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The Last Hope

H >> Henry Seton Merriman >> The Last Hope




The Scotchman laughed curtly.

"Gain?" he answered. "Gain? I don't say I would, but I think I might be
able to turn an honest penny out of the approaching events."

"What events?"

"The Lord alone knows," replied the Scotchman, who had never set foot in
his country, but had acquired elsewhere the prudent habit of never
answering a question. "France doesn't, I am sure of that. I am thinking
there will be events, though, before long, Colville. Will there not,
now?"

Colville looked at him with an open smile.

"You mean," he said, slowly, "the Prince President."

"That is what he calls himself at present. I'm wondering how long. Eh!
man. He is just pouring money into the country from here, from America,
from Austria--from wherever he can get it."

"Why is he doing that?"

"You must ask somebody who knows him better than I do. They say you knew
him yourself once well enough, eh?"

"He is not a man I have much faith in," said Colville, vaguely. "And
France has no faith in him at all."

"So I'm told. But France--well, does France know what she wants? She
mostly wants something without knowing what it is. She is like a woman.
It's excitement she wants, perhaps. And she will buy it at any cost, and
then find afterward she has paid too dear for it. That is like a woman,
too. But it isn't another Bonaparte she wants, I am sure of that."

"So am I," answered Colville, with a side glance toward Barebone, a mere
flicker of the eyelids.

"Not unless it is a Napoleon of that ilk."

"And he is not," completed Colville.

"But--" the Scotchman paused, for a waiter came at this moment to tell
him that his dinner was ready at a table nearer to the fire. "But," he
went on, in French, for the waiter lingered, "but he might be able to
persuade France that it is himself she wants--might he not, now? With
money at the back of it, eh?"

"He might," admitted Colville, doubtfully. The Scotchman moved away, but
came back again.

"I am thinking," he said, with a grim smile, "that like all intelligent
people who know France, you are aware that it is a King she wants."

"But not an Orleans King," replied Colville, with his friendly and
indifferent laugh.

The Scotchman smiled more grimly still and went away.

He was seated too near for Colville and Loo to talk of him. But Colville
took an opportunity to mention his name in an undertone. It was a name
known all over Europe then, and forgotten now.




CHAPTER XXXI


THE THURSDAY OF MADAME DE CHANTONNAY

"It is," Madame de Chantonnay had maintained throughout the months of
January and February--"it is an affair of the heart."

She continued to hold this opinion with, however, a shade less
conviction, well into a cold March.

"It is an affair of the heart, Abbé," she said. "_Allez_! I know what I
talk of. It is an affair of the heart and nothing more. There is some one
in England: some blonde English girl. They are always washing, I am told.
And certainly they have that air--like a garment that has been too often
to the _blanchisseuse_ and has lost its substance. A beautiful skin, I
allow you. But so thin--so thin."

"The skin, madame?" inquired the Abbé Touvent, with that gentle and
cackling humour in which the ordained of any Church may indulge after a
good dinner.

The Abbé Touvent had, as a matter of fact, been Madame de Chantonnay's
most patient listener through the months of suspense that followed Loo
Barebone's sudden disappearance. Needless to say he agreed ardently with
whatever explanation she put forward. Old ladies who give good dinners to
a Low Church British curate, or an abbé of the Roman confession, or,
indeed, to the needy celibate exponents of any creed whatsoever, may
always count upon the active conversational support of their spiritual
adviser. And it is not only within the fold of Papacy that careful
Christians find the road to heaven made smooth by the arts of an
efficient cook.

"You know well enough what I mean, malicious one," retorted the lady,
arranging her shawl upon her fat shoulders.

"I always think," murmured the Abbé, sipping his digestive glass of
eau-de-vie d'Armagnac, which is better than any cognac of Charente--"I
always think that to be thin shows a mean mind, lacking generosity."

"Take my word for it," pursued Madame de Chantonnay, warming to her
subject, "that is the explanation of the young man's disappearance. They
say the government has taken some underhand way of putting him aside. One
does not give credence to such rumours in these orderly times. No: it is
simply that he prefers the pale eyes of some Mees to glory and France.
Has it not happened before, Abbé?"

"Ah! Madame--" another sip of Armagnac.

"And will it not happen again? It is the heart that has the first word
and the last. I know--I who address you, I know!"

And she touched her breast where, very deeply seated it is to be
presumed, she kept her own heart.

"Ah! Madame. Who better?" murmured the Abbé.

"Na, na!" exclaimed Madame de Chantonnay, holding up one hand, heavy with
rings, while with the other she gathered her shawl closer about her as if
for protection.

"Now you tread on dangerous ground, wicked one--_wicked_! And you so
demure in your soutane!"

But the Abbé only laughed and held up his small glass after the manner of
any abandoned layman drinking a toast.

"Madame," he said, "I drink to the hearts you have broken. And now I go
to arrange the card tables, for your guests will soon be coming."

It was, in fact, Madame de Chantonnay's Thursday evening to which were
bidden such friends as enjoyed for the moment her fickle good graces. The
Abbé Touvent was, so to speak, a permanent subscriber to these favours.
The task was easy enough, and any endowed with a patience to listen, a
readiness to admire that excellent young nobleman, Albert de Chantonnay,
and the credulity necessary to listen to the record (more hinted at than
clearly spoken) of Madame's own charms in her youth, could make sure of a
game of dominoes on the evening of the third Thursday in the month.

The Abbé bustled about, drawing cards and tables nearer to the lamps,
away from the draught of the door, not too near the open wood fire. His
movements were dainty, like those of an old maid of the last generation.
He hissed through his teeth as if he were working very hard. It served to
stimulate a healthy excitement in the Thursday evening of Madame de
Chantonnay.

"Oh, I am not uneasy," said that lady, as she watched him. She had dined
well and her digestion had outlived those charms to which she made such
frequent reference. "I am not uneasy. He will return, more or less
sheepish. He will make some excuse more or less inadequate. He will tell
us a story more or less creditable. _Allez_! Oh, you men. If you intend
that chair for Monsieur de Gemosac, it is the wrong one. Monsieur de
Gemosac sits high, but his legs are short; give him the little chair that
creaks. If he sits too high he is apt to see over the top of one's cards.
And he is so eager to win--the good Marquis."

"Then he will come to-night despite the cold? You think he will come,
Madame?"

"I am sure of it. He has come more frequently since Juliette came to live
at the château. It is Juliette who makes him come, perhaps. Who knows?"

The Abbé stopped midway across the floor and set down the chair he
carried with great caution.

"Madame is incorrigible," he said, spreading out his hands. "Madame would
perceive a romance in a cradle."

"Well, one must begin somewhere, Materialist. Once it was for me that the
guests crowded to my poor Thursdays. But now it is because Albert is
near. Ah! I know it. I say it without jealousy. Have you noticed, my dear
Abbé, that he has cut his whiskers a little shorter--a shade nearer to
the ear? It is effective, eh?"

"It gives an air of hardihood," assented the Abbé. "It lends to that
intellectual face something martial. I would almost say that to the
timorous it might appear terrible and overbearing."

Thus they talked until the guests began to arrive, and for Madame de
Chantonnay the time no doubt seemed short enough. For no one appreciated
Albert with such a delicacy of touch as the Abbé Touvent.

The Marquis de Gemosac and Juliette were the last to arrive. The Marquis
looked worn and considerably aged. He excused himself with a hundred
gestures of despair for being late.

"I have so much to do," he whispered. "So much to think of. We are
leaving no stone unturned, and at last we have a clue."

The other guests gathered round.

"But speak, my dear friend, speak," cried Madame de Chantonnay. "You keep
us in suspense. Look around you. We are among friends, as you see. It is
only ourselves."

"Well," replied the Marquis, standing upright and fingering the snuff-box
which had been given to his grandfather by the Great Louis. "Well, my
friends, our invaluable ally, Dormer Colville, has gone to England. There
is a ray of hope. That is all I can tell you."

He looked round, smiled on his audience, and then proceeded to tell them
more, after the manner of any Frenchman.

"What," he whispered, "if an unscrupulous republican government had got
scent of our glorious discovery! What if, panic-stricken, they threw all
vestige of honour to the wind and decided to kidnap an innocent man and
send him to the Iceland fisheries, where so many lives are lost every
winter; with what hopes in their republican hearts, I leave to your
imagination. What if--let us say it for once--Monsieur de Bourbon should
prove a match for them? Alert, hardy, full of resource, a skilled sailor,
he takes his life in his hand with the daring audacity of royal blood and
effects his escape to England. I tell you nothing--"

He held up his hands as if to stay their clamouring voices, and nodded
his head triumphantly toward Albert de Chantonnay, who stood near a lamp
fingering his martial whisker of the left side with the air of one who
would pause at naught.

"I tell you nothing. But such a theory has been pieced together upon
excellent material. It may be true. It may be a dream. And, as I tell
you, our dear friend Dormer Colville, who has nothing at stake, who loses
or gains little by the restoration of France, has journeyed to England
for us. None could execute the commission so capably, or without danger
of arousing suspicion. There! I have told you all I know. We must wait,
my compatriots. We must wait."

"And in the mean time," purred the voice of the Abbé Touvent, "for the
digestion, Monsieur le Marquis--for the digestion."

For it was one of the features of Madame de Chantonnay's Thursdays that
no servants were allowed in the room; but the guests waited on each
other. If the servants, as is to be presumed, listened outside the door,
they were particular not to introduce each succeeding guest without first
knocking, which caused a momentary silence and added considerably to the
sense of political importance of those assembled. The Abbé Touvent made
it his special care to preside over the table where small glasses of
eau-de-vie d'Armagnac and other aids to digestion were set out in a
careful profusion.

"It is a theory, my dear Marquis," admitted Madame de Chantonnay. "But it
is nothing more. It has no heart in it, your theory. Now I have a theory
of my own."

"Full of heart, one may assure oneself, Madame; full of heart," murmured
the Marquis. "For you yourself are full of heart--is it not so?"

"I hope not," Juliette whispered to her fan, with a little smile of
malicious amusement. For she had a youthful contempt for persons old
and stout, who talk ignorantly of matters only understood by such as
are young and slim and pretty. She looked at her fan with a gleam of
ill-concealed irony and glanced over it toward Albert de Chantonnay, who,
with a consideration which must have been hereditary, was uneasy about
the alteration he had made in his whiskers. It was perhaps unfair, he
felt, to harrow young and tender hearts.

It was at this moment that a loud knock commanded a breathless silence,
for no more guests were expected. Indeed the whole neighbourhood was
present.

The servant, in his faded gold lace, came in and announced with a
dramatic assurance: "Monsieur de Barebone--Monsieur Colville."

And that difference which Dormer Colville had predicted was manifested
with an astounding promptness; for all who were seated rose to their
feet. It was Colville who had given the names to the servant in the order
in which they had been announced, and at the last minute, on the
threshold, he had stepped on one side and with his hand on Barebone's
shoulder had forced him to take precedence.

The first person Barebone saw on entering the room was Juliette,
standing under the spreading arms of a chandelier, half turned to look at
him--Juliette, in all the freshness of her girlhood and her first evening
dress, flushing pink and white like a wild rose, her eyes, bright with a
sudden excitement, seeking his.

Behind her, the Marquis de Gemosac, Albert de Chantonnay, his mother, and
all the Royalists of the province, gathered in a semicircle, by accident
or some tacit instinct, leaving only the girl standing out in front,
beneath the chandelier. They bowed with that grave self-possession which
falls like a cloak over the shoulders of such as are of ancient and
historic lineage.

"We reached the château of Gemosac only a few minutes after Monsieur le
Marquis and Mademoiselle had quitted it to come here," Barebone explained
to Madame de Chantonnay; "and trusting to the good-nature--so widely
famed--of Madame la Comtesse, we hurriedly removed the dust of travel,
and took the liberty of following them hither."

"You have not taken me by surprise," replied Madame de Chantonnay. "I
expected you. Ask the Abbé Touvent. He will tell you, gentlemen, that I
expected you."

As Barebone turned away to speak to the Marquis and others, who were
pressing forward to greet him, it became apparent that that mantle of
imperturbability, which millions made in trade can never buy, had fallen
upon his shoulders, too. For most men are, in the end, forced to play the
part the world assigns to them. We are not allowed to remain what we know
ourselves to be, but must, at last, be that which the world thinks us.

Madame de Chantonnay, murmuring to a neighbour a mystic reference to her
heart and its voluminous premonitions, watched him depart with a vague
surprise.

"_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu_!" she whispered, breathlessly. "It is not a
resemblance. It is the dead come to life again."




CHAPTER XXXII


PRIMROSES

"If I go on, I go alone," Barebone had once said to Dormer Colville.
The words, spoken in the heat of a quarrel, stuck in the memory of
both, as such are wont to do. Perhaps, in moments of anger or
disillusionment--when we find that neither self nor friend is what we
thought--the heart tears itself away from the grip of the cooler, calmer
brain and speaks untrammelled. And such speeches are apt to linger in the
mind long after the most brilliant jeu d'esprit has been forgotten.

What occupies the thoughts of the old man, sitting out the grey
remainder of the day, over the embers of a hearth which he will only quit
when he quits the world? Does he remember the brilliant sallies of wit,
the greatest triumphs of the noblest minds with which he has consorted;
or does his memory cling to some scene--simple, pastoral, without
incident--which passed before his eyes at a moment when his heart was
sore or glad? When his mind is resting from its labours and the sound of
the grinding is low, he will scarce remember the neat saying or the lofty
thought clothed in perfect language; but he will never forget a hasty
word spoken in an unguarded moment by one who was not clever at all, nor
even possessed the worldly wisdom to shield the heart behind the buckler
of the brain.

"You will find things changed," Colville had said, as they walked across
the marsh from Farlingford, toward the Ipswich road. And the words came
back to the minds of both, on that Thursday of Madame de Chantonnay,
which many remember to this day. Not only did they find things changed,
but themselves they found no longer the same. Both remembered the
quarrel, and the outcome of it.

Colville, ever tolerant, always leaning toward the compromise that eases
a doubting conscience, had, it would almost seem unconsciously, prepared
the way for a reconciliation before there was any question of a
difference. On their way back to France, without directly referring to
that fatal portrait and the revelation caused by Barebone's unaccountable
feat of memory, he had smoothed away any possible scruple.

"France must always be deceived," he had said, a hundred times. "Better
that she should be deceived for an honest than a dishonest purpose--if it
is deception, after all, which is very doubtful. The best patriot is he
who is ready to save his country at the cost of his own ease, whether of
body or of mind. It does not matter who or what you are; it is what or
who the world thinks you to be, that is of importance."

Which of us has not listened to a score of such arguments, not always
from the lips of a friend, but most often in that still, small voice
which rarely has the courage to stand out against the tendency of the
age? There is nothing so contagious as laxity of conscience.

Barebone listened to the good-natured, sympathetic voice with a
make-believe conviction which was part of his readiness to put off an
evil moment. Colville was a difficult man to quarrel with. It seemed
bearish and ill-natured to take amiss any word or action which could only
be the outcome of a singularly tender consideration for the feelings of
others.

But when they entered Madame de Chantonnay's drawing-room--when Dormer,
impelled by some instinct of the fitness of things, stepped aside and
motioned to his companion to pass in first--the secret they had in common
yawned suddenly like a gulf between them. For the possession of a secret
either estranges or draws together. More commonly, it estranges. For
which of us is careful of a secret that redounds to our credit? Nearly
every secret is a hidden disgrace; and such a possession, held in common
with another, is not likely to insure affection.

Colville lingered on the threshold, watching Loo make the first steps of
that progress which must henceforth be pursued alone. He looked round for
a friendly face, but no one had eyes for him. They were all looking at
Loo Barebone. Colville sought Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, usually in full
evidence, even in a room full of beautiful women and distinguished men.
But she was not there. For a minute or two no one noticed him; and then
Albert de Chantonnay, remembering his rôle, came forward to greet the
Englishman.

"It was," explained Colville, in a lowered voice, "as we thought. An
attempt was made to get him out of the way, but he effected his escape.
He knew, however, the danger of attempting to communicate with any of us
by post, and was awaiting some opportunity of transmitting a letter by a
safe hand, when I discovered his hiding-place."

And this was the story that went half round France, from lip to lip,
among those who were faithful to the traditions of a glorious past.

"Madame St. Pierre Lawrence," Albert de Chantonnay told Colville, in
reply, "is not here to-night. She is, however, at her villa, at Royan.
She has not, perhaps, displayed such interest in our meetings as she did
before you departed on your long journey through France. But her
generosity is unchanged. The money, which, in the hurry of the moment,
you did not withdraw from her bank--"

"I doubt whether it was ever there," interrupted Colville.

"She informs me," concluded Albert, "is still at our service. We have
many other promises, which must now be recalled to the minds of those who
made them. But from no one have we received such generous support as from
your kinswoman."

They were standing apart, and in a few minutes the Marquis de Gemosac
joined them.

"How daring! how audacious!" he whispered, "and yet how opportune--this
return. It is all to be recommenced, my friends, with a firmer grasp, a
new courage."

"But my task is accomplished," returned Colville. "You have no further
use for a mere Englishman, like myself. I was fortunate in being able to
lend some slight assistance in the original discovery of our friend; I
have again been lucky enough to restore him to you. And now, with your
permission, I will return to Royan, where I have my little apartment, as
you know."

He looked from one to the other, with his melancholy and self-deprecating
smile.

"_Voila_" he added; "it remains for me to pay my respects to Madame de
Chantonnay. We have travelled far, and I am tired. I shall ask her to
excuse me."

"And Monsieur de Bourbon comes to Gemosac. That is understood. He will be
safe there. His apartments have been in readiness for him these last two
months. Hidden there, or in other dwellings--grander and better served,
perhaps, than my poor ruin, but no safer--he can continue the great work
he began so well last winter. As for you, my dear Colville," continued
the Marquis, taking the Englishman's two hands in his, "I envy you from
the bottom of my heart. It is not given to many to serve France as you
have served her--to serve a King as you have served one. It will be my
business to see that both remember you. For France, I allow, sometimes
forgets. Go to Royan, since you wish--but it is only for a time. You will
be called to Paris some day, that I promise you."

The Marquis would have embraced him then and there, had the cool-blooded
Englishman shown the smallest desire for that honour. But Dormer
Colville's sad and doubting smile held at arms' length one who was always
at the mercy of his own eloquence.

The card tables had lost their attraction; and, although many parties
were formed, and the cards were dealt, the players fell to talking across
the ungathered tricks, and even the Abbé Touvent was caught tripping in
the matter of a point.

"Never," exclaimed Madame de Chantonnay, as her guests took leave at
their wonted hour, and some of them even later--"never have I had a
Thursday so dull and yet so full of incident."

"And never, madame," replied the Marquis, still on tiptoe, as it were,
with delight and excitement, "shall we see another like it."

Loo went back to Gemosac with the fluttering old man and Juliette.
Juliette, indeed, was in no flutter, but had carried herself through
the excitement of her first evening party with a demure little air of
self-possession.

She had scarce spoken to Loo during the evening. Indeed, it had been his
duty to attend on Madame de Chantonnay and on the older members of these
quiet Royalist families biding their time in the remote country villages
of Guienne and the Vendée.

On the journey home, the Marquis had so much to tell his companion, and
told it so hurriedly, that his was the only voice heard above the rattle
of the heavy, old-fashioned carriage. But Barebone was aware of
Juliette's presence in a dark corner of the roomy vehicle, and his eyes,
seeking to penetrate the gloom, could just distinguish hers, which seemed
to be turned in his direction.

Many changes had been effected at the chateâu, and a suite of rooms had
been prepared for Barebone in the detached building known as the Italian
house, which stands in the midst of the garden within the enceinte of the
château walls.

"I have been able," explained the Marquis, frankly, "to obtain a small
advance on the results of last autumn's vintage. My notary in the village
found, indeed, that facilities were greater than he had anticipated. With
this sum, I have been enabled to effect some necessary repairs to the
buildings and the internal decorations. I had fallen behind the times,
perhaps. But now that Juliette is installed as châtelaine, many changes
have been effected. You will see, my dear friend; you will see for
yourself. Yes, for the moment, I am no longer a pauper. As you yourself
will have noticed, in your journey through the west, rural France is
enjoying a sudden return of prosperity. It is unaccountable. No one can
make me believe that it is to be ascribed to this scandalous Government,
under which we agonise. But there it is--and we must thank Heaven for
it."

Which was only the truth. For France was at this time entering upon a
period of plenty. The air was full of rumours of new railways, new roads,
and new commercial enterprise. Banks were being opened in the provincial
towns, and loans made on easy terms to agriculturists for the improvement
of their land.

Barebone found that there were indeed changes in the old château. The
apartments above that which had once been the stabling, hitherto occupied
by the Marquis, had been added to and a slight attempt at redecoration
had been made. There was no lack of rooms, and Juliette now had her own
suite, while the Marquis lived, as hitherto, in three small apartments
over the rooms occupied by Marie and her husband.

An elderly relation--one of those old ladies habited in black, who are
ready to efface themselves all day and occupy a garret all night in
return for bed and board, had been added to the family. She contributed a
silent and mysterious presence, some worldly wisdom, and a profound
respect for her noble kinsman.

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