englishman’s heart, and the manners of a
French prince; but then, you know, there is nobody like my own Musketeer.

“At last we go to dinner. Such a dinner! Enormous joints of sheep and
oxen steaming under one’s very nose! In England, to amuse oneself, it is
not only necessary to have prodigious quantities to eat, but one must
also sit among the smoke and savour of the dishes till they are consumed.

“It took away my appetite completely, and I think my fan has smelt
of beef ever since. I sat next Sir Marmaduke, and he good-naturedly
endeavoured to make conversation for me by talking of Paris and the
Regent’s Court. His ideas of our manners and customs were odd, to say
the least, and he seemed quite surprised to learn that unmarried ladies
never went into general society alone, and even married ones usually with
their husbands. I hope he has a better opinion of us now. I am quite sure
the poor old gentleman thought the proprieties were sadly disregarded in
Paris till I enlightened him.

“The English ladies are scrupulously correct in their demeanour; they
are, I do believe, the most excellent of wives and mothers; but oh!
mamma, to be virtuous, is it necessary to be so ill-dressed? When we
left the gentlemen to their wine, which is always done here, and which,
I think, must be very beneficial to the wine-trade, we adjourned to a
large cold room, where we sat in a circle, and had nothing to do but
look at each other. I thought I had never seen so many bright colours so
tastelessly put together. My hostess herself, a fresh, well-preserved
woman of a certain age, wore a handsome set of amethysts with a purple
dress—Amethysts and purple! great Heaven! It would have driven Célandine
mad!

“It was dull—figure to yourself how dull—nine women waiting for their
nine husbands, and not a subject in common except the probability of
continued rain! Still we talked—it must be admitted we contrived to
talk—and after a while the gentlemen appeared, and supper came; so the
day was over at last, and next morning we were to go home. Believe me, I
was not sorry.

“Yesterday we had a visitor, and imagine if he was welcome, since he
brought me news of my dear mamma. He had seen Madame la Marquise passing
the Palais Royal in her coach before she left Paris for Touraine. ‘How
was she looking?’ ‘As she always does, avowedly the most beautiful lady
in France.’ ‘Like a damask rose,’ says George, with a laugh at poor pale
me. Our visitor did not speak to Madame, for he has not the honour of her
acquaintance; ‘but it is enough to see her once in a season,’ said he,
‘and do homage from a distance.’

“Was not all this very polite, and very prettily expressed? Now can you
guess who this admirer of yours may be? I will give you ten chances; I
will give you a hundred. Monsieur de St. Croix! the priest who was my
director at the convent, and who appeared so opportunely at the little
white chapel above Port Welcome. Is it not strange that he should be here
now? I have put him into the oak-room on the _entresol_, because it is
warm and quiet, and he looks so pale and ill. He is the mere shadow of
what he used to be, and I should hardly have known him but for his dark
expressive eyes. So different from George, who is the picture of health,
and handsomer, I think, than ever. He (I mean Monsieur de St. Croix) is
very agreeable and full of French news. He is also an excellent gardener,
and helps me out-of-doors almost every day, now that George is so much
occupied. He says that the priests of his Order learn to do everything;
and I believe if I asked him to dress an omelette, he would manage to
accomplish it. At least, I am sure he would try. To-day he is gone to see
some of his colleagues who have an establishment far up in the Dales, as
we call them here, and George is out with his hawks, so I am rather dull;
but do not think that is the reason I have sat down to write you this
foolish letter. Next to hearing from you, it is my greatest pleasure to
tell you all about myself, and fancy that I am speaking to you even at
this great distance. Think of me, dear mamma, very often, for scarcely an
hour passes that I do not think of you.”

The letter concluded with an elaborate account of a certain white dress,
the result of a successful combination, in which lace, muslin, and
cherry-coloured ribbons formed the principal ingredients, which George
had admired very much—not, however, until his attention was called to it
by the wearer—and which was put on for the first time the day of Monsieur
de St. Croix’s arrival.

Madame de Montmirail received this missive in little more than a week
after it was written, and replied at once.

    _Madame de Montmirail to Lady Hamilton._

“It rejoiced me so much to hear from you, my dear child. I was getting
anxious about your health, your spirits, a thousand things that I think
of continually; for my darling Cerise is never out of my mind. What you
say of your society amuses me, and I can well imagine my shy girl feeling
lost amongst an assemblage of awkward gentlemen and stupid ladies, far
more than in a court ball at the Palais Royal, or a reception at Marly
as it used to be; alas! as it will be no more. When you are as old as
I am—for I am getting very old now, as you would say if you could see
me closeted every morning over my accounts with my intendant—when you
are as old as I am, you will have learned that there is very little
difference between one society and another, so long as people are of a
certain class, of course, and do not eat with their knives. Manner is
but a trick, easily acquired if we begin young, but impossible to learn
after thirty. Real politeness, which is a different thing altogether,
is but good nature in its best clothes, and consists chiefly in the
faculty of putting oneself in another person’s place, and the wish to do
as one would be done by. I have often seen people with very bad manners
exceedingly polite. I have also even oftener seen the reverse. If you do
not suffer yourself to find these English tedious, you will extract from
them plenty of amusement; and the talent of being easily entertained is
one to be cultivated to the utmost.

“Even in Paris, they tell me to-day, such a talent would be most
enviable; for all complain of the dulness pervading society, and
the oppressive influence of the Court. I cannot speak from my own
observation, for I have been careful to go nowhere while in the capital,
and to retire to my estates here in Touraine as quickly as possible. I
have not even seen the Prince-Marshal, nor do I feel that my spirits
would be good enough to endure his importunate kindness. I hear,
moreover, that he devotes himself now to Mademoiselle de Villeroy, the
old Marshal’s youngest daughter; so you will excuse me of pique rather
than ingratitude.

“I am not unhappy here, for I think I like a country life. My intendant
is excessively stupid, and supplies me with constant occupation. I pass
my mornings in business, and see my housekeeper too, but am not the
least afraid of her, and I write an infinity of letters, some of them to
Montmirail West. Célandine is still there with her husband, and they have
got the estate once more under cultivation. Had I left it immediately
after the revolt, I am persuaded every acre of it would have passed out
of our possession. We had a narrow escape, my darling, though I think I
could have held out five minutes longer; but I shall never forget the
flash of Sir George’s sword as he leaped in, nor, I think, will _you_.
He is a brave man, my child, and a resolute. Such are the easiest for a
woman to manage; but still the art of guiding a husband is not unlike
that of ruling a horse. You must adapt yourself instinctively to his
movements; but, although you should never seem mistrustful, you must
not altogether abandon the rein. Whilst you feel it gently, he has all
imaginable liberty; but you know _exactly where he is_. Above all, never
wound yours in his self-love. He would not show he was hurt, but the
injury with him would, therefore, be incurable. I do not think he would
condescend to expostulate, or to give you a chance of explanation; but
day by day you would find yourselves farther and farther apart. You would
be miserable, and perhaps so would he.

“You will wonder that I should have studied his character so carefully;
but is not your happiness now the first, my only object, in the world?

“Monsieur de St. Croix seems to be an agreeable addition to your family
_tête-à-tête_. Not that such an addition can be already required; but I
suppose, as an old comrade and friend, your husband cannot but entertain
him so long as he chooses to remain. Was not he the man with the romantic
story, who had been priest, fencing-master, pirate, what shall I say?
and priest again? I cannot imagine such avocations imparting a deeper
knowledge of flowers than is possessed by your own gardener at home; and
if I were in your place, I should on no account permit him to interfere
with the omelette in any way. Neither in a flower-garden nor a kitchen
is a priest in his proper place. I think yours would be better employed
in the saddle _en route_ for St. Omer, or wherever his college is
established.

“Talking of the last-named place reminds me of Malletort. The Abbé,
strange to say, has thrown himself into the arms of the Jesuits. Though I
have seen him repeatedly, I cannot learn his intentions, nor the nature
of his schemes, for scheme he will, I know, so long as his brain can
think. He talks of absence from France, and hints at a mission from the
Order to some savage climes; but if he anticipates martyrdom, which I
cannot easily believe, his spirits are wonderfully little depressed by
the prospect, and he seems, if possible, more sarcastic than ever. He
even rode with me after dinner the last time he was here, and asked me a
thousand questions about you. I ride by myself now, and I like it better.
I can wander about these endless woods, and think—think. What else is
left when the time to act is gone by?

“You tell me little about Sir George; his health, his looks, his
employments. Does he mingle with the society of the country? Does he
interest himself in politics? Whatever his pursuits, I am sure he will
take a leading part. Give him my kindest regards. You will both come and
see me here some day before very long. Write again soon to your loving
mother. They brought me a half-grown fawn last week from the top of the
Col St. Jacques, where you dropped your glove into the waterfall. We are
trying to tame it in the garden, and I call it Cerise.”

No letter could be more affectionate, more motherly. Why did Lady
Hamilton shed the first tears of her married life during its perusal?
She wept bitterly, confessed she was foolish, nervous, hysterical; read
it over once more, and wept again. Then she bathed her eyes, as she used
at the convent, but without so satisfactory a result, smoothed her hair,
composed her features, and went downstairs.

Florian had been absent all the morning. He had again ridden abroad to
meet a conclave of his Order, held at an old abbey far off amongst the
dales, and was expected back to dinner. It now occurred to her, for
the first time, that the hours passed less quickly in his absence. She
was provoked at the thought, and attributed her ill-humour, somewhat
unfairly, to her mother’s letter. The tears nearly sprang to her eyes
again, but she sent them back with an effort, and descended the wide old
staircase in an uncomfortable, almost an irritable, frame of mind, for
which she could give no reason even to herself.

Strange to say, George was waiting for her in the hall. He had returned
wet from hunting, and was now dressed and ready for dinner a few minutes
before the usual time. Florian had not yet made his appearance.

“What has become of our priest?” called out the baronet, good-humouredly,
as his wife descended the stairs. “I thought, Cerise, he was tied to your
apron-strings, and would never be absent at this hour of the day. I wish
he may not have met with some disaster,” he added more gravely; “there
are plenty of hawks even in this out-of-the-way place, to whom Florian’s
capture, dead or alive, would be worth a purse of gold!”

It was impossible to help it, coming thus immediately on her mother’s
letter, and although she was fiercely angry with herself for the
weakness, Cerise blushed down to the very tips of her fingers. George
could not but remark her confusion, and observed, at the same time, that
her eyelids were red from recent tears. He looked surprised, but his
voice was kindly and reassuring as usual.

“Good heavens, my darling! What has happened?” he asked, putting his arm
round her waist. “You have had bad news, or you are ill, or something is
amiss!”

She was as pale now as she had been crimson a moment before. How could
she explain to _him_ the cause of her confusion? How could she hope to
make a _man_ understand her feelings? Her first impulse was to produce
her mother’s letter, but the remarks in it about their guest prevented
her following so wise a course, and yet if she ignored it altogether
would not this be the first secret from her husband? No wonder she turned
pale. It seemed as if her mother’s warning were required already.

In such a dilemma she floundered, of course, deeper and deeper. By way
of changing the subject, she caught at her husband’s suggestion, and
exclaimed with her pale face and tearful eyes—

“Capture! Monsieur de St. Croix captured! Heavens, George, we cannot go
to dinner unconcerned if our guest is in real danger. You can save him,
you _must_ save him! What shall we do?”

He had withdrawn his arm from her waist. He looked her scrutinisingly in
the face, and then turned away to the window.

“Make yourself easy, Cerise,” he answered, coldly. “I see him riding up
the avenue. Your suspense will be over in less than five minutes now.”

Then he began to play with the hawk on its perch, teasing the bird, and
laughing rather boisterously at its ruffled plumage and impotent anger.

She felt she had offended, though she scarcely knew how, and after a
moment’s consideration determined to steal behind him, put her arms round
his neck and tell him so. The very conflict showed she loved him, the
victory over her own heart’s pride proved how dearly, but unfortunately
at this moment Florian entered full of apologies for being late, followed
by Slap-Jack and a line of servants bringing dinner.

Unfortunately, also, and according to the usual fatality in such cases,
Monsieur de St. Croix addressed most of his conversation to Lady
Hamilton during the meal, and she could not but betray by her manner an
embarrassment she had no cause to feel. Sir George may possibly have
observed this, some womanly intuition told Cerise that he did, but his
bearing was frank and good-humoured to both, though he filled his glass
perhaps oftener than usual, and laughed a little louder than people do
who are quite at ease. The wife’s quick ear, no doubt, detected so much,
and it made her wretched. She loved him very dearly, and it seemed so
hard that without any fault of her own she should thus mark “the little
rift within the lute,” threatening her with undeserved discord; “the
little pitted speck in the garnered fruit,” eating into all the bloom and
promise of her life.




CHAPTER XLVI

THE MUSIC MUTE


When Cerise found herself alone, she naturally read her mother’s letter
once again, and made a variety of resolutions for her future conduct
which she could not but acknowledge were derogatory to her own dignity
the while. It was her duty, she told herself, to yield to her husband’s
prejudices, however unreasonable; to give way to him in this, as in every
other difference of married life—for she felt it _was_ a difference,
though expressed only by a turn of his eyebrow, a contraction of his
lip—and to trample her own pride under foot when he required it, however
humiliating and disagreeable it might be to herself. If George was so
absurd as to think she showed an over-anxiety for the safety of their
guest, why, she must bear with his folly because he was her husband, and
school her manner to please him, as she schooled her thoughts. After all,
was she not interested in Florian only as _his_ friend? What was it, what
_could_ it be to her, if the priest were carried off to York gaol, or
the Tower of London, to-morrow? Lady Hamilton passed very rapidly over
this extreme speculation, and perhaps she was right; though it is easy
to convince yourself by argument that you are uninterested in any one,
the actual process of your thoughts is apt to create something very like
a special interest which increases in proportion to the multitude of
reasons adduced against its possibility, and that which was but a phantom
when you sat down to consider it has grown into a solid and tangible
substance when you get up. Lady Hamilton, therefore, was discreet in
reverting chiefly to what her husband thought of _her_, not to what
_she_ thought of Monsieur de St. Croix.

“He is jealous!” she said to herself, clasping her hands with an emotion
that was not wholly without pleasure. “Jealous, poor fellow, and that
shows he loves me. Ah! he little knows! he little knows!”

By the time the two gentlemen had finished their wine, and come to her
small withdrawing-room, according to custom, for coffee, Cerise had
worked herself up into a high state of self-sacrifice and wife-like
devotion. It created rather a reaction to find that Sir George’s manner
was as cordial and open as ever. He was free with his guest, and familiar
with herself, laughing and jesting as if the cloud that had overshadowed
his spirits before dinner was now completely passed away and forgotten.
She was a little disappointed—a little provoked. After all, then, what
mountains had she been making of mole-hills! What a deep grief and
abject penitence that had been to _her_, which was but a chance moment
of ill-humour, an unconsidered thoughtless whim of her husband, and what
a fool had she been so to distress herself, and to resolve that she
would even relax the rules of good breeding—fail in the common duties of
hospitality, for such a trifle!

She conversed with Florian, therefore, as usual, which was a little. She
listened to him also as usual, which was a good deal. Sir George forced
the thought from his mind again and again, yet he could not get rid of
it. “How bright Cerise looks when he is talking to her! I never saw her
so amused and interested in any one before!”

Now, Monsieur de St. Croix’s life at Hamilton Hill ought to have been
sufficiently agreeable, if it be true that the real way to make time pass
pleasantly is to alternate the labour of the head and the hands; to be
daily engaged in some work of importance, varied by periods of relaxation
and moderate excitement. Florian’s correspondence usually occupied him
for several hours in the morning, and it was remarked that the voluminous
packets he received and transmitted were carried by special couriers who
arrived and departed at stated times. Some of the correspondence was in
cipher, most of it in French, with an English translation, and it seemed
to refer principally to the geological formation of the neighbourhood,
though a line or two of political gossip interspersed would relieve
the dryness of that profound subject. Perhaps many of these packets,
ciphers, scientific information, and all, were intended to be read by the
authorities at St. James’s. Perhaps every courier was entrusted with a
set of despatches on purpose to be seized, and a line in the handle of
his whip, a word or two spoken in apparent jest, a mere sign that might
be forwarded to a confederate looker-on, signifying the real gist of his
intelligence.

At any rate the papers required a deal of preparation, and Florian was
seldom able to accompany his host on the sporting expeditions in which
the latter took such delight.

Sir George, then, would be off soon after daylight, to return at
dinner-time, and in a whole fortnight had not yet found that spare five
minutes for a visit to Lady Hamilton’s garden, while Florian would be
at leisure by noon, and naturally devoted himself to the service of his
hostess for the rest of the day.

They read together—they walked together—they gardened together. Some of
those special packets that arrived from France, even contained certain
seeds which Cerise had expressed a wish to possess, and they talked of
their future crop, and the result of their joint labours next year, as if
Florian had become an established member of the family, and was never to
depart.

This mode of life might have been interrupted by her ladyship’s
misgivings at first, but she reflected that it would be absurd for her
to discontinue an agreeable companionship of which her husband obviously
approved, only because she had misapplied her mother’s letter, or her
mother had misunderstood hers; also it is difficult to resume coldness
and reserve, where we have given, and wish to give, confidence and
friendship, so Florian and Cerise were to be seen every fine day on the
terrace at Hamilton Hill hard at work, side by side, like brother and
sister, over the same flower-bed.

“Florian!” she would say, for Cerise had so accustomed herself to his
Christian name in talking of him with her husband, that she did not
always call him Monsieur de St. Croix to his face. “Florian! come and
help me to tie up this rose-tree—there, hold the knot while I fasten
it—now run and fetch me the scissors, they are lying by my flowers on the
step. Quick—or it will slip out of my hands! So _there_ is my Provence
rose at last—truly a rose without a thorn!”

And Florian did her bidding like a dog, watched her eye, followed her
about, and seemed to take a dog’s pleasure in the mere fact of being
near her. His reward, too, was much the same as that faithful animal’s,
a kind word, a bright look, a wave of the white hand, denoting a mark of
approval rather than a caress. Sometimes, for a minute or two, he could
almost fancy he was happy.

And Sir George—did Sir George approve of this constant intercourse, this
daily companionship? Were his hawks and his hounds, his meetings with his
neighbours for the administration of justice and the training of militia,
for the excitement of a cock-fight or the relaxation of a bowling-match,
so engrossing that he never thought of his fair young wife, left for
hours in that lonely mansion on the hill to her own thoughts and the
society of a Jesuit priest? It was hard to say—Sir George Hamilton’s
disposition was shrewd though noble, ready to form suspicion but
disdaining to entertain it, prone more than another to suffer from
misplaced confidence, but the last in the world to confess its injuries
even to himself.

He had never seemed more energetic, never showed better spirits than now.
His hawks struck their quarry, his hounds ran into their game, his horses
carried him far ahead of his fellow-sportsmen. His advice was listened to
at their meetings, his opinions quoted at their tables, his popularity
was at its height with all the country gentlemen of the neighbourhood.
He cheered lustily in the field, and drank his bottle fairly at the
fire-side, yet all the time, under that smooth brow, that jovial manner,
that comely cheek, there lurked a something which turned the chase to
penance, and the claret to gall.

He was not jealous, far from it. _He_ jealous—what degradation! And of
Cerise—what sacrilege! No, it was not jealousy that thus obtruded its
shadow over those sunny moors, athwart that fair autumn sky; it was
more a sense of self-reproach, of repentance, of remorse, as if he
had committed some injustice to a poor helpless being, that he could
never now repay. A lower nature incapable of the sentiment would in
its inferiority have been spared much needless pain. It was as if he
had wounded a child, a lamb, or some such weak loveable creature, by
accident, and could not stanch the wound. It would have been cowardly had
he meant it, but he did not mean it, and it was only clumsy; yet none the
less was he haunted by the patient eyes, the mute appealing sorrow that
spoke so humbly to his heart.

What if this girl, whose affection he had never doubted, did really not
love him after all? What if the fancy that he knew she had entertained
for him was but a girl’s fancy for the first man who had roused her
vanity and flattered her self-esteem? It might be that she had only
prized him because she had seen so few others, that her ideal was
something quite different, he said in bitterness of spirit, to a rough
ignorant soldier, a mere hunting, hawking, north-country baronet,
whose good qualities, if he had any, were but a blunt honesty, and an
affection for herself he had not the wit to express; whose personal
advantages did but consist in a strong arm, and a weather-browned cheek,
like any ploughman on his estate. Perhaps the man who would really have
suited her was of a different type altogether, a refined scholar, an
accomplished courtier, one who could overlay a masculine understanding
with the graceful trickeries of a woman’s fancy, who could talk to her of
sentiment, romance, affinity of spirits, and congeniality of character.
Such a man as this pale-faced priest—not him in particular, that had
nothing to do with it! but some one like him—there were hundreds of them
whom she might meet at any time. It was not that he thought she loved
another, but that the possibility now dawned of her not loving him.

He did not realise this at first. It was long before he could bring
himself to look such a privation in the face—the blank it would make in
his own life was too chilling to contemplate—and to do him justice his
first thought was not of his own certain misery, but of her lost chances
of happiness. If now, when it was too late, she should find one whom she
could really love, had he not stood between her and the light? Would he
not be the clog round her neck, the curse rather than the blessing of her
existence?

Of all this he was vaguely conscious, not actually thinking out his
reflections, far less expressing them, but aware, nevertheless, of some
deadening, depressing influence that weighed him down like a nightmare,
from which, morning after morning, he never woke.

But this inner life which all men must live, affected the outer not
at all. Sir George flung his hawks aloft and cheered his hounds with
unabated zest, while Florian held Lady Hamilton’s scissors, and helped to
tie up her roses, under the grey and gold of the soft autumnal sky.

They had a thousand matters to talk about, a thousand reminiscences in
common, now that the old intimacy had returned. On many points they
thought alike, and discoursed pleasantly enough, on many they differed,
and it was to these, I think, that they reverted with the keenest relish
again and again.

Cerise was a rigid Catholic—the more so now that she lived in a
Protestant country, and with a husband whose antecedents had taught him
to place little value on the mere external forms of religion. One of the
dogmas on which she chiefly insisted was the holiness of the Church,
and the separation of the clergy from all personal interests in secular
pursuits.

“A priest,” said Cerise, snipping off the ends of the matting with which
she had tied up her rose-tree, “a priest is priest _avant tout_—that
of course. But in my opinion his character is not one bit less sacred
outside, in the street, than when he is saying high mass before the
altar. He should never approach the line of demarcation that separates
him from the layman. So long as he thinks only the thoughts of the
Church, and speaks her words, he is infallible. When he expresses his own
opinions and yields to his own feelings, he is no longer the priest, but
the man. He might as well, perhaps better, be a courtier or a musketeer!”

He stooped low down over the rose-tree, and his voice was very sad and
gentle while he replied—

“Far better—far better—a labourer, a lackey, or a shoe-black. It is a
cruel lot to bear a yoke that is too heavy for the neck, and to feel that
it can never be taken off. To sit in a prison looking into your empty
grave and knowing there is no escape till you fill it—perhaps not even
then—while all the time the children are laughing at their play outside,
and the scent of the summer roses comes in through the bars—the summer
roses that your hands shall never reach, your lips shall never press! Ah!
that is the ingenuity of the torture, when perhaps, to wear one of these
roses in your bosom for an hour, you would barter your priesthood here,
and your soul hereafter!”

“It must be hard sometimes,” answered Cerise, kindly—“very hard; but is
not that the whole value of the ordeal? What do _we_ give up for our
faith—even we poor women, who hold ourselves good Catholics?—three hours
at most in the week, and a slice of the sirloin or the haunch on Friday.
Oh, Florian, it is dreadful to me to think how little I can do to further
the work of the Church! I feel as if a thousand strong men were pulling,
with all their might, at a load, and I could only put one of my poor weak
fingers on the rope for a second at a time.”

“My daughter,” he answered, assuming at once the sacerdotal character,
“the weakest efforts, rendered with a will, are counted by the Church
with the strongest. St. Clement says that ‘if one, going on his daily
business, shall move out of his way but two steps towards the altar, he
shall not be without his reward.’ Submit yourself to the Church and her
ministers, in thought, word, and deed, so will she take your burden on
her own shoulders, and be answerable for your welfare in this world and
the next.”

It was the old dangerous doctrine he had learned by rote and repeated
to so many penitents during his ministration. He saw the full influence
of it now, and wished, for one wild moment, that he could be a better
Christian, or a worse! But when she turned her eyes on him so hopefully,
so trustfully, the evil spirit was rebuked, and came out of the man,
tearing him the while, and almost tempting him to curse her—the woman
he worshipped—because, for the moment, her face was “as the face of
an angel.” He had a mind then to return to St. Omer at once—to trust
himself no longer with this task, this duty, this penance, whatever their
cruelty chose to call it—to confess his insubordination without reserve,
and accept whatever penalty the Order might inflict! But she put her
hand softly on his arm, and spoke so kindly, that evil desires and good
resolutions were dispelled alike.

“Florian,” said she, “you will help me to do right, I know. And I, too—I
can be of some small aid even to you. You are happy here, I am sure.”

“Happy!” he repeated, almost with a sob; and, half-conquering his enemy,
half-giving in, adopted at last that middle course, which runs so smooth
and easy, like a tram-way down the broad road. “I am happy in so far as
that, by remaining at Hamilton, I can hope to speed the interests of the
true Church. You say that a priest should never mix himself with secular
affairs. You little know how, in these evil days, our chief duties are
connected with political intrigue—our very existence dependent on the
energy we show as men of action and men of the world. Why am I here, Lady
Hamilton, do you think? Is it to counsel you, as I used at the convent,
and hold your gloves, and look in your face, and tie up your roses? It
would be happy for me, indeed, if such were all my duties; for I could
live and die, desiring no better. Alas! it is not so. My mission to
England does not affect you. Its object is the aggrandisement of your
husband.”

“Not affect _me_!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands eagerly. “Oh,
Florian! how can you say so? Tell me what it is, quick! I am dying to
know. Is it a secret? Not now. Here he comes!”

Sir George may, perhaps, have heard these last words, as he ascended the
terrace steps. Whether he heard them or not, he could scarce fail to mark
his wife’s excited gestures—her brightened eyes—her raised colour—and the
sudden check in the conversation, caused by his own arrival.

Again that dull pain seemed to gnaw at his heart, when he thought how
bright and eager and amused she always seemed in Florian’s company.

He had seen the two on the terrace as he rode home across the park, and
joined them by the shortest way from the stable, without a tinge of that
suspicion he might not be wanted, which was so painful now. Still he kept
down all such unworthy feelings as he would have trampled an adder under
his heavy riding-boots.

“Bring me a rose, Cerise,” he said, cheerily, as he passed his wife.
“There are not many of them left now. Here, Florian,” he added, tossing
him a packet he held in his hand. “A note from pretty Alice at the
‘Hamilton Arms.’ Have a care, man! there are a host of rivals in the
field.”

Florian looked at the writing on the cover, and turned pale. This might
easily be accounted for, but why should Cerise, at the same instant, have
blushed so red—redder even than the rose she was plucking for her husband?

Perhaps that was the question Sir George asked himself as he walked
moodily into the house to dress.




CHAPTER XLVII

THE “HAMILTON ARMS”


Like many old country places of the time, Hamilton Hill had a village
belonging to it, which seemed to have nestled itself into the valley
under shelter of the great house, just near enough to reap the benefits
of so august a neighbourhood, but at such a distance as not to infringe
on the sacred precincts of the deer-park, or on the romantic privacy of
the pleasure-grounds.

Where there is a village there will be thirst, and thirst seems to be
an Englishman’s peculiar care and privilege; therefore, instead of
slaking and quenching it at once by the use of water, he cherishes
and keeps it alive, so to speak, with the judicious application of
beer. A public-house is, accordingly, as necessary an adjunct to an
English hamlet as an oven to a cookshop, a copper to a laundry, or a
powder-magazine to a privateer.

The village of Nether-Hamilton possessed, then, one of these
indispensable appendages; but, fortunately for the landlady, its
inhabitants were obliged to ascend a steep hill, for the best part of a
mile, before they could fill their cans with beer;—I say fortunately for
the landlady, because such an exertion entailed an additional draught
of this invigorating beverage to be consumed and paid for on the spot.
The “Hamilton Arms,” for the convenience of posting, stood on the Great
North Road, at least half a league, as the crow flies, from that abrupt
termination of upland, the ridge of which was crowned by the towers and
terraces of Hamilton Hill. Twice a week a heavy lumbering machine, drawn
by six, and in winter, often by eight horses, containing an infinity of
passengers, stopped for a fresh relay at the “Hamilton Arms”; and when
this ponderous vehicle had once been pulled up, it was not to be set
going again without many readjustments, inquiries, oaths, protestations,
and other incentives to delay.

The “Flying-Post Coach,” as it was ambitiously called, did not change
horses in a minute and a half; a bare-armed helper at each animal to pull
the rugs off, almost before the driver had time to exchange glances with
the barmaid, in days of which the speed, esteemed so wondrous then, was
but a snail’s crawl compared with our rate of travelling now. Nothing
of the kind. The “Flying-Post Coach” was reduced to a deliberate walk
long before it came in sight of its haven, where it stopped gradually,
and in a succession of spasmodic jerks, like a musical-box running down.
The coachman descended gravely from his perch, and the passengers,
alighting one and all, roamed about the yard, or hovered round the inn
door, as leisurely as if they had been going to spend the rest of the
afternoon at the “Hamilton Arms,” and scarcely knew how to get rid of
the spare time on their hands. Till numerous questions had been asked
and answered—the weather, the state of the roads, and the last highway
robbery discussed—packets delivered, luggage loaded or taken off, and
refreshments of every kind consumed—there seemed to be no intention of
proceeding with the journey. At length, during a lull in the chatter of
many voices, one lumbering horse after another might be seen wandering
round the gable-end of the building; two or three ostlers, looking and
behaving like savages, fastened the broad buckles and clumsy straps of
harness, in which rope and chain-work did as much duty as leather, and
after another pause of preparation, the passengers were summoned, the
coachman tossed off what he called his “last toothful” of brandy and
ascended solemnly to his place, gathering his reins with extreme caution,
and imparting a scientific flourish to the thong of his heavy whip.

The inexperienced might have now supposed a start would be immediately
effected. Not a bit of it. Out rushed a bare-armed landlady with
streaming cap-ribbons—a rosy chambermaid, all smiles and glances—a
rough-headed potboy, with a dirty apron—half-a-dozen more hangers-on of
both sexes, each carrying something that had been forgotten—more oaths,
more protestations, more discussions, and at least ten more minutes of
the waning day unnecessarily wasted—then the coachman, bending forward,
chirped and shouted—the poor sore-shouldered horses jerked, strained, and
scrambled, plunging one by one at their collars, and leaning in heavily
against the pole—the huge machine creaked, tottered, wavered, and finally
jingled on at a promising pace enough, which, after about twenty yards,
degenerated into the faintest apology for a trot.

But the portly landlady looked after it nevertheless well pleased; for
its freight had carried off a goodly quantity of fermented liquors,
leaving in exchange many welcome pieces of silver and copper to replenish
the insatiable till.

Mrs. Dodge had but lately come to reside at the “Hamilton Arms.”
Originally a plump comely lass, only daughter of a drunken old
blacksmith at Nether-Hamilton, and inheriting what was termed in that
frugal locality “a tidy bit of money,” she was sought in marriage by a
south-country pedlar, who visited her native village in the exercise of
his calling, and whose silver tongue persuaded her to leave kith and kin
and country for his sake. After many ups and downs in life, chiefly the
result of her husband’s rascality, she found herself established in a
southern seaport, at a pot-house called the “Fox and Fiddle,” doing, as
she expressed it, “a pretty business enough,” in the way of crimping for
the merchant service; and here, previous to the death of her husband,
known by his familiars as “Butter-faced Bob,” she made the acquaintance
of Sir George Hamilton, then simple captain of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ little
dreaming she would ever become his tenant so near her old home.

Mrs. Dodge made lamentable outcries for her pedlar when she lost him;
but there can be no question she was much better off after his death. He
was dishonest, irritable, self-indulgent, harsh; and she had probably no
better time of it at the “Fox and Fiddle” than is enjoyed by any other
healthy, easy-tempered woman, whose husband cheats a good deal, drinks
not a little, and is generally dissatisfied with his lot. He left her,
however, a good round sum of money, such as placed her completely beyond
fear of want; and after a decent term of mourning had expired, after she
had received the condolences of her neighbours, besides two offers of
marriage from publicans in adjoining streets, she took her niece home to
live with her, sold off the good-will of the “Fox and Fiddle,” wished her
rejected suitors farewell, and sought the hamlet of her childhood, to sit
down for life, as she said, in the bar of the “Hamilton Arms.” “It would
be lonesome, no doubt,” she sometimes observed, “without Alice; and if
ever Alice took and left her, as leave her she might for a home of her
own any day, being a good girl and a comely, why then;” and here Mrs.
Dodge would simper and look conscious, bristling her fat neck till her
little round chin disappeared in its folds, and inferring thereby that,
in the event of such a contingency, she might be induced to make one
of her customers happy, by consenting to embark on another matrimonial
venture before she had done with the institution for good and all. Nor,
though Mrs. Dodge was fifty years of age, and weighed fifteen stone,
would she have experienced any difficulty in finding a second husband,
save, perhaps, the pleasing embarrassment of selection from the multitude
at her command. And if her aunt could thus have “lovyers,” as she said,
“for the looking at ’em,” it may be supposed that pretty Alice found no
lack of admirers in a house-of-call so well frequented as the “Hamilton
Arms.” Pretty Alice, with her pale brow, her hazel eyes, her sweet smile,
and soft gentle manners, that made sad havoc in the hearts of the young
graziers, cattle-dealers, and other travellers that came under their
comforting influence off the wild inhospitable moor. Even Captain Bold,
the red-nosed “blood,” as such persons were then denominated, whose
calling nobody knew or dared ask him, but who was conspicuous for his
flowing wig, laced coat, and wicked bay mare, would swear, with fearfully
ingenious oaths, that Alice was prettier than any lady in St. James’s;
and if she would but say the word, why burn him, blight him, sink him
into the lowest depths of Hamilton Mere, if _he_, John Bold, wouldn’t
consent to throw up his profession, have his comb cut, and subside at
once into a homely, helpless, henpecked, barndoor fowl.

But Alice would not say the word, neither to Captain Bold nor to any
honester man. She had been true to her sailor-love, through a long weary
time of anxiety, and now she had her reward. Slap-Jack was domiciled
within a mile of her, by one of those unforeseen strokes of fortune which
he called a “circumstance,” and Alice thanked heaven on her knees day and
night for the happiness of her lot.

It may be supposed that her sweetheart spent much of his leisure
at the “Hamilton Arms.” Though he got through half the work of Sir
George’s household, for the foretopman never could bear to be idle, his
occupations did not seem so engrossing as to prevent a daily visit to
Alice. It was on one of these occasions that, gossiping with Mrs. Dodge,
as was his wont, he observed a gold cross heaving on her expansive bosom,
and taxed her with a favoured lover and a speedy union forthwith.

“Go along with you,” wheezed the jolly landlady, in no way offended
by the accusation. “It’s our new lodger as gave me this trinket only
yesterday. Lovyers! say you. ‘Marry!’ as my poor Bob used to say, ‘_his_
head is not made of the wood they cut blocks from;’ an’ let me tell you,
Master Slap-Jack, a man’s never so near akin to a fool as when he’s
a-courting. Put that in your pipe, my lad, and smoke it. Why Alice, my
poppet, how you blush! Well, as I was a sayin’, this is a nice civil
gentleman, and a well spoken. Takes his bottle with his dinner, and,
mind ye, he _will_ have it o’ the best. None of your ranting, random,
come-by-chance roysterers, like Captain Bold, who’ll sing as many songs
and tell as many—well, _lies_ I call ’em, honest gentleman—over a rummer
of punch, as would serve most of my customers two gallons of claret and a
stoup of brandy to finish up with.”

“There’s not much pith in that Captain Bold,” interposed Slap-Jack,
contemptuously. “You put a strain on him, and see if he don’t start
somewhere. Captain, indeed! It’s a queer ship’s company where they made
_him_ skipper, askin’ your pardon, Mrs. Dodge.”

Slap-Jack had on one occasion interrupted the captain in a warmer
declaration to his sweetheart than he quite relished, and hated him
honestly enough in consequence.

“Hoity-toity!” laughed the landlady. “The captain’s nothing to me. I
never could abide your black men; and I don’t know that they’re a bit
better set off by wearing a red nose. The captain’s Alice’s admirer, not
mine; and I think Alice likes him a bit too sometimes, I do!”

This was said, as the French express it, “with intention.” It made Alice
toss her head; but Slap-Jack only winked.

“I know better,” said he. “Alice always _was_ heart-of-oak; as true as
the compass; wasn’t you, my lass? See how she hoists her colours if
you do but hail her. No, no, Aunt Dodge—for aunt you’ll be to me afore
another year is out—it’s your broad bows and buxom figure-head as brings
the customers cruising about this here bar, like flies round a honey-pot.
Come, let’s have the rights now of your gold cross. Is it a keepsake, or
a charm, or a love-token, or what?”

“Love-token!” repeated Mrs. Dodge, in high glee. “What do you know of
love-tokens? Got a wisp of that silly girl’s brown hair, may be, and a
broken sixpence done up in a rag of canvas all stained with sea-water!
Why, when my poor Bob was a-courtin’ _me_, the first keepsake as ever he
gave me was eighteen yards of black satin, all off of the same piece,
and two real silver bodkins for my hair, as thick a’most as that kitchen
poker. Ay, lass! it was something like keeping company in my day to have
a pedlar for a bachelor. Well, well; our poor sailor lad maybe as good as
here and there a one after all. Who knows?”

“Good enough for _me_, aunt,” whispered Alice, looking shyly up at her
lover from the dish she was wiping, ere she put it carefully on the shelf.

Mrs. Dodge laughed again. “There’s as good fish in the sea, Alice, as
ever came out of it; and a maid may take her word back again, ay, at the
church door, if she has a mind. The foreign gentleman in the blue room,
him as gave me this little cross, he says to me only yesterday morning,
‘Madame,’ says he, as polite as you please, ‘no man was ever yet deceived
by a woman if he trusted her entirely. I repose entire confidence in
madame,’ that was _me_, Alice; ‘her face denotes good manners, a good
heart, a good life.’ Perhaps he meant good living; but that’s what he
said. ‘I am going to ask madame to charge herself with an important
trust for me, because I rely securely on her integrity.’ Oh! he spoke
beautiful, I can tell you. ‘In case of my absence,’ says he, ‘from your
respectable apartments, I will confide to you a sealed packet, to be
delivered to a young man who will call for it at a certain hour on a
certain day that I shall indicate before I leave. If the young man does
not appear, I can trust madame to commit this packet to the flames.’ He
was fool enough to add,” simpered Mrs. Dodge, looking a little conscious,
“‘that it was rare to see so much discretion joined to so much beauty,’
or some such gammon; but of course I made no account of that.”

“If he paid out his palaver so handsome,” observed Slap-Jack, “take my
word for it the chap’s a papist.”

But Mrs. Dodge would not hear of such a construction being put on her
lodger’s gallantry.

“Papist!” she repeated angrily; “no more a papist than you are! Why,
I sent him up a slice o’ powdered beef was last Friday, with a bit of
garnishing, parsnips and what not, and he eats it up every scrap, and
asks for another plateful. Papist! says you! and what if he were? I
tell you if he was the Pope o’ Rome, come to live respectable on my
first floor, he’s a sight more to my mind for a lodger than his friend
the captain! Papists, indeed! If I wanted to lay my hand on a papist,
I needn’t to travel far for to seek one. Though, I will say, my lady’s
liker a hangel nor a Frenchwoman, and if all the papists was made up to
her pattern, why for my part, I’d up and cry ‘Bless the Pope!’ with the
rankest on ’em all!”

It was obvious that this northern district took no especial credit to
itself for the bigotry of its Protestantism, and Mrs. Dodge, though a
staunch member enough of the reformed religion, allowed no scruples of
conscience to interfere with the gains of her hostelry, nor perhaps
entertained any less kindly sentiments towards the persecuted members of
the Church of Rome, that they formed some of her best customers, paying
handsomely for the privacy of their apartments, while they ate and drank
of the choicest during their seclusion.

But this unacknowledged partiality was a bone of contention between his
sweetheart’s aunt and Slap-Jack. The latter prided himself especially on
being what he termed True-Blue, holding in great abhorrence everything
connected with Rome, St. Germains, and the Jacobite party. He allowed of
no saints in the calendar except Lady Hamilton, whom he excepted from his
denunciations by some reasoning process of his own which it is needless
to follow out. Nevertheless Alice knew right well that such an argument
as now seemed imminent was the sure forerunner of a storm. “Aunt,” said
she softly, “I’ve looked out all the table linen, and done my washing-up
till supper-time. If you want nothing particular, I’ll run out and get a
breath of fresh air off the moor before it gets dark.”

“And it’s time for me to be off, Aunt Dodge!” exclaimed Slap-Jack, as
Alice knew full well he would. “Bless ye, we shall beat to quarters at
the Hill, now in less than half an hour, and being a warrant-officer, as
you may say, o’ course it’s for me to set a good example to the ship’s
company. Fare ye well, Mrs. Dodge, and give the priest a wide berth, if
he comes alongside, though I’ll never believe as you’ve turned papist,
until I see you barefoot at the church door, in a white sheet with a
candle in your hand!”

With this parting shot, Slap-Jack seized his hat and ran out, leaving
Mrs. Dodge to smile blandly over the fire, fingering her gold cross,
and thinking drowsily, now of her clean sanded floor, now of her bright
dishes and gaudy array of crockery, now of her own comely person and the
agreeable manners of her lodger overhead.

Meanwhile it is scarcely necessary to say, that although Slap-Jack had
expressed such haste to depart, he lingered in the cold wind off the moor
not far from the house door, till he saw Alice emerge for the mouthful
of fresh air that was so indispensable, but against which she fortified
herself with a checked woollen shawl, which she muffled in a manner he
thought very becoming, round her pretty head.

Neither need I describe the start of astonishment with which she
acknowledged the presence of her lover, as if he was the very last
person she expected to meet; nor the assumed reluctance of her consent
to accompany him a short distance on his homeward way; nor even the
astonishment she expressed at his presumption in adjusting her muffler
more comfortably, and exacting for his assistance the payment that is
often so willingly granted while it is so vehemently refused. These
little manœuvres had been rehearsed very often of late, but had not yet
begun to pall in the slightest degree. The lovers had long ago arrived at
that agreeable phase of courtship, when the reserve of an agitating and
uncertain preference has given way to the confidence of avowed affection.
They had a thousand things to talk about, and they talked about them very
close together, perhaps because the wind swept bleak and chill over the
moor in the gathering twilight. It was warmer no doubt, and certainly
pleasanter, thus to carry two faces under one hood.

It is impossible to overhear the conversation of people in such close
juxtaposition, nor is it usually, we believe, worth much trouble on the
part of an eavesdropper. I imagine it consists chiefly of simple, not
to say idiotic remarks, couched in corresponding language, little more
intelligible to rational persons than that with which a nurse endeavours
to amuse a baby, whose demeanour, by the way, generally seems to express
a dignified contempt for the efforts of its attendant. When we consider
the extravagances of speech by which we convey our strongest sentiments,
we need not be surprised at the follies of which we are guilty in their
indulgence. When we recall the absurdities with which an infant’s
earliest ideas of conversation must be connected, can we wonder what
fools people grow up in after life?

It was nearly dark when they parted, and a clear streak of light still
lingered over the edge of the moor. Alice indeed would have gone further,
but Slap-Jack had his own ideas as to his pretty sweetheart being abroad
so late, and the chance of an escort home, from Captain Bold returning
not quite sober on the wicked bay mare; so he clasped her tenderly in
his arms, receiving at the same time a hearty kiss given ungrudgingly
and with good-will, ere she fleeted away like a phantom, while he stood
watching till the last flutter of her dress disappeared through the
gloom. Then he, too, turned unwillingly homeward, with a prayer for the
woman he loved on his lips.

If Alice looked round, it was under the corner of her muffler, and she
sped back to her gleaming saucepans, her white dishes, and the warm glow
of her aunt’s kitchen, with a step as light as her happy maiden heart.

But there were only two ways of re-entering the “Hamilton Arms”—up a
gravel-walk that led straight to the front door across a washing green,
separated from the high road by a thick close-cut hedge, or through the
stable-yard and back entrance into the scullery. This last ingress was
effectually closed for the present by the arrival of Captain Bold, rather
more drunk than common, swearing strings of new and fashionable oaths,
while he consigned his wicked bay mare to the charge of the admiring
ostler. Alice heard his reckless treble screaming above the hoarse notes
of the stableman before she turned the corner of the house, and shrank
back to enter at the other door. But here, also, much to her dismay, she
found her retreat cut off. Two gentlemen were pacing up and down the
gravel path in earnest conversation. One of them, even in the dusk, she
recognised as the inmate of their blue room, who had given her aunt the
gold cross. The other was a younger, taller, and slimmer man than his
companion. Both were dressed in dark plain garments, gesticulating much
while they spoke, and seemed deeply engrossed with the subject under
discussion. Foolish Alice might well have run past unnoticed, and taken
shelter at once in the house, but the girl had some shy feeling as to her
late tryst with her sweetheart, and shrank perhaps from the good-humoured
banter of the elder man, whose quiet sarcastic smile she had already
learned to dread. So she stopped short, and cowered down with a beating
heart under shelter of the hedge, thinking to elude them as they turned
in their walk, and glide by unobserved into the porch.

They talked with such vehemence, that had they been Englishmen she would
have thought they were quarrelling. Their arms waved, their hands worked,
their voices rose and fell. The elder man was the principal speaker, and
seemed to be urging something with considerable vehemence to which the
other was disinclined; but none of his arguments, pointedly as they were
put, arrested Alice’s attention so much as two proper names muttered in
a tone of deprecation by his companion. These were “Lady Hamilton” and
“Slap-Jack.” Of the first she was almost sure, in the latter she could
not be mistaken.

Her experience on a southern seaboard, to which many smugglers from
the opposite coast resorted, had taught Alice to understand the French
language far better than she could speak it. With her ears sharpened and
her faculties roused, by the mention of her lover’s name, she cowered
down in her hiding-place, and listened, rapt, fearful, attentive, like a
hare with the beagles on its track.




CHAPTER XLVIII

PRESSURE


“Do you suppose I came here to amuse myself?” asked Malletort, passing
his arm under his companion’s so as to turn him round on the gravel walk
within a yard of Alice’s hiding-place. “Do you think it is agreeable
to reside in a pot-house where eggs and bacon form the _ne plus ultra_
of cookery, and if a man cannot drink sour claret he must be satisfied
with muddy ale? Every one of us has to sacrifice his own identity,
has to consecrate himself entirely to such an effort as ours. Look at
me, Florian, and ask yourself, was I born for such a life as this, to
vegetate by the wayside in the dullest province of the dullest country
in Europe—my only society, that awful landlady, my only excitement, the
daily fear of a blunder from that puzzle-headed brigand who calls himself
Captain Bold, and whom I can hang at any moment I please, or I would not
trust him five yards from my side. If I should be discovered, and unable
to get out of the way in time, why it _might_ go very hard with me, but
even against this contingency I have provided. You would find all the
directions you need drawn out in our own cipher, and consigned to my
respectable hostess. I have left the money for her weekly account sealed
up and addressed to Mrs. Dodge on my chimneypiece, also the day and hour
of your visit, as we have agreed. If we _both_ fall into difficulties,
which is most improbable, the packet will be burned, for I can trust the
woman, I believe, and with so much the more confidence, that I doubt
if any one on this side the Channel has the key to our cipher. So far,
you observe, I have provided for all contingencies; and now, my good
Florian, what have _you_ done? You tell me you have failed with his
confidential servant.”

“What, Slap-Jack!” answered Florian, and the name brought Alice’s heart
to her mouth as the two priests again approached her hiding-place.
“Impossible! I tell you he is as true as steel. Why, he sailed with us
in the brigantine. We were all like brothers. Ah, Malletort, you cannot
understand these things!”

“I can understand any scruple, any superstition, any weakness of
humanity, for I see examples every day,” replied the Abbé, “but I
cannot and _will_ not understand that such imaginary obstacles are
insurmountable. Bah! You have _carte blanche_ in promises, you have
even a round sum to draw upon in hard cash. Will you tell me that man’s
honesty or woman’s virtue is not to be bought if you bid high enough?
The whole business is simply a game of _bouillote_. Not the best card,
nor even the deepest purse, but the boldest player sweeps the stakes.
Florian, I fear you have done but little in all these long weeks; that
was why, at great risk, I sent you a note, begging an interview, that I
might urge on you the importance of despatch.”

“It was a risk,” observed Florian. “The note was brought by Sir George
himself.”

Malletort laughed. “He carried his fate without knowing it,” commented
the Abbé. “After all, it is the destiny of mankind. Every one of us
bears about with him the germ of that which shall some day prove his
destruction. I don’t know that one’s step is the heavier till palsy has
begun to tingle, or one’s appetite the worse till digestion already
fails. Come, Florian, the plot is nearly ripe now, and there is little
more time to lose. We must have Sir George in it up to his neck. He
carries this district with him, and I am then sure of all the country
north of the Trent. You have impressed on him, I trust, that it is an
earldom to begin with, if we win?”

“And if we lose?” asked the other wistfully.

Malletort smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, making, at
the same time, a significant gesture with his hand under his ear.

“A leap from a ladder would finish it,” he remarked abruptly. “For that
matter we are all in the same boat. If a plank starts, it is simply, _Bon
soir la compagnie!_”

Florian could control himself no longer. “Are you a man?” he burst out.
“A man? Are you anything less devilish than the arch-fiend himself, to
bid me take part in such a scheme? And what a part! To lure my only
friend, my comrade, whose bread has fed me in want, whose hand has kept
me in danger, down, down, step by step, to crime, ruin, and a shameful
death. What am I? What have I done, that you should ask me to join in
such a plot as this?”

“What you _are_, is a novice of the Society of Jesus,” answered Malletort
coldly, “degraded to that rank for what you have _done_, which I need
hardly remind you. Florian, it is well that you have to deal with me,
who am a man of the world no less than a priest, instead of some stern
provincial who would report your disobedience to the Order, even before
he referred you to its statutes. Look your task firmly in the face. What
is it? To make your friend, the man for whom you profess this ludicrous
attachment, one of the first subjects in England. To raise his charming
wife—they tell me she has grown more charming than ever—to a station for
which she is eminently fitted; and all this at a certain risk of course,
but what risk?—that the best organised movement Europe has seen for a
hundred years, should fail at the moment of success, and that Sir George
should be selected for a victim, amongst a score of names nobler, richer,
more obnoxious to the Government than his own. And even then. If worst
came to worst, what would be Lady Hamilton’s position? An heiress in her
own right, a widow further enriched by marriage, beautiful, unencumbered,
and free. I cannot see why you should hesitate a moment.”

Florian groaned. “Have mercy on me!” he muttered hoarsely, writhing his
hands in despair. “Can you not spare me this one trial, remit this one
penance? Send me anywhere—Tartary, Morocco, Japan. Let me starve in
a desert, pine in a dungeon, suffer martyrdom at the stake; anything
but this, and I submit myself cheerfully, willingly, nay, thankfully.
Malletort, you _must_ have a human heart. You are talented, respected,
powerful. You have influence with the Order. You have known me since I
was a boy. For the love of Heaven have pity on me, and spare me this!”

The Abbé was not one of those abnormal specimens of humanity who take
pleasure in the sufferings of their fellow-creatures. It could not be
said of him that his heart was cruel or malicious. He had simply no heart
at all. But it was a peculiarity he shared with many governing spirits,
that he grew cooler and cooler in proportion to the agitation with which
he came in contact. He took a pinch of snuff, pausing for the refreshment
of a sneeze before he replied:

“And with the next report I furnish to the Order send in your refusal
to obey? Your refusal, Florian; you know what that means? Well, be it
so. The promotion to a coadjutor’s rank is revoked, the former novice is
recalled, and returns to St. Omer at once, where I will not enlarge on
his reception. Riding post to the seaboard he meets another traveller,
young, handsome, well provided, and unscrupulous, hurrying northward on
a mission which seems to afford him considerable satisfaction. It is
Brother Jerome, we will say, or Brother Boniface! the one known in the
world as Beauty Adolphe of the King’s Musketeers, the other as Count
Victor de Rosny, whose boast it is that love and credit are universally
forced on him, though he has never paid a tradesman nor kept faith with
a woman in his life. Either of these would be an agreeable addition to
the family party up there on the hill. Either would labour hard to obtain
influence over Sir George, and do his best or worst to be agreeable to
Lady Hamilton. Shall I forward your refusal by to-morrow’s courier,
Florian, or will you think better of it, and at least take a night to
consider the subject in all its bearings?”

Florian pondered, passed his hand across his brow, and looked wildly in
his adviser’s face.

“Not a moment!” said he, “not a moment! I was wrong—I was impatient—I
was a fool—I was wicked, _mea culpa, mea culpa_. What am I that I should
oppose the will of the Order—that I should hesitate in anything they
think fit to command? What is a Jesuit priest, what is _any_ one, after
all, but a leaf blown before the wind—a bubble floating down the stream?
There is no free agency—Destiny rules the game. The Moslem is not far
wrong when he refuses to stir out of the destroyer’s way, and says, ‘It
is ordained!’ I am wiser now—I seem to have woke up from a dream. What
is it you would have me do? Am I to put poison in his wine, or cut Sir
George’s throat to-night when he is asleep? You have only to say the
word—are you not my superior? Am I not a Jesuit? I must obey!”

Alice, still crouching behind the close-cut hedge, might well be alarmed
at the scraps she overheard of such a dialogue as this. Malletort, on
the contrary, watched his junior with the well-satisfied air of a cook
who perceives the dish on which his skill is concentrated bubbling
satisfactory towards projection. He allowed the young man’s emotion to
exhaust itself ere he plied him again with argument, and knowing that all
strong feelings have their ebb and flow like the tide, trusted to find
him more malleable than ever after his late outbreak.

It was difficult to explain to Florian that his superiors desired him
to make love to Lady Hamilton, in order that he might bring her husband
into their hands; and the task was only rendered the more delicate by
the young Jesuit’s hopeless yet sincere attachment to his hostess—an
attachment which had in it the germ of ruin or salvation according to his
own powers of self-control—such an attachment as the good call a trial
and the weak a fatality.

At times the Abbé almost wished he had selected some less scrupulous
novice for the execution of this critical manœuvre—one like Brother
Jerome or Brother Boniface, who would have disposed himself to it with
all the relish and good-will of those who resume a favourite occupation
which circumstances have obliged them, for a time, to forego. Such
tools would have been easier to manipulate; but perhaps, he reflected,
their execution would not be so effectual and complete. The steel was
dangerously flexible and elastic, but then it was of the truest and
finest temper forged. He flattered himself it was now in the hands of a
workman.

“Let us talk matters over like men of the world my dear Florian,”
said the Abbé, after they had made two turns of the walk in silence,
approaching within a foot of Alice while he spoke. “We are neither of us
boys, but men playing a game at _bouillote_, _ombre_, _picquet_, what
you will, and holding nearly all the winning cards in our hands. You are
willing, I think, to believe I am your friend?”

Florian shuddered, but nodded assent.

“Well, then, as friends,” continued the Abbé, “let there be no
concealment between us. I have already gone over the details of our
programme. I need not recapitulate the plan of the campaign, nor, to a
man of intelligence like yourself, need I insist on the obvious certainty
of success. All dispositions of troops and such minor matters are left
to our commanders, and they number some of the first soldiers of the
age. With such affairs we need not meddle. Intellect confines itself to
intrigue, and leaves hard knocks to the hard-fisted, hard-headed fools
whose business it is to give and take them. I have been busy since I came
here—busier almost than you could believe. I have made acquaintance with
―, and ―, and ―.”

Here the Abbé sank his voice to a cautious whisper, so that Alice,
straining her ears to listen, could not catch the names he enumerated.

“Although they seemed lukewarm at first, and are esteemed loyal subjects
of King George, they are ripe for a restoration now. By the by with
these people never forget to call it a Restoration. Nothing affects an
Englishman so strongly as a phrase, if it be old enough. I have seen a
red-nosed squire of to-day fidget uneasily in his chair, and get quite
hot and angry if you mentioned the Warrant of the Parliament; call it the
law of the land and he submits without a murmur. They eat beef, these
islanders, and they drink ale, muddy ale, so thick, my dear Florian, you
might cut it with a knife. Perhaps that is what makes them so stupid. It
is hard work to drive an idea into their heads; but when once there, it
must be admitted, you cannot eradicate it. If they are the most obstinate
of opponents, they are also the staunchest of partisans. Well, I have
a score of names here in my pocket—men who have pledged themselves to
go through with us, even if it comes to cold steel, sequestration—ay,
hanging for high treason! Not a man of them will flinch. I can undertake
to say so much; and this, you observe, my dear Florian, would greatly
facilitate _our_ escape in the event of a failure. But in the entire list
I have none fit to be a leader—none whose experience would warrant him in
taking command of the others, or whose adventurous spirit would urge him
to assume such authority. Sir George Hamilton is the very man I require.
He is bold, reckless, ambitious, not entirely without brains, and has
been a soldier of France. Florian, we _must_ have him at the head of the
movement. It is your duty to put him there.”

Florian bowed submissively.

“I can only persuade,” said he; “but you do not know your man as well as
I do. Nothing will induce Sir George so much as to have a horse saddled
until he can see for himself that there is a reasonable prospect of
success. I have heard him say a hundred times, ‘Never show your teeth
till your guns are shotted;’ and he has acted up to his maxim, ever
since I have known him, in all the relations of life. It is, perhaps,
presumptuous in me to advise one of your experience and abilities, but
I warn you to be careful in this instance. On every account I am most
anxious that our undertaking should not miscarry. I am pledged to you
myself, but, believe me, I must have something more than empty assurances
to enlist my friend.”

“Quite right,” answered the other, slapping him cheerfully on the
shoulder; “quite right. A man who goes blindly into these matters seldom
sees his way very clearly afterwards. But what would your friend have? We
possess all the material of success, only waiting to be set in motion;
and this I can prove to him in black and white. We have men, arms,
artillery, ammunition, and money. This insurrection shall not fail, like
some of its predecessors, for lack of the grease that keeps all human
machinery in motion. A hundred thousand louis are ready at an hour’s
notice, and another hundred thousand every week till the new coinage of
James the Third is issued from the mint. Here, in the next province, in
Lancashire, where the sun never shines, every _seigneur_, squire—what are
they called?—has mounted his dependents, grooms, falconers, huntsmen,
tenants—all horsemen of the first force. Five thousand cavalry will
be in the saddle at twenty-four hours’ notice. Several battalions of
Irish soldiers, brave and well-disciplined as our own, are assembled
on the coast of Normandy, waiting only the signal to embark. Our
infantry have shoes and clothes; our cavalry are provided with farriers
and accoutrements; our artillery, on _this_ occasion, not without
draught-horses and harness. Come to me to-morrow afternoon, and I will
furnish you with a written statement of our resources for Sir George’s
information. And, Florian, you believe honestly that he might be tempted
to join us?”

The other was revolving a thousand probabilities in his mind.

“I will do my best,” he answered, absently.

“Then I will risk it,” replied Malletort. “You shall also have a list of
the principal noblemen and gentlemen who have given their adhesion to
their rightful sovereign. I have upstairs a manifesto, to which these
loyal cavaliers have attached their signatures. I never trust a man by
halves, Florian, just as I never trust a woman at all. Nothing venture,
nothing have. That paper would hang us all, no doubt; but I will confide
it to you and take the risk. Yours shall be the credit of persuading Sir
George to subscribe to it in his own hand.”

Florian assented, with a nod. Too much depressed to speak, he felt
like some poor beast driven to the shambles, blundering on, dogged and
stupefied, to its fate.

Malletort’s keen perceptions detected this despondency, and he
endeavoured to cheer him up.

“At the new Court,” said he, “we shall probably behold our retired
Musketeer commanding the Guards of his Sovereign, and carrying his gold
baton on the steps of the throne. A peer, a favourite, a Councillor of
State—what you will. His beautiful wife the admired and envied of the
three kingdoms. They will owe their rank, their grandeur, their all, to
Florian de St. Croix. Will not he—will not she be grateful? And Florian
de St. Croix shall choose his own reward. Nothing the Church can offer
will be esteemed too precious for such a servant. I am disinterested for
once, since I shall return to France. In England, a man may exist; were
it not for the climate he might even vegetate; but it is only in Paris
that he can be said to live. Florian, it is a glorious prospect, and the
road to fortune lies straight before us.”

“Through an enemy’s country,” replied the other, gravely. “Nothing
shall persuade me but that the mass of the people are staunch to the
Government.”

“The mass of the people!” repeated Malletort, contemptuously; “the mass
of the people neither make revolutions nor oppose them. In point of
fact they are the women and children who sit quietly at home. It is the
highest and the lowest who are the discontented classes, and if you set
these in motion, the one to lead in front, the other to push behind, why,
the mass of the people, as you call them, may be driven whichever way
you please, like a flock of sheep into a pen. Listen to those peasants
singing over their liquor, and tell me if their barbarian ditties do
not teach you which way the tide of feeling acts at present amongst the
rabble?”

They stopped in their walk, and through the open window of the tap-room
could hear Captain Bold’s treble quavering out a Jacobite ballad of the
day, no less popular than nonsensical, as was attested by the stentorian
chorus and wild jingling of glasses that accompanied it.

    “We are done with sodden kale,
      Are we not? Are we not?
    We are done with sodden kale,
                Are we not?
    And the reptile in his mail,
    Though he tore with tooth and nail,
    We have got him by the tail,
                Have we not?

    “We will bring the Stuart back,
      Will we not? Will we not?
    We will bring the Stuart back,
                Will we not?
    With a whip to curl and crack
    Round the Hanoverian pack,
    And ’twill lend King George a smack,
                Will it not?

    “We are done with rebel rigs,
      Are we not? Are we not?
    We are done with rebel rigs,
                Are we not?

    We will teach them ‘Please the pigs!’
    English tunes for foreign jigs,
    And the devil take the Whigs!
      Will he not? Will he not?
    And the devil take the Whigs!
                Will he not?”

While the priests were thus occupied, Alice darting past them unobserved,
took refuge in the house.




CHAPTER XLIX

POOR EMERALD


Of all passions that tear and worry at the human heart, jealousy seems to
be not only the most painful but the most contradictory. Anger, desire,
avarice, revenge, all these propose to themselves a certain end, in the
accomplishment of which there is doubtless an evil satisfaction for the
moment, however closely remorse may tread on the heels of indulgence,
but jealousy, conscious only of its own bitterness, knows not even what
to hope or what to fear. It hates itself, though its torture is purely
selfish; it hates another whom all the while it madly loves. It is proud,
yet stoops to meanness—cruel, yet quivers with the pain it inflicts,
desperate while cowardly, pitiless though sensitive, obstinate and
unstable, a mass of incongruities, and a purgatory from which there is
neither present purification nor prospective escape.

It may please a woman to feel that she can make her lover jealous, it
may even please her, in her feminine relish for dominion, to mark the
painful effect of her power; but if it were possible to love and be
wise, he would know that he had better hold his hand in the fire without
wincing, than let her discover the force of the engine with which she
can thus place him on the rack. Some women are generous enough not to
inflict a torture so readily at command, but even these take credit for
their forbearance, and assume, in consequence, a position of authority,
which is sometimes fatal to the male interest in such a partnership. The
sweetest kisses to a woman are those she gives on tiptoe. A man, at least
such a one as is best worth winning, cares for a woman because she loves
_him_. A woman, I imagine, is never so devoted as when she feels there is
yet something more to be gained of that dominion at which she is always
striving, but which she is apt to undervalue when attained.

Now, if she has taken it into her head to make her lover jealous, and
finds his equanimity utterly undisturbed, the result is a mortifying
and irremediable defeat to the aggressive Amazon. She has hazarded a
large stake and won nothing. Worse than this, she is led to suspect
the stability of her empire, and sees it (because women always jump to
conclusions) slipping like ice out of her grasp. Besides, she has put
herself in the wrong, as after a burst of tears and a storm of unfounded
reproaches, she will herself acknowledge; and the probable result of
her operations will be a penitent and unqualified submission. Let the
conqueror be high-minded enough to abstain from ever casting this little
vagary in her teeth, and he will have reason to congratulate himself on
his own self-command for the rest of the alliance.

But if the indulgence of jealousy be thus impolitic in a lover, it is
not only an unworthy weakness, but a fatal mistake on the part of a
husband. The doubts and fears, the uncertainties and anxieties, that
are only ludicrous in the outer courts of Cupid, become contemptible at
the fire-side of Hymen, derogatory to the man’s dignity, and insulting
to the woman’s faith. There are few individuals of either sex, even
amongst the worst natures, but can be safely trusted, if only the trust
be complete and unqualified. It is the little needless reservation,
the suspicion rather inferred than expressed, that leads to breach of
confidence and deceit. With ninety-nine women out of every hundred, the
very fact of possessing full and unquestioned freedom constitutes the
strongest possible restraint from its abuse. To suspect a wife, is to
kindle a spark of fire that eats into, and scorches, and consumes the
whole comfort of home; to let her know she is suspected, is to blow that
spark into a conflagration which soon reduces the whole domestic edifice
to ruins.

There are some noble natures, however, that unite with generosity of
sentiment, keen perceptive faculties, and a habit of vigilance bordering
on suspicion. These cannot but suffer under the possibility of betrayal,
the more so that they despise themselves for a weakness which yet they
have not power to shake off. They stifle the flame indeed, and it burns
them all the deeper to the quick—they scorn to cry out, to groan, even to
remonstrate, but the sternest and bravest cannot repress the quiverings
of the flesh under the branding-iron, and perhaps she, of all others,
from whom it would be wise to conceal the injury, is the first to find
it out. Wounded affections chafe in silence on one side, insulted pride
scowls and holds aloof on the other; the evil festers, the sore spreads,
the breach widens, the gloom gathers; it is well if some heavy blow falls
to bring the sufferers to their senses, if some grand explosion takes
place to clear the conjugal atmosphere, and establish a footing of mutual
confidence once more.

Cerise could hardly keep her tears back when Sir George, passing hastily
through the hall, booted as usual for the saddle, would stop to address
her in a few commonplace words of courtesy, with as much deference, she
told herself bitterly, as if she had been an acquaintance of yesterday.
There were no more little foolish familiarities, no more affected
chidings, betraying in their childish absurdities the overflowing of
happy affection, no more silly jests of which only themselves knew the
import. It was all grave politeness and ceremonious kindness now. It
irritated, it maddened her—the harshest usage had been less distressing.
If he would only speak cruel words! If he would only give her an excuse
to complain!

She could not guess how this change had been caused, or if she did guess,
she was exceedingly careful not to analyse her suppositions; but she
hunted her husband about wistfully, looking penitent without a fault,
guilty without a crime, longing timidly for an explanation which yet she
had not courage to demand.

The room at Hamilton in which Sir George spent his mornings on those
rare occasions when he remained indoors, was, it is needless to observe,
the gloomiest and most uncomfortable apartment in the house. Its
furniture consisted chiefly of guns, fishing-rods, and jack-boots. It
was generally very untidy, and contained for its only ornaments a model
of a brigantine and a sketch in crayons of his wife. Whenever Sir George
thought he had anything very particular to do, it was his habit to retire
here and barricade himself in.

The morning after Florian’s interview with Malletort, Cerise took up her
post at the door of this stronghold, with a vague hope that chance might
afford an opportunity for the explanation she desired.

“If he is really angry,” thought poor Cerise, “and I am sure he must be,
perhaps he will have taken my picture down, and I can ask him why, and he
will scold me, and I shall put my arms round his neck, and he cannot help
forgiving me then! Nobody else would be so unkind without a reason. And
yet he is not unkind; I wish he were; and I wish, too, I had courage to
speak out! Ah! it would be so much easier if I did not care for him!”

Lady Hamilton’s hands were very cold while she stood at the door. After
waiting at least five minutes she took courage, gave a timid little
knock, and went in.

Nothing in the aspect of the apartment or its inmate afforded the
opportunity she desired. Sir George, tranquilly engaged with a pair
of compasses and a foot-rule, was whistling softly over a plan of his
estates. Her own picture hung in its usual place. Glancing at it, she
wondered whether she had ever been so pretty, and if so, how he could
have got tired of her already. His calmness, too, was in irritating
contrast to her own agitation. Altogether she did not feel half so meek
as on the other side of the door.

He looked up from his employment, and rose.

“What is it, my lady?” he asked, pushing the implements aside. “Can I be
of any service to you before I get on my horse? Emerald is at this moment
saddled and waiting for me.”

The tone was good-humoured enough, but cool and unconcerned as if he
had been speaking to his grandmother. Besides, scarcely yet more than a
bride, and to be called _my lady_! It was unbearable!

“If you are in such a hurry,” she answered, angrily, “I will not detain
you. What I had to say was of no importance, and probably would not in
the least interest _you_. I am sorry I came in.”

“Not at all,” he replied, in the same matter-of-course voice. “When I am
at leisure I am always glad of your society. Just now, I fear, I cannot
take advantage of it. I must be absent all the morning, but St. Croix is,
doubtless, at home, and will keep you company.”

Guarded as was his tone, either her woman’s ear detected a false note in
the mention of Florian’s name, whom he seldom spoke of so ceremoniously,
or her woman’s intuition taught her to suspect the true grievance. At
any rate, she persuaded herself she ought to be more displeased than she
really felt. It would have been only right to show it. Now was the time
to get upon her high horse, and she would have mounted at once, but that
her blushes would not be kept down. It was too provoking! What must her
husband think of them? She could have burst out crying, but that would
be infinitely worse. She turned away, therefore, and assuming all the
dignity she could muster, walked off to her own apartment without another
word.

Sir George did not follow. Had he done so, it might have altered his
whole morning’s employment, to see his young wife fling herself down on
her knees at the bedside, and weep as if her heart would break.

No, _he_ flung himself into the saddle, and in five minutes was alone
with Emerald on the moor.

I wonder what the good horse thought of his rider, when he felt his head
steadied by the strong familiar hand, the well-known limbs grasping his
sides with pliant energy, the caressing voice whispering its cheering
words of caution and encouragement? Did he know that his master urged him
to his speed because the care that is proverbially said to sit behind
the horseman _cannot_ keep her seat on a fine goer, in good condition,
when fairly in his swing? Did he know that while that smooth, powerful
stride, regular and untiring as machinery, swept furlong by furlong over
the elastic surface of the moor, she must be left panting behind, to come
up indeed at the first check, rancorous and vindictive as ever, but still
beaten by a horse’s length at least so long as the excitement of the
gallop lasted and the extreme pace could hold?

Emerald enjoyed it as much as his master. When pulled up, he stopped
willingly, his whole frame glowing with health and energy, his eye
glancing, his ear alert, his broad red nostril drinking in the free
moorland air like a cordial, and his bit ringing cheerfully, while he
tossed his head in acknowledgment of the well-earned caress that smoothed
the warm supple skin on his swelling neck.

The horse seemed a little puzzled too, looking round in vain for his
friends the hounds, as if he wondered why he had been brought thus
merrily over the moor, good fun as it was, without any further object
than the ride.

In this matter there was little sympathy between man and horse. Sir
George was thinking neither of hounds, nor hawks, nor any other
accessories of the chase. He neither marked the secluded pool in which
he had set up the finest stag of the season at bay last month, nor the
ledge of rocks into which he ran his fox to ground last week. He was far
back in the past. He was a young Musketeer again, with neither rank,
nor wealth, nor broad acres, but with that limitless reversion of the
future which was worth all his possessions ten times told. Yet even thus
looking back to his earliest manhood, he could not shake himself free
from the memory of Cerise. Ever since he could remember, that gentle face
and those blue eyes had softened his waking thoughts and haunted him in
his dreams; there was no period in his life at which she had not been
the ideal of his imagination, the prize he desired. Even if he had not
married her, he thought with a groan, he would still be cursed with this
gnawing, festering pain that drove him out here into the wilderness for
the mere bodily relief of incessant action. If he had not married her!
Another thought stung him now. Perhaps then she might have continued
to love him. Were they all alike, these women? All vain, unstable,
irrational creatures; best acted on by the jugglery of false sentiment,
alive only to the unworthy influence of morbid pique or unbridled
passion, tempted to evil by an infamous notoriety, or dazzled by the
glare of an impossible romance? He asked himself these questions, and his
own observation afforded no satisfactory reply.

He had lived much at the Court of France, when that Court, with all
its splendour and all its refinement, was little distinguished by
self-denial in man, or self-restraint in woman. Amongst those of his own
age and sphere, he was accustomed to hear conjugal fidelity spoken of
as a prejudice not only superfluous but unrefined and in bad taste. The
wife _as_ a wife was to be considered a proper object of pursuit, the
husband to be borne with as an encumbrance, but in right of his office
habitually to be derided, out-witted, and despised. That a woman should
care for the man to whom she had plighted her faith at the altar seemed
an absurdity not to be contemplated; that a man should continue to love
the girl he had chosen was a vulgarity to which no gentleman would
willingly plead guilty. Such were the morals of the stage, such was the
too common practice of real life. And George had laughed with the rest at
the superstition of matrimony, had held its sanctity in derision, perhaps
trifled with its vows _en mousquetaire_.

And now was the punishment overtaking him at last? Was the foundation of
_his_ happiness, like that of others, laid in sand, and the whole edifice
crumbling to pieces in his very sight? It was hard, but he was a man, he
thought, and he must bear it as best he might. As for the possibility
that Cerise should actually love another, he dismissed such an idea
almost ere it was formed. That was not the grievance, he told Emerald
aloud, while he stood by the good horse on the solitary moor, it was that
Cerise should not love _him_! He could scarcely believe it, and yet he
could see she was unhappy, she for whose happiness he would sacrifice so
willingly wealth, influence, position, life itself, everything but his
honour. When he thought of the pale pining face, it seemed as if a knife
was driven into his heart.

He sprang into his saddle, and once more urged his horse to a gallop.
Once more the brown heathery acres flew back beneath his eyes, but
Emerald began to think that all this velocity was a waste of power when
unaccompanied by the music of the hounds, and stopped of his own accord
to look for them within a bow-shot of the great north road where it led
past the “Hamilton Arms.”

Ordinary people do not usually talk to themselves, but I believe every
man speaks aloud to his horse.

“Quite right, old fellow!” said Sir George, as if he were addressing a
comrade. “I may as well stop and have a glass of beer, for I am as hot as
you are, and I dare say twice as thirsty.”

Emerald acquiesced with a snort and a prolonged shake the moment his
rider’s foot touched the ground, and Sir George, filling the whole of the
narrow passage to the bar, bounced against Florian de St. Croix returning
from an interview with the Abbé on the first floor. Each must have been
thinking of the other, for both exclaimed mentally, “The very man!” while
at the same instant Slap-Jack, looking rather sheepish, and not in his
usual spirits, slunk out of another room and tried to leave unobserved.

“Foretop, there!” hallooed Sir George, good-humouredly, “as you are
aloft, look smart and make yourself useful. See that lubber gives Emerald
a go-down of chilled water, and tows him about at a walk till I come out.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” replied Slap-Jack, his whole face brightening up. He loved
to be so addressed by his old commander; and although he was to-day not
without his own troubles, or he would scarce have been here so early, he
set to work to obey instructions with a will.

Florian accompanied the new arrival into the bar, where Mrs. Dodge,
all smiles and ribbons, drew for this honoured guest a measure of the
best with her own fat hands; while Alice, who looked as if she had been
crying, hovered about admiringly, watching Sir George quench his thirst
as if he had been some rare and beautiful animal she had paid her penny
to see.

“Good stuff!” said the baronet, setting down his jug with a sigh. “Better
than _vin ordinaire_, or even three-water grog. Eh, Florian?”

But Florian’s mind was bent on other matters. “You are always so
occupied,” said he, “that I can never catch you for half an hour alone.
Will you have your horse led home, and walk back the short way with me?
We had more leisure on board ‘The Bashful Maid,’ after all; especially in
the ‘Trades.’”

Sir George assented cheerily. For the moment his gloomy thoughts fled at
the sound of the other’s voice. They were tried comrades in many a rough
adventure, and it takes a good deal to turn a man’s heart from an old
friend.

“Of course I will,” he assented, putting his arm through Florian’s. “We
can cross the deer-park, and go over the footbridge above the waterfall.
It saves nearly half a mile. Slap-Jack,” he added, emerging from the
house, “take that horse home, under easy sail, d’ye mind? and see him
well dressed over when you get to the stable.”

Then he and Florian strolled quietly away to cross the deer-park and
thread a certain picturesque dingle adorned by the above-mentioned
waterfall. It was the show bit of scenery at Hamilton Hill, and the track
leading to it was so precipitous as to be impassable by any four-footed
animal less nimble than a goat.

It was Slap-Jack’s duty to conduct Emerald by an easier route to his
own stable; and for this purpose the adventurous seaman proceeded to
“get up the side,” as he called it, an ascent which he effected with
some difficulty, and so commenced his voyage with considerable prudence,
according to orders, “under easy sail.”

But Emerald’s blood was up after his gallop. The seaman’s awkward seat
and unskilled hand on the rein irritated him considerably. He fretted,
he danced, he sidled, he snatched at his bridle, he tossed his head, he
showed symptoms of mutiny from the very beginning.

“I knowed as we should make bad weather of it,” said Slap-Jack, relating
his adventure that evening in the servants’ hall, “when we come into open
sea. Steer he wouldn’t, and every time I righted him he broached-to, as
if he was going down stern foremost. So I lashed the helm amid-ships, and
held on by my eyelids to stand by for a capsize.”

In truth the horse soon took the whole affair into his own management,
and after one or two long reaching plunges, that would have unseated
Slap-jack had he not held on manfully by the mane, started off at a
furious gallop, which brought him to his own stable-yard in about five
minutes from the time he left the inn door.

Cerise, wandering pale and listless amongst her roses, heard the clatter
of hoofs entering at this unusual pace, and rushed to the stables
in some alarm. She was relieved to find that no serious casualty had
occurred, and that Slap-Jack, very much out of breath, with his legs
trembling and powerless from the unwonted exercise, was the only
sufferer. He gasped and panted sadly; but she gathered that he had been
ordered to bring the horse quietly home, at which she could not forbear
smiling, and that Sir George was going to walk back the short way. It was
a chance to be seized eagerly. She had been very low and dispirited all
the morning, wishing she had spoken out to him before he went, and now
here came another opportunity. Cerise was still young, and, to use the
graphic expression of her own country, “a woman to the very tips of her
fingers.” She ran upstairs, put on her prettiest hat, and changed her
breast-knots for fresh ribbons of newer gloss and a more becoming colour.
Then she fluttered out through her garden, and crossing the home-park
with a rising colour and a more elastic step, as the fresh air told upon
her animal spirits, reached one end of the wooden footbridge as the two
gentlemen arrived at the other.

She had only expected _one_. It was a disappointment; more, it was an
embarrassment. She coloured violently, and looked, as she felt, both
agitated and put out. Sir George could not but observe her distress, and
again his heart ached with the dull, wearing, unacknowledged pain.

He jumped to conclusions; a man under such an influence always does. It
seemed clear to him that his wife must have chosen this direction for
her walk in order to meet the Jesuit. He did not blame Florian, for the
priest had himself proposed they should return together, and could not,
therefore, have expected her. Stay! Was this a blind? He stole a glance
at him, and thought he seemed as much discomposed as her ladyship. All
that he could disentangle afterwards. In the meantime one thing alone
seemed clear. That Cerise, contrary to her usual habits, had come this
distance on foot to meet her lover, and had found—her husband! He laughed
to himself fiercely, with a grim savage humour, and felt as once or twice
formerly in a duel, when his adversary, taking unfair advantage, had been
foiled by his own act. Well, he would fight this battle at least with all
the skill of fence he knew; patiently, warily, scientifically, without
loss of temper or coolness, neglecting no precaution, overlooking no
mistake, and giving no quarter.

He could not help thinking of his old comrade, Bras-de-Fer, as he
remembered him, one gloomy morning in Spain, stripped and in silk
stockings on the wet turf outside the lines, with the deadliest point
in three armies six inches from his throat, and how nothing but perfect
self-command and endurance had given his immoveable old comrade the
victory. His heart softened when he thought of those merry campaigning
days, but not to Lady Hamilton nor to the pale thoughtful Jesuit on the
other side.

It was scarcely a pleasant walk home for any one of the three. Florian,
though he loved the very ground she trod on, was disconcerted at her
ladyship’s inopportune appearance just as he thought he was gaining
ground in his canvass, and had prepared the most telling arguments for
the conversion of his proselyte. Moreover, he had now passed the stage
at which he could converse freely with Cerise in company, and grudged
her society even to the man who had a right to it. Alone with her he had
plenty to say; but, without approaching forbidden topics, he had acquired
a habit of conversing on abstruse and speculative subjects, interesting
enough to two persons in the same vein of thought, but which strike even
these as exaggerated when submitted to the criticism of a third. Many a
pleasant and harmonious duet jangles painfully when played as a trio.
He was impatient now of any interference with Lady Hamilton’s opinions.
These he considered his own, in defiance of a thousand husbands; and so
strangely constituted is the human mind, he could presume to be jealous
even of the vague, shadowy, unsubstantial share in her mind that he
imagined he possessed.

So he answered in monosyllables, and took nothing off the constraint
under which they all laboured. Sir George conversed in a cold formal
tone on indifferent matters, and was as unlike himself as possible. He
addressed his remarks alternately to Florian and Cerise, scanning the
countenance of each narrowly the while. This did not tend to improve
their good understanding; and Lady Hamilton, walking with head erect and
set face, looking straight before her, dared not trust herself to answer.
It was a relief when they reached the house, and most of all to her, for
she rushed upstairs and locked herself into her own room, where she could
be miserable to her heart’s content.

It was hard for this fair young wife, good, loving, and true, to seek
that refuge, so cruelly wounded, twice in one day.




CHAPTER L

CAPTAIN BOLD


I have mentioned that Slap-Jack, too, while he rode perforce so
rapidly homewards, was pursued by a black Care of his own, waiting for
a momentary halt to leap up behind. Even with a foretopman, though,
perhaps, no swain ought to have a better chance, the course of true love
does not always run smooth. There was a pebble now ruffling Slap-Jack’s
amatory stream, and that pebble was known at the “Hamilton Arms” as
Captain Bold.

He might have had a score of other designations in a score of other
places; in fact, he was just the sort of gentleman whom one name would
suffice less than one shirt; but here, at least, he was welcomed, and, to
a certain extent, trusted under that title.

Now Captain Bold, if he ever disguised himself for the many expeditions
in which he boasted to have been engaged, must have done considerable
violence to his feelings by suppressing the three peculiarities for
which he was most conspicuous, and in which he seemed to take the
greatest pride. These specialities were the Captain’s red nose, his
falsetto voice, and his bay mare. The first he warmed and comforted with
generous potations at all hours, for though not a deep, he was a frequent
drinker; the second, he exercised continually in warbling lyrics tending
to the subversion of morals—in shrieking out oaths denoting a fertile
imagination, with a cultivated talent for cursing—and in narrating
interminable stories over his cups, of which his own triumphs in love and
war formed the groundwork; the third—he was never tired of riding to and
fro over the moor, of going to visit in the stable, or of glorifying in
the tap-room for the edification of all comers, expatiating on her shape,
her qualities, her speed, her mettle, and her queer temper, amenable to
no authority but his own.

The captain’s first acquaintance with Mrs. Dodge dated some two months
back, when he entered the hostelry one stormy evening, and swaggered
about the stable-yard and premises as if thoroughly familiar with
the place. This did not astonish the landlady, who, herself a late
arrival, concluded he was some old customer of her predecessor’s; but,
hazarding that natural supposition to an ancient ostler, who had been
at the “Hamilton Arms” from a boy, and never slept out of the stable
since he could remember, she was a little surprised to learn old Robin
had no recollection whatever of the captain, though he was perfectly
well acquainted with the mare. That remarkable animal had been fed and
dressed over by his own hands, he declared, only last winter, and was
then the property of a Quaker from the East Riding, a respectable-looking
gentleman as ever he clapped eyes on—warm, no doubt, for the mare was in
first-rate condition, and her master paid him from a purse full of broad
pieces—a _wet_ Quaker, old Robin thought, by reason of his smelling so
strong of brandy when he mounted before daylight in the morning.

Mrs. Dodge, conversing with her guest of the wonderful mare, mentioned
her old servant’s reminiscences.

“Right!” exclaimed the captain, with his accustomed flourish—“right as
my glove! or, I should say, my dear madam, right as your own bodice! A
Quaker—very true! A man about my own size, with a—well, a _prominent_
nose. Pale, flaxen-haired; would have been a good-looking chap with a
little more colouring; and respectable—most respectable! Oh, yes! that’s
the Quaker I bought her of and a good bargain I made. We’ll drink the
Quaker’s health, if you please. A very good bargain!”

And the captain laughed heartily, though Mrs. Dodge could not, for the
life of her, see the point of his jest.

But, while she reprobated his profane conversation, and entertained no
very profound respect for his general character, the captain was yet a
welcome guest in Mrs. Dodge’s sanctum. His anecdotes were so lively—his
talk was so fluent—he took off his glass with so gallant a flourish to
her own and her niece’s health, paying them, at the same time, such
extravagant compliments of the newest town mode—that it was impossible to
damp this genial spirit with an austerity which must have been assumed,
or rebukes uttered by lips endeavouring to repress a smile.

But with Alice it was not so; she held the captain in a natural
abhorrence, and shrank from him as people sometimes do from a toad or
other reptile, when she happened to meet him in passages, staircases,
or out-of-the-way corners, never permitting him to approach her unless
protected by the company of her aunt.

Mrs. Dodge, however, would sometimes spend an hour and more in certain
household duties upstairs, leaving Alice to mind the bar during her
absence. The girl was singing over her needlework, according to custom,
thinking, in all probability, of Slap-Jack, when, much to her annoyance,
the captain’s red nose protruded itself over the half-door, followed, in
due course, by his laced coat, his jack-boots, and the rest of his gaudy,
tarnished, and somewhat dissipated person.

Seeing Alice alone, he affected to start with pleasure, made a feint
of retiring, and then insinuated himself towards the fireplace, with a
theatrical gallantry that was to her, of all his airs and graces, the
most insupportable.

“Divine Alice!” he exclaimed, flourishing his dirty hand, adorned with
rings, “alone in her bower, and singing over her sampler like a siren.
The jade Fortune owed honest Jack Bold this turn. Strike him blind if
she didn’t! He comes for a vulgar drain, and lo! a cordial—the elixir of
life—the rosy dew of innocence—the balmy breath of beauty!”

“What d’ye lack, sir?” asked Alice, contemptuously ignoring this
rhodomontade, and stretching her pretty hand towards a shelf loaded with
divers preparations of alcohol well known to the visitor.

“What I lacked, my sweetest,” said the unabashed captain, “when I entered
this bower of bliss and bastion of beauty, was a mere mortal’s morning
draught—a glass of strong waters, we will say, with a clove in it, or
perhaps a mouthful of burnt brandy, to keep out the raw moorland air.
What I lack now, since I have seen your lovely lips, seems to be the
chaste salute valour claims from beauty. We will take the brandy and
cloves afterwards!”

So speaking, the captain moved a little round table out of his way, and,
taking off his cocked hat with a flourish, advanced the red nose and
forbidding face very close to Alice, as if to claim the desired salute.
In his operations, the skirt of his heavily laced coat brought work,
work-box, thimble, and all to the ground.

Alice stooped to pick them up. When she rose again her colour was very
bright, possibly from the exertion, and she pointed once more to the
bottles.

“Give your orders, sir,” said she, angrily, “and go! I am sure I never—I
never expected to be rude to a customer, but—there—it’s too bad—I won’t
stand it, I won’t—not if I go up to my aunt in her bedroom this very
minute!”

Poor Alice was now dissolved in tears, but, true to her instincts, filled
the captain his glass of brandy all the same.

The latter drank it slowly, relishing every drop, and, keeping his
person between Alice and the half-door, seemed to enjoy her confusion,
which, obviously, from the conceited satisfaction of his countenance,
he attributed to an unfortunate passion for himself. Suddenly her face
brightened, a well-known footstep hastened up the passage, and the next
moment Slap-Jack entered the bar.

Alice dashed away her tears, the captain assumed an attitude of profound
indifference, and the new arrival looked from one to the other with a
darkening brow.

“What, again?” said he, turning fiercely on the intruder, and approaching
very close, in that aggressive manner which is almost equivalent to a
blow. “I thought as I’d given _you_ warning already to let this here
young woman be. You think as you’re lying snug enough, may be, in smooth
water, with your name painted out and a honest burgee at your truck; but
I’ll larn you better afore I’ve done with you, if you comes cruising any
more in my fishing-ground. There’s some here as’ll make you show your
number, and we’ll soon see who’s captain then!”

Honest Jack Bold, as he called himself, was not deficient in
self-command. Sipping his brandy with the utmost coolness, he turned to
Alice, and, motioning towards Slap-Jack, boiling over within six inches
of him, observed, in his high-quavering voice:

“Favoured lover, I presume! Visits here, I hope, with our good aunt’s
sanction. Seems a domestic servant by his dress, though I gather, from
the coarseness of his language, he has served before the mast!—a sad
come-down, sweet Alice! for a girl with your advantages. These seaman, I
fancy, are all given to liquor. Offer your bachelor something to drink,
and score it, if you please, to my account. A sad come-down!—a sad
come-down! Why burn me, Mistress Alice, with your good looks, you might
almost have married a gentleman—you might, indeed! Sink me to the lowest
depths of matrimonial perdition, if you might not!”

Slap-Jack could have stood a good deal, but to be offered a dram by a
rival in this off-hand way, through the medium of his own sweetheart,
was more than flesh and blood could swallow. In defiance of Alice’s
entreaties, who was horribly frightened at the prospect of a quarrel, and
as pale now as she had been flushed a few minutes back, he shook a broad
serviceable fist in the captain’s face, and burst out—

“A gentleman! you swab! What do _you_ know about gentlemen? All the
sort as _you’ve_ seen is them that hangs at Tyburn; and look, if you’re
not rove up there yourself some fine morning, my saucy blade, with your
night-cap over your ears, and a bunch of rue in your hand. Gentlemen
indeed! Now look you here, Captain John Bold, or whatever other _alias_
your papers may show when they’re overhauled, if ever I catches of you
in here alone, a parsecutin’ of my Alice, or even hears o’ your so much
as standing’ off-and-on, a watchin’ for her clearin’ out, or on the open
moor, or homeward bound, or what not, I’ll smash that great red nose
of yours as flat as a Port-Royal jelly-fish, you ugly, brandy-faced,
bottle-nosed, lop-sided son of a gun!”

The captain had borne with considerable equanimity his adversary’s
quarrelsome gestures and threats of actual violence, keeping very near
the door, corporeally, indeed, and entrenching himself morally, as it
were, in the dignity of his superior position, but at these allusions to
his personal appearance he lost all self-control. His face grew livid,
his very nose turned pale, his eyes blazed, and his hand stole to the
short cutlass or hanger he carried at his side. Something in Slap-Jack’s
face, whose glance followed the movement of his fingers, checked any
resort to this weapon, and even in his fury, the captain had the presence
of mind to place himself outside the half-door of the bar; but when there
he caught hold of it with both hands, for he was trembling all over, and
burst forth—

“You think the sun is on _your_ side of the hedge, my fine fellow, I
dare say, but you’ll know better before a week’s out. Ay, you may laugh,
but you’ll laugh the other side of your mouth when the right end is
uppermost, as uppermost it will be, and I take you out on the terrace
with a handkerchief over your eyes, and a file of honest fellows, with
carbines loaded, who are in my pay even now. Ay, you’ll sing small then,
I think, for all your blare and bluster to-day. You’ll sing small, d’ye
hear? on the wet grass under the windows at Hamilton Hill, and your
master’ll sing small with his feet tied under his horse’s belly, riding
down the north road and on his way to Tyburn, under a warrant from King
Ja― Well, a warrant from the king; and that Frenchified jade, your
missus’ll sing small―”

But here the captain sprang to the door, at which his mare was standing
ready, leaped to the saddle, and rode off at a gallop, cursing his tongue
the while, which, in his exasperation, he had suffered to get so entirely
the better of his discretion.

It was high time; Slap-Jack, infuriated at the allusion to his lady, had
broken from the gentle grasp of Alice, and in another moment would have
been upon him. He even followed the mare for a few paces and shook his
fist at the retreating figure fleeting away over the moor like the wind;
then he returned to his sweetheart, and drowned his wrath in a flagon of
sound ale drawn by her sympathising hands.

He soon ceased to think of his opponent’s threats, for when the
excitement of action was over, the seaman bore no malice and nursed no
apprehensions; but Alice, who, like many silent, quiet women, was of a
shrewd and reflective turn of mind, pondered them deeply in her heart.
She seemed to see the shadow of some great danger threatening her lover
and the family whose bread he ate.




CHAPTER LI

SIR MARMADUKE


A woman’s wits are usually quick to detect intrigue, and are sharpened
all the more keenly when she suspects danger to the one she loves.

The threats Captain Bold had been so indiscreet as to utter afforded an
explanation of much that had hitherto puzzled Alice in the habits and
demeanour of her aunt’s guests. It seemed clear enough now, that the
shrewd, dark-clothed gentleman upstairs, and his friend from the Hill,
were involved in a treasonable plot, of which her abhorred suitor with
the bay mare was a paid instrument. From the hints dropped by the last,
it looked that some signal vengeance was contemplated against Sir George
Hamilton, and worse still, against her own beloved Slap-Jack. Alice was
not the girl to sit still with folded hands and bemoan herself in such
a predicament. Her first impulse was at once to follow Sir George home
and warn him of all she knew, all she suspected; but reflecting how
little there was of the former, and how much of the latter; remembering,
moreover, that one chief conspirator was his fast friend, and then in his
company, she hesitated to oppose her own bare word against the latter’s
influence, and resolved to strike boldly across the moor till she saw
the chimneys of Brentwood, and tell her tale to Sir Marmaduke Umpleby, a
justice of the peace, therefore, in all probability, a loyal subject of
King George.

It was a long walk for a girl accustomed to the needlework and
dish-scouring of an indoor life, but Alice’s legs had been stretched and
her lungs exercised on the south-country downs, till she could trip over
a Yorkshire moor as lightly and as gracefully, if not so swiftly, as
a hind. Leaving word, then, for her aunt, that she should not be back
till after dark, she put on her best shoe-buckles, her lace pinners, her
smartest hat, and tucking her red stuff gown through its pocket-holes,
started boldly on her mission in the teeth of an east wind.

Brentwood was a snug-looking long grey house, lying low amongst tall
trees in a little green nook of the moor, sheltered by brown swelling
undulations that rose all round. A straight road, rough in some places,
swampy in others, and execrable in all, led up to the door, between
two dilapidated stone walls coped with turf. There was no pretence of
porch or other abutment, as in newer residences, nor were there curves
round clumps of plantation, sweeps to coast flower-beds, nor any such
compromise from a direct line in the approach to the house. The inmates
of Brentwood might see their visitors for a perspective of half a mile
from the front windows, and at these windows would take up their position
from dawn till dark.

Dame Umpleby and her five daughters were at their usual station when
Alice appeared in sight. These young ladies, of whom the eldest seemed
barely fifteen, were being educated under their mother’s eye, that is
to say, they were writing out recipes, mending house-linen, reading the
“Pilgrim’s Progress,” and working samplers, according to their several
ages. They had a spinet also, somewhat out of repair, on which the elder
girls occasionally practised, but father would not stand this infliction
within ear-shot, and father was now enjoying his after-dinner slumbers in
their common sitting-room.

Sir Marmaduke did not appear to advantage in the attitude he had chosen.
His wig was off, and hung stately on its own account over a high-backed
chair. His round smooth head was discoloured in patches like the shield
of a tortoise, his heavy features looked the heavier that they were
somewhat swollen after eating, the lower jaw had dropped comfortably to
its rest, and his whole frame was sunk in an attitude of complete and
ungainly repose.

A half-smoked pipe had dropped from his relaxed fingers to the floor, and
a remnant of brown ale stood at his elbow in a plain silver tankard on
the table.

The apartment was their usual family parlour, as it was then called, and
therefore plainly, not to say meanly, furnished. Sir Marmaduke being a
gentleman of ancient blood and considerable possessions, owned flocks and
herds in plenty, fertile corn land under the plough, miles of pasturage
over the hill. He kept good horses in his stable, fleet greyhounds in
his kennel, and a cast of hawks in his mews, only surpassed by those
of Sir George Hamilton; but he could not afford, he said, to waste his
substance on “Frenchified luxuries,” and this opprobrious term seemed to
comprise all such vanities as carpets, curtains, couches, pictures, and
ornaments of every description. For indoors, he argued, why, he didn’t
frequent that side of the house much himself, and what had been good
enough for his mother must be good enough for his wife and the girls.
When hard pressed, as be sure he was by these on the score of certain
damask hanging and gorgeous carpets at Hamilton Hill, he would reply that
Lady Hamilton was the sweetest woman in Europe, whereat his audience
dissented, but that extravagance was her crying fault, only excusable on
the ground of her foreign birth and education, and it couldn’t go on. It
could _not_ go on! He should live to see his neighbour ruined, and sold
up, but he should be sorry for it, prodigiously sorry! for Hamilton was a
good fellow, very strong in the saddle, and took his bottle like a man!

He had spoken to the same effect just before he dropped asleep, and Dame
Umpleby with her daughters had continued the subject in whispers till it
died out of itself just as the far-off figure of Alice, coming direct to
the house, afforded fresh food for conversation.

Margery being the youngest, saw the arrival some half-second before her
sisters, and for one rapturous moment believed her dearest visions were
realised, and little Red Riding Hood was coming to pay them a visit
in person; but this young woman being about five years of age, and of
imaginative temperament, was already accustomed to disillusions, and
felt, therefore, more disgusted than surprised when her eldest sister
Janet suggested the less startling supposition that it was Goody Round’s
grand-daughter on an errand for red salve and flannel, offering, at the
same time, to procure those palliatives in person from the store-room.
Janet, like most elder girls in a large family, was as steady as a
matron, taking charge of the rest with the care of an aunt, and the
authority of a governess. But the mother’s sight was sharper than her
children’s. “Bessie Round’s not half the height of that girl,” said she,
rising for a better look. “See how she skims across the stepping-stones
at the ford! She’s in a hurry, whoever she is! But that is no reason,
Margery, why you shouldn’t learn your spelling, nor that I should have to
unpick the last half-dozen stitches in Marian’s sampler. Hush! my dears,
I pray you! Less noise, or you will wake father.”

Pending this discussion, Alice, whose pace was at least twice as good
as Bessie Round’s, had reached the house. She looked very pretty, all
flushed and tumbled out of the moorland breezes, and Dame Umpleby’s
heart reproached her for the hundredth time that she had allowed her
husband to establish as a rule the administration of justice in his own
room, unhampered by her presence. He had once in their early married
life admitted her assistance to his judicial labours, but such confusion
resulted from this indulgence that the experiment was never repeated.

Though Sir Marmaduke had been married a score of years, and was the model
of a steady-going, middle-aged gentleman, such is the self-tormenting
tendency of the female mind that his wife could not mark without certain
painful twinges, the good looks of this visitor waiting at the hall-door,
lest her errand should prove as usual—“A young woman, if you please,
wants to see Sir Marmaduke on justice business!”

Such twinges are generally prophetic. Long before Margery and Marian had
settled a disputed point as to the identity of the wolf and little Red
Riding Hood’s grandmother in the story-book, a plethoric serving-man, who
had obviously been employing his leisure in the kitchen, like his master
in the parlour, entered with a red shining face, and announced Alice’s
arrival in the very words his mistress knew so well.

Sir Marmaduke woke up with a start, rubbed his eyes, his nose, the whole
of his bald head, and replied as usual—

“Directly, Jacob, directly. Offer the young woman a horn of small ale,
and show her into the justice-room.”

It was a tradition at Brentwood that no visitor, however humble, should
walk six steps within the threshold dry-lipped, and old Jacob, who loved
a gossip only less than a drink, was exceedingly careful not to break
through this hospitable practice.

Sir Marmaduke, blinking like an old owl in the daylight, adjusted his
wig, shook himself to rights, and, ignoring his wife’s uneasiness,
wandered off scarce half-awake, to receive the new arrival in the
justice-room.

There were few eavesdroppers at Brentwood, least of all at that hour of
the day. A general stagnation habitually pervaded the establishment from
dinner-time till dusk. The men slumbered over the fire in the hall, the
women, at least the elder ones, crossed their arms under their aprons,
and dozed in the kitchen; the younger maids stole out to meet their
bachelors in the wood-house of the cattle-sheds. Even Rupert, the old
mastiff, retired to his kennel, and unless the provocation was of an
extraordinary nature, refused to open more than one eye at a time, so
that fear was uncalled-for, which Alice obviously entertained, lest her
communication to Sir Marmaduke should be overheard.

The latter concluding it was the usual grievance, cast a hasty glance
at the girl as he passed on to the leathern arm-chair that formed his
throne, but seating himself thereon, and obtaining a full view of her
face, gave a start of recognition, and exclaimed in surprise—

“Why, it’s Mistress Alice! Take a chair, Mistress Alice, and believe me,
you’re welcome. Heartily welcome, however tangled be the skein you’ve
brought me to unravel.”

Pretty Alice of the “Hamilton Arms” was as well known as the sign of that
hostelry itself to every hard-riding, beer-drinking, cattle-jobbing,
country gentleman within fifty miles. Sir Marmaduke often said, and
sometimes swore, that “he didn’t care how they bred ’em in London and
thereabouts, but to _his_ mind Alice was the likeliest girl he saw north
o’ Trent, be t’other who she might!”

The object of his admiration, standing very near the door, hoped “Lady
Umpleby and the young ladies were well,” a benevolent wish it seemed she
had walked all this distance to express, for she immediately broke down,
and began to adjust plaits in the hem of her pinners with extreme nicety.

Sir Marmaduke, marking her confusion, suspected it _must_ be the old
business after all.

“Take a seat, my dear,” repeated he paternally. “Don’t ye be frightened;
nobody will hear ye here. Take your own time, and tell your own story.”

Thus adjured, Alice still close to the door, looked anxiously round, and
whispered—

“Oh! Sir Marmaduke, are you quite sure nobody can hear us?”

The justice smiled, and pulled his wig straight. It was evident she
had something very secret to confide. He was glad she had come to him
at once, and what a pretty girl she was! Of course, he would stand her
friend. He told her so.

“Oh! Sir Marmaduke,” said Alice, “it’s something dreadful. It’s something
I’ve found out. I know I shall get killed by some of them! It’s a plot,
Sir Marmaduke! That’s what it is. There!”

The justice started. His brow clouded, and his very wig seemed to
come awry. He was a stout-hearted gentleman enough, and feared danger
certainly less than trouble. But a plot! Ever since he could remember in
his own and his father’s time, the word had been synonymous with arrests,
imprisonments, authorised oppression, packed juries, commissions of
inquiry, false witness, hard swearing, and endless trouble to justices of
the peace.

It was, perhaps, the one thing of all others that he most dreaded, so his
first impulse was, of course, to ignore the whole matter.

“Plot! My dear. Pooh! Nonsense! What do you know of plots, except a plot
to get married, you little jade? Hey? Plot! There’s no such thing in
these days. We smothered the whole brood, eggs and all, in Fifteen. We’ll
give you a drop of burnt sherry, and send you home behind Ralph on a
pillion. Don’t ye trouble your pretty head about plots, my dear. If you’d
seen as many as I have, you’d never wish for another.”

Alice thought of Slap-Jack, and collected her ideas. “I’m sure,” said
she, “I wouldn’t have taken the liberty of coming to trouble your
honour, but I thought as you would like to know, Sir Marmaduke, being as
it concerns Sir George Hamilton, who’s aunt’s landlord, you know, Sir
Marmaduke, and his sweet lady; and if they were to come for to be taken
and carried to London town with their feet tied under their horses’
bellies, Sir Marmaduke, why whatever would become of us all?”

The picture that Alice conjured up was too much for her, and she dried
her tears on her apron.

Sir Marmaduke opened his eyes wider than he had done since he closed
them for his afternoon nap. “Sir George Hamilton!” he repeated, in great
astonishment; “how can he be implicated? What d’ye mean, my dear? Dry
your eyes, there’s a good girl, and tell your story from the beginning.”

She had recovered her composure now, and made her statement lucidly and
without reserve. She detailed the whole circumstances of her lover’s
dispute with Captain Bold, and the latter’s threats, from which she
gathered, reasonably enough, that another Jacobite rising was imminent,
in which their party were to be successful, whereby the loyal subjects of
King George, including the Hamiltons, Slap-Jack, her aunt, and herself,
were to be ruined, and utterly put to confusion. She urged Sir Marmaduke
to lay his hands at once on the conspirators within reach. Three of them,
she said, would be together at the “Hamilton Arms” that very evening.
She did not suppose two of the gentlemen would make much resistance, as
they seemed to be priests; and fighting, she thought, could not be their
trade; while as for the red-nosed captain, with his bay mare, though he
talked very big, and said he had served in every country in Europe, why,
she would not be afraid to promise that cook and herself could do his
business, for that matter, with a couple of brooms and a slop-pail.

Sir Marmaduke laughed, but he was listening very attentively now,
altogether changed from the self-indulgent slumberer of half an hour ago.
As she continued her story his interest became more and more excited,
the expression of his face cleared from lazy indifference into shrewd,
penetrating common sense, and denoted the importance he attached to her
communication, of which not a word escaped him.

At the mention of the red-nosed captain with his bay mare, he interrupted
her, dived into a table-drawer, from which he produced a note-book, and
referred to an entry amongst its red-lined pages.

“Stop a moment, Mistress Alice,” said he, turning over the leaves. “Here
it is. Bay mare, fast, well-bred, kicks in the stable, white hind-foot,
star, and snip on muzzle. Owner, middle height, speaks in a shrill voice,
long nose, pale face, and flaxen hair in a club.”

Alice’s eyes kindled with the first part of this description, but she
seemed disappointed when he reached the end.

“That’s not our captain, Sir Marmaduke,” said she. “Our captain’s got
a squeaky voice, sure enough; but his hair is jet-black, and his face,
especially his nose, as red, ay, red as my petticoat. It’s the moral
of the mare, to be sure, and a wicked beast she is,” added Alice,
reflectively.

Sir Marmaduke pondered. “Is your captain, as you call him, a good-looking
man?” said he, slyly.

Alice was indignant. “As ugly as sin!” she exclaimed. “Bloodshot eyes,
scowling eyebrows, and a seam down one cheek that reaches to his
chin. No, Sir Marmaduke, to do him justice, he’s a very hard-featured
gentleman, is the captain.”

Sir Marmaduke, keeping his finger between the leaves of his note-book,
referred once more to the entry.

“Tastes differ, Mistress Alice,” said he, good-humouredly. “I think I
can recognise the gentleman, though I’ve got him described here, and by
one of your sex too, as ‘exceedingly handsome-featured, of commanding
presence, with an air of the highest fashion.’ Never mind. I knew he
was somewhere this side of the Border, but did not guess he was such a
near neighbour. If it’s any satisfaction, I don’t mind telling you, my
dear, he’s likely enough to be in York gaol before the month’s out. In
the meantime, don’t you let anybody know you’ve seen me, and keep your
captain, if you possibly can, at the ‘Hamilton Arms’ till I want him.”

Alice curtsied demurely. She had caught the excitement inseparable from
everything that resembles a pursuit by this time, and had so thoroughly
entered into the spirit of the game, that she felt she could let the
captain make love to her for an hour at a stretch, red nose and all,
rather than he should escape out of their clutches.

“And the other gentleman?” she asked, glancing at the note-book, as if
she thought they too might be inscribed on its well-filled pages. “Him
that sits upstairs writing all day, and him that lives up with Sir George
at the Hill, and only comes down our way about dusk. There can’t be much
harm about that one, Sir Marmaduke, I think. Such a pale, thin, quiet
young gentleman, and for all he seems so unhappy, as meek as a mouse.”

“Let the other gentlemen alone, Alice,” answered the justice. “You’re a
good girl, and a pretty one, and you showed your sense in coming over
here at once without saying a word to anybody. Now, you’ll take my
advice, my dear; I am sure you will. Get home before it’s dark. I’d send
you with Ralph and old Dapple, but that it would make a talk. Never mind,
you’ve a good pair of legs, I know; so make all the use you can of them.
I don’t like such a blooming lass to be tramping about these wild moors
of ours after nightfall. Tell your aunt to brew you a posset the moment
you get home. If she asks any questions, say I told you to come up here
about renewing the license. Above all, don’t tattle. Keep silence for a
week, only a week, and I’ll give you leave after that to chatter till
your tongue aches. And now, Alice, you’re a sensible girl, I believe, and
not easily frightened. Listen to what these two priests say. Hide behind
the window-curtain, under the bed, anywhere, only find out for certain
what they’re at, and come again to me.”

“But they speak French,” objected Alice, whereat her listener’s face
fell, though he smiled well-pleased when she added, modestly; “not but
what I know enough to understand them, if I don’t have to answer.”

“Quite right, quite right, my dear,” assented the justice; “you’re a
clever girl enough. Mind you show your cleverness by keeping your tongue
between your teeth. And now it’s high time you were off. Remember what
I’ve told you. Mum’s the word, my dear; and fare ye well.”

So the justice, opening the door for Alice with all courtesy, imprinted
such a kiss upon her blooming face, as middle-aged gentlemen of those
days distributed liberally without scandal, a kiss that, given in all
honour and kindliness, left the maiden’s cheek no rosier than before.

Then, as soon as the door was shut, Sir Marmaduke pulled his wig off, and
began pacing his chamber to and fro, as was his custom when in unusual
perplexity.

“A plot,” he reflected; “no doubt of it. Another veritable Jacobite plot,
to disturb private comfort and public credit; to make every honest man
suspect his neighbour, and to set the whole country by the ears.”

Though he had wisely concealed from Alice the importance he really
attached to her information, he could not but admit her story was very
like many another that had previously warned him of these risings, in one
of which, long ago, he had himself been concerned on the other side. His
sympathies even to-day were not enthusiastically with his duty. That duty
doubtless was, to warn the executive at once.

He wished heartily that he knew which of his friends and neighbours was
concerned in the business. It would be terrible if some of his intimates
(by no means an unlikely supposition) were at its head. He thought it
extremely probable that Sir George Hamilton was only named as a victim
for a blind, and had really accepted a prominent part in the rising.
Could he not give him a hint he was suspected, in time to get out of the
way? Sir Marmaduke was not very bitter against the Jacobites; and perhaps
it occurred to him, moreover, that if they should get the upper hand,
it would be well to have such an advocate as Sir George on the winning
side. He might tell him what he had heard, under pretence of asking his
assistance and advice.

At all events he thought he had shut Alice’s mouth for the present, by
setting her to watch the conspirators closely in her aunt’s house. “If
she finds _them_ out,” said Sir Marmaduke, rubbing his bald head, “I
shall have timely notice of their doings, and if they find _her_ out,
why, they will probably change the scene of operation with all haste, and
I shall have got an exceedingly awkward job off my hands.”




CHAPTER LII

THE BOWL ON THE BIAS


It was Sir Marmaduke’s maxim, as he boasted it had been his father’s and
grandfather’s, to sleep on a resolution before putting it in practice.
He secured, therefore, a good night’s rest and a substantial breakfast
ere he mounted his best horse to wait upon his neighbour at Hamilton
Hill, ordering the grey to be saddled, because Sir George had sometimes
expressed his approval of that animal. The lord of Brentwood was
sufficiently a Yorkshireman to seize the opportunity of “a deal,” even
while more important matters were under consideration.

“He was getting on,” he meant to tell Sir George. “His nerve was
beginning to fail. The grey was as good as gold, but _a little too much
of a horse_ for him now. He was scarce able to do the animal justice like
a younger man.”

And as this suggestion could not but be flattering to the _younger man_,
he thought it not improbable his friend might be tempted to purchase on
the spot.

So he rode the horse quietly and carefully, avoiding the high road, which
would have taken him past the “Hamilton Arms,” and, threading a labyrinth
of bridleways through the moor, very easy to find for those who were
familiar with them, but exceedingly puzzling to those who were not.

The grey looked fresh and sleek, as if just out of the stable, when Sir
Marmaduke rode into the courtyard at Hamilton Hill, whence he was ushered
by Slap-Jack, who had a great respect for him as a “True Blue, without
any gammon,” to the terrace where Sir George, her ladyship, and Monsieur
de St. Croix were engaged in a game of bowls.

Sir Marmaduke followed boldly, although, finding he had to confront Lady
Hamilton, he was at some pains to adjust his neckcloth and tie-wig,
wishing, at the same time, he had got on his flowing “Steinkirk” cravat
and a certain scarlet waistcoat with gold-lace, now under repair.

The game was proceeding with much noise and hilarity, especially from
Sir George. Florian, an adept at every pastime demanding bodily skill,
had already acquired a proficiency not inferior to his host’s, who was
no mean performer. They were a capital match, particularly without
lookers-on; but the baronet remarked, with prim inward sarcasm, that he
could generally beat his adversary in the presence of Cerise. The very
sound of Lady Hamilton’s voice seemed to take Florian’s attention off the
game.

She was watching the players now with affected interest—smiling
encouragement to her husband with every successful rub—bringing all her
artless charms to bear on the man whom she had resolved to win back if
she could. She was very humble to-day, but no less determined to make a
desperate struggle for her lost dominion, feeling how precious it was
now, and that her heart would break if it was really gone for ever.

And Sir George saw everything through the distorted glass of his own
misgivings.

“All these caressing ways—all these smiles and glances,” thought
he, bitterly, “only prove her the most fickle of women, or the most
hypocritical of wives!”

He could not but acknowledge their power, and hated himself for the
weakness. He could not prevent their thrilling to his heart, but he
steeled it against her all the more. The better he loved her, the deeper
was her treachery, the blacker was her crime. There should be no haste,
no prejudice, no violence, and—no forgiveness!

All the while he poised his bowl with a frank brow and a loud laugh. He
sipped from a tankard on the rustic table with a good-humoured jest. With
a success which surprised him, and for which he hated himself while he
admired, he acted the part of a confiding, indulgent husband towards
Cerise—of a hearty, unsuspicious friend towards St. Croix.

And the latter was miserable, utterly and confessedly miserable! Every
caress lavished on her husband by the wife, was a shaft that pierced
him to the marrow. Every kind word addressed by the latter to himself,
steeped that shaft in venom, and sent the evil curdling through his blood.

“Penance,” he murmured inwardly. “They talk of penance—of punishment for
sin—of purgatory—of hell! Why, _this_ is hell! I am in hell already!”

The arrival of Sir Marmaduke, therefore, with his broad brown face, his
old-fashioned dress, and his ungainly manners, was felt as a relief to
the whole party; and, probably, not one of them separately would have
given him half so gratifying a reception as was now accorded him by all
three.

Nevertheless, his greeting to Lady Hamilton was so ludicrous in its
ceremonious awkwardness, that she could scarcely repress a laugh.
Catching Florian’s eye, she did, indeed, indulge in a smile, which she
hoped might be unobserved. So it was by Sir Marmaduke, whose faculties
were completely absorbed in his bow; but her husband noted the glance of
intelligence exchanged, and scored it up as an additional proof against
the pair.

“Good-morrow, Sir George,” continued the new arrival, completing his
salutations, as he flattered himself, in the newest mode; “and to you
sir,” he added, turning rather sternly upon Florian, whom he was even
then mentally committing, under a magistrate’s warrant, to take his trial
for high treason. “I made shift to ride over thus early in order to be
sure of finding my host before he went abroad. Harbouring our stag, as we
say, my lady, before he rouses; for if I had come across his blemish in
the rack as I rode up the park, it would have been a disappointment to
myself, and a disgrace to my reputation as a woodsman.”

Cerise did not in the least understand, but she bowed her pretty head and
answered—

“Yes, of course—clearly—so it would.”

[Illustration: “THE ARRIVAL OF SIR MARMADUKE WAS A RELIEF.”

(_Page 460._)]

“Therefore,” continued Sir Marmaduke, somewhat inconsequently, for the
sweet foreign accent rang in his ears and heated his brain, as if he had
been a younger man. “Therefore St. George, I thought you might like to
have another look at Grey Plover before I send him to Catterick fair. He
stands ready saddled at this present speaking in your own stable, and if
you would condescend to mount and try his paces in the park, I think you
must allow that you have seldom ridden a more gallant goer.”

Sir Marmaduke was pleased with his own diplomacy. Casting his eyes on
her ladyship’s pretty feet, he had quite satisfied himself she was
too lightly shod to accompany her husband through the most luxuriant
herbage of the park. The priest, too, being a Frenchman, would be safe
to know little, and care less, about a horse. He could thus secure an
uninterrupted interview with his friend, and might, possibly, make an
advantageous sale into the bargain.

“Oh, go with him, George!” exclaimed Cerise, thinking to please her
husband, who was, as she knew, still boy enough dearly to love a gallop.
“Go with him, and ride round by the end of the garden into the park. We
can watch you from here. I do so like to see you on horseback!”

He laughed and assented, leaving her again alone with Florian. Always
alone with Florian! He ground a curse between his teeth, as he strode
off to the stable, and, trying Grey Plover’s speed over the undulating
surface of the home-park, took that animal in a grasp of iron that made
it exert its utmost powers, in sheer astonishment.

Sir Marmaduke scanning from underneath a clump of trees, thought he had
never seen his horse go so fast.

Once round the home-park—once across the lower end at speed—a leap
over a ditch and bank—a breather up the hill—and Sir George trotted
Grey Plover back to his owner, in an easy, self-satisfied manner that
denoted the horse was sold. Never once had he turned his head towards
the terrace where Cerise stood watching. She knew it as well as he did,
but made excuses for him to herself. He was so fond of horses—he rode
so beautifully—nobody could ride so well unless his whole attention was
fixed on his employment. But she sighed nevertheless, and Florian, at her
side, heard the sigh, and echoed it in his heart.

“Fifty broad pieces,” said Sir George, drawing up to the owner’s side,
and sliding lightly to the ground.

“He’s worth more than that,” answered the other, loosening the horse’s
girths and turning his distended nostrils to the wind. “But we’ll talk
about the price afterwards. We are not likely to differ on that point.
You never rode behind such shoulders, Sir George; and did you remark how
he breasted the hill? Like a lion, Ah! If I was twenty years younger, or
even ten! But it’s no matter for that. I want your advice, Sir George.
You carry a grey lining, as we say, to a green doublet. Give me the
benefit. There’s something brewing here between your house and mine that
will come to hell-broth anon, if we take not some order with it in the
meantime!”

The other turned his back resolutely on the terrace where his wife was
standing, and shot a penetrating glance at the speaker.

“Let it brew!” said he. “If it’s hot from the devil’s caldron, I think
you and I can make shift to drink it out between us.”

Sir Marmaduke laughed.

“I don’t like the smell of it,” he answered, “not to speak of the taste.
Seriously, my friend, I’ve lit on a nest of Jacobites, here, on your own
property, at the ‘Hamilton Arms’! They’ve got another of their cursed
plots hatching in the chimney-corner, about fit to chip the shell by now.
There’s a couple of priests in it, of course; a lad, I know well enough,
with a good bay mare, that has saved his neck in more ways than one, for
a twelvemonth past. He’s only put to the dirty work, you may be sure, and
I can guess, though on this point I have no certain information, there
are two or three more honest gentlemen, friends of yours and mine, whom
I had rather meet at Otterdale Head with the hounds than see badgered by
an attorney-general at the Exchequer Bar or the Old Bailey, with as many
witnesses arrayed against them, at half a guinea an oath, as would swear
away the nine lives of a cat! A murrain of their plots! say I; there’s
neither pleasure nor profit in ’em, try ’em which side you will, and I’ve
had _my_ experience o’ both!”

Sir George’s brow went down, and his lips closed. In his frank, manly
face came the pitiless expression of a duellist who spies the weakness of
his adversary’s sword, and braces his muscles to dash in. He had got the
Jesuit, he told himself, “on the hip”!

It was all over with the scheme, he felt. Ere such intelligence could
have reached his thick-witted neighbour, he argued, it must be known in
other, and more dangerous quarters. If he had ever suffered the promised
earldom to dazzle him for an instant, his eyes were opened now; that
bit of parchment was but a patent for the gallows. He could hang the
tempter who had offered it him, within a week! At this reflection the
whole current of his passions turned—the man’s nature was of the true
conquering type—stern, fierce, almost savage, while confronted with his
adversary; generous, forbearing, even tender, when the foe was at his
feet.

The noblest instincts of chivalry were at work within his bosom; they
found expression in the simple energy with which he inwardly ejaculated,
“No! D―n it! I’ll fight fair!”

“My advice,” said he, quietly, “is easily followed. Do nothing in a
hurry—this country is not like France; these cancers often die out of
themselves, because the whole body is healthy and full of life, but, for
that very reason, if you eradicate them with the knife, your loss of
blood, is more injurious than the sore itself. Get all the information
you can, Sir Marmaduke, and when the time arrives, act with your usual
vigour and good sense. Come! Fifty pieces for the grey horse? my man
shall fetch him from Brentwood to-morrow.”

Sir Marmaduke was well pleased. He flattered himself that he had
fulfilled his delicate mission with extraordinary dexterity, and sold
Grey Plover very fairly, besides. His friends were warned now, and if
they chose to persist in thrusting their heads through a halter, why he
could do no more. He was satisfied Sir George had taken the hint he meant
to offer. Very likely the conspiracy would come to nothing after all,
but, at any rate, it was time to hang Captain Bold. He must see about
it that afternoon, so he would take his leave at once, and return to
Brentwood by the way he came.

Conscious of the disadvantage under which he laboured for want of the red
waistcoat, Sir Marmaduke sturdily refused his host’s hospitable offer
of refreshment, and was steering Grey Plover through the oaks at the end
of the avenue by the time George had rejoined his wife and Florian on
the terrace. Walking back, the latter smiled and shook his head. He was
thinking, perhaps, how his neighbour’s loyalty was leavened with a strong
disinclination to exertion, and no little indulgence for those whose
political opinions differed from his own.

But the smile clouded over as he approached the terrace. Together
again—always together! and in such earnest conversation. He could see his
wife’s white hands waving with the pretty trick of gesticulation he loved
so dearly. What could they have to say? what could _she_ have to say that
demanded so much energy? If he might only have heard. She was talking
about himself; praising his horsemanship, his strength, his courage,
his manly character, in the fond, deprecatory way that a woman affects
when speaking of the man she loves. Every word the sweet lips uttered
made Florian wince and quiver, yet her husband, striding heavily up the
terrace-steps, almost wished that he could change places with the Jesuit
priest.

The latter left her side when Sir George approached; and Cerise, who was
conscious of something in her husband’s manner that wounded her feelings
and jarred upon her pride, assumed a colder air and a reserved bearing,
not the least natural to her character, but of late becoming habitual.
Everything conspired to increase the distance between two hearts that
ought to have been knit together by bonds no misunderstanding nor want of
confidence should ever have been able to divide.

Sir George, watching his wife closely, addressed himself to Florian—

“Bad news!” said he, whereat she started and changed colour. “But not
so bad as it might have been. The hounds are on the scent, my friend. I
told you I expected it long ago, and if the fox breaks cover now, as Sir
Marmaduke would say, they will run into him as sure as fate. Halloa, man!
what ails you? You never used to hoist the white ensign thus, when we
cleared for action!”

The Jesuit’s discomposure was so obvious as to justify his host’s
astonishment. Florian felt, indeed, like a man who, having known an
earthquake was coming, and wilfully kept it out of his mind, sees the
earth at last sliding from beneath his feet. His face grew livid, and the
drops stood on his brow. In proportion to his paleness, Lady Hamilton’s
colour rose. Sir George looked from one to the other with a curling lip.

“There is no occasion for all this alarm,” he observed, rather
contemptuously. “The fox can lie at earth till the worst danger of the
chase is over. Perhaps his safest refuge is the very hen-roost he has
skulked in to rob! Cheer up, Florian,” he added, in a kinder tone. “You
don’t suppose I would give up a comrade so long as the old house can
cover him! I must only make you a prisoner, that is all, with my lady,
here, for your gaoler. Keep close for a week or two, and the fiercest of
the storm will have blown over. It will be time enough then to smuggle
you back to St. Omer, or wherever you have to furnish your report. Don’t
be afraid, man. Why, you used to be made of sterner stuff than this!”

Florian could not answer. A host of conflicting feelings filled his
breast to suffocation, but at that moment how cheerfully, how gladly,
would he have laid down his life for the husband of the woman he so madly
loved! Covering his face in his hands he sobbed aloud.

Cerise raised her eyes with a look of enthusiastic approval; but they
sank terrified and disheartened by the hard, inscrutable expression of
Sir George’s countenance. Her gratitude, he thought, was only for the
preservation of Florian. They might congratulate each other, when his
back was turned, on the strange infatuation that befriended them, and
perhaps laugh at his blind stupidity; but he would fight fair. Yes,
however hard it seemed, he was a gentleman, and he would fight fair!




CHAPTER LIII

FAIR FIGHTING


So the duel began. The moral battle that a man wages with his own temper,
his own passions, words, actions, his very thoughts, and a few days of
the uncongenial struggle seemed to have added years to Sir George’s life.
Of all the trials that could have been imposed on one of his nature,
this was, perhaps, the severest, to live day by day, and hour by hour,
on terms of covert enmity with the woman best loved—the friend most
frankly trusted in the world. Two of the chief props that uphold the
social fabric seemed cut away from under him. Outward sorrows, injuries,
vexations can be borne cheerfully enough while domestic happiness
remains, and the heart is at peace within. They do but beat outside, like
the blast of a storm on a house well warmed and water-tight. Neither can
the utmost perfidy of woman utterly demoralise him who owns some staunch
friend to trust, on whose vigorous nature he can lean, in whose manly
counsel he can take comfort, till the sharp anguish has passed away.
But when love and friendship fail both at once, there is great danger
of a moral recklessness which affirms, and would fain believe, that no
truth is left in the world. This is the worst struggle of all. Conduct
and character flounder in it hopelessly, because it affords no foothold
whence to make an upward spring, so that they are apt to sink and
disappear without even a struggle for extrication.

Sir George had indeed a purpose to preserve him from complete
demoralisation, but that purpose was in itself antagonistic to every
impulse and instinct of his nature. It did violence to his better
feelings, his education, his principles, his very prejudices and habits,
but he pursued it consistently nevertheless, whilst it poisoned every
hour of his life. He went about his daily avocations as usual. He never
thought of discontinuing those athletic exercises and field sports which
were elevated into an actual business by men of his station at that
period, but except for a few thrilling moments at long intervals, the
zest seemed to be gone from them all.

He flung his hawks aloft on the free open moor, and cursed them bitterly
when they failed to strike. He cheered his hounds in the deep wild dales
through which they tracked their game so busily, and hurried Emerald
or Grey Plover along at the utmost speed those generous animals could
compass, but was with a grim sullen determination to succeed, rather than
with the hearty jovial enthusiasm that naturally accompanies the chase.
Hawks, hounds, and horses were neither cordials nor stimulants now. Only
anodynes, and scarcely efficacious as such for more than a few minutes at
a time.

It had been settled that for a short period, depending on the alarm
felt by the country at the proposed rising, and consequent strictness
of search for suspected characters, Florian should remain domiciled as
before at Hamilton Hill. It was only stipulated that he should not show
himself abroad by daylight, nor hold open communication with such of his
confederates as might be prowling about the “Hamilton Arms.” With Sir
Marmaduke’s good-will, and the general laxity of justice prevailing in
the district, he seemed to incur far less peril by hiding in his present
quarters than by travelling southward even in disguise on his way to the
coast.

There were plenty more of his cloth, little distinguished by the
authorities indeed, from non-juring clergymen of the Church of England,
who remained quietly unnoticed, on sufferance as it were, in the northern
counties. Even if watched, Florian might pass for one of these, so his
daily life went on much as before Sir Marmaduke’s visit. He did not
write perhaps so many letters, for his correspondence with the continent
had been discontinued, but this increase of leisure only gave him more
time for Lady Hamilton’s society, and as he could not accompany her
husband to the moor, for fear of being seen, he now spent every day till
dinner-time under the same roof with Cerise.

Sir George used to wonder sometimes in his own heavy heart what they
could find to talk about through all those hours that seemed so long to
him in the saddle amongst the dales—the dales he had loved so dearly
a few short weeks ago, that seemed so wearisome, so gloomy, and so
endless now—wondered what charm his wife could discover in this young
priest’s society; in which of the qualities, he himself wanted, lay
the subtle influence that so entwined her when Florian first arrived,
that had changed her manner and depressed her spirits of late since
they had been more thrown together, and caused her to look so unhappy
now that they were soon to part. Stronger and stronger, struggle
as he might, grew a horrible conviction that she loved the visitor
in her heart. Like a gallant swimmer, beating against the tide, he
strove not to give way, battling inch by inch, gaining less with every
effort—stationary—receding—till, losing head and heart alike, and
wheeling madly with the current, he struck out in sheer despair for
the quicksands, instinctively preferring to meet rather than await
destruction.

Abroad all the morning from daybreak, forcing himself to leave the house
lest he should be unable to resist the temptation of watching her, Sir
George gave Cerise ample opportunities to indulge in Florian’s society,
had she been so inclined. He thought she availed herself of them to
the utmost, he thought that while he was away chafing and fretting,
and eating his own heart far away on those bleak moors, Lady Hamilton,
passing gracefully amongst her rose-trees on the terrace, or sitting
at ease in her pretty boudoir, appreciated the long release from his
company, and made the most of it with her guest. He could fancy he saw
the pretty head droop, the soft cheek flush, the white hands wave. He
knew all her ways so well. But not for him now. Not for _him_!

Then Grey Plover would wince and swerve aside, scared by the fierce
energy of that half-spoken oath, or Emerald would plunge wildly forward,
maddened by the unaccustomed spur, the light grasp bearing suddenly so
hard upon the rein. But neither Emerald nor Grey Plover, mettled hunters
both, could afford more than a temporary palliative to the goad that
pricked their rider’s heart.

Sir George had better have been _more_ or _less_ suspicious. Had he
chosen to lower himself in his own eyes by ascertaining how Lady Hamilton
spent her mornings, he would have discovered that she employed herself in
filling voluminous sheets with her neat, illegible French hand, writing
in her boudoir, where she sat _alone_. Very unhappy poor Cerise was,
though she scorned to complain. Very pale she grew and languid, going
through her housekeeping duties with an effort, and ceasing altogether
from the carolling of those French ballads in which the Yorkshire
servants took an incomprehensible delight.

She seemed, worst sign of all, to have no heart even for her flowers now,
and did not visit the terrace for five days on a stretch. The very first
time she went there, George happened to spend the morning at home.

From the window of his room he could see one end of the terrace with some
difficulty, and a good deal of inconvenience to his neck; nevertheless,
catching a glimpse of his wife’s figure as she moved about amongst
her rose-trees, he could not resist watching it for a while, neither
suspiciously nor in anger, but with something of the dull aching
tenderness that looks its last on the dead face a man has loved best on
earth. It is, and it is _not_. The remnant left serves only to prove how
much is lost, and that which makes his deepest sorrow affords his sole
consolation—to feel that love remains while the loved one is for ever
gone.

Half a dozen times he rose from his occupation. It was but refitting some
tackle on the model brigantine, yet it connected itself, like everything
else, with _her_. Half a dozen times he sat down again with a crack in
his neck, and an inward curse on his own folly, but he went back once
more just the same. Then he resumed his work, smiling grimly while his
brown face paled, for Monsieur de St. Croix had just made his appearance
on the terrace.

“As usual, I suppose,” muttered Sir George, waxing an inch or two of
twine with the nicest care, and fitting it into a block the size of a
silver penny. But somehow he could not succeed in his manipulation;
he was inventing a self-reefing topsail, but he couldn’t get the four
haulyards taut enough, and do what he would the jack-stay came foul of
the yard. “As usual,” he repeated more bitterly. “Easy it is! He’s the
best helmsman who knows when to let the ship steer herself!” Then he
applied once more to his task, whistling an old French quickstep somewhat
out of time.

Florian had been watching his opportunity, and took advantage of it at
once. He, too, had suffered severely during the past few days. Perhaps,
in truth, his greatest torture was to have been deprived of Lady
Hamilton’s society. He fancied she avoided him, though in this he was
wrong, for lately she had hardly given him a thought, except of friendly
pity for his lot. Had it been otherwise, Cerise would have taken care to
allow no such interviews as the present, because she would have suspected
their danger. Young, frank, and as little of a coquette as it was
possible for her mother’s daughter to be, she had never yet even thought
of analysing her feelings towards Florian.

And he, too, was probably fool enough to shrink from the idea of her
shunning him, forgetting (as men always do forget, the fundamental
principles of gallantry in regard to the woman they really love) that
such a mistrust would have been a step, and a long one, towards the
interest he could not but feel anxious to inspire.

Had she been more experienced or less preoccupied, she must have learned
the truth from his changing colour, his faltering step, his awkward
address, to all others so quiet, graceful, and polite. She was thinking
of George, she was low-spirited and unhappy. Florian’s society was a
change and a distraction. She welcomed him with a kind greeting and a
bewitching smile.

The more anxious men are to broach an interesting subject, the more
surely do they approach it by a circuitous route. Florian asked half a
dozen questions concerning the budding, grafting, and production of roses
in general, before he dared approach the topic nearest his heart. Cerise
answered good-humouredly, and became more cheerful under the influence of
fresh air, a gleam of sun, and the scent of her favourite flowers.

Bending sedulously over an especial treasure, she did not remark how long
a silence was preserved by her companion, though rising she could not
fail to observe the agitation of his looks nor the shaking hands with
which he strove to assist her in a task already done.

“These are very late roses,” said he, in a tone strangely earnest for the
enunciation of so simple a remark. “There are still half a dozen more
buds to blow, and winter has already arrived.”

“That’s why I am so fond of them,” she replied. “Winter comes too early
both in the garden and in the house. I like to keep my flowers as long as
I can, and my illusions too.”

She sighed while she spoke, and Florian, looking tenderly in her face,
noticed its air of languor and despondency. A wild, mad hope shot through
his heart, and coming close to her side, he resumed—

“It will be a week at least before this green bud blows, and in a week,
Lady Hamilton, I shall be gone.”

“So soon?” she said, in a low, tender voice, modulated to sadness by
thoughts of her own in no way connected with his approaching departure.
“I had hoped you would stay with us the whole winter, Monsieur de St.
Croix. We shall miss you dreadfully.”

“I shall be gone,” he repeated, mournfully, “and a man in my position can
less control his own movements than a wisp of seaweed on the wave. In a
day or two, perhaps in a few hours, I must wish you good-bye, and—and—it
is more than probable that I shall never see you again.”

Clasping her hands, she looked at him with her blue eyes wide open,
like a child who is half-grieved, half-frightened, to see its plaything
broken, yet not entirely devoid of curiosity to know what there is
inside. Like a flash came back to him the white walls, the drooping
laburnums, the trellised beech-walk in the convent garden, and before him
stood Mademoiselle de Montmirail, the Cerise of the old, wild, hopeless
days, whom he ought never to have loved, whom least of all should he dare
to think of now.

“Do you remember our Lady of Succour?” said he; “do you remember the
pleasant spring-time, the smiling fields, and the sunny skies of our
own Normandy? How different from these grey, dismal hills! And do you
remember the day you told me your mother recalled you to Paris? You
cannot have forgotten it! Lady Hamilton, everything else is changed, but
I alone remain the same.”

The broken voice, the trembling gestures betrayed deep and uncontrollable
emotion. Even Cerise could not but feel that this man was strangely
affected by her presence, that his self-command was every moment
forsaking him, and that already words might be hovering on his lips to
which she must not listen. Perhaps, too, there was some little curiosity
to hear what those words could be—some half-scornful reflection that when
spoken it would be time enough to disapprove—some petulant triumph to
think that everybody was not distant, reserved, impenetrable, like Sir
George.

“And who wishes you to change?” said she, softly. “Not I for one.”

“I shall remember those words when I am far away,” he answered,
passionately. “Remember them! I shall think of them day by day, and hour
by hour, long after you have forgotten there was ever such a person
in existence as Florian de St. Croix. Your director, your worshipper.
Cerise! your slave!”

She turned on him angrily. All her dignity was aroused by such an appeal
in such a tone, made to _her_, a wedded wife, but her indignation,
natural as it was, changed to pity when she marked his pale, worn face,
his imploring looks, his complete prostration, as it seemed, both of mind
and body. It was no fault of hers, yet was it the wreck she herself had
made. Angry! No, she could not be angry, when she thought of all he must
have suffered, and for _her_; when she remembered how this man had never
so much as asked for a kind word in exchange for the sacrifice of his
soul.

The tears stood in her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was very
low and pitiful.

“Florian,” said she, “listen to me. If not for your own sake, at least
for mine, forbear to speak words that can never be unsaid. You have been
to me, I hope and believe, the truest friend man ever was to woman. Do
you think I have forgotten the white chapel above Port Welcome, or the
bright morning that made me a happy wife?” Her face clouded, but she
resumed in a more composed tone, “We have all our own burdens to bear,
our own trials to get through. It is not for _me_ to teach _you_ that
this world is no place of unchequered sunshine. You are right. I shall,
perhaps, never see you again. Nay; it is far better so. But let me always
remember you hereafter as the Florian St. Croix, on whose truth, and
unselfishness, and right feeling Cerise Hamilton could rely, even if the
whole world besides should fail, and turn against her at her need!”

He was completely unmanned. Her feminine instinct had taught her to use
the only weapon against which he was powerless, and she conquered, as a
woman always does conquer, when madly loved by him who has excited her
interest, her pity, and her vanity, but who has failed to touch her heart.

“And you _will_ remember me? Promise that!” was all he could answer.
“It is enough; it is my reward. What happiness have I, but to obey your
lightest wish?”

“You go to France?” she asked, cheerfully, opining with some discretion
that it would be well to turn the conversation as soon as possible into a
less compromising channel. “You will see the Marquise? You will be near
her, at any rate? Will you charge yourself with a packet I have been
preparing for days, hoping it would be conveyed to my dear mother by no
hand but yours?”

It was a masterly stroke enough. It not only changed the whole
conversation, but gave Cerise an opportunity of escaping into the house,
and breaking up the interview.

He bowed assent of course. He would have bowed assent had she bid him
shed his own blood then and there on the gravel-walk at her feet; but
when she left him to fetch her packet, he waited for her return with the
open mouth and fixed gaze of one who has been vouchsafed a vision from
another world, and looks to see it just once again before he dies.

The rigging of the brigantine proceeded but slowly. Sir George could not
apply himself to his task for five minutes at a time; and had the tackle
of the real ‘Bashful Maid’ ever become so hopelessly fouled and tangled
as her model’s, she must have capsized with the first breeze that filled
her sails. His right hand had forgotten its cunning, and his very head
seemed so utterly confused that, to use his own professional metaphor,
“He didn’t know truck from taffrail; the main-brace from the captain’s
quadrant.”

What a lengthened interview was held by those two on the terrace! Again
and again rising and dislocating his neck to look—there they were still!
In the same place, in the same attitude, the same earnest conversation!
What subject could there be but one to bear all this discussion
from two young people like these? So much at least he had learned
_en mousquetaire_, but it is difficult to look at such matters _en
mousquetaire_, when they affect oneself. Ha! She is gone at last. And he,
why does he stand there watching like an idiot? Sir George turned once
more to the brigantine, and her dolphin-striker snapped short off between
his fingers.

Again to the window. Florian not gone yet! And with reason, too, as it
seems; for Lady Hamilton returns, and places a packet in his hand. He
kisses hers as he bends over it, and hides the packet carefully away
in his breast. Zounds! This is too much. But Sir George will command
himself. Yes, he will command himself from respect to his own character,
if for nothing else.

So with an affectation of carelessness, so marked as to be utterly
transparent, the baronet walked down to the garden-door, where he could
not fail to meet his wife as she re-entered the house for a second time,
leaving Florian without. It added little to his peace of mind that her
manner was flurried, and traces of recent tears were on her face.

“Cerise,” said he, and she looked up smiling; “I beg your pardon, Lady
Hamilton, may I ask what was that packet you brought out even now, and
delivered to Monsieur de St. Croix?”

She flashed at him a glance of indignant reproach, not, as he believed,
to reprove his curiosity, but because he had checked himself in calling
her by the name he loved.

“They are letters for Madame le Marquise, Sir George,” she answered,
coldly; and, without turning her head, walked haughtily past him into the
house.




CHAPTER LIV

FRIENDS IN NEED


“What a sky! what weather! what a look-out! what an apartment, and what
chocolate!” exclaimed Madame de Montmirail to her maid, in an accent of
intense Parisian disgust; while the latter prepared her mistress to go
abroad and encounter in the streets of London the atmosphere of a really
tolerably fine day for England at the time of year. “Quick, Justine!
do not distress yourself about costume. My visits this morning are of
business rather than ceremony. And what matters it now? Yet, after all,
I suppose a woman never likes to look her worst, especially when she is
growing old.”

Justine made no answer. The ready disclaimer which would indeed have
been no flattery died upon her lips; for Justine also felt aggrieved
in many ways by this untoward expedition to the English capital. In
the first place, having spent but one night in Paris, she had been
compelled to leave it at the very period when its attractions were
coming into bloom: in the next, she had encountered, while crossing the
Channel, such a fresh breeze, as she was pleased to term, “_un vent de
Polichinelle!_” and which upset her digestive process for a week; in
the third, though disdaining to occupy a hostile territory with her war
material disorganised, she was painfully conscious of looking her worst;
while, lastly, she had no opportunity for resetting the blunted edge of
her attractions, because in the whole household below-stairs could be
discovered but one of the opposite sex, sixty years old, and obviously
given, body and soul, to that mistress who cheers while she inebriates.

So Justine bustled about discontentedly, and her expressive French face,
usually so pleasant and lively, now looked dull, and bilious, and cross.

She brightened up a little, nevertheless, when a chair stopped at the
door, and a visitor was announced. The street, though off the Strand,
then a fashionable locality, was yet tolerably quiet and retired.

It cheered Justine’s spirits to bring up a gentleman’s name for
admission; and she almost recovered her good-humour when she learned he
was a countryman of her own.

The Marquise, sipping chocolate and dressed to go out, received her
visitor more than cordially. She had been restless at Chateau-la-Fierté,
restless in Paris, restless through her whole journey, and was now
restless in London. But restlessness is borne the easier when we have
some one to share it with; and this young man had reason to be gratified
with the welcome accorded him by so celebrated a beauty as Madame de
Montmirail.

She might almost have been his mother, it is true; but all his life he
had accustomed himself to think of her as the brilliant Marquise with
whom everybody of any pretence to distinction was avowedly in love, and
without looking much at her face, or affecting her society, he accepted
the situation too. What would you have? It was _de rigueur_. He declared
himself her adorer just as he wore a Steinkirk cravat, and took snuff,
though he hated it, from a diamond snuff-box.

The Marquise could not help people making fools of themselves, she said;
and perhaps did not wish to help it. She too had dreamed her dream, and
all was over. The sovereignty of beauty can at no time be disagreeable,
least of all when the bloom begins to fade, and the empire grows day by
day more precarious. If young Chateau-Guerrand chose to be as absurd as
his uncle, let him singe his wings, or his wig, or any part of his attire
he pleased. She was not going to put her lamp out because the cockchafer
is a blunderer, and the moth a suicide.

He was a good-looking young gentleman enough, and in Justine’s opinion
seemed only the more attractive from the air of thorough coxcombry with
which his whole deportment, person, and conversation were imbued. He
had quarrelled with his uncle, the Prince-Marshal, on the score of that
relative’s undutiful conduct. The veteran had paid the young soldier’s
debts twice, and lo! the third time he remonstrated. His nephew, under
pretext of an old wound disabling the sword-arm, obtained permission to
retire from the army, thinking thus to annoy his uncle, and accepted
an appointment as _attaché_ to the French embassy at the Court of St.
James’s, for which he was specially unfitted both by nature and education.

“You arrived, madame, but yesterday,” said he, bowing over the hand
extended to him, with an affectation of extreme devotion. “I learned it
this morning, and behold I fly here on the instant, to place myself, my
chief, and all the resources of my country, at the disposition of madame.”

“Of course,” she answered, smiling; “but in the meantime, understand
me, I neither want yourself, however charming, nor your chief, however
discreet, nor the resources of your country and mine, however powerful.
I am here on private affairs, and till they are concluded I shall have
no leisure to enter society. What I ask of your devotion now is, to sit
down in that chair, and tell me the news, while I finish my chocolate in
peace.”

He obeyed delighted—evidently, she was rejoiced to meet him here, so
unexpectedly, and could not conceal her gratification. He was treated
like an intimate friend, an established favourite—Justine had retired.
The Marquise loitered over her chocolate. She looked well, wonderfully
handsome for her age, and she had never appeared so kind. “Ah, rogue!”
thought this enviable youth, apostrophising the person he most admired in
the world, “must it always be so? mothers and daughters, maids, wives,
and widows.—No escape, _parbleu_, and no mercy. What is it about you,
my boy, that thus prostrates every creature in a petticoat before the
feet of Casimir de Chateau-Guerrand? Is it looks, is it manners, is it
intellect? Faith, I think it must be a happy mixture of them all!”

“Well!” said the Marquise with one of her victorious glances, “I am not
very patient, you know that of old. Quick! out with the news, you who
have the knack of telling it so well.”

He glanced in an opposite mirror, and looked as fascinating as he could.

“It goes no further, madame, of course; and indeed I would trust you with
my head, as I have long since trusted you with my heart.” An impatient
gesture of his listener somewhat discomfited him, but he proceeded,
nevertheless, in a tone of ineffable self-satisfaction.

“We are behind the scenes, you know, we diplomatists, and see the players
before the wigs are adjusted or the paint laid on. Such actors! madame,
and oh! such actresses! the old Court is a comedy to which no one pays
attention. The young Court is a farce played with a tragic solemnity.
Even Mrs. Bellenden has thrown up her part. There is no gooseberry bush
now behind which the heir-apparent fills his basket. Some say that none
is necessary, but Mrs. Howard still dresses the Princess, and―”

“Spare me your green-room scandal,” interrupted the Marquise. “Surely I
have heard enough of it in my time. At Fontainebleau, at Versailles, at
Marly. I am sick to death of all the gossips and slanders that gallop up
and down the backstairs of a palace. Talk politics to me, for heaven’s
sake, or don’t talk at all!”

“I know not what you call politics, madame,” answered the unabashed
attaché, “if the Prince’s likings and vagaries are not to be included in
the term. What say you to a plot, a conspiracy, more, a Jacobite rising?
In the north of course! that established stronghold of legitimacy. Do I
interest you now?”

He did indeed, and though she strove hard not to betray her feelings, no
observer, less preoccupied with the reflection of his own beloved image
in the looking-glass, could have failed to remark the gleam of her dark
eyes, her rising colour, and quick-drawn breath. Though she recovered
herself with habitual self-command, there was still a slight tremor in
her voice, while she repeated as unconcernedly as she could—

“In the north, you say? Ah! it is a long distance from the capital. Your
department is very likely misinformed, or has itself dressed up a goblin
to frighten idle children like yourself, monsieur, into paying more
attention to their lessons.”

But Casimir, who laid great stress on his own diplomatic importance,
vehemently repudiated such an assumption.

“Goblin, indeed!” he cried, indignantly. “It is a goblin that will be
found to have body and bones, and blood too, I fear, unless I am much
misinformed and mistaken. We have nothing to do with it of course, but I
can tell you, madame, that we have information of the time, the locality,
the numbers, the persons implicated. I believe if you put me to it, I
could even furnish you with the names of the accused.”

She bowed carelessly. “A few graziers, I suppose, and cattle-drivers,”
she observed, “with a Scottish house-breaker, and a drunken squire or two
for leaders. It is scarcely worth the trouble to ask any more questions.”

“Far graver than that, madame,” he answered, determined not to be put
down. “Some of the best names in the north, as I am informed, are already
compromised beyond power to retreat. I could tell them over from memory,
but my tongue fails to pronounce the barbarous syllables. Would you like
to have them in black and white?”

“Not this morning, monsieur,” she answered with a shrug of the
shoulders. “Do you think I came to London in order to mix myself up in
an unsuccessful rebellion? I, who have private affairs of my own that
require all my attention. You might as well suppose I had followed
yourself across the Channel because I could not exist apart from Casimir
de Chateau-Guerrand! Frankly, I am glad to see you too. Very glad,” she
added, stretching her white hand to the young man, with another of her
bewitching smiles. “But I must hunt you away now. Positively I must; I
ought to have sold an estate, and touched the purchase-money by this
time. I am a thorough woman of business, monsieur, I would have you know;
which does not prevent my loving amusement at the right season, like
other people.”

He took his hat to depart, feeling perhaps, for the first time, that
there were women in the world to whom even he dare not aspire, and that
it was provoking such should be the best worth winning. The Marquise had
not yet lost the knack of playing a game from which she had never risen
a loser but once, and indeed if her weapons were a little less bright,
her skill of fence was better than ever. Few women have thoroughly
learned the art of man-taming till they are past their prime, and even
then, perhaps the influence that subdued his fellows, is powerless alone
on him whom most they wish to capture.

Admiration from young Chateau-Guerrand gratified the Marquise as some
stray woodcock in a bag of a hundred head, gratifies a sportsman. It
hardly even stimulated her vanity. She wanted him though, like the
woodcock for ulterior purposes, and shot him, therefore, so to speak,
gracefully, neatly, and in proper form.

“I should fear to commit an indiscretion by remaining one moment longer,
madame,” said he, “but—but—” and he looked longingly, though with less
than his accustomed assurance, in the beautiful eyes that met his own so
kindly.

“But—but—” she interposed laughing, “you may come again to-morrow at
the same time; I shall be alone. And, Casimir, I have some talent for
curiosity, bring with you that list you spoke of—at least if no one else
has seen it. A scandal, you know, is like a rose, if I may not gather it
fresh from the stalk, I had rather not wear it at all!”

“Honour,” said he, kissing the hand she extended to him, and in high glee
tripped downstairs to regain his chair in the street.

Satisfied with the implied promise, Madame de Montmirail looked wistfully
at a clock on the chimneypiece and pondered.

“Twenty-four hours gained on that young man’s gossiping tongue at least.
To-morrow night I might be there—the horses are good in this country.
I have it! When I near the place I must make use of their diligence. I
shall overtake more than one. I cannot appear too quickly. I shall have
a famous laugh at Malletort, to be sure, if my information is earlier
than his—and at any rate, I shall embrace my darling Cerise, and see her
husband—my son-in-law now—my son-in-law! How strange it seems! Well,
business first and pleasure afterwards.”

“Justine!”

“Madame!” replied Justine, re-entering with a colour in her cheek and a
few particles of soot, such as constitute an essential part of a London
atmosphere, on her dainty forehead, denoting that she had been leaning
out at window to look down the street.

“Madame called, I think. Can I do anything more for madame before she
goes out?”

Much to Justine’s astonishment, she was directed to pack certain
articles of wearing apparel without delay. These were to be ready in two
hours’ time. Was madame going again to voyage? That was no business of
Justine’s. Was Pierre not to accompany Madame? nor Alphonse? nor even
old Busson? If any of these were wanted, madame would herself let them
know. And when was madame coming back? Shortly; Justine should learn in
a day or two. So, without further parley, madame entered her chair and
proceeded to that business which she imagined was the sole cause of her
journey to London.

After some hesitation, and a few tiresome interviews with her intendant,
the Marquise had lately decided on selling her estates in the West
Indies, stipulating only, for the sake of Célandine, that Bartoletti
should be retained as overseer at _Cash-a-crou_. The locality, indeed,
had but few agreeable associations connected with it. Months of wearisome
exile, concluded by a night of bloodshed and horror, had not endeared
Montmirail West in the eyes of its European owner.

It is not now necessary to state that Madame de Montmirail was a lady of
considerable enterprise, and especially affected all matters connected
with business or speculation. In an hour she made up her mind that London
was the best market for her property, and in twenty-four she was in her
carriage, on the road to England. Much to her intendant’s admiration, she
also expressed her decided intention of managing the whole negotiations
herself. The quiet old Frenchman gratefully appreciated an independence
of spirit that saved him long journeys, heavy responsibilities, and one
or two of his mistress’s sharpest rebukes.

To effect her sale, the preliminaries of which had been already arranged
by letter, the Marquise had to proceed as far as St. Margaret’s Hill
in the borough of Southwark. Her chairmen, after so long a trot, felt
themselves doubtless entitled to refreshment, and took advantage of
her protracted interview with the broker whom she visited, to adjourn
to a neighbouring tavern for the purpose of recruiting their strength.
The beer was so good that, returning past the old Admiralty Office,
her leading bearer was compelled to sit down between the poles of his
chair, taking off his hat, and proceeding to wipe his brows in a manner
extremely ludicrous to the bystanders, and equally provoking to the
inmate, who desired to be carried home. His yokefellow, instead of
reproving him, burst into a drunken laugh, and the Marquise inside,
though half-amused, was yet at the same time provoked to find herself
placed in a thoroughly false position by so absurd a casualty.

She let down the window and expostulated, but with no result, except
to collect a crowd, who expressed their sympathy with the usual good
taste and kind feeling of a metropolitan mob. Madame de Montmirail’s
appearance denoted she was a highborn lady, and her accent proclaimed her
a foreigner. The combination was irresistible; presently coarse jests
and brutal laughter rose to hootings of derision, accompanied by ominous
cries—“Down with the Pretender! No Popery! Who heated the warming-pan?”
and such catchwords of political rancour and ill-will.

Ere long an apple or two began to fly, then a rotten egg, and the body
of a dead cat, followed by a brickbat, while the less drunken chairman
had his hat knocked over his eyes. That which began in horse-play was
fast growing to a riot, and the Marquise might have found herself
roughly handled if it had not been for an irruption of seamen from a
neighbouring tavern, who were whiling away their time by drinking strong
liquors during the examination of their papers at the Admiralty Office,
adjoining. Though not above half a dozen in number, they were soon
“alongside the wreck,” as they called it, making a lane through the crowd
by the summary process of knocking down everybody who opposed them, but
before they had time to give “three cheers for the lady,” their leader,
a sedate and weatherworn tar, who had never abandoned his pipe during
the heat of the action, dropped it short from between his lips, and stood
aghast before the chair window, rolling his hat in his hands, speechless
and spell-bound with amazement.

The Marquise recognised him at once.

“It is Smoke-Jack! and welcome!” she exclaimed. “I should know you
amongst a thousand! Indeed, I scarcely wanted your assistance more the
night you saved us at _Cash-a-crou_. Ah! I have not forgotten the men
of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ nor how to speak to them. _Come, bear a hand, my
hearty!_ Is it not so?”

The little nautical slang spoken in her broken English, acted like a
charm. Not a man but would have fought for her to the death, or drank her
health till all was blue!

They cheered lustily now, they crowded round in enthusiastic admiration,
and the youngest of the party, with a forethought beyond all praise,
rushed back to the tavern he had quitted, for a jorum of hot punch, in
case the lady should feel faint after her accident.

Smoke-Jack’s stoicism was for once put to flight.

“Say the word, marm!” exclaimed the old seaman, “and we’ll pull the
street down. Who began it?” he added, looking round and doubling his
great round fists. “Who began it?—that’s all I want to know. Ain’t nobody
to be started for this here game? Ain’t nobody to get his allowance? I’ll
give it him, hot and hot!”

With difficulty Smoke-Jack was persuaded that no benefit would accrue
to the Marquise from his doing immediate battle with the bystanders,
consisting by this time of a few women and street-urchins, for most of
the able-bodied rioters had slunk away before the threatening faces of
the seamen. He had to content himself, therefore, with administering
sundry kicks and cuffs to the chairmen, both of whom were too drunk to
proceed, and with carrying the Marquise home, in person, assisted by
a certain elderly boatswain’s mate, on whom he seemed to place some
reliance, while the rest of the sailors sought their favourite resort
once more, to drink success and a pleasant voyage to the lady, in the
money with which she had liberally rewarded them.

“It is droll!” thought Madame de Montmirail, as she felt the chair jerk
and sway to the unaccustomed action of its maritime bearers. “Droll
enough to be thus carried through the streets of London by the British
navy! and droller than all, that I should have met Smoke-Jack at a time
like the present. This accident may prove extremely useful in the end.
Doubtless, he is still devoted to his old captain. Everybody seems
devoted to that man. Can I wonder at my little Cerise? And Sir George
may be none the worse of a faithful follower in days like these. I will
ask him, at any rate, and it is not often when I ask anything that I am
refused!”

So when the chair halted at last before Madame de Montmirail’s door,
she dismissed the boatswain’s mate delighted, with many kind words and
a couple of broad pieces, while Smoke-Jack, no less delighted, found
himself ushered into the sitting-room upstairs, even before he had time
to look round and take his bearings.

The Marquise prided herself on knowledge of mankind, and offered him
refreshment on the spot.

“Will you have grog?” she said. “It is bad for you sailors to talk with
the mouth dry.”

Smoke-Jack, again, prided himself on his manners, and declined
strenuously. Neither would he be prevailed upon to sit down, but balanced
his person on either leg alternately, holding his hat with both hands
before the pit of his stomach.

“Smoke-Jack,” said the Marquise, “I know you of old; brave, discreet,
and trustworthy. I am bound on a journey in which there is some little
danger, and much necessity for caution; have you the time and the
inclination to accompany me?”

His impulse was to follow her to the end of the world, but he mistrusted
these sirens precisely because it _was_ always his impulse so to follow
them.

“Is it for a spell, marm?” he asked; “or for a long cruise? If I might
make so free, marm, I’d like to be told the name of the skipper and the
tonnage of the craft!”

“I start in an hour for the north,” she continued, neither understanding
nor heeding his proviso. “I am going into the neighbourhood of your old
captain, Sir George Hamilton.”

“Captain George!” exclaimed the seaman, with difficulty restraining
himself from shying his hat to the ceiling, and looking sheepishly
conscious, he had almost committed this tempting solecism. “What! _our_
Captain George? I’m not much of a talking chap, marm; I haven’t got the
time, but if that’s the port you’re bound for, I’ll sail round the world
with you, if we beat against a headwind the whole voyage through!”

With such sentiments the preliminaries were easily adjusted, and it was
arranged that Smoke-Jack should accompany the Marquise on her journey
with no more delay than would be required to purchase him landsman’s
attire. He entered into the scheme with thorough good-will, though
expressing, and doubtless feeling, some little disappointment when he
learned that Justine, of whom he had caught a glimpse on the stairs, was
not to be of the party.

Avowedly a woman-hater, he had, of course, a _real_ weakness for the
softer sex, and with all his deference to the Marquise, would have found
much delight in the society of her waiting-maid. Such specimens as
Justine he considered his especial study, and believed that of all men he
best understood their qualities, and was most conversant with “the trim
on ’em.”




CHAPTER LV

FOREWARNED


It is needless to follow Madame de Montmirail and her new retainer
through the different stages of their journey to the north. By dint of
liberal pay, with some nautical eloquence on the part of Smoke-Jack, who,
being a man of few words, spoke those few to the purpose, they overtook
the ‘Flying Post’ coach by noon of the second day at a town some fifteen
miles south of Hamilton Hill. Calculating to arrive before nightfall,
they here transferred themselves and their luggage to that lumbering
conveyance; and if the Marquise wished to avoid notice, such a measure
was prudent enough. In the masked lady closely wrapped up and silent, who
sat preoccupied inside, no one could suspect the brilliant and sumptuous
Frenchwoman, the beauty of two consecutive Courts. Nor, so long as he
kept his mouth shut, did Smoke-Jack’s seafaring character show through
his shore-going disguise, consisting of jack-boots, three-cornered hat,
scratch-wig, and long grey duffle greatcoat, in which he might have
passed for a Quaker, but that the butt-end of a pistol peeped out of its
side-pockets on each side.

Their fellow-passengers found their curiosity completely baffled by the
haughty taciturnity of the one and the surly answers of the other. Even
the ascent of Otterdale Scaur failed to elicit anything, although the
rest of the freight alighted to walk up that steep and dangerous incline.
In vain the ponderous coach creaked, and strained, and laboured; in vain
driver flogged and guard expostulated; the lady inside was asleep, and
must not be disturbed. Smoke-Jack, on the roof, swore that he had paid
his passage, and would stick to the ship while a plank held. It was
impossible to make anything satisfactory out of this strangely-assorted
couple, and the task was abandoned in despair long before the weary
stretch of road had been traversed that led northward over the brown
moorland past the door of the “Hamilton Arms.”

The lady was tired—the lady would alight. Though their places were taken
for several miles further, she and her domestic would remain here. It was
impossible she could proceed. Were these rooms vacant?

Rooms vacant! Mrs. Dodge, in a pair of enormous earrings, with the gold
cross glittering on her bosom, lifted her fat hands in protestation.
Theoretically, she never had a corner to spare in which she could stow
away a mouse; practically, she so contrived that no wealthy-looking
traveller ran a risk by “going further—of faring worse.” On the present
occasion “she was very full,” she said. “Never was such markets; never
was such a press of customers, calling here and calling there, and not
to be served but with the best! Nevertheless, madam should have a room
in five minutes! Alice, lay a fire in the Cedars. The room was warm and
comfortable, but the look-out (into the stable-yard) hardly so airy as
she could wish. Madam would excuse that—madam—” Here Mrs. Dodge, who was
no fool, pulled herself short up. “She begged pardon. Her ladyship, she
hoped, would find no complaints to make. She hoped her ladyship would be
satisfied!”

Her ladyship simply motioned towards the staircase, up which Alice had
run a moment before with a red-hot poker in her hand, and, preceded by
Mrs. Dodge, retired to the apartment provided for her, while a roar of
laughter, in a tone that seemed not entirely strange, reached her ears
from the bar, into which her new retainer had just dragged her luggage
from off the coach.

Now the Marquise, though never before in England, was not yet ignorant of
the general economy prevailing at the “Hamilton Arms,” or the position of
its different apartments. She had still continued her correspondence with
Malletort, or rather she had suffered him to write to her, as formerly,
when he chose.

His very last letter contained, amongst political gossip and
protestations of friendship, a ludicrous description of his present
lodgings, in which the very room she now occupied, opening through
folding-doors into his own, was deplored as one of his many annoyances.

Even had she not known his step, therefore, she would have no difficulty
in deciding that it was the Abbé himself whom she now heard pacing the
floor of the adjoining apartment, separated only by a thin deal door,
painted to look like cedar-wood.

She was not given to hesitation. Trying the lock, she found it
unfastened, and, taking off her travelling mask, opened the door
noiselessly, to stand like a vision in the entrance, probably the very
last person he expected to see.

Malletort was a difficult man to surprise. At least he never betrayed any
astonishment. With perfectly cool politeness he handed a chair, as if he
had been awaiting her for an hour.

“Sit down, madame,” said he, “I entreat you. The roads in this weather
are execrable for travelling. You must have had a long and fatiguing
journey.”

She could not repress a laugh.

“It seems, then, that you expected me,” she answered, accepting the
proffered seat. “Perhaps you know why I have come.”

“Without presumption,” he replied, “I may be permitted to guess. Your
charming daughter lives within half a league of this spot. You think of
her day by day. You look on her picture at your château, which, by the
way, is not too amusing a residence. You pine to embrace her. You fly
on the wings of maternal love and tired post-horses. You arrive in due
course, like a parcel. In short, here you are. Ah! what it is to have a
mother’s heart!”

She appreciated and admired his coolness. The man had a certain
diplomatic kind of courage about him, and was worth saving, after
all. How must he have suffered, too, this poor Abbé, in his gloomy
hiding-place, with the insufferable cooking that she could smell even
here!

“Abbé,” she resumed, “I am serious, though you make me laugh. Listen. I
did _not_ come here to see my daughter, though I hope to embrace her
this very night. More, I came to see _you_—to warn you that the sooner
you leave this place the better. I know you too well to suppose you
have not secured your retreat. Sound the _alerte_, my brave Abbé, and
strike your tents without delay. Your plot has failed—the whole thing has
exploded—and I have travelled night and day to save a kinsman, and, I
believe, as far as his nature permits, a friend! There is nothing more to
be said on the subject.”

Malletort was moved, but he would not show it any more than he would
acknowledge this intelligence came upon him like a thunderclap. He
fidgeted with some papers to hide his face for a moment, but looked up
directly afterwards calm and clear as ever.

“I know—I know,” said he. “I was prepared for this—though, perhaps, not
quite so soon. I might have been prepared too, for my cousin’s kindness
and self-devotion. She has always been the noblest and bravest of women.
Madame, you have by this as by many previous benefits, won my eternal
gratitude. We shall be uninterrupted here, and cannot be overheard.
Detail to me the information that has reached you in the exact words
used. I wish to see if it tallies with mine.”

The Marquise related her interview with young Chateau-Guerrand, adding
several corroborative facts she had learned in the capital, none of which
were of much importance apart, though, when taken together, they afforded
strong evidence that the British Government was alive to the machinations
of the Abbé and his confederates.

“It is an utter rout,” concluded the Marquise, contemptuously; “and there
is no honour, as far as I can see, to save. Best turn bridle out of the
press, Abbé, like a defeated king in the old romances, put spurs to your
horse, and never look over your shoulder on the field you have deserted!”

“Not quite so bad as that, madame,” replied he. “’Tis but a leak sprung
as yet, and we may, perhaps, make shift to get safe into port after all.
In the meantime, I need scarcely remain in such absolute concealment any
longer. It must be known in London that I am here. Once more, madame,
accept my heartfelt thanks. When you see her this evening, commend me
humbly to your beautiful daughter and to her husband, my old friend, the
Captain of Musketeers.”

So speaking, the Abbé held open the door of communication and bowed the
Marquise into the adjoining room, where food and wine were served with
all the ceremonious grace of the old Court. His brow was never smoother,
his smile never more assured; but as soon as he found himself alone, he
sat down at the writing-table and buried his face in his hands.

“So fair a scheme!” he muttered. “So deep! So well-arranged! And to fail
at last like this! But what tools I have had to work with! What tools!
What tools!”

Meantime two honest voices in the bar were pealing louder and louder
in joyous interchange of questions, congratulations, and entreaties to
drink. The shouts of laughter that had reached the Marquise at the top of
the stairs came from no less powerful lungs than those of Slap-Jack, who
had stolen down from the hill as usual for the hindrance of Alice in her
household duties. He was leaning over her chair, probably to assist her
in mending the house linen, when his occupation was interrupted by the
arrival of a tall, dried-up looking personage dressed in a long duffle
coat, who entered the sanctum with a valise and other luggage in his
hands. Something in the ship-shape accuracy with which he disposed of
these roused Slap-Jack’s professional attention, and when the stranger
turning round pushed his hat off his forehead, and shut one eye to have a
good look, recognition on both sides was instantaneous and complete.

“Why, Alice, it’s Smoke-Jack!” exclaimed her sweetheart, while volumes
would have failed to express more of delight and astonishment than the
new-comer conveyed in the simple ejaculation, “Well! Blow me!”

A bowl of punch was ordered, and pipes were lit forthwith, Alice filling
her lover’s coquettishly, and applying a match to it with her own pretty
fingers. Smoke-Jack looked on approving, and winked several times in
succession. Mentally he was scanning the damsel with a critical eye,
her bows, her run, her figure-head, her tackle, and the trim of her
generally. When the punch came he filled three glasses to the brim, and
observed with great solemnity—

“My sarvice to you, shipmate, and your consort. The sooner you two gets
spliced the better. No offence, young woman. If I’d ever come across
such a craft as yourn, mate, I’d have been spliced myself. But these
here doesn’t swim to windward in shoals like black fish, and I was never
a chap to take and leap overboard promiscuous after a blessed mermyed
’a-cause she hailed me off a reef. That’s why I’m a driftin’ to leeward
this day. I’ll take it as a favour, young woman, if you’ll sip from my
glass!”

This was the longest speech Slap-Jack ever remembered from his shipmate,
and was valued accordingly. It was obvious that Smoke-Jack, contrary to
his usual principles, which were anti-matrimonial, looked on his old
friend’s projected alliance with the utmost favour. The three found
themselves extremely pleasant company. Alice, indeed, moved in and out
on her household duties, rendered the more engrossing that her aunt was
occupied in the kitchen, but the two seamen stuck to the leeside of their
bowl of punch till it was emptied, and never ceased smoking the whole
time. They had so much to talk about, so many old stories to recall,
questions to ask, and details to furnish on their own different fortunes
since they met, to say nothing of the toasts that accompanied each
separate glass.

They drank ‘The Bashful Maid’ twice, and Alice three times, in the course
of their merry-making. Now it came to pass that during their conversation
the name of Captain Bold was mentioned by Slap-Jack, as an individual
whose head it would give him extreme gratification to punch on some
fitting occasion; and that his friend showed some special interest in the
subject appeared by the cock of his eye and the removal of his pipe from
between his lips.

“Bold!” repeated Smoke-Jack, as if taxing his memory. “Captain Bold you
calls him. Not a real skipper, but only a soger captain, belike?”

“Not even good enough for a soger to my thinking,” answered the other,
in a tone of disgust. “Look ye here, brother, I’ve heard some of the old
hands say, though, mind ye, I doesn’t go along with them, that sogers is
like onions, never looks so well as when you hangs them up in a string.
But this here captain’s not even good enough for hanging, though he’ll
come to the yard-arm at last, or I’m mistaken.”

Again Smoke-Jack pondered, and took a pull at his punch.

“A flaxen-haired chap,” inquired he, “with a red nose and a pair of
cunning eyes? As thirsty as a sand-bank, and hails ye in a voice like the
boatswain’s whistle?”

“That’s about the trim, all but the hair,” answered his friend. “To be
sure, he may have hoisted a wig. This beggar’s got the gift of the gab,
though, and pays ye out a yarn as long as the maintop bowline.”

“It _must_ be the same,” said Smoke-Jack, and proceeded to relate his
grievances, which were as follows:—

Paid off from a cruise, and finding he was pretty well to do in the
world, Smoke-Jack had resolved to amuse himself in London, by studying
life in a more enlarged phase than was afforded at his usual haunts near
the river-side. For this purpose he had dressed himself in a grave suit,
which made him look like some retired merchant captain, and in that
character frequented the more respectable ordinaries about the Savoy and
such civilised parts of the town. Here he made casual acquaintances,
chiefly of sedate exterior, especially affecting those who assumed a wise
port and talked heavy nonsense in the guise of philosophy.

Not many weeks ago he had met a person at one of these dinner-tables
with whose conversation he was much delighted. Flaxen-haired, dark-eyed,
red-nosed, with a high voice, and of _quasi_-military appearance, but
seeming to be well versed in a spurious kind of science, and full
of such grave saws and aphorisms as made a deep impression on a man
like Smoke-Jack, reflective, uneducated, and craving for intellectual
excitement. That he could not understand half the captain said did
but add to the charm of that worthy’s discourse, and for two days the
pair were inseparable. On the third they concluded a dry argument on
fluids with the appropriate termination of a debauch, and the landsman
drugged the sailor’s liquor, so as to rob him of his purse, containing
twenty-five broad pieces, with the utmost facility, whilst he slept.

Waking and finding his companion and his money gone, while the score was
left unpaid, Smoke-Jack remembered to have seen the captain stroke the
neck of a bay mare held by a boy at the door of the tavern they entered,
though he denied all knowledge of the animal. After this the sailor never
expected to set eyes on his scientific friend again.

The mention of the bay mare proved beyond a doubt that the two shipmates
owed a grudge to the same individual. They laid their heads together to
pay it off accordingly, and called Alice, who was nowise unwilling, into
council.

Her feminine aversion to violence dissuaded them from their first
intention of avenging their grievances by the strong hand.

“It’s far better that such boasters as the captain should be frightened
than hurt,” observed gentle Alice. “If I’d my way, he should be well
scared once for all, like a naughty child, and then perhaps he’d never
come here any more.”

Smoke-Jack listened as if spell-bound to hear a woman speak so wisely;
but her sweetheart objected—

“It’s not so easy to frighten a man, Alice. I don’t quite see my bearings
how to set about it.”

“He’s not like _you_, dear,” answered Alice, with a loving smile, and
showing some insight into the nature of true courage. “It would be easy
enough to scare _him_, for I’ve heard him say many a time he feared
neither man nor devil, and if Satan himself was to come across him, he’d
turn him round and catch him by the tail.”

“I should like to see them grapple-to!” exclaimed both seamen
simultaneously.

“Well,” answered Alice, in her quiet voice, “old Robin skinned our black
bullock only yesterday. Hide, and horns, and tail are all together in
the corner of the cow-house now. I’m sure I quite shuddered when I went
by. It’s an ugly sight enough, and I’m very much mistaken if it wouldn’t
frighten a braver man than Captain Bold!”




CHAPTER LVI

FOREARMED


Notwithstanding the excitement under which she laboured, and the emotion
she painfully though contemptuously kept down, Madame de Montmirail
could not but smile at the unpretending mode in which she reached her
daughter’s new home. Slap-Jack, leading an old pony, that did all the odd
work of the “Hamilton Arms,” and that now swayed from side to side under
the traveller’s heavy valises, showed the way across the moor, while the
Marquise, on a pillion, sat behind Smoke-Jack, who, by no means at home
in the position, bestrode a stamping cart-horse with unexampled tenacity,
and followed his shipmate with perhaps more circumspection, and certainly
less confidence than if he had been steering the brigantine through shoal
water in a fog. He was by no means the least rejoiced of the three to
“make the lights” that twinkled in the hospitable windows of Hamilton
Hill.

It is needless to enlarge on the reception of so honoured a guest as
Lady Hamilton’s mother, or the delighted welcome, the affectionate
inquiries, the bustle of preparation, the running to and fro of servants,
the tight embrace of Cerise, the cordial greeting of Sir George, the
courteous salute of Florian, and the strange restraint that, after the
first demonstrative warmth had evaporated, seemed to lour like a cloud
over the whole party. Under pretext of the guest’s fatigue, all retired
earlier than usual to their apartments; yet long before they broke up for
the night the quick perception of the Marquise warned her something was
wrong, and this because she read Sir George’s face with a keener eye
than scanned even her daughter’s. How handsome he looked, she thought,
standing stately in the doorway of his hall, to greet her with the frank
manly courtesy of which she knew the charm so well. Yes, Cerise was
indeed a lucky girl! and could she be unworthy of her happiness? Could
she have mismanaged or trifled with it? This was always the way. Those
who possessed the treasure never seemed to appreciate its worth. Ah! It
was a strange world! She had hoped Cerise would be so happy! And now—and
now! Could the great sacrifice have been indeed offered up in vain?

Cerise was a good girl too; so kind, so truthful, so affectionate. Yet
in the present instance, if a shadow had really come between husband and
wife, Cerise must be in the wrong!

Women generally argue thus when they adjudicate for the sexes. In the
absence of proof they almost invariably assume that their own is in
fault. Perhaps they decide from internal evidence, and know best.

Lady Hamilton accompanied the Marquise to her bedroom, where mother and
daughter found themselves together again as they used to be in the old
days. It was not quite the same thing now. Neither could tell why, yet
both were conscious of the different relation in which they stood to each
other. It was but a question of perspective after all. Formerly the one
looked up, the other down. Now they occupied the dead level of a common
experience, and the mother felt her child was in leading-strings no more.

Then came the old story; the affectionate fencing match, wherein one
tries to obtain a full and free confession without asking a single direct
question, while the other assumes an appearance of extreme candour, to
cover profound and impenetrable reserve. The Marquise had never loved
her child so little as when the latter took leave of her for the night,
having seen with her own eyes to every appliance for her mother’s
comfort, combining gracefully and fondly the solicitude of a hostess
with the affectionate care of a daughter; and Lady Hamilton, seeking her
own room, with a pale face and a heavy heart, wondered she could feel so
little inspirited by dear mamma’s arrival, and acknowledged with a sigh
that the bloom was gone from everything in life, and the world had grown
dull and dreary since this cold shadow came between her and George.

He alone seemed satisfied with the turn affairs had taken. There need be
no more hesitation now, and it was well to know the worst. Sir George’s
demeanour always became the more composed the nearer he approached
a disagreeable necessity. Though Madame de Montmirail’s arrival had
exceedingly startled him, as in the last degree unexpected, he received
her with his customary cordial hospitality. Though he had detected, as
he believed, a deliberate falsehood, told him for the first time by the
wife of his bosom, he in no way altered the reserved, yet good-humoured
kindness of manner with which he forced himself to accost her of
late. Though he had discovered, as he thought, a scheme of black and
unpardonable treachery on the part of his friend, he could still afford
the culprit that refuge which was only to be found in his protection;
could treat him with the consideration due to every one beneath his own
roof.

But none the more for this did Sir George propose to sit down patiently
under his injuries. I fear the temper cherished by this retired
Captain of Musketeers savoured rather of a duellist’s politeness than
a philosopher’s contempt, or the forgiveness of a Christian. When he
sought his chamber that night, the chamber in which stood the unfinished
model of his brigantine, and from the window of which he had watched his
wife and Florian on the terrace, there was an evil smile round his lips,
denoting that thirst of all others the most insatiable, the thirst for
blood. He went calmly through the incidents of the past day, as a man
adds up a sum, and the wicked smile never left his face. Again he saw
his wife’s white dress among the roses, and her graceful figure bending
over the flower-beds with that pale dark-eyed priest. Every look of both,
every gesture, seemed stamped in fire on his brain. He remembered the
eagerness with which she brought out her packet and confided it to the
Jesuit. He had not forgotten the cold, haughty tone in which she told
him, _him_, her husband, who perhaps had some little right to inquire,
that it contained letters for her mother in France. In France! And that
very night her mother appears at his own house in the heart of Great
Britain!

He shuddered in a kind of pity to think of his own Cerise descending
to so petty a shift. Poor Cerise! Perhaps, after all, this coquetry
was bred in her, and she could not help it. She was her mother’s own
daughter, that was all. He remembered there used to be strange stories
about the Marquise in Paris, and he himself, if he had chosen—well, it
was all over now; but he ought never to have entrusted his happiness to
_that_ family. Of course if a married woman was a thorough coquette, as a
Montmirail seemed sure to be, she must screen herself with a lie! It was
contemptible, and he only despised her!

But was nobody to be punished for all the annoyances thus thrust upon
himself; the disgrace that had thus overtaken his house? The smile
deepened and hardened now, while he took down a glittering rapier from
the wall, and examined the blade and hilt carefully, bending the weapon
and proving its temper against the floor.

His mind was made up what to do, and to-morrow he would set about his
task.

So long as Florian remained under his roof, he argued, the rights of
hospitality required that a host should be answerable for his guest’s
safety. Nay more, he would never forgive himself if, from any undue haste
or eagerness of his own, the satisfaction should elude him of avenging
his dishonour for himself. What gratification would it be to see the
Jesuit hanged by the neck on Tower Hill? No, no. His old comrade and
lieutenant should die a fairer death than that. Die like a soldier, on
his back, with an honourable man’s sword through his heart. But how if it
came about the other way? Florian’s was a good blade, the best his own
had ever crossed. He flourished his wrist involuntarily, remembering that
deadly disengagement which had run poor Flanconnade through the body, and
was the despair of every scientific fencer in the company. What if it
should be his own lot to fall? Well, at least, he should have taken no
advantage, he would have fought fair all through, and Cerise, in the true
spirit of coquetry, would love him very dearly when she found she was
never to see him again.

He resolved, therefore, that he and Florian should depart forthwith. His
own character for loyalty stood so high, his intimacy with Sir Marmaduke
Umpleby and other gentlemen in authority was so well known, that he
anticipated no danger of discovery to any one who travelled under his
protection. Monsieur St. Croix should simply assume the ordinary dress
of a layman; they would not even ride on horseback. Every precaution
should be taken to avoid notice, and the ‘Flying Post’ coach, with its
interminable crawl, and innumerable delays, would probably answer the
purpose of unpretending secrecy better than any other mode of conveyance,
especially when they approached London. Thence, without delay, they would
post to the seaboard, charter a fast-sailing lugger, and so proceed in
safety to the coast of France. Once there, they would be on equal terms,
and no power on earth should come between them then. He liked to think of
the level sand, the grey sky overhead, the solitary shore, the moaning
wave, not a soul in sight or hearing but his enemy and his own point
within six inches of that enemy’s throat!

Sir George’s night was disturbed and restless, but he slept sound towards
morning, as he had accustomed himself in his former life to sleep at any
given time, after he had placed his sentries on an outpost, or gone below
to his cabin for an hour’s rest while giving chase to a prize.

When he awoke a cold grey sky loured overhead, and a light fall of snow
sprinkled the ground. It was the first morning of winter, come earlier
than usual even to those bleak moorlands, and strange to say, a foolish,
hankering pity for Lady Hamilton’s roses was the feeling uppermost in
his mind while he looked gloomily out upon the terrace. “Poor Cerise!”
he muttered. “Bleak sky and withered flowers—lover and husband both gone
by this time to-morrow! She will be lonely at first, no doubt, and it
is fortunate her mother should have arrived last night. But she will
console herself. They always do. Ah! these women, these women! That a man
should ever be such an idiot as to entrust his honour. Psha! his honour
has nothing to do with it—his happiness, nay, his mere comfort in their
hands. There is something even ludicrous in the infatuation. It reminds
me of Madame Parabére’s monkey playing with the Regent’s porcelain
flower-basket!—a laugh, a chatter, a stealthy glance or two, and down
goes the basket. What does it matter? They are all alike, I suppose, and
cannot help themselves. A man’s dog is faithful, his horse is honest, his
very hawk stoops to no lure but her master’s, while his wife. And I loved
her—I loved her. Fool that I am, I love her still! By the faith of a
gentleman, Monsieur de St. Croix, you will need every trick of the trade
to keep my point off your body if I once get you within distance!”

Then Sir George descended to meet his guest with a quiet manner and an
unclouded brow, though the murderous smile still hovered about his mouth.

“Florian,” said he, “do not condemn my hospitality if I announce
that you must depart this evening. Hamilton Hill is no longer a
sure refuge, though I believe that my company can still afford you
protection—therefore I travel with you. I do not leave you till I see you
landed in France. Till I have placed you in safety it concerns my honour
that you should be my care. But not a moment longer—not a moment longer,
remember that! You had better walk quietly down to the ‘Hamilton Arms’
during the day. I will follow with your luggage and my own. We shall
proceed to London in the weekly coach, which passes southward to-night.
We can be across the water by the fifth day. Do you understand? The fifth
day. You must be well armed. Take any sword of mine that pleases you,
only be sure you choose one with two feet six inches of blade, and not
too pliant; you might meet with an adversary who uses brute force rather
than skill. A strong arm drives a stiff blade home. In the meantime I
recommend you to make your farewell compliments at once to the Marquise
and—and Lady Hamilton.”

Florian assented, confused and stupefied like one in a dream. The hour he
had expected was come at last, and seemed none the more welcome for his
expectation. He must go—must leave the woman he worshipped, and the man
whom, strange to say, he loved as a brother, though that woman’s husband.
His senses seemed numbed, and he felt that to-day he could scarcely
appreciate his desolate condition. To-morrow it would not matter. There
was no to-morrow for him. Henceforth everything would be a blank. What
was it Sir George had said about a sword? Ah! the weapon might prove his
best friend. One home-thrust would put an end to all his sufferings. His
heart was dead within him, but he would see Cerise once more before he
left. A quick sharp pang warned him that his heart was not yet paralysed,
when he reflected how the Marquise was here, and he would not, therefore,
see Lady Hamilton alone.

But the latter, pitiful, perhaps, because of her own sorrow, met him by
one of those accidents that are essentially feminine, as he traversed the
hall, booted and cloaked for his departure. She gave him her hand kindly,
and he pressed it to his lips. He knew then, while she passed on, that
never in this world was he to set eyes on her again.

The door clanged to, the wind moaned, the crisp brown leaves eddied round
his feet on the frozen path, the cold struck to his very heart. How
dreary looked the white outline of those swelling moors against the black
laden clouds that scowled behind the hill.

But Sir George was careful to avoid an uninterrupted interview with his
wife. He shut himself into his own apartment, and found the time pass
quicker than he expected, for he had many dispositions to make, many
affairs of business to arrange. If he came alive out of that prospective
conflict, he meant to be absent from England for an indefinite period.
Come what might, he would never see Cerise again. Not that he believed
her guilty—no, he said to himself, a thousand times, but she was as bad
as guilty—she had deceived him—she could never have loved him. It was all
over. There was nothing more to be said.

The early night began to close ere his last pile of papers was burned,
his last packet sealed. Then Sir George took the compromising list of
his friends and neighbours with which Florian had entrusted him, and
placed it carefully in his breast. It might be an effective weapon, he
thought, if the Jesuit should prove restive about leaving England, or if
he himself should meet with opposition from any of the confederates. A
brace of pistols were now to be loaded and disposed in the large pockets
of his riding-coat, the trusty rapier to be buckled on, hat, gloves,
and cloak to be placed on the hall-table, Slap-Jack summoned to be in
readiness with the luggage, and Sir George was prepared for his journey.

Not till these arrangements were made did he seek Lady Hamilton’s
withdrawing-room, where, perhaps to his disappointment, he found the
Marquise alone.

His wife, however, soon entered, and accosted him with a very wife-like
inquiry—

“Have you had no dinner, George? and before travelling, too? We would
have waited, but the servants said you had given orders not to be
disturbed.”

“Sleep is food,” observed the Marquise. “I believe you have been
preparing for your journey with a _siesta_?”

How homelike and comfortable looked the pretty room, with its blazing
fire and its beautiful occupants! And perhaps he was never to see it
again; was certainly never again to hear the voice he loved in that
endearing and familiar tone.

But he would not pain his wife even now. As far as _he_ could spare
her she should be spared. They must not part on any terms but those of
kindness and good-will. He drew her towards his chair and called her by
her Christian name.

“I would have dined with you, indeed, but I had not a moment to bestow,”
said he, “and the Marquise will excuse ceremony in such a family party as
ours. You will take care of Cerise, madame, when I am gone? I know I can
trust her safely with _you_.”

The tears were standing in Lady Hamilton’s eyes, and she bent her face
towards her husband.

“You will come back soon, George?” said she in a broken voice. “London is
not so far. Promise me you will only be a week away.”

He drew her down and kissed her, once, twice, fondly, passionately, but
answered not a word. Then he took leave of the Marquise with something
less than his usual composure, which she did not fail to remark, and
notwithstanding a certain delay in the hall, of which Cerise tried in
vain to take advantage for another embrace, he summoned Slap-Jack and
departed.

“My head must be going,” thought Sir George, as he walked with his old
foretopman across the frozen park. “I could have sworn I put both gloves
on the hall-table with my hat. Never mind, I have _one_ left at least for
Monsieur de St. Croix to take up. Five days more—only five days more! and
then―”

Slap-Jack, looking into his master’s face under the failing light, saw
something there that strangely reminded him of the night when the captain
of ‘The Bashful Maid’ passed his sword through Hippolyte’s black body at
_Cash-a-crou_.




CHAPTER LVII

AN ADDLED EGG


“Go ahead, Jack!” said the baronet, after they had crunched the frozen
snow in silence for a quarter of a mile. “See that everything is ready,
and secure a couple of berths in the ‘Weekly Dispatch,’ or whatever they
call that lumbering ‘Flying Post’ coach’s consort, for the whole trip.
I’ll be down directly.”

“For you and me, Sir George?” asked Slap-Jack, exhilarated by the
prospect of a voyage to London. “Deck passengers, both, if I may be so
bold? The fore-hold of a slaver’s a joke to them London coaches between
decks.”

“Do as you’re ordered,” answered his master, “and be smart about it. Keep
your tongue between your teeth, and wait at the ‘Hamilton Arms’ till I
come.”

Sir George was obviously disinclined for conversation, and Slap-Jack
hastened on forthwith, delighted to have an hour or two of leisure in his
favourite resort, for reasons which will hereafter appear.

No sooner was his servant out of sight than the baronet retraced
his steps, and took up a position under some yew-trees, so as to be
completely screened from observation. Hence he could watch the door
opening on his wife’s garden, and the windows of the gallery, already
lighted, which she must traverse to reach her own room.

It was a pitiful weakness, he thought, but it could do no harm just to
see her shadow pass once more for the last, last time!

Meanwhile Slap-Jack, arriving all in a glow at the “Hamilton Arms,” found
that hostelry in a great state of turmoil and confusion; the stables
were full of horses, the parlours were crowded with guests, even the bar
was thronged with comers and goers, most of whom had a compliment to
spare for mistress Alice. It was some minutes before she could find an
opportunity of speaking to him, but the whisper must have been ludicrous
as well as affectionate, for her sweetheart burst out laughing, and
exploded again at intervals, while he sat with Smoke-Jack over a cup of
ale in the tap.

The two shipmates adjourned presently to the stable, where they were
followed by Alice, with a lanthorn, an armful of waxed twine, and a large
needle, furnished by the elder seaman, such as is used for thrumming
sails.

Their occupation seemed to afford amusement, for they laughed so much as
greatly to endanger the secrecy enjoined by their feminine assistant, who
was so pleased with its progress that she returned to visit them more
than once from her avocations in the bar.

The press of company to-night at the “Hamilton Arms” consisted of a very
different class from the usual run of its customers; the horses in the
stable were well-bred, valuable animals, little inferior in quality to
Captain Bold’s bay mare herself; the guests, though plainly dressed,
were of a bearing that seemed at once to extinguish the captain’s claims
to consideration, and caused him to slink about in a very unassuming
manner till he had fortified his failing audacity with strong drink. They
threw silver to old Robin the ostler, and called for measures of claret
or burnt sack with an unostentatious liberality that denoted habits of
affluence, while their thoughtful faces and intellectual features seemed
strangely at variance with the interest they displayed in the projected
cock-fight, which was their ostensible cause of gathering. A match for
fifty broad pieces a side need scarcely have elicited such eager looks,
such anxious whispers, such restless, quivering gestures, above all, such
morbid anxiety for the latest news from the capital. They wore their
swords, in which there was nothing remarkable, but every man was also
provided with a brace of pistols, carried on his person, as though loth
to trust the insecurity of saddle-holsters.

Malletort walked about from one to the other like the presiding genius
of the commotion. For these he had a jest, for those a secret, for all a
word of encouragement, a smile of approval; and yet busy as he was, he
never took his eye off Florian, watching him as one watches a wild animal
caught in a snare too weak to insure its capture, and likely to break
with every struggle.

Without appearing to do so, he had counted over the guests and found
their number complete.

“Gentlemen,” said he, in a loud, open voice, “I have laid out pen and
ink in the Cedars, as my poor apartment is loftily entitled. If you will
honour me so far, I propose that we now adjourn to that chamber, and
there draw out the conditions of our match!”

Every man of them knew he had a halter round his neck, and the majority
were long past the flush of youth, yet they scuffled upstairs, and played
each other practical jokes, like schoolboys, as they shouldered through
the narrow doorway into the room.

Malletort, signing to Captain Bold, and taking Florian’s arm, brought up
the rear.

“How now, Mrs. Dodge?” he called out, as he crossed the threshold. “I
ordered a fire to be lighted. What have you been about?”

“Alice must be sent for! Alice had been told! Alice had forgotten! How
careless of Alice!” And Mrs. Dodge, in the presence of such eligible
customers, really felt much of the sorrow she expressed for her niece’s
thoughtlessness.

When Alice did arrive to light the fire, her candle went out, her paper
refused to catch, her sticks to burn; altogether, she put off so much
time about the job, that, despite her good looks, the meeting lost
patience, and resolved to go to business at once; Captain Bold, who had
recovered his impudence, remarking that, “If what he heard from London
was true, some of them would have warm work enough now before all was
done!”

The captain seemed a privileged person: all eyes turned on him anxiously,
while several eager voices asked at once—

“What more have you heard?”

Bold looked to the Abbé for permission, and on a sign from the latter,
handed him a letter, which Malletort retained unopened in his hand.

Sensations of excitement, and even apprehension, now obviously pervaded
the assembly. Rumours had as usual mysteriously flown ahead of the real
intelligence they were about to learn, and men looked in each other’s
faces, for the encouragement they desired, in vain.

“Gentlemen,” said the Abbé, taking his place at the table, and motioning
the others to be seated, whilst he remained standing, “if I fail to
express myself as clearly as I should wish, I pray you attribute my
shortcomings to a foreign idiom, and an ignorance of your expressive
language, rather than to any doubt or hesitation existing in my own mind
as to our line of conduct in the present crisis. I will not conceal from
you—why should I conceal from you—nay, how _can_ I conceal from you, that
the moment of action has now arrived. I look around me, and I see on
every countenance but one expression, a noble and courageous anxiety to
begin.”

Murmurs of applause went through the apartment, while two or three voices
exclaimed, “Hear! hear!” “Well said!” “Go on!”

“Yes, gentlemen,” resumed the Abbé, “the moment has at last arrived, the
pear is ripe, and has dropped off the wall from its own weight. The first
shot, so to speak, has been fired by the enemy. It is the signal for
attack. Gentlemen, I have advices here, informing me that the Bishop of
Rochester has been arrested, and is now imprisoned in the Tower.”

His listeners rose to a man, some even seizing their hats, and drawing
the buckles of their sword-belts, as if under an irresistible impulse to
be off. One by one, however, they sat down again, with the same wistful
and even ludicrous expression of shame on the countenance of each, like a
pack of foxhounds that have been running hare.

The reaction did not escape Malletort, who was now in his element.

“I should have been unworthy of your confidence, gentlemen,” he
proceeded, with something of triumph in his tone, “had such a blow
as this fallen and found me unprepared. I was aware it had been
meditated, I was even aware that it had been resolved on, and although
the moment of execution could only be known to the government, I learned
enough yesterday to impress on me the policy of calling together this
influential meeting to-night. Our emissary, Captain Bold, here, will tell
you that the intelligence had only reached his colleague at the next post
two hours ago, though it travelled from London as fast as your English
horses can gallop and your English couriers can ride. It must be apparent
to every gentleman here that not another moment should be lost. My lord,
I will ask your lordship to read over the resolutions as revised and
agreed to at our last meeting.”

He bowed low to an elderly and aristocratic-looking personage, who,
taking a paper from the Abbé’s hands, proceeded somewhat nervously to
read aloud as follows:—

“Resolved—No. 1. That this Meeting do constitute itself a Committee of
Direction for the re-establishment of public safety, by authority of His
Majesty King James III., as authorised under his hand and seal.

“No. 2. That the noblemen and gentlemen whose signatures are attached to
the document annexed, do pledge themselves to act with zeal, secrecy, and
unanimity, for the furtherance of the sacred object declared above.

“No. 3. That for this purpose the oath be administered, jointly and
severally, as agreed.

“No. 4. That the person now officially in correspondence with His
Majesty’s well-wishers in Artois be appointed Secretary to the Committee,
with full powers, as detailed under the head of Secret Instructions for
Committee of Safety, No. 7.

“No. 5. That the Secretary be authorised in all cases of emergency to
call a meeting of the entire Committee at his discretion.”

His lordship here paused to take breath, and Malletort again struck in.

“By authority of that resolution, I have called you together to-night. I
cannot conceive it possible that there is present here one dissentient
to our great principle of immediate action. Immediate, because thus only
simultaneous. At the same time, if any nobleman or gentleman at this
table has a suggestion to make, let him now submit his views to the
meeting.”

Several heads were bent towards each other, and a good deal of
conversation took place in whispers, ere a stout, good-humoured looking
man, constituting himself a mouthpiece for the rest, observed bluntly—

“Tell us your plan, Mr. Secretary, and we’ll answer at once. Not one of
us is afraid of a leap in the dark, or we should scarcely be here now;
but there is no harm in taking a look whilst we can!”

A murmur of applause denoted the concurrence of the majority in this
prudent remark, and Malletort, still with his eye on Florian, rose once
more to address them.

“I need not recapitulate to this meeting, and especially to you, Sir
Rupert (saluting the last speaker), all the details set forth in those
secret instructions of which each man present has a copy. The invasion
from the Continent will take place on the appointed day, but with this
additional assurance of success, that three thousand Irish troops are
promised from a quarter on which we can implicitly rely. His lordship
here, as you are aware, following the instincts of his illustrious
line, assumes the post of honour and the post of danger amongst us in
the north, by placing himself at the head of a loyal and enthusiastic
multitude, only waiting his signal to take up arms. You, Sir Rupert, have
pledged yourself and your dalesmen to overawe the Whigs and Puritans of
the east. Other gentlemen, now listening to me, are prepared to bring
their several troops of an irregular, but highly efficient cavalry, into
the field. To you, who are all intimately acquainted with our military
dispositions, I need not insist on the certainty of success. Let each man
read over his secret instructions and judge for himself. But gentlemen,
the scheme of a campaign on a grand scale is not all with which we
have to occupy ourselves. Something more than a military triumph,
something more than a victorious battle is indispensable to our complete
success. And I need not remind you that there is no compromise between
complete success and irremediable disaster. It is an unavoidable choice
between St James’s Palace and Temple Bar. I now come to the germ of the
undertaking—the essence of the whole movement—the keystone of that
bridge we must all pass over to reach the wished-for shore. I allude to
the suppression of the Usurper and the fall of the House of Hanover.”

A stir, almost a shudder, went through the assemblage. Men looked
askance at the papers on the table, the buckles of their sword-belts,
the spur-leathers on their boots, anything rather than betray to their
neighbours either too eager an apprehension of the Abbé’s meaning, or
too cold an approval of his object. He was speaking high treason with a
vengeance, and the one might place them in too dangerous a prominence,
while the other might draw down the equally dangerous mistrust of their
fellow-conspirators. Malletort knew well what was passing in his hearers’
minds, but he never expected to get the iron hotter than it was to-night,
and he struck at it with his whole force.

“The arrangements for our great blow,” said he, “have been confided to
a few zealous loyalists, with whose plans, as your Secretary, I have
been made acquainted. In five days from the present, King George, as he
is still called, returns to Kensington. He will arrive at the palace
about dusk. What do I say? He will never arrive there at all! Captain
Bold here, whom I have had the honour to present to this meeting, has
organised a small body of his old comrades, men of tried bravery and
broken fortunes, who are pledged to possess themselves of the Usurper’s
person. His guard will be easily overpowered, for it will be outnumbered
three to one. The titular Prince of Wales and his children will at the
same time be made prisoners, and the chief officers of state secured,
if possible without bloodshed. Such a bold stroke, combined with a
simultaneous rising here in the north, cannot but insure success. It is
for you, gentlemen, to assemble your followers, to hold yourselves in
readiness, and trusting implicitly to the co-operation of your friends in
London, to declare on the same day for His Majesty King James III.!”

The enthusiasm Malletort contrived to fling into his last sentence caught
like wildfire.

“Long live James the Third!”—“Down with the Whigs!” exclaimed several of
his listeners; and Sir Rupert flung his hat to the low ceiling ere he
placed it on his head, as if preparing to depart; but the tall figure of
the elderly nobleman, as he rose from his chair, seemed to dominate the
tumult, and every syllable was distinctly audible, while he inquired,
gravely—

“Can this be accomplished without violence to the person of him whom we
deem a Usurper?”

Only the narrowest observers could have detected the sneer round
Malletort’s mouth, while he replied—

“Certainly, my lord!—certainly! With as little personal violence as is
possible when armed men are fighting round a king in the dark! My lord,
if you please, we will now pass on to a few trifling matters of finance,
after which I need detain the meeting no longer.”

The meeting, as usual, was only too happy to be dissolved. In less than
ten minutes hats and cloaks were assumed, reckonings paid, horses led out
from the stable, and riders, with anxious hearts, diverging by twos and
threes on their homeward tracks.

There was no question, however, about the cock-fight which was supposed
to have called these gentlemen together.

Malletort, Florian, and Captain Bold remained in the Cedars. The two
priests seemed anxious, thoughtful, and preoccupied; but the Captain’s
eye twinkled with sly glances of triumphant vanity, and he appeared
extremely self-satisfied, though a little fidgety, and anxious for his
employer to leave the room.




CHAPTER LVIII

HORNS AND HOOFS


“There is nothing but the Declaration to be provided for now,” observed
Malletort, after a pause. “You had better give it me back, Florian, even
without Sir George’s name subscribed. He is a man of mettle, and will be
in the saddle as soon as he hears steel and stirrup ring.”

Although the Abbé did not fail to observe how strange an alteration had
to-day come over his young friend’s manner, he simply attributed it to
the qualms of conscience which are often so embarrassing to beginners
in the science of deception, but which, as far as his own experience
served him, he had found invariably disappeared with a little practice.
He never doubted that Florian was equally interested with himself in
the success of their undertaking, though for different reasons. He
attributed it to nervousness, anxiety, and a foolish hankering after Lady
Hamilton, the wildness of the young priest’s dark eye—the fixed spot of
colour in his cheek, lately so pale and wan—the resolute expression of
his feminine mouth, denoting some desperate intention—and the general
air of abstraction that showed as well unconsciousness of the present
as recklessness of the future into which he seemed to project his whole
being. The Abbé simply expected that Florian would place his hand in
his bosom and bring out the roll of paper required. He was surprised,
therefore, to receive no answer; and repeated, hastily, for he had still
a press of business to get through—

“The manifesto, my friend—quick! It must be retained in my care till it
is printed!”

Florian woke up from a brown study, and looked vacantly around.

“It is still in Sir George’s hands,” said he. “I believe I have asked him
for it more than once, but I could not get it back.”

“In Sir George’s hands!” repeated the Abbé, almost losing patience, “and
without Sir George’s signature! Do you know what you are saying? Florian,
listen, man, and look up. Are you awake?”

The other passed his hand wearily across his brow.

“I have slept little of late,” was all he answered. “It is as I tell you.”

Even Captain Bold could not but admire the Abbé’s self-control, that
kept down the impatience naturally resulting from such a confession, so
composedly announced. He mused for a moment with his peculiar smile, and
observed, quietly—

“You travel to London to-night, I believe, and you travel together?”

Florian only bowed his head in reply.

“I wish you a pleasant journey,” continued the Abbé. “Had you not better
go now and make the necessary preparations?”

Then, as soon as the door closed on Florian, who walked out dejectedly,
without another word, he grasped Captain Bold’s arm, and laughed a low,
mocking laugh.

“Business increases, captain,” said he. “Yours is a trade sure to thrive,
for its occasions come up fresh every day. Did you hear that Sir George
Hamilton possesses a paper I require? and that he proceeds to London
to-night?”

“I heard it,” answered the captain, doggedly.

He, too, knew something of Sir George, and did not much relish the job
which he began to suspect was provided for him.

“That paper must be in my hands before daybreak,” continued the Abbé,
speaking in such low, distinct accents, as his emissary had already
learned admitted of no appeal. “You will name your own price, Captain
Bold, and you will bring me what I require—as little blood on it as
possible—at least two hours before dawn.”

The captain pondered, and his face fell.

“Do you know how Sir George travels?” said he, in his high, quavering
voice, more tremulous than its wont. “There has been such a press of
work lately that I am rather short both of men and horses. If he takes
anything like a following with him it might come to a coil; and such jobs
won’t bear patching. They must be done clean or let alone. That’s my
principle! He’s a cock of the game, this, you see,” added the captain,
apologetically; “and you’ll not cut his comb without a thick pair of
gloves on, I’ll warrant him!”

“Permit me to observe, my friend,” replied Malletort, coolly, “that this
is a mere matter of detail with which I can have no concern. It is not
the least in my line, but exclusively in yours. Must I repeat? You name
your own price, and work in your own way.”

“It cannot be done without cutting his throat,” said Bold, despondingly,
regretting the while, not so much a necessity for bloodshed, as his own
sorry chance of carrying out the adventure with a whole skin.

“Of course not,” assented the Abbé. “Why, he was in the Grey Musketeers
of the King!”

“To-night, you say,” continued the captain, in the same mournful tone. “I
wonder if he rides that bay with the white heels. I’ve seen him turn the
horse on a sixpence, and he’s twice as heavy as my mare.”

Again Malletort laughed his low, mocking laugh.

“Fear not,” said he; “there need be no personal collision on foot or
on horseback. Sir George travels by the heavy post-coach, like any fat
grazier or cattle-dealer, whom you may bid ‘Stand and deliver’ without a
qualm.”

“By the coach!” repeated Bold, his face brightening. “That’s a different
job altogether. That makes the thing much more like business, especially
if there’s many passengers. You see, they frighten and hamper one
another. Why, if there’s a stoutish old woman or two anyways near him,
it’s as likely as not they’ll pinion Sir George by both arms, and hold
on till we’ve finished, screaming awful, of course! But you won’t make
any difference in the price on account of the coach, now, will you? Even
chancing the old women, you see, we’re very short-handed to do it clean.”

“I have said more than once, name your own price,” answered the Abbé.
“I deduct nothing for a friend whom I will myself place by Sir George’s
side, and who will do the pinioning you speak of more effectually, if
with less noise, than a ton of old women. How many hands can you muster?”

“Mounted, of course?” replied the captain. “There’s myself, and Blood
Humphrey, and Black George. I don’t think I can count on any others, but
we ought to have one more to do it handsome.”

“I will come with you myself,” said the Abbé. “I have a horse here in the
stable, and better arms than any of you.”

The captain stared aghast, but so great was the respect with which
Malletort inspired his subordinates, that he never dreamed for an instant
of dissuading the Abbé from an adventure which he might have thought
completely out of a churchman’s line. On the contrary, satisfied that
whatever the chief of the plot undertook would be well accomplished, he
looked admiringly in his principal’s face, and observed—

“We’ll stop them at the old thorns, half-way up Borrodaile Rise. The
coach will back off the road, and likely enough upset in the soft moor.
I’ll cover Sir George, and pull the moment he’s off his seat to get down.
The others will rob the passengers, and—and I suppose there is nothing
more to arrange?”

The Abbé, folding up his papers to leave the room, nodded carelessly and
replied:—

“We mount in half an hour. Through the heart, I think, Bold. The head is
easily missed at a dozen paces from the saddle.”

“Through the heart,” answered the captain, but Malletort had already
quitted the room and closed the door.

“Half an hour,” mused Bold, now left to himself in the cold and
dimly-lighted apartment. “In half an hour a good deal may be done both
in love and war. And Alice promised to be here by now. I thought the
gentleman never _would_ go away. What a time they were, to be sure!
We make quicker work of it in our trade. How cold it is! I wish I’d a
glass of brandy; but I dursn’t, no, I dursn’t, though I’m all of a shake
like. I’ll have one ‘steadier’ just before I get on the mare. If I’m
over-primed I shall miss him, and he’s not the sort to give a chap a
second chance. I wish this job was over. I never half-liked it from the
first. Hush! I think that’s Alice’s cough. Poor little girl! She loves
the very boots I wear. I wish she’d come, though. This room is cursed
lonesome, and I don’t like my own company unless I can have it really to
myself. I always fancy there’s somebody else I can’t see. How my teeth
chatter. It’s the cold. It _must_ be the cold! Well, there’s no harm in
lighting the fire, at any rate.”

So speaking, or rather muttering, the captain, on whose nerves repeated
glasses of brandy at all hours of the day and night had not failed to
make an impression, proceeded to collect with trembling hands certain
covers of despatches and other coarse scraps of paper left on the floor
and table, which litter he placed carefully on the hearth, building the
damp sticks over them skilfully enough, and applying his solitary candle
to the whole.

His paper flared brightly, but with no other effect than to produce
thick, stifling clouds of smoke from the saturated fuel and divers oaths
spoken out loud from the disgusted captain.

“May the devil fly away with them!” said he, in a towering rage, “to a
place where they’ll burn fast enough without lighting. And me, too!” he
added yet more wrathfully, “for wasting my time like a fool waiting for a
jilt who can’t even lay a fire properly in an inn chimney.”

The words had scarce left his lips when a discordant roar resounded, as
it seemed, from the very wall of the house, and a hideous monster, that
he never doubted was the Arch Fiend whom he had invoked, came sprawling
on all-fours down the chimney which the smoke had refused to ascend, and
made straight for the terrified occupant of the apartment, whose hair
stood on end, and whose whole senses were for a moment paralysed with
horror and dismay.

In a single glance the captain beheld the black shaggy hide, the
wide-spreading horns, the cloven hoofs, the long and tufted tail!
That glance turned him for one instant to a man of stone. The next,
with an irrepressible shout that denoted the very anguish of fear, he
sprang through the door, upsetting and extinguishing the candle in his
flight, and hurried downstairs, closely, though silently followed by the
monster, who thus escaped from the room before Malletort, alarmed at the
disturbance, could re-enter it with a light.

“He’s not heart of oak, isn’t that chap!” said Slap-Jack, as he turned
noiselessly into the stable, where he proceeded to divest himself of the
bullock’s hide he had worn for his masquerade, and so much of the filth
it had left as could be effaced by scraping his garments and washing face
and hands with soap and water. But the jest which had been compiled so
merrily with his friend and sweetheart seemed to have lost all its mirth
in the execution, for the seaman looked exceedingly grave and thoughtful,
stealing quietly into the bar in search of his shipmate, with whom he
presently disappeared to hold mysterious conference outside the house,
secure from all eavesdroppers.

Captain Bold, though for a short space well-nigh frightened out of
his wits, was not so inexperienced in the maladies of those who,
like himself, applied freely and continuously to the brandy bottle,
to be ignorant that such jovial spirits are peculiarly subject to
hallucinations, and often visited by phantoms which only exist in their
own diseased imaginations. He had scarcely reached the bar, therefore—a
refuge he sought unconsciously and by instinct—ere he recovered himself
enough to remember that alcohol was the only specific for the horrors,
and he proceeded accordingly to swallow glass after glass till his
usual composure of mind should return. He was nothing loth to use the
remedy, yet each succeeding draught, while it strung his nerves, seemed
to increase his depression, and for the first time in his life, he felt
unable to shake off an uncomfortable conviction, that whether the phantom
was really in the chimney or only in his own brain, he had that night
received a warning, and was doomed.

There was little leisure, however, either for apprehension or remorse.
Malletort, booted and well armed beneath his cassock, was already
descending the stairs, and calling for his horse. To judge by his open
brow and jaunty manner, his final interview with Florian, whom he had
again summoned for a few last words, must have been satisfactory in the
extreme. The latter, too, carried his head erect, and there was a proud
glance in his eye, as of one who marches to victory.

“You will not fail at the last moment?” said the Abbé, pressing St.
Croix’s hand while they descended the wooden staircase in company, and
Florian’s reply, “Trust me, I will not fail!” carried conviction even to
the cold heart of the astute and suspicious churchman.

So Captain Bold tossed off his last glass of brandy, examined the
priming of his pistols, and swung himself into the saddle. His staunch
comrades were at his side. The Abbé, of whose administrative powers he
entertained the highest opinion, was there to superintend the expedition.
It was easy, it was safe. Once accomplished, his fortune was made for
life. As they emerged upon the snow, just deep enough to afford their
horses a sure foothold, the bay mare shook her bit and laid her ears
back cheerfully. Even Black George, usually a saturnine personage,
acknowledged the bracing influence of the keen night air and the
exhilarating prospect of action. He exchanged a professional jest with
Blood Humphrey, and slapped his commander encouragingly on the shoulder;
but, for all this, a black shadow seemed to hover between Captain Bold
and the frosty stars—something seemed to warn him that the hour he had so
often jested of was coming on him fast, and that to-night he must look
the death he had so lightly laughed at in the face.




CHAPTER LIX

A SUBSTITUTE


We left Sir George watching in the cold, under a clump of yews, for the
chance of seeing his wife’s shadow cross one of the lighted windows in
the gallery. He remained there far longer than he supposed. So many
thoughts were passing through his mind, so many misgivings for the
future, so many memories of the past, that he was conscious neither of
bodily discomfort nor lapse of time, the chill night-wind nor the waning
evening. At length he roused himself from his abstraction with a smile of
self-contempt, and, wrapping his cloak around him, would have departed
at once, but that his attention was arrested by a muffled figure passing
swiftly and stealthily into the garden through the very door he had been
watching so long. A thrill of delight shot through him at the possibility
of its being Cerise, followed by one of anger and suspicion, as he
thought she might, in sheer despair at her lover’s absence, be preparing
to follow Florian in his flight. But the figure walked straight to his
hiding-place, and long before it reached him, even in the doubtful light,
he recognised the firm step and graceful bearing of the Marquise.

How did she know he was there? How long could she have been watching him?
He felt provoked, humiliated; but all such angry feelings dissolved at
the sound of her sweet voice, so like her daughter’s, while she asked him
softly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that he should
be waiting outside within twenty paces of his own house—

“George, what is it? You are disturbed; you are anxious. Can I help you?
George, I would do anything in the world for you. Are you not dear to me
as my own child, _almost_?”

He tried to laugh it off, but his mirth was forced and hollow.

“I have so many preparations to make. There are so many trifles to be
thought of, even in leaving a place like this, that really, madame, I was
only waiting here for a while to remember if I had forgotten anything.”

She laid her hand on his arm, as she had laid it long ago at the masked
ball, and perhaps the gesture brought back that time to both.

“Even if you can blind Cerise,” she said, “you cannot deceive me. And
Cerise, poor child, is crying her eyes out by herself; miserable, utterly
miserable, as if you had gone away from her for ever. But it is no
question now of my daughter; it is a question of yourself, George. _You_
are unhappy, I tell you. I saw it as soon as I came here. And I have been
watching ever since you left the house, till it should be quite dark,
to come and speak to you before you go, and ask for the confidence that
Heaven only knows how fully I, of all people, deserve.”

There was a world of suppressed feeling in her voice while she spoke
the last sentence, but he marked it not. He was thinking of Cerise.
“Miserable,” said her mother, “utterly miserable, as if he had gone away
from her for ever.” Then it was for Florian she was grieving, of course.
Bah! he had known it all through. Of what use was it thus to add proof to
proof—to pile disgrace upon disgrace? It irritated him, and he answered
abruptly—

“You must excuse me, madame; this is no time for explanations, even were
any necessary, and I have already loitered here too long.”

She placed herself directly in his path, standing with her hands clasped,
as was her habit when moved by any unusual agitation.

“If you had gone away at once,” said she, “I was prepared to follow you.
I have watched you from the moment you crossed the threshold. Am I blind?
Am I a young inexperienced girl, who has never felt, never suffered, to
be imposed on by a haughty bearing and a forced smile? Bah! Do people
stand for an hour in the snow reflecting if they have forgotten their
luggage? You men think women have no perception, no mind, no heart. You
are going, George, and I shall never set eyes on you again—never, never;
for I could not bear to see you miserable, and I alone of all the world
must not endeavour to console you. Therefore I do not fear to speak
frankly now. Listen; something has come between you and Cerise. Do not
interrupt me. I know it. I feel it. Do not ask me why. It is not your
hand that should add one stripe to my punishment. George, my poor girl
is breaking her heart for your sake; and you, you the man of all others
qualified to make a woman happy, and to be happy with her yourself, are
destroying your home with your own hands. Look at me, George. I have seen
the world, as you know. My lot has been brilliant, fortunate, envied by
all; and yet—and yet—I have never had the chance that you so recklessly
throw away. No, no; though I may have dreamed of it, I never so deceived
myself as to fancy for a moment it was mine! Cerise loves you, George,
loves the very ground you walk on, and you are leaving her in anger.”

“I wish I could believe it,” he muttered, in a hoarse, choking voice; for
he was thinking of the pale, dark-eyed priest bending over the rose-trees
with his wife.

“Do you think I can be deceived?” broke out the Marquise, seizing his
hand with both her own, and then flinging it off in a burst of sorrowful
reproach. “Wilful! heartless! cruel! Go, then, if go you must, and so
farewell for ever. But remember, I warned you. I, who know by bitter
experience, the madness, the shame, the agony of an impossible love!”

She turned from him and fled into the house, muttering, as she crossed
its threshold, “The poor pelican! how it must hurt when she digs her beak
into her bosom, and feeds her young with her own heart’s blood!”

Sir George Hamilton stood looking after her for a moment; then he shook
his head, drew his cloak tighter round him, and strode resolutely across
the park to the “Hamilton Arms.”

Thus it fell out that when he arrived there, he found the hostelry,
lately so full of guests, occupied only by Florian and the two seamen;
the first depressed, silent, preoccupied; the others obviously swelling
with importance, and bursting to communicate some great intelligence at
once.

It was fortunate that the former commander of ‘The Bashful Maid,’
retained enough of his old habits to comprehend the tale Slap-Jack had to
tell, garnished as it was with professional phrases and queer sea-going
metaphors that no landsman could have followed out. From his faithful
retainer the baronet learned all the particulars of the Jacobite meeting,
and the conspiracy so carefully organised against the throne, discovered
by no less futile a contingency than the freak of a barmaid to frighten a
highwayman. Sir George believed it his duty now to warn the Government at
once. Yet even while reflecting on the importance of his information, and
the noble reward it might obtain, he was pondering how he could escape
the delay of an hour in London, and longing for the moment when he should
find himself face to face with Florian on the coast of France.

It was characteristic of the man that he gave little thought to the
attack meditated upon his own person, simply examining his arms as usual,
and desiring Slap-Jack, who had come unprovided, to borrow a brace of
pistols wherever he could get them, while he bestowed on Smoke-Jack, who
piteously entreated leave to “join the expedition,” a careless permission
“to take his share in the spree if he liked.”

So these four men waited in the warm inn-parlour for the roll of the
lumbering coach that was to bear them, so each well knew, into a struggle
for life and death.

When their vehicle arrived at last, they found themselves its only
passengers. The burly coachman descending from his seat to refresh,
cursed the cold weather heartily, and in the same breath tendered a
gruff salutation to Sir George. The guard, whose face was redder, whose
shoulders were broader, and whose voice was huskier even than the
coachman’s, endorsed his companion’s remarks, and followed suit in his
greetings to the baronet, observing, at the same time, that he should
“take a glass of brandy neat, to drive the cold out of his stomach.”
This stimulant was accordingly administered by Alice, and paid for by Sir
George, who had not lived at Hamilton Hill without learning the etiquette
of coach travelling as practised on the north road. While he placed some
silver on the counter, it did not escape him that both functionaries had
been drinking freely, possibly to console them for the lack of company,
while Slap-Jack, grinning in delight, whispered to his mate—

“If you an’ me was to go for to take _our_ spell at the wheel,
half-slewed, like them chaps, my eyes, wot a twistin’ _we_ should get
to-morrow mornin’ afore eight bells!”

With so light a freight there was less delay in changing horses than
usual. Scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed since its arrival ere
four moderate-looking animals were harnessed to the coach. The luggage
was hoisted on, old Robin rewarded, Mrs. Dodge paid, Alice kissed with
much energy by her sweetheart, and Sir George, with Florian, invited
to take their places on the front seat behind the driver; then the
two seamen clambered up beside the guard, the whip cracked, the hoofs
clattered, the whole machine creaked and jingled, while Smoke-Jack,
removing the pipe from his mouth with a certain gravity, expressed his
devout hope that “old brandy-face would keep her well up in the wind and
steer small!”

It was a cold night, and a cheerless, though light as day, for the moon
had risen and the ground was white with snow. Sir George, wrapped in his
cloak, with his hand on the butt of a pistol, after some vague remarks
about the weather, which Florian appeared not to hear, relapsed into the
silence of one who prepares all his energies for an approaching crisis.

The Jesuit seemed unconscious of his companion’s existence. Pale as
death, even to the lips, his face set, his teeth clenched, his eyes fixed
on the horizon before him, as his mental sight projected itself into the
unknown future he had this night resolved to penetrate, there pervaded
the whole bearing of the man that unearthly air of abstraction peculiar
to those who are doomed, whose trial is over, whose sentence is recorded,
for whom henceforth there can be neither hope nor fear.

Sir George meditated on a thousand possible contingencies. Already his
mind had overleaped the immediate affairs of the night, the coming
skirmish, and its possible disaster. These were but every-day matters,
familiar to his old habits, and scarce worth thinking of. But there was
one scene beyond which his imagination could not be forced; it seemed, as
it were, to limit his future in its bounds, and afterwards there would be
no aim, no purpose, no relish in life. It represented a spit of sand on
the coast of Picardy, and a man with shirt-sleeves rolled up, grasping a
bloody rapier in his hand, who was smiling bitterly down on a dead face
white and rigid at his feet.

Florian, too, sitting by his side, had his own vision. This, also, was of
blood, but blood freely offered in atonement to friendship, and expiation
for love.

The night was still, and the moonlight tempered by a misty sky that
denoted there would be more snow before morning. The coachman dozed over
his wheelers. The guard, overcome with brandy, laid his head on a hamper,
and went fast asleep. The two seamen, silently consoling themselves with
tobacco, shut an eye apiece, and screwed their faces into the expression
of inscrutable sagacity affected by their class when they expect bad
weather of any kind. The horses, taking counsel together, as such beasts
do, jogged on at the slowest possible pace that could not be stigmatised
for a walk, and the heavy machine lumbered wearily up the gradual ascent,
which half a mile further on, where the hill became steeper and the road
worse, was known as Borrodaile Rise.

Now the Abbé, in command of his little troop, had intended to conceal
them behind a clump of thorns that diversified the plain surface of the
moor, almost on the summit of this acclivity, and so pounce out upon his
prey at the moment it was most hampered by the difficulties of its path;
but, like other good generals, he suffered his plans to be modified by
circumstances, and would change them, if advisable, at the very moment of
execution.

On the right of the road, if road that could be called, which was but a
soft and deeply-rutted track through the heather, stood the four walls of
a roofless building, uninhabited within the memory of man, about twenty
paces from a deep holding slough, through which the coach must pass;
this post, with the concurrence of Bold and his confederates, the Abbé
seized at once. It offered them some shelter against the storms of sleet
that drove at intervals across the moor, while it afforded a covert from
which, though mounted, they could reconnoitre unseen, for two miles in
every direction, and rush out at a moment’s notice on their unsuspecting
prey.

So, behind those grey, weather-stained walls, the little party sat their
horses, erect and vigilant, reins shortened, firearms primed, swords
loosened in the sheath, like a picket of light-cavalry when the alarm has
sounded, and its outposts have been driven in.

The advancing coach made but little noise as it crept slowly onward
through the snow, nevertheless a muttered oath from Blood Humphrey, and
the scowl on Black George’s brow, announced its arrival ere it came
in sight. By the time it could emerge from a certain hollow at fifty
yards’ distance, and gain the slough, through which it moved heavily and
wearily, like a hearse, its huge black mass brought out against the dead
white of the misty, moonlit sky, afforded as fair a target for close
shooting as a marksman need desire.

Captain Bold had been trembling all over but a few minutes back, now
he was firm as a rock, but it cost him a desperate effort thus to man
himself, and even while he cocked the pistol in his right hand, gathering
his mare at the same time, for a dash to the front, he wished, from the
bottom of his heart, he had undertaken any job but this.

“Steady, my friend!” whispered the Abbé. “In ten more paces the whole
machine must come to a halt. At the instant it stops, cover your man, and
level low!”

Then Malletort placed himself behind the others in readiness for any
emergency that should arrive.

The slough reached nearly to the axles, the wheels scarce moved, the
horses laboured—failed—stopped; the coachman, waking with a jerk, swore
lustily as he nearly fell from his seat; the guard jumped up and shook
himself; Florian’s eyes flashed, and a strange, wild smile played over
his wan face, while Slap-Jack protested angrily, that “the lubber was
aground, d’ye see? and however could he expect the poor thing would
answer her helm, when she hadn’t got no steerage-way!”

Even while he spoke, a horseman, rising, as it seemed, from the earth,
dashed out before the leaders, followed by three more, who, in the hurry
and confusion of the moment, looked like a dozen at least.

“Stand and deliver!” exclaimed the foremost, in the customary language of
“the road”; but, without waiting to see if this formidable command would
be obeyed, he pulled his bay mare together, till she stood motionless
like a statue, covered the larger of the two figures behind the coachman,
as it rose from its seat, and—fired!

Bold’s hand and eye had never served him better than in this, his last
crime; but he was anticipated, foiled by a quicker eye, a readier hand
than his own. With the very flash of the pistol, even ere the smoke that
curled above their heads had melted into air, a heavy body, falling
across Sir George’s knees, knocked him back into his seat, and Florian,
shot through the lungs, lay gasping out his life in jets of blood with
every breath he drew.

It was instinct, rather than inhumanity, that caused the old Musketeer
to take steady aim at the assassin over the very body of his preserver.
Ever coolest in extremity of danger, Sir George was, perhaps, surer of
his mark than he would have been shooting for a wager in the galleries of
Marly or Versailles. Ere a man could have counted ten, his finger pressed
the trigger, and Bolt, shot clean through the heart, fell from the saddle
in a heap, nor, after one quiver of the muscles, did he ever move again.

The bay mare, snorting wildly, would not leave her master, but snuffed
wistfully and tenderly round that tumbled wisp of tawdry clothes, from
which a crimson stain was soaking slowly into the snow.

Then Sir George turned to Florian, and rested the dying, drooping form
against his own broad breast. Where was the spit of sand, the lonely
duel, now?—the pitiless arm, the bloody rapier, and all the hideous
vision of revenge? Gone—vanished—as if it had never been; and, in its
stead, a tried, beloved comrade, pale, sinking, prostrate, bleeding
helplessly to death.

“Courage, Florian!” whispered Sir George, tenderly. “Lean on me while I
stanch the blood. You will pull through yet. We will have you back at the
Hill in an hour. D― it, man! Lady Hamilton shall nurse you herself till
you get well!”

A gleam came over the dying face, like a ray of sunlight gilding the
close of a bleak winter’s day.

“I have never been false,” he murmured, “never false really in my heart.
I swore to save you, George, life for life, and I have kept my oath. I
shall not live to see Lady Hamilton again, but—but—you will tell her that
it was _my_ body which―”

He turned fainter now, and lay half-propped against the seat he had
lately occupied, holding Sir George’s hand, and effectually preventing
the baronet from taking any further part in the fray.

It is not to be supposed that the two seamen in the back of the coach had
been idle witnesses of a tumult which so exactly coincided with their
notions of what they termed “a spree.” Protected from the fire of the
horsemen by a pile of luggage on its roof, or, as Slap-Jack called it, by
the deck-cargo, they had made an excellent defence, and better practice
than might have been looked for with a brace of borrowed pistols, apt to
hang fire and throw high. The guard, too, after a careful and protracted
aim, discharged his blunderbuss, with a loud explosion; and the result
of their joint efforts was, that the highwaymen, as the last-named
functionary believed them, were beaten off. Blood Humphrey’s horse was
shot through the flank, though the poor brute made shift to carry his
rider swiftly away. Black George had his ankle-bone broken, but managed
to gallop across the moor after his comrade, writhing in pain, and with
his boot full of blood. Bold lay dead on the ground. There was but one of
the assailants left—a well-armed man in a cassock, who had kept somewhat
in the background; and _his_ horse, too, was badly wounded behind its
girths.

Sir George was occupied with Florian, but the others sprang down to take
the last of their foes captive; ere they could reach him, however, he had
leaped into the bay mare’s saddle, and was urging her over the heather at
a pace that promised soon to place him in safety, for the bay mare was
the fastest galloper in Yorkshire, and her rider knew it was a race for
life and death.

“By heavens, it is Malletort!” exclaimed Sir George, looking up from
his charge, at sound of the flying hoofs, to observe something in the
fugitive’s seat and figure that identified him with the Abbé, and
gazing after him so intently, that he did not mark the expression of
satisfaction on Florian’s pain-stricken face when he learned the other
had escaped. “I never thought he could ride so well,” muttered the
baronet, while he watched the good bay mare speeding steadily over the
open, and saw the Frenchman put her straight at a high stone wall, beyond
which he knew, by his own experience, there was a considerable drop into
a ravine. The mare jumped it like a deer, and after a time rose the
opposite slope at a swifter pace than ever. Sir George could only make
her out very indistinctly now, yet something in the headlong manner of
her career caused him to fancy she was going without a rider.

He had more important matters to occupy him. It had begun to snow
heavily, and Florian was growing weaker every minute. With a dying man
for their freight; with the absence of other passengers; above all, with
the prospect of increased difficulty in progression at every yard they
advanced, for the sky had darkened, and the flakes fell thicker, guard
and driver were easily persuaded to turn their horses’ heads, and make
the best of their way back to Hamilton Hill.

It was but a few miles distant, and Sir George, hoping against hope,
tried to persuade himself that if he could only get Florian under his own
roof alive, he might be saved.

They were good nurses, that tried campaigner and his two rough, hardy
seamen. Tenderly, like women, they stanched the welling life-blood,
supported the nerveless, drooping figure, and wiped the froth from
the dry, white lips that could no longer speak, but yet made shift to
smile. Tenderly, too, they whispered soothing words, in soft, hushed
voices, looking blankly in each other’s faces for the hope their hearts
denied; and thus slowly, sadly, solemnly, the dark procession laboured
back, taking the road they had lately travelled, passed the well-known
hostelry, and so wearily climbed the long ascent to the grim, looming
towers of Hamilton Hill.

Not a word was spoken. Scarce a sound betrayed their progress. The air
was hushed—the flakes fell softly, heavily—the earth lay wrapped in a
winding-sheet of snow—and Florian was dead before they reached the house!




CHAPTER LX

SOLACE


Bad news proverbially flies apace, and it is strange how soon the
intelligence of any catastrophe pervades an entire household.

Though it was towards the small hours of morning that the coach arrived,
with its dead freight, at the gates of Hamilton Hill, the whole
establishment seemed to arouse itself on the instant, and to become
aware, as though by instinct, that something had occurred productive of
general confusion and dismay.

Cerise, pale and spiritless, was sitting in her bed-chamber, over the
embers of a dying fire, thinking wearily of her husband, wondering, with
aching heart and eyes full of tears, what could be this shadow that had
of late come up between them, and now threatened to darken her whole life.

How she wished, yes, she actually wished now, she had never married
him. He would have remembered her then as the girl he might have loved.
For his own happiness, she protested, she could give him up readily,
cheerfully even, to another woman. Then she reviewed all the women of
her acquaintance, without, however, being able to fix on one to whom she
could make this sacrifice ungrudgingly. She thought, too, how forlorn
she would feel deprived of George. And yet, was she not deprived of
him already? Could any separation be more complete than theirs? It was
torture to reflect that he could not really have loved her, or it would
never have come to this. And to leave her thus, without an opportunity
for inquiry or explanation. It was careless, unkind, unpardonable.
Better to have been sure of his affection, to have known his last thought
was for her, and to have seen him brought in dead before her very eyes
into the house!

A hurried step was on the stair, a trembling hand flung open the door,
and Lady Hamilton’s maid rushed into the room, pale, scared, and
incoherent, to exclaim—

“Oh! my lady—my lady! Whatever are we to do? The coach has been robbed,
and they’ve brought him back home! They’re carrying him up the front
stairs now. Stone dead, my lady! He never spoke, Ralph says, nor moved
after the shot. Such a home-coming! such a home-coming! Oh dear! oh dear!”

Lady Hamilton’s jaw dropped, and her whole face stiffened, as if she
had been shot herself. Then she wailed out, “He was angry with me when
he went away,” repeating the same words over and over again, as though
attaching no meaning to the sounds, and staggering, with hands extended,
like a blind woman to the staircase, while, numbed and palsied, as it was
by the cruel pain, a silent prayer went out from her heart that she might
die.

A strong form caught her in its arms, and she looked up in her husband’s
face, living, unhurt, and kindly; but saddened with a grave and sorrowing
expression she had never seen there before.

“Cerise,” he whispered, “a great grief has come upon us. There has been a
skirmish on the moor, and Florian, poor Florian, has lost his life.”

She was sobbing in his embrace, sobbing with an intense and fearful joy.

“Thank God!” she gasped, putting her hair back from her white face, and
devouring him with wild, loving eyes. “Darling, they told me it was
_you_—they told me it was _you_.”

Nearer, nearer, he clasped her, and a tear stole down his cheek. It was
_him_, then, all the time she had loved with her whole heart _in spite_
of his being her husband. It was for his departure she had been grieving
in patient silence; it was his displeasure, and no unhallowed fondness
for another, that had lately dimmed the soft blue eyes, and turned the
sweet face so pale.

“My love!” he whispered; but, notwithstanding his past suspicions, his
injustice, his cruel condemnation, this seemed all the amends he was
disposed to make; for he went on to tell her how the coach had been
beset, and how he must himself have been killed, but for Florian’s
self-devotion—Florian, who was now lying dead in the very room that had
lately come to be called his own.

She wanted no explanation, no apology. She had forgiven him long before
he spoke. She had thought him estranged; she had believed him dead; and
now he was alive again, and he was her own.

“I care not! I care not!” she exclaimed, wildly. “Let them live or die;
what is it to me, so that you are safe! Shame on me,” she added, with
more composure, “how selfish I am—how heartless! Let us go to him,
George, and see if nothing can be done.”

Nothing could be done, of course. Hand in hand, husband and wife visited
the chamber of death, hand in hand they left it, with saddened faces
and slow, reverential step. But Sir George never forgot the lesson of
that night; never again doubted the woman who had given him her whole
heart; nor joined in the sneer of those who protest that purity and
self-sacrifice are incompatible with earthly love.

But for the snow, Madame de Montmirail would have left Hamilton Hill next
day. It was delightful, no doubt, to witness the perfect understanding,
the mutual confidence, that had been re-established between Cerise
and her husband; but it was not amusing. “Gratifying, but a little
wearisome,” said the Marquise to herself, while she looked from her
window on the smooth undulating expanse of white that forbade the
prospect of travelling till there should come a thaw. Never perhaps
in her whole life had this lady so much felt the want of excitement,
intrigue, business, dissipation, even danger, to take her out of herself,
as she expressed it, and preserve the blood from stagnating in her veins.
It is only doing her justice also to state that she was somewhat anxious
about Malletort. With half a yard of snow on the ground, however, not to
mention drifts, it was hopeless to speculate on any subject out of doors
till the weather changed.

For Slap-Jack, nevertheless, whose whole life had been passed in conflict
with the elements, even a heavy fall of snow seemed but a trifling
obstacle, easily to be overcome, and on no account to interfere with so
important a ceremony as a seaman’s wedding. Assisted by his shipmate, who
had consented to officiate as “best man” on the occasion, he set to work,
“with a will,” so he expressed it, and cleared away a path four feet
broad from the Hill to the “Hamilton Arms.” Down this path he proceeded
in great state to be married, on the very day the thaw set in, attended
by Sir George and Lady Hamilton, the Marquise, Smoke-Jack, and all the
servants of the establishment. Ere the ceremony was accomplished, the
wind blew high and the rain fell in torrents, omens to which the old
foretopman paid not the slightest attention, but of which his best man
skilfully availed himself to congratulate the bridegroom on his choice.

“It looks dirty to windward,” he proclaimed, in a confidential whisper,
heard by the whole company; “and a chap ain’t got overmuch sea-room when
he’s spliced. But she’s weatherly, mate; that’s what _she_ is—wholesome
and weatherly. I knows the trim on ’em.”

At a later period in the afternoon, however, when I am sorry to say,
he had become more than slightly inebriated, Smoke-Jack was heard to
express an equally flattering opinion as to the qualities, “wholesome
and weatherly,” of Mrs. Dodge, not concealing his intention of making a
return voyage, “in ballast o’ coorse,” as he strongly insisted, to these
latitudes, when he had delivered a cargo in London. Shrewd observers were
of opinion, from these compromising remarks and other trifling incidents
of the day, that it was possible the hostess of the “Hamilton Arms”
might be induced to change her name once more, under the irresistible
temptation of subjugating so consistent a woman-hater as Smoke-Jack.

But in the last century, as in the present, death and marriage trod close
on each other’s heels. The customers at the “Hamilton Arms” had not done
carousing to the health of bride and bridegroom, the wintry day had not
yet closed in with a mild, continuous rain, and Smoke-Jack was in the
middle of an interminable forecastle yarn, when a couple of labouring
men brought in the body of a darkly-clad foreign gentleman, who had
lately been lodging at this roadside hostelry. They had found him half
covered by a waning snow-wreath just under the wall in the “stell,” said
these honest dalesmen, below Borrodaile Rise. He must have been dead for
days, but there was no difficulty in identifying the Abbé, for the frozen
element in which he was wrapped had kept off the very taint of death,
and preserved him, to use their own language, “in uncommon fettle, to be
sure!” Except the Marquise, I doubt if any one regretted him, and yet
it seemed a strange and piteous fate for the gifted scholar, the able
churchman, the polished courtier, thus to perish by breaking his neck off
a Yorkshire mare on a Yorkshire moor.

“Men are so different!” observed Cerise, as she and George discussed the
Abbé’s death, and, indeed, his character, walking together through the
park, after the snow was gone, in the soft air of a mild winter’s day,
nowhere so calm and peaceful as in our English climate.

“And women, too,” replied George, looking fondly in the dear face he
had loved all his life, and thinking that her like could only be found
amongst the angels in heaven.

Cerise shook her head.

“You know nothing about us,” said she. “My own, how blind you must have
been when you went away and left me nothing of your cruel self but a
riding-glove.”

He laughed, no doubt well pleased.

“It was you, then, who had taken it? I looked for it everywhere, and was
forced to go away without it.”

“You did not look _here_,” she answered, and warm from the whitest bosom
in the world she drew the missing glove that had lain there ever since
the night he left her.

“George,” she added, and the love-light in her eyes betrayed her feelings
no less than the low, soft accents of her voice, “you know now that I
prize your little finger more than all the rest of the world. I never saw
another face than yours that I cared twice to look upon, and it is my
happiness, my pride, to think that I was never loved by any man on earth
but _you_!”

She raised her head and looked around in triumph while she spoke. Her
eye, resting on the church of the distant village, caught a gleam of
white from a newly-raised tomb-stone amongst its graves. An old man
wrapping up his tools was in the act of leaving that stone, for he had
finished his task. It was but to cut the following inscription:—

                          FLORIAN DE ST. CROIX.
                                    ✚
                                 R. I. P.




FOOTNOTES


[1] Au petit couvert.

[2] A national banking scheme was about this period proposed to the
Regent of France by a financial speculator of Scottish extraction named
Law.

[3] The progeny of a white and a Quadroon, sometimes called an Octoroon.

[4] A witch.

[5] Evil eye.

[6] Runaway negroes who join in bands and live by plunder in the woods.


UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.