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The Last Hope

H >> Henry Seton Merriman >> The Last Hope




"So glad to see you," the hostess explained. "It is really kind of you to
come and cheer one up on such a dull afternoon. Dormer and I--won't you
take off your coat? No, let _me_ put it aside for you. Dormer and I were
just--just saying how dull it was. Weren't we?"

She looked from one to the other with a rather unnatural laugh. One would
have thought that she was engaged in carrying off a difficult situation
and, for so practised a woman of the world, not doing it very well. Her
cheeks were flushed, which made her look younger, and a subtle
uncertainty in her voice and manner added to this illusion charmingly.
For a young girl's most precious possession is her inexperience. Mrs. St.
Pierre Lawrence, for the first time in her life, was not sure of herself.

"Now I hope you have not come on business," she added, drawing forward
her own chair and passing a quick hand over her hair. "Bother business!
Do not let us think about it."

"Not exactly," replied Turner, recovering his breath. "Quite agree with
you. Let us say, 'Bother business,' and not think of it. Though, for an
old man who is getting stout, there is nothing much left but business and
his dinner, eh?"

"No. Do not say that," cried the lady. "Never say that. It is time enough
to think that years hence when we are all white-haired. But I used to
think that myself once, you know. When I first had my money. Do you
remember? I was so pleased to have all that wealth that I determined to
learn all about cheque-books and things and manage it myself. So you
taught me, and at last you admitted that I was an excellent man of
business. I know I thought I was myself. And I suppose I lapsed into a
regular business woman and only thought of money and how to increase it.
How horrid you must have thought me!"

"Never did that," protested Turner, stoutly.

"But I know I learnt to think much too much about it," Mrs. St. Pierre
Lawrence went on eagerly. "And now that it is all gone, I do not care
_that_ for it."

She snapped her finger and thumb and laughed gaily.

"Not that," she repeated. She turned and glanced at Dormer Colville,
raising her eyebrows in some mute interrogation only comprehensible to
him. "Shall I tell him?" she asked, with a laugh of happiness not very
far removed from tears. Then she turned to the banker again.

"Listen," she said. "I am going to tell you something which no one else
in the world can tell you. Dormer and I are going to be married. I dare
say lots of people will say that they have expected it for a long time.
They can say what they like. We don't care. And I am glad that you are
the first person to hear it. We have only just settled it, so you are the
very first to be told. And I am glad to tell you before anybody else
because you have been so kind to me always. You have been my best friend,
I think. And the kindest thing you ever did for me was to lose my money,
for if you had not lost it, Dormer never would have asked me to marry
him. He has just said so himself. And I suppose all men feel that. All
the nice ones, I mean. It is one of the drawbacks of being rich, is it
not?"

"I suppose it is," answered Turner, stolidly, without turning an eyelash
in the direction of Colville. "Perhaps that is why no one has ever asked
me to marry them."

Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence laughed jerkily at this witticism. She laughed
again when John Turner rose from his chair to congratulate her, but the
laugh suddenly ceased when he raised her hand to his lips with a courtesy
which was even in those days dying out of the world, and turned away from
him hastily. She stood with her back toward them for a minute or two
looking at some flowers on a side table. Then she came back into the
middle of the room, all smiles, replacing her handkerchief in her pocket.

"So that is the news I have to tell you," she said.

John Turner had placidly resumed his chair after shaking hands with
Dormer Colville for the second time since luncheon.

"Yes," he answered, "it is news indeed. And I have a little news to give
you. I do not say that it is quite free from the taint of business, but
at all events it is news. Like yours, it has the merit of being at first
hand, and you are the first to hear it. No one else could tell it to
you."

He broke off and rubbed his chin while he looked apathetically at
Colville's necktie.

"It has another merit, rare enough," he went on. "It is good news. I
think, in fact I may say I am sure, that we shall pull through now and
your money will be safely returned to you."

"I am so glad," said Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, with a glance at Dormer
Colville. "I cannot tell you how glad I am."

She looked at the banker with bright eyes and the flush still in her
cheeks that made her look younger and less sure of herself.

"Not only for my own sake, you know. For yours, because I am sure you
must be relieved, and for--well, for everybody's sake. Tell me all about
it, please." And she pushed her chair sideways nearer to Colville's.

John Turner bit the first joint of his thumb reflectively. It is so rare
that one can tell any one all about anything.

"Tell me first," Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence suggested, "whether Miriam
Liston's money is all safe as well."

"Miriam's money never was in danger," he replied. "Miriam is my ward; you
are only my client. There is no chance of Miriam being able to make ducks
and drakes of her money."

"That sounds as if I had been trying to do that with mine.

"Well," admitted the banker, with a placid laugh, "if it had not been for
my failure--"

"Don't call it hard names," put in Dormer Colville, generously. "It was
not a failure."

"Call it a temporary suspension of payment, then," agreed the banker,
imperturbably. "If it had not been for that, half your fortune would have
been goodness knows where by now. You wanted to put it into some big
speculation in this country, if I remember aright. And big speculations
in France are the very devil just now. Whereas, now, you see, it is all
safe and you can invest it in the beginning of next year in some good
English securities. It seems providential, does it not?"

He rose as he spoke and held out his hand to say good-bye. He asked the
question of Colville's necktie, apparently, for he smiled stupidly at it.

"Well, I do not understand business after all, I admit that," Mrs. St.
Pierre Lawrence called out gaily to him as he went toward the door. "I do
not understand things at all."

"No, and I don't suppose you ever will," Turner replied as he followed
the servant into the corridor.




CHAPTER XXXVII


AN UNDERSTANDING

Loo Barebone went back to the Château de Gemosac after those travels in
Provence which terminated so oddly on board "The Last Hope," at anchor in
the Garonne River.

The Marquis received him with enthusiasm and a spirit of optimism which
age could not dim.

"Everything is going _à merveille!_" he cried. "In three months we shall
be ready to strike our blow--to make our great _coup_ for France. The
failure of Turner's bank was a severe check, I admit, and for a moment I
was in despair. But now we are sure that we shall have the money for
Albert de Chantonnay's Beauvoir estate by the middle of January. The
death of Madame la Duchesse was a misfortune. If we could have persuaded
her to receive you--your face would have done the rest, mon ami--we
should have been invincible. But she was broken, that poor lady. Think of
her life! Few women would have survived half of the troubles that she
carried on those proud shoulders from childhood."

They were sitting in the little salon in the building that adjoined the
gate-house of Gemosac, of which the stone stairs must have rung beneath
the red spurs of fighting men; of which the walls were dented still with
the mark of arms.

Barebone had given an account of his journey, which had been carried
through without difficulty. Everywhere success had waited upon
him--enthusiasm had marked his passage. In returning to France, he had
stolen a march on his enemies, for nothing seemed to indicate that his
presence in the country was known to them.

"I tell you," the Marquis explained, "that he has his hands full--that
man in Paris. It is only a month since he changed his ministry. Who is
this St. Arnaud, his Minister of War? Who is Maupas, his Prefect of
Police? Does Monsieur Manpas know that we are nearly ready for our
_coup?_ Bah! Tell me nothing of that sort, gentlemen."

And this was the universally accepted opinion at this time, of Louis
Bonaparte the President of a tottering Republic, divided against itself;
a dull man, at his wits' end. For months, all Europe had been turning
an inquiring and watchful eye on France. Socialism was rampant. Secret
societies honeycombed the community. There was some danger in the
air--men knew not what. Catastrophe was imminent, and none knew where to
look for its approach. But all thought that it must come at the end of
the year. A sort of panic took hold of all classes. They dreaded the
end of 1851.

The Marquis de Gemosac spoke openly of these things before Juliette. She
had been present when Loo and he talked together of this last journey, so
happily accomplished, so fruitful of result. And Loo did not tell the
Marquis that he had seen his old ship, "The Last Hope," in the river at
Bordeaux, and had gone on board of her.

Juliette listened, as she worked, beneath the lamp at the table in the
middle of the room. The lace-work she had brought from the convent-school
was not finished yet. It was exquisitely fine and delicate, and Juliette
executed the most difficult patterns with a sort of careless ease.
Sometimes, when the Marquis was more than usually extravagant in his
anticipations of success, or showed a superlative contempt for his foes,
Juliette glanced at Barebone over her lace-work, but she rarely took part
in the talk when politics were under discussion.

In domestic matters, however, this new châtelaine showed considerable
shrewdness. She was not ignorant of the price of hay, and knew to a cask
how much wine was stored in the vault beneath the old chapel. On these
subjects the Marquis good-humouredly followed her advice sometimes. His
word had always been law in the whole neighbourhood. Was he not the head
of one of the oldest families in France?

"But, _pardieu_, she shows a wisdom quite phenomenal, that little one,"
the Marquis would tell his friends, with a hearty laugh. It was only
natural that he should consider amusing the idea of uniting wisdom and
youth and beauty in one person. It is still a universally accepted law
that old people must be wise and young persons only charming. Some may
think that they could point to a wise child born of foolish parents; to a
daughter who is well-educated and shrewd, possessing a sense of logic,
and a mother who is ignorant and foolish; to a son who has more sense
than his father: but of course such observers must be mistaken. Old
theories must be the right ones. The Marquis had no doubt of this, at all
events, and thought it most amusing that Juliette should establish order
in the chaos of domestic affairs at Gemosac.

"You are grave," said Juliette to Barebone, one evening soon after his
return, when they happened to be alone in the little drawing-room.
Barebone was, in fact, not a lively companion; for he had sat staring at
the log-fire for quite three minutes when his eyes might assuredly have
been better employed. "You are grave. Are you thinking of your sins?"

"When I think of those, Mademoiselle, I laugh. It is when I think of you
that I am grave."

"Thank you."

"So I am always grave, you understand."

She glanced quickly, not at him but toward him, and then continued her
lace-making, with the ghost of a smile tilting the corners of her lips.

"It is because I have something to tell you."

"A secret?" she inquired, and she continued to smile, but differently,
and her eyes hardened almost to resentment.

"Yes; a secret. It is a secret only known to two other people in the
world besides myself. And they will never let you know even that they
share it with you, Mademoiselle."

"Then they are not women," she said, with a sudden laugh. "Tell it to me,
then--your secret."

There had been an odd suggestion of foreknowledge in her manner, as if
she were humouring him by pretending to accept as a secret of vast
importance some news which she had long known--that little air of
patronage which even schoolgirls bestow, at times, upon white-haired men.
It is part of the maternal instinct. But this vanished when she heard
that she was to share the secret with two men, and she repeated,
impatiently, "Tell me, please."

"It is a secret which will make a difference to us all our lives,
Mademoiselle," he said, warningly. "It will not leave us the same as it
found us. It has made a difference to all who know it. Therefore, I have
only decided to tell you after long consideration. It is, in fact, a
point of honour. It is necessary for you to know, whatever the result may
be. Of that I have no doubt whatever."

He laughed reassuringly, which made her glance at him gravely, almost
anxiously.

"And are you going on telling it to other people, afterward," she
inquired; "to my father, for instance?"

"No, Mademoiselle. It comes to you, and it stops at you. I do not mind
withholding it from your father, and from all the friends who have been
so kind to me in France. I do not mind deceiving kings and emperors,
Mademoiselle, and even the People, which is now always spelt in capital
letters, and must be spoken of with bated breath."

She gave a scornful little laugh, as at the sound of an old jest--the
note of a deathless disdain which was in the air she breathed.

"Not even the newspapers, which are trying to govern France. All that is
a question of politics. But when it comes to you, Mademoiselle, that is a
different matter."

"Ah!"

"Yes. It is then a question of love."

Juliette slowly changed colour, but she gave a little gay laugh of
incredulity and bent her head away from the light of the lamp.

"That is a different code of honour altogether," he said, gravely. "A
code one does not wish to tamper with."

"No?" she inquired, with the odd little smile of foreknowledge again.

"No. And, therefore, before I go any farther, I think it best to tell you
that I am not what I am pretending to be. I am pretending to be the son
of the little Dauphin, who escaped from the Temple. He may have escaped
from the Temple; that I don't know. But I know, or at least I think I
know, that he is not buried in Farlingford churchyard and he was not my
father. I can pass as the grandson of Louis XVI; I know that. I can
deceive all the world. I can even climb to the throne of France, perhaps.
There are many, as you know, who think I shall do it without difficulty.
But I do not propose to deceive _you_, Mademoiselle."

There was a short silence, while Loo watched her face. Juliette had not
even changed colour. When she was satisfied that he had nothing more to
add, she looked at him, her needle poised in the air.

"Do you think it matters?" she asked, in a little cool, even voice.

It was so different from what he had expected that, for a moment, he was
taken aback. Captain Clubbe's bluff, uncompromising reception of the same
news had haunted his thoughts. "The square thing," that sailor had said,
"and damn your friends; damn France." Loo looked at Juliette in doubt;
then, suddenly, he understood her point of view; he understood her. He
had learnt to understand a number of people and a number of points of
view during the last twelve months.

"So long as I succeed?" he suggested.

"Yes," she answered, simply. "So long as you succeed, I do not see that
it can matter who you are."

"And if I succeed," pursued Loo, gravely, "will you marry me,
Mademoiselle?"

"Oh! I never said that," in a voice that was ready to yield to a really
good argument.

"And if I fail--" Barebone paused for an instant. He still doubted his
own perception. "And if I fail, you would not marry me under any
circumstances?"

"I do not think my father would let me," she answered, with her eyes cast
down upon her lace-frame.

Barebone leant forward to put together the logs, which burnt with a white
incandescence that told of a frosty night. The Marquis had business in
the town, and would soon return from the notary's, in time to dress for
dinner.

"Well," said Loo, over his shoulder, "it is as well to understand each
other, is it not?"

"Yes," she answered, significantly. She ignored the implied sarcasm
altogether. There was so much meaning in her reply that Loo turned to
look at her. She was smiling as she worked.

"Yes," she went on; "you have told me your secret--a secret. But I have
the other, too; the secret you have not told me, _mon ami_. I have had it
always."

"Ah?"

"The secret that you do not love me," said Juliette, in her little wise,
even voice; "that you have never loved me. Ah! You think we do not know.
You think that I am too young. But we are never too young to know that,
to know all about it. I think we know it in our cradles."

She spoke with a strange philosophy, far beyond her years. It might have
been Madame de Chantonnay who spoke, with all that lady's vast experience
of life and without any of her folly.

"You think I am pretty. Perhaps I am. Just pretty enough to enable you to
pretend, and you have pretended very well at times. You are good at
pretending, one must conclude. Oh! I bear no ill-will ..."

She broke off and looked at him, with a gay laugh, in which there was
certainly no note of ill-will to be detected.

"But it is as well," she went on, "as you say, that we should understand
each other. Thank you for telling me your secret--the one you have told
me. I am flattered at that mark of your confidence. A woman is always
glad to be told a secret, and immediately begins to anticipate the
pleasure she will take in telling it to others, in confidence."

She looked up for a moment from her work; for Loo had given a short
laugh. She looked, to satisfy herself that it was not the ungenerous
laugh that nine men out of ten would have cast at her; and it was not.
For Loo was looking at her with frank amusement.

"Oh, yes," she said; "I know that, too. It is one of the items not
included in a convent education. It is unnecessary to teach us such
things as that. We know them before we go in. Your secret is safe enough
with me, however--the one you have told me. That is the least I can
promise in return for your confidence. As to the other secret, _bon
Dieu_! we will pretend I do not know it, if you like. At all events, you
can vow that you never told me, if--if ever you are called upon to do
so."

She paused for a moment to finish off a thread. Then, when she reached
out her hand for the reel, she glanced at him with a smile, not unkind.

"So you need not pretend any more, monsieur," she said, seeing that
Barebone was wise enough to keep silence. "I do not know who you are,
_mon ami,_" she went on, in a little burst of confidence; "and, as I told
you just now, I do not care. And, as to that other matter, there is no
ill-will. I only permit myself to wonder, sometimes, if she is pretty.
That is feminine, I suppose. One can be feminine quite young, you
understand."

She looked at him with unfathomable eyes and a little smile, such as men
never forget once they have seen it.

"But you were inclined to be ironical just now, when I said I would marry
you if you were successful. So I mention that other secret just to show
that the understanding you wish to arrive at may be mutual--there may be
two sides to it. I hear my father coming. That is his voice at the gate.
We will leave things as they stand: _n'est ce pas?_"

She rose as she spoke and went toward the door. The Marquis's voice was
raised, and there seemed to be some unusual clamour at the gate.




CHAPTER XXXVIII


A COUP-D'ÉTAT

As the Marquis de Gemosac's step was already on the stairs, Barebone was
spared the necessity of agreeing in words to the inevitable.

A moment later the old man hurried into the room. He had not even waited
to remove his coat and gloves. A few snow-flakes powdered his shoulders.

"Ah!" he cried, on perceiving Barebone. "Good--you are safe!" He turned
to speak to some one who was following him up the stairs with the slower
steps of one who knew not his way.

"All is well!" he cried. "He is here. Give yourself no anxiety."

And the second comer crossed the threshold, coming suddenly out of the
shadow of the staircase. It was Dormer Colville, white with snow, his
face grey and worn. He shook hands with Barebone and bowed to Juliette,
but the Marquis gave him no time to speak.

"I go down into the town," he explained, breathlessly. "The streets are
full. There is a crowd on the marketplace, more especially round the
tobacconist's, where the newspapers are to be bought. No newspapers, if
you please. The Paris journals of last Sunday, and this is Friday
evening. Nothing since that. No Bordeaux journal. No news at all from
Paris: absolute silence from Toulouse and Limoges. 'It is another
revolution,' they tell each other. Something has happened and no one
knows what. A man comes up to me and tugs at my sleeve. 'Inside your
walls, Monsieur le Marquis, waste no time,' he whispers, and is gone. He
is some stable-boy. I have seen him somewhere. I! inside my walls! Here
in Gemosac, where I see nothing but bare heads as I walk through the
streets. Name of God! I should laugh at such a precaution. And while I am
still trying to gather information the man comes back to me. 'It is not
the people you have to fear,' he whispers in my ear, 'it is the
Government. The order for your arrest is at the Gendarmerie, for it was I
who took it there. Monsieur Albert was arrested yesterday, and is now in
La Rochelle. Madame de Chantonnay's house is guarded. It is from Madame I
come.' And again he goes. While I am hesitating, I hear the step of a
horse, tired and yet urged to its utmost. It is Dormer Colville, this
faithful friend, who is from Paris in thirty-six hours to warn us. He
shall tell his story himself."

"There is not much to tell," said Colville, in a hollow voice. He looked
round for a chair and sat down rather abruptly. "Louis Bonaparte is
absolute master of France; that is all. He must be so by this time. When
I escaped from Paris yesterday morning nearly all the streets were
barricaded. But the troops were pouring into the city as I rode out--and
artillery. I saw one barricade carried by artillery. Thousands must have
been killed in the streets of Paris yesterday--"

"--And, _bon Dieu!_ it is called a _coup-d'état_," interrupted the
Marquis.

"That was on Tuesday," explained Colville, in his tired voice--"at six
o'clock on Tuesday morning. Yesterday and Wednesday were days of
massacre."

"But, my friend," exclaimed the Marquis, impatiently, "tell us how it
happened. You laugh! It is no time to laugh."

"I do not know," replied Colville, with an odd smile. "I think there is
nothing else to be done--it is all so complete. We are all so utterly
fooled by this man whom all the world took to be a dolt. On Tuesday
morning he arrested seventy-eight of the Representatives. When Paris
awoke, the streets had been placarded in the night with the decree of the
President of the Republic. The National Assembly was dissolved. The
Council of State was dissolved. Martial law was declared. And why? He
does not even trouble to give a reason. He has the army at his back. The
soldiers cried '_Vive l'Empereur_' as they charged the crowd on
Wednesday. He has got rid of his opponents by putting them in prison.
Many, it is said, are already on their way to exile in Cayenne; the
prisons are full. There is a warrant out against myself; against you,
Barebone; against you, of course, Monsieur le Marquis. Albert de
Chantonnay was arrested at Tours, and is now in La Rochelle. We may
escape--we may get away to-night--"

He paused and looked hurriedly toward the door, for some one was coming
up the stairs--some one who wore sabots. It was the servant, Marie, who
came unceremoniously into the room with the exaggerated calm of one who
realises the gravity of the situation and means to master it.

"The town is on fire," she explained, curtly; "they have begun on the
Gendarmerie. Doubtless they have heard that these gentlemen are to be
arrested, and it is to give other employment to the gendarmes. But the
cavalry has arrived from Saintes, and I come upstairs to ask Monsieur to
come down and help. It is my husband who is a fool. Holy Virgin! how many
times have I regretted having married such a blockhead as that. He says
he cannot raise the drawbridge. To raise it three feet would be to gain
three hours. So I came to get Monsieur," she pointed at Barebone with a
steady finger, "who has his wits on the top always and two hands at the
end of his arms."

"But it is little use to raise the drawbridge," objected the Marquis.
"They will soon get a ladder and place it against the breach in the wall
and climb in."

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