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The Last Hope

H >> Henry Seton Merriman >> The Last Hope




"Nevertheless," he went on, "I know what Colville seeks to convey to us,
and is now hurrying away from Paris to confirm to us by word of mouth.
The bank of John Turner in the Rue Lafayette has failed, and with it goes
all the fortune of Madame St. Pierre Lawrence."

Both his hearers exclaimed aloud, and Madame de Chantonnay showed signs
of a desire to swoon; but as no one took any notice, she changed her
mind.

"It is a ruse to gain time," explained Albert, brushing the thin end of
his moustache upward with a gesture of resolution. "Just as the other was
a ruse to gain time. It is at present a race between two resolute
parties. The party which is ready first and declares itself will be the
victor. For to-day our poor France is in the gutter: she is in the hands
of the canaille, and the canaille will accept the first who places
himself upon an elevation and scatters gold. What care they--King or
Emperor, Emperor or King! It is the same to them so long as they have a
change of some sort and see, or think they see, gain to themselves to be
snatched from it."

From which it will be seen that Albert de Chantonnay knew his countrymen.

"But," protested Madame de Chantonnay, who had a Frenchwoman's inimitable
quickness to grasp a situation--the Government could scarcely cause a
bank to fail--such an old-established bank as Turner's, which has existed
since the day of Louis XIV--in order to gain time."

"An unscrupulous Government can do anything in France," replied the
lady's son. "Their existence depends upon delay, and they are aware of
it. They would ruin France rather than forego their own aggrandisement.
And this is part of their scheme. They seek to delay us at all costs. To
kidnap de Bourbon was the first move. It failed. This is their second
move. What must be our counter-move?"

He clasped his hands behind his willowy back and paced slowly backward
and forward. By a gesture, Madame de Chantonnay bade the Marquis keep
silence while she drew his attention to the attitude of her son. When he
paused and fingered his whisker she gasped excitedly.

"I have it," said Albert, with an upward glance of inspiration.

"Yes, my son?"

"The Beauvoir estate," replied Albert, "left to me by my uncle. It is
worth three hundred thousand francs. That is enough for the moment. That
must be our counter-move."

Madame de Chantonnay protested volubly. For if Frenchmen are ready to
sacrifice, or, at all events, to risk all for a sentiment--and history
says nothing to the contrary--Frenchwomen are eminently practical and
far-sighted.

Madame had a hundred reasons why the Beauvoir estate should not be sold.
Many of them contradicted each other. She was not what may be called a
close reasoner, but she was roughly effective. Many a general has won a
victory not by the accuracy, but by the volume of his fire.

"What will become of France," she cried to Albert's retreating back as he
walked to and fro, "if none of the old families has a son to bless itself
with? And Heaven knows that there are few enough remaining now. Besides,
you will want to marry some day, and what will your bride say when you
have no money? There are no _dots_ growing in the hedgerows now. Not that
I am a stickler for a _dot_. Give me heart, I always say, and keep the
money yourself. And some day you will find a loving heart, but no _dot_.
And there is a tragedy at once--ready made. Is it not so, my old friend?"

She turned to the Marquis de Gemosac for confirmation of this forecast.

"It is a danger, Madame," was the reply. "It is a danger which it would
be well to foresee."

They had discussed a hundred times the possibility of a romantic marriage
between their two houses. Juliette and Albert--the two last
representatives of an old nobility long-famed in the annals of the
west--might well fall in love with each other. It would be charming,
Madame thought; but, alas! Albert would be wise to look for a _dot_.

The Marquis paused. Again he temporised. For he could not all in an
instant decide which side of this question to take. He looked at Albert,
frail, romantic; an ideal representative of that old nobility of France
which was never practical, and elected to go to the guillotine rather
than seek to cultivate that modern virtue.

"At the same time, Madame, it is well to remember that a loan offered now
may reasonably be expected to bring such a return in the future as will
provide _dots_ for the de Chantonnays to the end of time."

Madame was about to make a spirited reply; she might even have suggested
that the Beauvoir estate would be better apportioned to Albert's wife
than to Juliette as the wife of another, but Albert himself stopped in
front of them and swept away all argument by a passionate gesture of his
small, white hand.

"It is concluded," he said. "I sell the Beauvoir estate! Have not the
Chantonnays proved a hundred times that they are equal to any sacrifice
for the sake of France?"




CHAPTER XXXV


A SQUARE MAN

All through the summer of 1851--a year to be marked for all time in the
minds of historians, not in red, but in black letters--the war of
politics tossed France hither and thither.

There were, at this time, five parties contending for mastery. Should one
of these appear for the moment to be about to make itself secure in
power, the other four would at once unite to tear the common adversary
from his unstable position. Of these parties, only two were of real
cohesion: the Legitimists and the Bonapartists. The Socialists, the
Moderate Republicans, and the Orleanists were too closely allied in the
past to be friendly in the present. Socialists are noisy, but rarely
clever. A man who in France describes himself as Moderate must not expect
to be popular for any length of time. The Orleanists were only just out
of office. It was scarcely a year since Louis Philippe had died in exile
at Claremont--only three years since he signed his abdication and hurried
across to Newhaven. It was not the turn of the Orleanists.

There is no quarrel so deadly as a family quarrel; no fall so sudden as
that of a house divided against itself. All through the spring and
summer of 1851 France exhibited herself in the eyes of the world a
laughing-stock to her enemies, a thing of pity to those who loved that
great country.

The Republic of 1848 was already a house divided against itself.

Its President, Louis Bonaparte, had been elected for four years. He was,
as the law then stood, not eligible again until after the lapse of
another four years. His party tried to abrogate this law, and failed. "No
matter," they said, "we shall elect him again, and President he shall be,
despite the law."

This was only one of a hundred such clouds, no bigger than a man's hand,
arising at this time on the political horizon. For France was beginning
to wander down that primrose path where a law is only a law so long as it
is convenient.

There was one man, Louis Bonaparte, who kept his head when others lost
that invaluable adjunct; who pushed on doggedly to a set purpose; whose
task was hard even in France, and would have been impossible in any other
country. For it is only in France that ridicule does not kill. And twice
within the last fifteen years--once at Strasbourg, once at Boulogne--he
had made the world hold its sides at the mention of his name, greeting
with the laughter which is imbittered by scorn, a failure damned by
ridicule.

It has been said that Louis Bonaparte never gave serious thought to the
Legitimist party. He had inherited, it would seem, that invaluable
knowledge of men by which his uncle had risen to the greatest throne of
modern times. He knew that a party is never for a moment equal to a Man.
And the Legitimists had no man. They had only the Comte de Chambord.

At Frohsdorff they still clung to their hopes, with that old-world belief
in the ultimate revival of a dead régime which was eminently
characteristic. And at Frohsdorff there died, in the October of this
year, the Duchess of Angoulême, Marie Therese Charlotte, daughter of
Marie Antoinette, who had despised her two uncles, Louis XVIII and
Charles X, for the concessions they had made--who was more Royalist than
the King. She was the last of her generation, the last of her family, and
with her died a part of the greatness of France, almost all the dignity
of royalty, and the last master-mind of the Bourbon race.

If, as Albert de Chantonny stated, the failure of Turner's bank was
nothing but a ruse to gain time, it had the desired effect. For a space,
nothing could be undertaken, and the Marquis de Gemosac and his friends
were hindered from continuing the work they had so successfully begun.

All through the summer Loo Barebone remained in France, at Gemosac as
much as anywhere. The Marquis de Gemosac himself went to Frohsdorff.

"If she had been ten years younger," he said, on his return, "I could
have persuaded her to receive you. She has money. All the influence is
hers. It is she who has had the last word in all our affairs since the
death of the Due de Berri. But she is old--she is broken. I think she is
dying, my friend."

It was the time of the vintage again. Barebone remembered the last
vintage, and his journey through those provinces that supply all the
world with wine, with Dormer Colville for a companion. Since then he had
journeyed alone. He had made a hundred new friends, had been welcomed in
a hundred historic houses. Wherever he had passed, he had left enthusiasm
behind him--and he knew it.

He had grown accustomed to his own power, and yet its renewed evidence
was a surprise to him every day. There was something unreal in it. There
is always something unreal in fame, and great men know in their own
hearts that they are not great. It is only the world that thinks them so.
When they are alone--in a room by themselves--they feel for a moment
their own smallness. But the door opens, and in an instant they arise and
play their part mechanically.

This had come to be Barebone's daily task. It was so easy to make his way
in this world, which threw its doors open to him, greeted him with
outstretched hands, and only asked him to charm them by being himself. He
had not even to make an effort to appear to be that which he was not. He
had only to be himself, and they were satisfied.

Part of his rôle was Juliette de Gemosac. He found it quite easy to make
love to her; and she, it seemed, desired nothing better. Nothing definite
had been said by the Marquis de Gemosac. They were not formally
affianced. They were not forbidden to see each other. But the
irregularity of these proceedings lent a certain spice of
surreptitiousness to their intercourse which was not without its charm.
They did not see so much of each other after Loo had spoken to the
Marquis de Gemosac on this subject; for Barebone had to make visits to
other parts of France. Once or twice Juliette herself went to stay with
relatives. During these absences they did not write to each other.

It was, in fact, impossible for Barebone to keep up any correspondence
whatever. He heard that Dormer Colville was still in Paris, seeking to
snatch something from the wreck of Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence's fortune.
The Marquis de Gemosac had been told that affairs might yet be arranged.
He was no financier, however, he admitted; he did not understand such
matters, and all that he knew was that the promised help from the
Englishwoman was not forthcoming.

"It is," he concluded, "a question of looking elsewhere. It is not only
that we want money. It is that we must have it at once."

It was not, strictly speaking, Loo's part to think of or to administer
the money. His was the part to be played by Kings--so easy, if the gift
is there, so impossible to acquire if it be lacking--to know many people
and to charm them all.

Thus the summer ripened into autumn. It had been another great vintage in
the south, and Bordeaux was more than usually busy when Barebone arrived
there, at daybreak, one morning in November, having posted from Toulouse.
He was more daring in winter, and went fearlessly through the streets. In
cold weather it is so much easier for a man to conceal his identity; for
a woman to hide her beauty, if she wish to--which is a large If. Barebone
could wear a fur collar and turn it up round that tell-tale chin, which
made the passer-by pause and turn to look at him again if it was visible.

He breakfasted at the old-fashioned inn in the heart of the town, where
to this day the diligences deposit their passengers, and then he made his
way to the quay, from whence he would take passage down the river. It was
a cold morning, and there are few colder cities, south of Paris, than
Bordeaux. Barebone hurried, his breath frozen on the fur of his collar.
Suddenly he stopped. His new self--that phantom second-nature bred of
custom--vanished in the twinkling of an eye, and left him plain Loo
Barebone, of Farlingford, staring across the green water toward "The Last
Hope," deep-laden, anchored in mid-stream.

Seeing him stop, a boatman ran toward him from a neighbouring flight of
steps.

"An English ship, monsieur," he said; "just come in. Her anchors are
hardly home. Does monsieur wish to go on board?"

"Of course I do, comrade--as quick as you like," he answered, with a gay
laugh. It was odd that the sight of this structure, made of human hands,
should change him in a flash of thought, should make his heart leap in
his breast.

In a few minutes he was seated in the wherry, half way out across the
stream. Already a face was looking over the bulwarks. The hands were on
the forecastle, still busy clearing decks after the confusion of letting
go anchor and hauling in the jib-boom.

Barebone could see them leave off work and turn to look at him. One or
two raised a hand in salutation and then turned again to their task.
Already the mate--a Farlingford man, who had succeeded Loo--was standing
on the rail fingering a coil of rope.

"Old man is down below," he said, giving Barebone a hand. From the
forecastle came sundry grunts, and half a dozen heads were jerked
sideways at him.

Captain Clubbe was in the cabin, where the remains of breakfast had been
pushed to one end of the table to make room for pens and ink. The Captain
was laboriously filling in the countless documents required by the French
custom-house. He looked up, pen in hand, and all the wrinkles, graven by
years of hardship and trouble, were swept away like writing from a slate.

He laid aside his pen and held his hand out across the table.

"Had your breakfast?" he asked, curtly, with a glance at the empty
coffee-pot.

Loo laughed as he sat down. It was all so familiar--the disorder of the
cabin; the smell of lamp-oil; the low song of the wind through the
rigging, that came humming in at the doorway, which was never closed,
night or day, unless the seas were washing to and fro on the main deck.
He knew everything so well; the very pen and the rarely used ink-pot; the
Captain's attitude, and the British care that he took not to speak with
his lips that which was in his heart.

"Well," said Captain Clubbe, taking up his pen again, "how are you
getting on?"

"With what?"

"With the business that brought you to this country," answered Clubbe,
with a sudden gruffness; for he was, like the majority of big men, shy.

Barebone looked at him across the table.

"Do you know what the business is that brought me to this country?" he
asked. And Captain Clubbe looked thoughtfully at the point of his pen.

"Did the Marquis de Gemosac and Dormer Colville tell you everything, or
only a little?"

"I don't suppose they told me everything," was the reply. "Why should
they? I am only a seafaring man."

"But they told you enough," persisted Barebone, "for you to draw your own
conclusions as to my business over here."

"Yes," answered Clubbe, with a glance across the table. "Is it going
badly?"

"No. On the contrary, it is going splendidly," answered Barebone, gaily;
and Captain Clubbe ducked his head down again over the papers of the
French custom-house. "It is going splendidly, but--"

He paused. Half an hour ago he had no thought in his mind of Captain
Clubbe or of Farlingford. He had come on board merely to greet his old
friends, to hear some news of home, to take up for a moment that old self
of bygone days and drop it again. And now, in half a dozen questions and
answers, whither was he drifting? Captain Clubbe filled in a word, slowly
and very legibly.

"But I am not the man, you know," said Barebone, slowly. It was as if the
sight of that just man had bidden him cry out the truth. "I am not the
man they think me. My father was not the son of Louis XVI, I know that
now. I did not know it at first, but I know it now. And I have been going
on with the thing, all the same."

Clubbe sat back in his chair. He was large and ponderous in body. And the
habit of the body at length becomes the nature of the mind.

"Who has been telling you that?" he asked.

"Dormer Colville. He told me one thing first and then the other. Only he
and you and I know of it."

"Then he must have told one lie," said Clubbe, reflectively. "One that we
know of. And what he says is of no value either way; for he doesn't know.
No one knows. Your father was a friend of mine, man and boy, and he
didn't know. He was not the same as other men; I know that--but nothing
more."

"Then, if you were me, you would give yourself the benefit of the
doubt?" asked Barebone, with a rather reckless laugh. "For the sake of
others--for the sake of France?"

"Not I," replied Clubbe, bluntly.

"But it is practically impossible to go back now," explained Loo. "It
would be the ruin of all my friends, the downfall of France. In my
position, what would you do?"

"I don't understand your position," replied Clubbe. "I don't understand
politics; I am only a seafaring man. But there is only one thing to
do--the square thing."

"But," protested Dormer Colville's pupil, "I cannot throw over my
friends. I cannot abandon France now."

"The square thing," repeated the sailor, stubbornly. "The square thing;
and damn your friends--damn France!"

He rose as he spoke, for they had both heard the customs officers come on
board; and these functionaries were now bowing at the cabin-door.




CHAPTER XXXVI


MRS. ST. PIERRE LAWRENCE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND

It was early in November that the report took wing in Paris that John
Turner's bank was, after all, going to weather the storm. Dormer Colville
was among the first to hear this news, and strangely enough he did not at
once impart it to Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence.

All through the year, John Turner had kept his client supplied with ready
money. He had, moreover, made no change in his own mode of living. Which
things are a mystery to all who have no money of their own nor the good
fortune to handle other people's. There is no doubt some explanation of
the fact that bankers and other financiers seem to fail, and even become
bankrupt, without tangible effect upon their daily comfort, but the
unfinancial cannot expect to understand it.

There had, as a matter of fact, been no question of discomfort for Mrs.
St. Pierre Lawrence either.

"Can I spend as much as I like?" she had asked Turner, and his reply had
been in the affirmative.

"No use in saving?"

"None whatever," he replied. To which Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence made
answer that she did not understand things at all.

"It is no use collecting straws against a flood," the banker answered,
sleepily.

There was, of course, no question now of supplying the necessary funds to
the Marquis de Gemosac and Albert de Chantonnay, who, it was understood,
were raising the money, not without difficulty, elsewhere. Mrs. St.
Pierre Lawrence had indeed heard little or nothing of her Royalist
friends in the west. Human nature is the same, it would appear, all the
world over, but the upper crust is always the hardest.

When Colville was informed of the rumour, he remembered that he had never
quarrelled with John Turner. He had, of course, said some hard things in
the heat of the moment, but Turner had not retorted. There was no
quarrel. Colville, therefore, took an early opportunity of lunching at
the club then reputed to have the best chef in Paris. He went late and
found that the majority of members had finished déjeuner and were taking
coffee in one or other of the smoking-rooms.

After a quick and simple meal, Colville lighted a cigarette and went
upstairs. There were two or three small rooms where members smoked or
played cards or read the newspapers, and in the quietest of these John
Turner was alone, asleep. Colville walked backward into the room, talking
loudly as he did so with a friend in the passage. When well over the
threshold he turned. John Turner, whose slumbers had been rudely
disturbed, was sitting up rubbing his eyes. The surprise was of course
mutual, and for a moment there was an awkward pause; then, with a smile
of frank good-fellowship, Colville advanced, holding out his hand.

"I hope we have known each other too many years, old fellow," he said,
"to bear any lasting ill-will for words spoken in the heat of anger or
disappointment, eh?"

He stood in front of the banker frankly holding out the hand of
forgiveness, his head a little on one side, that melancholy smile of
toleration for poor human weakness in his eyes.

"Well," admitted Turner, "we've certainly known each other a good many
years."

He somewhat laboriously hoisted himself up, his head emerging from his
tumbled collar like the head of a tortoise aroused from sleep, and gave
into Colville's affectionate grasp a limp and nerveless hand.

"No one could feel for you more sincerely than I do," Colville assured
him, drawing forward a chair,--"more than I have done all through these
trying months."

"Very kind, I'm sure," murmured Turner, looking drowsily at his friend's
necktie. One must look somewhere, and Turner always gazed at the necktie
of any one who sat straight in front of him, which usually induced an
uneasy fingering of that ornament and an early consultation of the
nearest mirror. "Have a cigar."

There was the faint suggestion of a twinkle beneath the banker's heavy
lids as Colville accepted this peace-offering. It was barely twenty-four
hours since he had himself launched in Colville's direction the rumour
which had brought about this reconciliation.

"And I'm sure," continued the other, turning to cut the end of the cigar,
"that no one would be better pleased to hear that better times are
coming--eh? What did you say?"

"Nothing. Didn't speak," was the reply to this vague interrogation. Then
they talked of other things. There was no lack of topics for conversation
at this time in France; indeed, the whole country was in a buzz of talk.
But Turner was not, it seemed, in a talkative mood. Only once did he
rouse himself to take more than a passing interest in the subject touched
upon by his easy-going companion.

"Yes," he admitted, "he may be the best cook in Paris, but he is not what
he was. It is this Revision of the Constitution which is upsetting the
whole country, especially the lower classes. The man's hand is shaky. I
can see it from his way of pouring the mayonnaise over a salad."

After touching upon each fresh topic, Colville seemed to return
unconsciously to that which must of necessity be foremost in his
companion's thoughts--the possibility of saving Turner's bank from
failure. And each time he learnt a little more. At last, with that
sympathetic spontaneity which was his chief charm, Dormer Colville laid
his hand confidentially on Turner's sleeve.

"Frankly, old fellow," he said, "are you going to pull it through?"

"Frankly, old fellow, I am," was the reply, which made Colville glance
hastily at the clock.

"Gad!" he exclaimed, "look at the time. You have kept me gossiping the
whole afternoon. Must be off. Nobody will be better pleased than I am to
hear the good news. But of course I am mum. Not a word will they hear
from me. I _am_ glad. Good-bye."

"I dare say you are," murmured Turner to the closed door.

Dormer Colville was that which is known as an opportunist. It was a dull
grey afternoon. He would be sure to find Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence at
home. She had taken an apartment in the Rue de Lille in the St. Germain
quarter. His way was past the flower-shop, where he sometimes bestowed a
fickle custom. He went in and bought a carnation for his buttonhole.

It is to be presumed that John Turner devoted the afternoon to his
affairs. It was at all events evening before he also bent his steps
toward the Rue de Lille.

Yes, the servant told him, Madame was at home and would assuredly see
him. Madame was not alone. No. It was, however, only Monsieur Colville,
who was so frequent a visitor.

Turner followed the servant along the corridor. The stairs had rather
tried one who had to elevate such a weight at each step; he breathed
hard, but placidly.

Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence received him with an unusual _empressement_.
Dormer Colville, who was discovered sitting as far from her as the size
of the room allowed, was less eager, but he brought forward a chair for
the banker and glanced sharply at his face as he sat down.

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