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The Last Hope

H >> Henry Seton Merriman >> The Last Hope




"You must go no farther, mademoiselle," said Loo.

She stopped, half bending to take her skirt, but did not look back. Then
she took two steps downward from stone to stone. The blocks were half
embedded in the turf and looked ready to fall under the smallest
additional weight.

"It is not I who say so, but your father who sent me," explained the
admonisher from above.

"Since it is all chance--" she said, looking downward.

She turned suddenly and looked up at him with that impatience which gives
way in later life to a philosophy infinitely to be dreaded when it comes;
for its real name is Indifference.

Her movements were spasmodic and quick as if something angered her, she
knew not what; as if she wanted something, she knew not what.

"I suppose," she said, "that it was chance that saved our lives that
night two months ago, out there."

And she stood with one hand stretched out behind her pointing toward the
estuary, which was quiet enough now, looking up at him with that strange
anger or new disquietude--it was hard to tell which--glowing in her eyes.
The wind fluttered her hair, which was tied low down with a ribbon in the
mode named "à la diable" by some French wit with a sore heart in an old
man's breast. For none other could have so aptly described it.

"All chance, mademoiselle," he answered, looking over her head toward the
river.

"And it would have been the same had it been only Marie or Marie and Jean
in the boat with you?"

"The boat would have been as solid and the ropes as strong."

"And you?" asked the girl, with a glance from her persistent eyes.

"Oh no!" he answered, with a laugh. "I should not have been the same. But
you must not continue to stand there, mademoiselle; the wall is unsafe."

She shrugged her shoulders and stood with half-averted face, looking down
at the vineyards which stretched away to the dunes by the river. Her
cheeks were oddly flushed.

"Your father sent me to say so," continued Loo, "and if he sees that you
take no heed he will come himself to learn why."

Juliette gave a curt laugh and climbed the declivity toward him. The
argument was, it seemed, a sound one. When she reached his level he made
a step or two along the path that ran round the enceinte--not toward the
house, however--but away from it. She accepted the tacit suggestion, not
tacitly, however.

"Shall we not go and tell papa we have returned without mishap?" she
amended, with a light laugh.

"No, mademoiselle," he answered. It was his turn to be grave now and she
glanced at him with a gleam of satisfaction beneath her lids. She was not
content with that, however, but wished to make him angry. So she laughed
again and they would have quarrelled if he had not kept his lips firmly
closed and looked straight in front of him.

They passed between the unfinished ruin known as the Italian house and
the rampart. The Italian house screened them from the windows of that
portion of the ancient stabling which the Marquis had made habitable when
he bought back the château of Gemosac from the descendant of an
adventurous republican to whom the estate had been awarded in the days of
the Terror. A walk of lime-trees bordered that part of the garden which
lies to the west of the Italian house, and no other part was visible from
where Juliette paused to watch the sun sink below the distant horizon.
Loo was walking a few paces behind her, and when she stopped he stopped
also. She sat down on the low wall, but he remained standing.

Her profile, clear-cut and delicate with its short chin and beautifully
curved lips, its slightly aquiline nose and crisp hair rising in a bold
curve from her forehead, was outlined against the sky. He could see the
gleam of the western light in her eyes, which were half averted. While
she watched the sunset, he watched her with a puzzled expression about
his lips.

He remembered perhaps the Marquis's last words, that Juliette was only a
child. He knew that she could in all human calculation know nothing of
the world; that at least she could have learned nothing of it in the
convent where she had been educated. So, if she knew anything, she must
have known it before she went there, which was impossible. She knew
nothing, therefore, and yet she was not a child. As a matter of fact,
she was the most beautiful woman Loo Barebone had ever seen. He was
thinking that as she sat on the low wall, swinging one slipper half
falling from her foot, watching the sunset, while he watched her and
noted the anger slowly dying from her eyes as the light faded from the
sky. That strange anger went down, it would appear, with the sun. After
the long silence--when the low bars of red cloud lying across the western
sky were fading from pink to grey--she spoke at last in a voice which he
had never heard before, gentle and confidential.

"When are you going away?" she asked.

"To-night."

And he knew that the very hour of his departure was known to her already.

"And when will you come back?"

"As soon as I can," he answered, half-involuntarily. There was a turn of
the head half toward him, something expectant in the tilt at the corner
of her parted lips, which made it practically impossible to make any
other answer.

"Why?" she asked, in little more than a whisper--then she broke into a
gay laugh and leapt off the wall. She walked quickly past him.

"Why?" she repeated over her shoulder as she passed him. And he was too
quick for her, for he caught her hand and touched it with his lips before
she jerked it away from him.

"Because you are here," he answered, with a laugh. But she was grave
again and looked at him with a queer searching glance before she turned
away and left him standing in the half-light--thinking of Miriam Liston.




CHAPTER XX


"NINETEEN"

As Juliette returned to the Gate House she encountered her father,
walking arm-in-arm with Dormer Colville. The presence of the Englishman
within the enceinte of the chateau was probably no surprise to her, for
she must have heard the clang of the bell just within the gate, which
could not be opened from outside; by which alone access was gained to any
part of the château.

Colville was in riding costume. It was, indeed, his habitual dress when
living in France, for he made no concealment of his partnership in a
well-known business house in Bordeaux.

"I am a sleeping partner," he would say, with that easy flow of egotistic
confidence which is the surest way of learning somewhat of your
neighbour's private affairs. "I am a sleeping partner at all times except
the vintage, when I awake and ride round among the growers, to test their
growth."

It was too early yet for these journeys, for the grapes were hardly ripe.
But any one who wished to move from place to place must needs do so in
the saddle in a country where land is so valuable that the width of a
road is grudged, and bridle-ways are deemed good enough for the passage
of the long and narrow carts that carry wine.

Ever since their somewhat precipitate departure from the Villa Cordouan
at Royan, Dormer Colville and Barebone had been in company. They had
stayed together, in one friend's house or another. Sometimes they enjoyed
the hospitality of a château, and at others put up with the scanty
accommodation of a priest's house or the apartment of a retired military
officer, in one of those little towns of provincial France at which the
cheap journalists of Paris are pleased to sneer without ceasing.

They avoided the large towns with extraordinary care.

"Why should we go to towns," asked Colville, jovially, "when we have
business in the country and the sun is still high in the sky?"

"Yes," he would reply to the questions of an indiscreet fellow-traveller,
at table or on the road. "Yes; I am a buyer of wine. We are buyers of
wine. We are travelling from place to place to watch the growth. For the
wine is hidden in the grape, and the grape is ripening."

And, as often as not, the chance acquaintance of an inn dejeuner would
catch the phrase and repeat it thoughtfully.

"Ah! is that so?" he would ask, with a sudden glance at Dormer Colville's
companion, who had hitherto passed unobserved as the silent subordinate
of a large buyer; learning his trade, no doubt. "The grape is ripening.
Good!"

And as sure as he seemed to be struck with this statement of a
self-evident fact, he would, in the next few minutes, bring the numeral
"nineteen"--_tant bien que mal_--into his conversation.

"With nineteen days of sun, the vintage will be upon us," he would say;
or, "I have but nineteen kilometres more of road before me to-day."

Indeed, it frequently happened that the word came in very
inappropriately, as if tugged heroically to the front by a clumsy
conversationalist.

There is no hazard of life so certain to discover sympathy or antagonism
as travel--a fact which points to the wisdom of beginning married life
with a journey. The majority of people like to know the worst at once. To
travel, however, with Dormer Colville was a liberal education in the
virtues. No man could be less selfish or less easily fatigued; which are
the two bases upon which rest all the stumbling-blocks of travel.

Up to a certain point, Barebone and Dormer Colville became fast friends
during the month that elapsed between their departure from Mrs. St.
Pierre Lawrence's house and their arrival at the inn at Gemosac. The
"White Horse," at Gemosac, was no better and no worse than any other
"White Horse" in any other small town of France. It was, however, better
than the principal inn of a town of the same size in any other habitable
part of the globe.

There were many reasons why the Marquis de Gemosac had yielded to
Colville's contention--that the time had not yet come for Loo Barebone to
be his guest at the chateau.

"He is inclined to be indolent," Colville had whispered. "One recognises,
in many traits of character, the source from whence his blood is drawn.
He will not exert himself so long as there is some one else at hand who
is prepared to take trouble. He must learn that it is necessary to act
for himself. He needs rousing. Let him travel through France, and see for
himself that of which he has as yet only learnt at second-hand. That will
rouse him."

And the journey through the valleys of the Garonne and the Dordogne had
been undertaken.

Another, greater journey, was now afoot, to end at no less a centre of
political life than Paris. A start was to be made this evening, and
Dormer Colville now came to report that all was ready and the horses at
the gate.

"If there were scenes such as this for all of us to linger in,
mademoiselle," he said, lifting his face to the western sky and inhaling
the scent of the flowers growing knee-deep all around him, "men would
accomplish little in their brief lifetime."

His eyes, dreamy and reflective, wandered over the scene and paused, just
for a moment in passing, on Juliette's face. She continued her way, with
no other answer than a smile.

"She grows, my dear Marquis--she grows every minute of the day and
wakes up a new woman every morning," said Colville, in a confidential
aside, and he went forward to meet Loo with his accustomed laugh of
good-fellowship. He whom the world calls a good fellow is never a wise
man.

Barebone walked toward the gate without joining in the talk of his
companions. He was thoughtful and uneasy. He had come to say good-bye and
nothing else. He was wondering if he had really meant what he had said.

"Come," interrupted Colville's smooth voice. "We must get into the saddle
and begone. I was just telling Monsieur and Mademoiselle Juliette, that
any man might be tempted to linger at Gemosac until the active years of a
lifetime rolled by."

The Marquis made the needful reply; hoping that he might yet live to see
Gemosac--and not only Gemosac, but a hundred châteaux like it--reawakened
to their ancient glory, and thrown open to welcome the restorer of their
fallen fortunes.

Colville looked from one to the other, and then, with his foot in the
stirrup, turned to look at Juliette, who had followed them to the gate.

"And mademoiselle," he said; "will she wish us good luck, also? Alas!
those times are gone when we could have asked for her ribbon to wear, and
to fight for between ourselves when we are tired and cross at the end of
a journey. Come, Barchone--into the saddle."

They waited, both looking at Juliette; for she had not spoken.

"I wish you good luck," she said, at length, patting the neck of
Colville's horse, her face wearing a little mystic smile.

Thus they departed, at sunset, on a journey of which old men will still
talk in certain parts of France. Here and there, in the Angoumois, in
Guienne, in the Vendée, and in the western parts of Brittany, the student
of forgotten history may find an old priest who will still persist in
dividing France into the ancient provinces, and will tell how Hope rode
through the Royalist country when he himself was busy at his first cure.

The journey lasted nearly two months, and before they passed north of the
Loire at Nantes and quitted the wine country, the vintage was over.

"We must say that we are cider merchants, that is all," observed Dormer
Colville, when they crossed the river, which has always been the great
divider of France.

"He is sobering down. I believe he will become serious," wrote he to the
Marquis de Gemosac. But he took care to leave Loo Barebone as free as
possible.

"I am, in a way, a compulsory pilot," he explained, airily, to his
companion. "The ship is yours, and you probably know more about the
shoals than I do. You must have felt that a hundred times when you were
at sea with that solemn old sailor, Captain Clubbe. And yet, before you
could get into port, you found yourself forced to take the compulsory
pilot on board and make him welcome with such grace as you could command,
feeling all the while that he did not want to come and you could have
done as well without him. So you must put up with my company as
gracefully as you can, remembering that you can drop me as soon as you
are in port."

And surely, none other could have occupied an uncomfortable position so
gracefully.

Barebone found that he had not much to do. He soon accommodated himself
to a position which required nothing more active than a ready ear and a
gracious patience. For, day by day--almost hour by hour--it was his lot
to listen to protestations of loyalty to a cause which smouldered none
the less hotly because it was hidden from the sight of the Prince
President's spies.

And, as Colville had predicted, Barebone sobered down. He would ride now,
hour after hour, in silence, whereas at the beginning of the journey he
had talked gaily enough, seeing a hundred humorous incidents in the
passing events of the day; laughing at the recollection of an interview
with some provincial notable who had fallen behind the times, or jesting
readily enough with such as showed a turn for joking on the road.

But now the unreality of his singular change of fortune was vanishing.
Every village priest who came after dark to take a glass of wine with
them at their inn sent it farther into the past, every provincial noble
greeting him on the step of his remote and quiet house added a note to
the drumming reality which dominated his waking moments and disturbed his
sleep at night.

Day by day they rode on, passing through two or three villages between
such halts as were needed by the horses. At every hamlet, in the large
villages, where they rested and had their food, at the remote little town
where they passed a night, there was always some one expecting them, who
came and talked of the weather and more or less skilfully brought in the
numeral nineteen. "Nineteen! Nineteen!" It was a watchword all over
France.

Long before, on the banks of the Dordogne, Loo had asked his companion
why that word had been selected--what it meant.

"It means Louis XIX," replied Dormer Colville, gravely.

And now, as they rode through a country so rural, so thinly populated and
remote that nothing like it may be found in these crowded islands, the
number seemed to follow them; or, rather, to pass on before them and
await their coming.

Often Colville would point silently with his whip to the numerals,
scrawled on a gate-post or written across a wall. At this time France was
mysteriously flooded with cheap portraits of the great Napoleon. It was
before the days of pictorial advertisement, and young ladies who wished
to make an advantageous marriage had no means of advertising the fact and
themselves in supplements to illustrated papers. The walls of inns and
shops and _diligence_ offices were therefore barer than they are to-day.
And from these bare walls stared out at this time the well-known face of
the great Napoleon. It was an innovation, and as such readily enough
accepted.

At every fair, at the great fête of St. Jean, at St. Jean d'Angély and a
hundred other fêtes of purely local notoriety, at least one hawker of
cheap lithographs was to be found. And if the buyer haggled, he could get
the portrait of the great Emperor for almost nothing.

"One cannot print it at such a cost," the seller assured his purchasers,
which was no less than the truth.

The fairs were, and are to this day, the link between the remoter
villages and the world; and the peasants carried home with them a
picture, for the first time, to hang on their walls. Thus the Prince
President fostered the Napoleonic legend.

Dormer Colville would walk up to these pictures, and, as often as not,
would turn and look over his shoulder at Barebone, with a short laugh.
For as often as not, the numerals were scrawled across the face in
pencil.

But Barebone had ceased to laugh at the constant repetition now. Soon
Colville ceased to point out the silent witness, for he perceived that
Loo was looking for it himself, detecting its absence with a gleam of
determination in his eyes or noting its recurrence with a sharp sigh, as
of the consciousness of a great responsibility.

Thus the reality was gradually forced upon him that that into which he
had entered half in jest was no jest at all; that he was moving forward
on a road which seemed easy enough, but of which the end was not
perceptible; neither was there any turning to one side or the other.

All men who have made a mark--whether it be a guiding or warning sign to
those that follow--must at one moment of their career have perceived
their road before them, thus. Each must have realised that once set out
upon that easy path there is no turning aside and no turning back. And
many have chosen to turn back while there was yet time, leaving the mark
unmade. For most men are cowards and shun responsibility. Most men
unconsciously steer their way by proverb or catchword; and all the wise
saws of all the nations preach cowardice.

Barebone saw his road now, and Dormer Colville knew that he saw it.

When they crossed the Loire they passed the crisis, and Colville breathed
again like one who had held his breath for long. Those colder, sterner
men of Brittany, who, in later times, compared notes with the nobles of
Guienne and the Vendée, seemed to talk of a different man; for they spoke
of one who rarely laughed, and never turned aside from a chosen path
which was in no wise bordered by flowers.




Chapter XXI


NO. 8 RUELLE ST. JACOB

Between the Rue de Lille and the Boulevard St. Germain, in the narrow
streets which to this day have survived the sweeping influence of Baron
Haussmann, once Prefect of the Seine, there are many houses which
scarcely seem to have opened door or window since the great Revolution.

One of these, to be precise, is situated in the Ruelle St. Jacob,
hardly wider than a lane--a short street with a blind end against high
walls--into which any vehicle that enters must needs do so with the
knowledge of having to back out again. For there is no room to turn.
Which is an allegory. All the windows, in fact, that look forlornly at
the blank walls or peep over the high gateways into the Ruelle St. Jacob
are Royalist windows looking into a street which is blinded by a high
wall and is too narrow to allow of turning.

Many of the windows would appear to have gathered dust since those days
more than a hundred years ago when white faces peeped from them and
trembling hands unbarred the sash to listen to the roar of voices in the
Rue du Bac, in the open space by the church of St. Germain des Près, in
the Cité, all over Paris, where the people were making history.

To this house in the Ruelle St. Jacob, Dormer Colville and Loo Barebone
made their way on foot, on their arrival in Paris at the termination of
their long journey.

It was nearly dark, for Colville had arranged to approach the city and
leave their horses at a stable at Meudon after dusk.

"It is foolish," he said, gaily, to his companion, "to flaunt a face like
yours in Paris by daylight."

They had driven from Meudon in a hired carriage to the corner of the
Champ de Mars, in those days still innocent of glass houses and
exhibition buildings, for Paris was not yet the toy-shop of the world;
and from the Champ de Mars they came on foot through the ill-paved,
feebly lighted streets. In the Ruelle St. Jacob itself there was only one
lamp, burning oil, swinging at the corner. The remainder of the lane
depended for its illumination on the windows of two small shops retailing
firewood and pickled gherkins and balls of string grey with age, as do
all the shops in the narrow streets on the wrong side of the Seine.

Dormer Colville led the way, picking his steps from side to side of the
gutter which meandered odoriferously down the middle of the street toward
the river. He stopped in front of the great gateway and looked up at the
arch of it, where the stone carving had been carefully obliterated by
some enthusiastic citizen armed with a hatchet.

"Ichabod," he said, with a short laugh; and cautiously laid bold of the
dangling bell-handle which had summoned the porter to open to a Queen in
those gay days when Marie Antoinette light-heartedly pushed a falling
monarchy down the incline.

The great gate was not opened in response, but a small side door,
deep-sunken in the thickness of the wall. On either jamb of the door was
affixed in the metal letters ordained by the municipality the number
eight. Number Eight Ruelle St. Jacob had once been known to kings as the
Hotel Gemosac.

The man who opened earned a lantern and held the door ajar with a
grudging hand while he peered out. One could almost imagine that he had
survived the downfall and the Restoration, and a couple of republics,
behind the high walls.

The court-yard was paved with round cobble-stones no bigger than an
apple, and, even by the flickering light of the lantern, it was
perceptible that no weed had been allowed to grow between the stones or
in the seams of the wide, low steps that led to an open door.

The house appeared to be dark and deserted.

"Yes, Monsieur le Marquis--Monsieur le Marquis is at home," muttered the
man with a bronchial chuckle, and led the way across the yard. He wore a
sort of livery, which must have been put away for years. A young man had
been measured for the coat which now displayed three deep creases across
a bent back.

"Attention--attention!" he said, in a warning voice, while he scraped a
sulphur match in the hall. "There are holes in the carpets. It is easy to
trip and fall."

He lighted the candle, and after having carefully shut and bolted the
door, he led the way upstairs. At their approach, easily audible in the
empty house by reason of the hollow creaking of the oak floor, a door was
opened at the head of the stairs and a flood of light met the new-comers.

In the doorway, which was ten feet high, the little bent form of the
Marquis de Gemosac stood waiting.

"Ah! ah!" he said, with that pleasant manner of his generation, which was
refined and spirituelle and sometimes dramatic, and yet ever failed to
touch aught but the surface of life. "Ah! ah! Safely accomplished--the
great journey. Safely accomplished. You permit--"

And he embraced Barebone after the custom of his day. "From all sides,"
he said, when the door was closed, "I hear that you have done great
things. From every quarter one hears your praise."

He held him at arm's length.

"Yes," he said. "Your face is graver and--more striking in resemblance
than ever. So now you know--now you have seen."

"Yes," answered Barebone, gravely. "I have seen and I know."

The Marquis rubbed his white hands together and gave a little crackling
laugh of delight as he drew forward a chair to the fire, which was of
logs as long as a barrel. The room was a huge one, and it was lighted
from end to end with lamps, as if for a reception or a ball. The air was
damp and mouldly. There were patches of grey on the walls, which had once
been painted with garlands of roses and Cupids and pastoral scenes by a
noted artist of the Great Age.

The ceiling had fallen in places, and the woodwork of the carved
furniture gave forth a subtle scent of dry rot.

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