Читать книгу A Fire of Driftwood - D. K. Broster - Страница 18

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The candles on the supper-table were not needed, for it was still light. But, as Madame de Rocquigny said when she ordered them to be placed there, they gave a more festive air to a very modest feast. The little company was gay enough; as gay as though the shadow of past misfortunes and of still more tragic possibilities were not over each of them. Madame de Rocquigny played hostess at the head of the scantily spread table, much too large for the four who sat around it. One of Saint-Armel’s lieutenants, M. de Lage, a gentleman of the Morbihan who had not emigrated, made up the party; his fellow-subordinate was on duty outside.

The Bretons who had served the meal had been dismissed, and Hervé, yielding to Madame de Rocquigny’s request, was relating by what means he had regained the proscribed soil of France. Madame de Bellegarde, abandoned to an absorbed interest, listened with her to the tale of the perilous landing from a Jersey lugger almost under the rifles of the patrol at St. Brieuc.

“I assure you that there was nothing remarkable about it, as far as I was concerned,” asseverated Saint-Armel as he finished. “Those men of the Prince de Bouillon’s—the agents of the correspondence, Chateaubriand, Prigent, Daguin, Péronne and the rest, are the heroes, not the émigrés whom they land.”

“Well, that is as it may be,” returned the Marquise. “At any rate, we will prepare to drink your health, Monsieur l’Invincible. The late owner left some very excellent wine in his cellar. Do you know that one of your Chouans found this in a half-empty bin?”

“Yes, and brought out a dozen bottles on the sly to the bivouac,” finished M. de Lage.

Madame de Rocquigny lifted her hands in mock horror. “Lucky men! But I suppose that there will be a certain number of incapables in your force to-night, for—without offence—I understand that drunkenness is a vice to which Bretons are something prone.”

“Not my Bretons, Madame,” said Hervé quietly. “Those bottles are back in the bin; and their unauthorised abstraction has been paid for.”

A light seemed to break on his subordinate. “Ah, was it for that you ordered——” he began, but so swift and meaning a frown appeared on his leader’s brow that he left his sentence unfinished.

“And where are you going to sleep to-night, Monsieur de Saint-Armel?” asked Madame de Rocquigny, slipping into the just momentary pause with the ease of a woman of the world for whom indiscreet questions have lost their savour. “May we offer you a room in the west wing, which is said to be haunted, but where the roof is entire, or——”

Armande de Bellegarde interposed on the instant. “M. de Saint-Armel will not trust our hospitality,” she said quickly. “He is ungallant enough to prefer the society of his Chouans à la belle étoile. Am I not right, Monsieur?”

L’Invincible bent his head, a half-amused, half-tender smile showing at the corner of his mouth. “If you will not think me churlish, ladies.—May I give you some more wine, Marquise?”

Armande’s eyes, full of a mute gratitude, had not met his, nor indeed had his fingers closed on the decanter, before a sharp discharge of musketry made the cracked windows rattle. M. de Lage sprang to his feet, Madame de Rocquigny pushed back her chair, but Hervé, unmoved, filled her empty glass.

“Yes, go, de Lage,” he said, looking up and nodding. “I will follow you. That was our fire, Mesdames, not the Blues’. There is no force within twenty miles sufficiently strong to account for us; though it is possible that they have driven in my outposts. You will pardon if I go and see?”

He rose, caught up his sheathed sword where it leant against the panelling, made them a smiling little salute with it, and was gone. A thundering fusillade burst out from the direction of the wood as, flinging away his scabbard, he ran bare-headed down the steps.

“My dear,” said Madame de Rocquigny, “I think you may be proud of each other.”