Читать книгу The Battle of the Strong - Gilbert Parker - Страница 18

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“Whew—what fools there are in the world! Pish, you silly apes!” the young man said, glancing through the open doorway again to where the connetable’s men were dragging two vile-looking ruffians into the Vier Prison.

“What’s happened, monsieur?” said Ranulph, closing the door and bolting it.

“What was it, monsieur?” asked Guida anxiously, for painful events had crowded too fast that morning. Detricand was stanching the blood at his temple with the scarf from his neck.

“Get him some cordial, Guida—he’s wounded!” said de Mauprat.

Detricand waved a hand almost impatiently, and dropped upon the veille, swinging a leg backwards and forwards.

“It’s nothing, I protest—nothing whatever, and I’ll have no cordial, not a drop. A drink of water—a mouthful of that, if I must drink.”

Guida caught up a hanap of water from the dresser, and passed it to him. Her fingers trembled a little. His were steady enough as he took the hanap and drank off the water at a gulp. Again she filled it and again he drank. The blood was running in a tiny little stream down his cheek. She caught her handkerchief from her girdle impulsively, and gently wiped it away.

“Let me bandage the wound,” she said eagerly. Her eyes were alight with compassion, certainly not because it was the dissipated French invader, M. Savary dit Detricand—no one knew that he was the young Comte de Tournay of the House of Vaufontaine, but because he was a wounded fellow-creature. She would have done the same for the poor beganne, Dormy Jamais, who still prowled the purlieus of St. Heliers.

It was clear, however, that Detricand felt differently. The moment she touched him he became suddenly still. He permitted her to wash the blood from his temple and forehead, to stanch it first with brandied jeru-leaves, then with cobwebs, and afterwards to bind it with her own kerchief.

Detricand thrilled at the touch of the warm, tremulous fingers. He had never been quite so near her before. His face was not far from hers. Now her breath fanned him. As he bent his head for the bandaging, he could see the soft pulsing of her bosom, and hear the beating of her heart. Her neck was so full and round and soft, and her voice—surely he had never heard a voice so sweet and strong, a tone so well poised, so resonantly pleasant.

When she had finished, he had an impulse to catch the hand as it dropped away from his forehead, and kiss it; not as he had kissed many a hand, hotly one hour and coldly the next, but with an unpurchasable kind of gratitude characteristic of this especial sort of sinner. He was just young enough, and there was still enough natural health in him, to know the healing touch of a perfect decency, a pure truth of spirit. Yet he had been drunk the night before, drunk with three noncommissioned officers—and he a gentleman, in spite of all, as could be plainly seen.

He turned his head away from the girl quickly, and looked straight into the eyes of her grandfather.

“I’ll tell you how it was, Sieur de Mauprat,” said he. “I was crossing the Place du Vier Prison when a rascal threw a cleaver at me from a window. If it had struck me on the head—well, the Royal Court would have buried me, and without a slab to my grave like Rullecour. I burst open the door of the house, ran up the stairs, gripped the ruffian, and threw him through the window into the street. As I did so a door opened behind, and another cut-throat came at me with a pistol. He fired—fired wide. I ran in on him, and before he had time to think he was out of the window too. Then the other brute below fired up at me. The bullet gashed my temple, as you see. After that, it was an affair of the connetable and his men. I had had enough fighting before breakfast. I saw your open door, and here I am—monsieur, monsieur, monsieur, mademoiselle!” He bowed to each of them and glanced towards the table hungrily.

Ranulph placed a seat for him. He viewed the conger eel and limpets with an avid eye, but waited for the chevalier and de Mauprat to sit. He had no sooner taken a mouthful, however, and thrown a piece of bread to Biribi the dog, than, starting again to his feet, he said:

“Your pardon, monsieur le chevalier, that brute in the Place has knocked all sense from my head! I’ve a letter for you, brought from Rouen by one of the refugees who came yesterday.” He drew from his breast a packet and handed it over. “I went out to their ship last night.”

The chevalier looked with surprise and satisfaction at the seal on the letter, and, breaking it, spread open the paper, fumbled for the eye-glass which he always carried in his waistcoat, and began reading diligently.

Meanwhile Ranulph turned to Guida. “To-morrow Jean Touzel and his wife and I go to the Ecrehos Rocks in Jean’s boat,” said he. “A vessel was driven ashore there three days ago, and my carpenters are at work on her. If you can go and the wind holds fair, you shall be brought back safe by sundown—Jean says so too.”

Of all boatmen and fishermen on the coast, Jean Touzel was most to be trusted. No man had saved so many shipwrecked folk, none risked his life so often; and he had never had a serious accident. To go to sea with Jean Touzel, folk said, was safer than living on land. Guida loved the sea; and she could sail a boat, and knew the tides and currents of the south coast as well as most fishermen.

M. de Mauprat met her inquiring glance and nodded assent. She then said gaily to Ranulph: “I shall sail her, shall I not?”

“Every foot of the way,” he answered.

She laughed and clapped her hands. Suddenly the little chevalier broke in. “By the head of John the Baptist!” said he.

Detricand put down his knife and fork in amazement, and Guida coloured, for the words sounded almost profane upon the chevalier’s lips.

Du Champsavoys held up his eye-glass, and, turning from one to the other, looked at each of them imperatively yet abstractedly too. Then, pursing up his lower lip, and with a growing amazement which carried him to distant heights of reckless language, he said again:

“By the head of John the Baptist on a charger!” He looked at Detricand with a fierceness which was merely the tension of his thought. If he had looked at a wall it would have been the same. But Detricand, who had an almost whimsical sense of humour, felt his neck in affected concern as though to be quite sure of it. “Chevalier,” said he, “you shock us—you shock us, dear chevalier.”

“The most painful things, and the most wonderful too,” said the chevalier, tapping the letter with his eye-glass; “the most terrible and yet the most romantic things are here. A drop of cider, if you please, mademoiselle, before I begin to read it to you, if I may—if I may—eh?”

They all nodded eagerly. Guida handed him a mogue of cider. The little grey thrush of a man sipped it, and in a voice no bigger than a bird’s began:

“From Lucillien du Champsavoys, Comte de Chanier, by the hand of a

faithful friend, who goeth hence from among divers dangers, unto my

cousin, the Chevalier du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir, late Gentleman

of the Bedchamber to the best of monarchs, Louis XV, this writing:

“MY DEAR AND HONOURED Cousin”—The chevalier paused, frowned a

trifle, and tapped his lips with his finger in a little lyrical

emotion—“My dear and honoured cousin, all is lost. The France we

loved is no more. The twentieth of June saw the last vestige of

Louis’s power pass for ever. That day ten thousand of the

sans-culottes forced their way into the palace to kill him. A faithful

few surrounded him. In the mad turmoil, we were fearful, he was

serene. ‘Feel,’ said Louis, placing his hand on his bosom, ‘feel

whether this is the beating of a heart shaken by fear.’ Ah, my

friend, your heart would have clamped in misery to hear the Queen

cry: ‘What have I to fear? Death? it is as well to-day as

to-morrow; they can do no more!’ Their lives were saved, the day

passed, but worse came after.

“The tenth of August came. With it too, the end-the dark and bloody

end-of the Swiss Guard. The Jacobins had their way at last. The

Swiss Guard died in the Court of the Carrousel as they marched to

the Assembly to save the King. Thus the last circle of defence

round the throne was broken. The palace was given over to flame and

the sword. Of twenty nobles of the court I alone escaped. France

is become a slaughter-house. The people cried out for more liberty,

and their liberators gave them the freedom of death. A fortnight

ago, Danton, the incomparable fiend, let loose his assassins upon

the priests of God. Now Paris is made a theatre where the people

whom Louis and his nobles would have died to save have turned every

street into a stable of carnage, every prison and hospital into a

vast charnel-house. One last revolting thing alone remains to be

done—the murder of the King; then this France that we have loved

will have no name and no place in our generation. She will rise

again, but we shall not see her, for our eyes have been blinded with

blood, for ever darkened by disaster. Like a mistress upon whom we

have lavished the days of our youth and the strength of our days,

she has deceived us; she has stricken us while we slept. Behold a

Caliban now for her paramour!

“Weep with me, for France despoils me. One by one my friends have

fallen beneath the axe. Of my four sons but one remains. Henri was

stabbed by Danton’s ruffians at the Hotel de Ville; Gaston fought

and died with the Swiss Guard, whose hacked and severed limbs were

broiled and eaten in the streets by these monsters who mutilate the

land. Isidore, the youngest, defied a hundred of Robespierre’s

cowards on the steps of the Assembly, and was torn to pieces by the

mob. Etienne alone is left. But for him and for the honour of my

house I too would find a place beside the King and die with him.

Etienne is with de la Rochejaquelein in Brittany. I am here at

Rouen.

“Brittany and Normandy still stand for the King. In these two

provinces begins the regeneration of France: we call it the War of

the Vendee. On that Isle of Jersey there you should almost hear the

voice of de la Rochejaquelein and the marching cries of our loyal

legions. If there be justice in God we shall conquer. But there

will be joy no more for such as you or me, nor hope, nor any peace.

We live only for those who come after. Our duty remains, all else

is dead. You did well to go, and I do well to stay.

“By all these piteous relations you shall know the importance of the

request I now set forth.

“My cousin by marriage of the House of Vaufontaine has lost all his

sons. With the death of the Prince of Vaufontaine, there is in

France no direct heir to the house, nor can it, by the law, revert

to my house or my heirs. Now of late the Prince hath urged me to

write to you—for he is here in seclusion with me—and to unfold to

you what has hitherto been secret. Eleven years ago the only nephew

of the Prince, after some naughty escapades, fled from the Court

with Rullecour the adventurer, who invaded the Isle of Jersey. From

that hour he has been lost to France. Some of his companions in

arms returned after a number of years. All with one exception

declared that he was killed in the battle at St. Heliers. One,

however, maintains that he was still living and in the prison

hospital when his comrades were set free.

“It is of him I write to you. He is—as you will perchance

remember—the Comte de Tournay. He was then not more than seventeen

years of age, slight of build, with brownish hair, dark grey eyes,

and had over the right shoulder a scar from a sword thrust. It

seemeth little possible that, if living, he should still remain in

that Isle of Jersey. He may rather have returned to obscurity in

France or have gone to England to be lost to name and remembrance

—or even indeed beyond the seas.

“That you may perchance give me word of him is the object of my

letter, written in no more hope than I live; and you can well guess

how faint that is. One young nobleman preserved to France may yet

be the great unit that will save her.

“Greet my poor countrymen yonder in the name of one who still waits

at a desecrated altar; and for myself you must take me as I am, with

the remembrance of what I was, even

“Your faithful friend and loving kinsman,

“CHANIER.”

“All this, though in the chances of war you read it not till

wintertide, was told you at Rouen this first day of September 1792.”

During the reading, broken by feeling and reflective pauses on the chevalier’s part, the listeners showed emotion after the nature of each. The Sieur de Mauprat’s fingers clasped and unclasped on the top of his cane, little explosions of breath came from his compressed lips, his eyebrows beetled over till the eyes themselves seemed like two glints of flame. Delagarde dropped a fist heavily upon the table, and held it there clinched, while his heel beat a tattoo of excitement upon the floor. Guida’s breath came quick and fast—as Ranulph said afterwards, she was “blanc comme un linge.” She shuddered painfully when the slaughter and burning of the Swiss Guards was read. Her brain was so swimming with the horrors of anarchy that the latter part of the letter dealing with the vanished Count of Tournay passed by almost unheeded.

But this particular matter greatly interested Ranulph and de Mauprat. They leaned forward eagerly, seizing every word, and both instinctively turned towards Detricand when the description of de Tournay was read.

As for Detricand himself, he listened to the first part of the letter like a man suddenly roused out of a dream. For the first time since the Revolution had begun, the horror of it and the meaning of it were brought home to him. He had been so long expatriated, had loitered so long in the primrose path of daily sleep and nightly revel, had fallen so far, that he little realised how the fiery wheels of Death were spinning in France, or how black was the torment of her people. His face turned scarlet as the thing came home to him now. He dropped his head in his hand as if to listen more attentively, but it was in truth to hide his emotion. When the names of Vaufontaine and de Tournay were mentioned, he gave a little start, then suddenly ruled himself to a strange stillness. His face seemed presently to clear; he even smiled a little. Conscious that de Mauprat and Delagarde were watching him, he appeared to listen with a keen but impersonal interest, not without its effect upon his scrutinisers. He nodded his head as though he understood the situation. He acted very well; he bewildered the onlookers. They might think he tallied with the description of the Comte de Tournay, yet he gave the impression that the matter was not vital to himself. But when the little Chevalier stopped and turned his eye-glass upon him with sudden startled inquiry, he found it harder to keep composure.

“Singular—singular!” said the old man, and returned to the reading of the letter.

When he ended there was absolute silence for a moment. Then the chevalier lifted his eye-glass again and looked at Detricand intently.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” he said, “but you were with Rullecour—as I was saying.”

Detricand nodded with a droll sort of helplessness, and answered: “In Jersey I never have chance to forget it, Chevalier.”

Du Champsavoys, with a naive and obvious attempt at playing counsel, fixed him again with the glass, pursed his lips, and with the importance of a greffier at the ancient Cour d’Heritage, came one step nearer to his goal.

“Have you knowledge of the Comte de Tournay, monsieur?”

“I knew him—as you were saying, Chevalier,” answered Detricand lightly.

Then the Chevalier struck home. He dropped his fingers upon the table, stood up, and, looking straight into Detricand’s eyes, said:

“Monsieur, you are the Comte de Tournay!”

The Chevalier involuntarily held the silence for an instant. Nobody stirred. De Mauprat dropped his chin upon his hands, and his eyebrows drew down in excitement. Guida gave a little cry of astonishment. But Detricand answered the Chevalier with a look of blank surprise and a shrug of the shoulder, which had the effect desired.

“Thank you, Chevalier,” said he with quizzical humour. “Now I know who I am, and if it isn’t too soon to levy upon the kinship, I shall dine with you today, chevalier. I paid my debts yesterday, and sous are scarce, but since we are distant cousins I may claim grist at the family mill, eh?”

The Chevalier sat, or rather dropped into his chair again.

“Then you are not the Comte de Tournay, monsieur,” said he hopelessly.

“Then I shall not dine with you to-day,” retorted Detricand gaily.

“You fit the tale,” said de Mauprat dubiously, touching the letter with his finger.

“Let me see,” rejoined Detricand. “I’ve been a donkey farmer, a shipmaster’s assistant, a tobacco pedlar, a quarryman, a wood merchant, an interpreter, a fisherman—that’s very like the Comte de Tournay! On Monday night I supped with a smuggler; on Tuesday I breakfasted on soupe a la graisse with Manon Moignard the witch; on Wednesday I dined with Dormy Jamais and an avocat disbarred for writing lewd songs for a chocolate-house; on Thursday I went oyster-fishing with a native who has three wives, and a butcher who has been banished four times for not keeping holy the Sabbath Day; and I drank from eleven o’clock till sunrise this morning with three Scotch sergeants of the line—which is very like the Comte de Tournay, as you were saying, Chevalier! I am five feet eleven, and the Comte de Tournay was five feet ten—which is no lie,” he added under his breath. “I have a scar, but it’s over my left shoulder and not over my right—which is also no lie,” he added under his breath. “De Tournay’s hair was brown, and mine, you see, is almost a dead black—fever did that,” he added under his breath. “De Tournay escaped the day after the Battle of Jersey from the prison hospital, I was left, and here I’ve been ever since—Yves Savary dit Detricand at your service, chevalier.”

A pained expression crossed over the Chevalier’s face. “I am most sorry; I am most sorry,” he said hesitatingly. “I had no wish to wound your feelings.”

“Ah, it is de Tournay to whom you must apologise,” said Detricand musingly, with a droll look.

“It is a pity,” continued the Chevalier, “for somehow all at once I recalled a resemblance. I saw de Tournay when he was fourteen—yes, I think it was fourteen—and when I looked at you, monsieur, his face came back to me. It would have made my cousin so happy if you had been the Comte de Tournay and I had found you here.” The old man’s voice trembled a little. “We are growing fewer every day, we Frenchmen of the ancient families. And it would have made my cousin so happy, as I was saying, monsieur.”

Detricand’s manner changed; he became serious. The devil-may-care, irresponsible shamelessness of his face dropped away like a mask. Something had touched him. His voice changed too.

“De Tournay was a much better fellow than I am, chevalier,” said he—“and that’s no lie,” he added under his breath. “De Tournay was a fiery, ambitious, youngster with bad companions. De Tournay told me he repented of coming with Rullecour, and he felt he had spoilt his life—that he could never return to France again or to his people.”

The old Chevalier shook his head sadly. “Is he dead?” he asked.

There was a slight pause, and then Detricand answered: “No, still living.”

“Where is he?”

“I promised de Tournay that I would never reveal that.”

“Might I not write to him?” asked the old man. “Assuredly, Chevalier.”

“Could you—will you—despatch a letter to him from me, monsieur?”

“Upon my honour, yes.”

“I thank you—I thank you, monsieur; I will write it to-day.”

“As you will, Chevalier. I will ask you for the letter to-night,” rejoined Detricand. “It may take time to reach de Tournay; but he shall receive it into his own hands.”

De Mauprat trembled to his feet to put the question he knew the Chevalier dreaded to ask:

“Do you think that monsieur le comte will return to France?”

“I think he will,” answered Detricand slowly.

“It will make my cousin so happy—so happy,” quavered the little Chevalier. “Will you take snuff with me, monsieur?” He offered his silver snuff-box to his vagrant countryman. This was a mark of favour he showed to few.

Detricand bowed, accepted, and took a pinch. “I must be going,” he said.