A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Last Hope

H >> Henry Seton Merriman >> The Last Hope




"What do you mean?" she asked, in a quick, mechanical voice, as if she
had reached a desired crisis at last and was prepared to act.

"Oh, I only mean what I have meant always," he answered. "But I have been
afraid--afraid. One hears, sometimes, of a woman who is generous enough
to love a man who is a nobody--to think only of love. Sometimes--last
voyage, when you used to sit where you are sitting now--I have thought
that it might have been my extraordinary good fortune to meet such a
woman."

He waited for some word or sign, but she sat motionless.

"You understand," he went on, "how contemptible must seem their talk of a
heritage in France, when such a thought is in one's mind, even if--"

"Yes," she interrupted, hastily. "You were quite wrong. You were
mistaken."

"Mistaking in thinking you--"

"Yes," she interrupted again. "You are quite mistaken, and I am very
sorry, of course, that it should have happened."

She was singularly collected, and spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.
Barebone's eyes gleamed suddenly; for she had aroused-perhaps
purposely--a pride which must have accumulated in his blood through
countless generations. She struck with no uncertain hand.

"Yes," he said, slowly; "it is to be regretted. Is it because I am the
son of a nameless father and only the mate of 'The Last Hope'?"

"If you were before the mast--" she answered--"if you were a King, it
would make no difference. It is simply because I do not care for you in
that way."

"You do not care for me--in that way," he echoed, with a laugh, which
made her move as if she were shrinking. "Well, there is nothing more to
be said to that."

He looked at her slowly, and then took off his cap as if to bid her
good-bye. But he forgot to replace it, and he went away with the cap in
his hand. She heard the clink of a chain as he loosed his boat.




CHAPTER X


IN THE ITALIAN HOUSE

The Abbé Touvent was not a courageous man, and the perspiration, induced
by the climb from the high-road up that which had once been the ramp to
the Château of Gemosac, ran cold when he had turned the key in the rusty
lock of the great gate. It was not a dark night, for the moon sailed
serenely behind fleecy clouds, but the shadows cast by her silvery light
might harbour any terror.

It is easy enough to be philosophic at home in a chair beside the lamp.
Under those circumstances, the Abbé had reflected that no one would rob
him, because he possessed nothing worth stealing. But now, out here in
the dark, he recalled a hundred instances of wanton murder duly recorded
in the newspaper which he shared with three parishioners in Gemosac.

He paused to wipe his brow with a blue cotton handkerchief before pushing
open the gate, and, being alone, was not too proud to peep through the
keyhole before laying his shoulder against the solid and weather-beaten
oak. He glanced nervously at the loopholes in the flanking towers and
upward at the machicolated battlement overhanging him, as if any
crumbling peep-hole might harbour gleaming eyes. He hurried through the
passage beneath the vaulted roof without daring to glance to either side,
where doorways and steps to the towers were rendered more fearsome by
heavy curtains of ivy.

The enceinte of the castle of Gemosac is three-sided, with four towers
jutting out at the corners, from which to throw a flanking fire upon any
who should raise a ladder against the great curtains, built of that
smooth, white stone which is quarried at Brantôme and on the banks of the
Dordogne. The fourth side of the enceinte stands on a solid rock, above
the little river that loses itself in the flatlands bordering the
Gironde, so that it can scarce be called a tributary of that wide water.
A moss-grown path round the walls will give a quick walker ten minutes'
exercise to make the round from one tower of the gateway to the other.

Within the enciente are the remains of the old castle, still solid and
upright; erected, it is recorded, by the English during their long
occupation of this country. A more modern château, built after the final
expulsion of the invader, adjoins the ancient structure, and in the
centre of the vast enclosure, raised above the walls, stands a square
house, in the Italian style, built in the time of Marie de Medici, and
never yet completed. There are, also, gardens and shaded walks and vast
stables, a chapel, two crypts, and many crumbling remains inside the
walls, that offered a passive resistance to the foe in olden time, and as
successfully hold their own to-day against the prying eye of a democratic
curiosity.

Above the stables, quite close to the gate, half a dozen rooms were in
the occupation of the Marquis de Gemosac; but it was not to these that
the Abbé Touvent directed his tremulous steps.

Instead, he went toward the square, isolated house, standing in the
middle of that which had once been the great court, and was now half
garden, half hayfield. The hay had been cut, and the scent of the new
stack, standing against the walls of the oldest château and under its
leaking roof, came warm and aromatic to mix with the breath of the
evening primrose and rosemary clustering in disorder on the ill-defined
borders. The grim walls, that had defended the Gemosacs against franker
enemies in other days, served now to hide from the eyes of the villagers
the fact--which must, however, have been known to them--that the Marquis
de Gemosac, in gloves, kept this garden himself, and had made the hay
with no other help than that of his old coachman and Marie, that capable,
brown-faced _bonne-à-tout-faire_, who is assuredly the best man in France
to-day.

In this clear, southern atmosphere the moon has twice the strength of
that to which we are accustomed in mistier lands, and the Abbè looked
about him with more confidence as he crossed the great court. There were
frogs in a rainwater tank constructed many years ago, when some
enterprising foe had been known to cut off the water-supply of a besieged
château, and their friendly croak brought a sense of company and comfort
to the Abbè's timid soul.

The door of the Italian house stood open, for the interior had never been
completed, and only one apartment, a lofty banqueting-hall, had ever been
furnished. Within the doorway, the Abbè fumbled in the pocket of his
soutane and rattled a box of matches. He carried a parcel in his hand,
which he now unfolded, and laid out on the lid of a mouldy chest half a
dozen candles. When he struck a match a flight of bats whirred out of the
doorway, and the Abbè's breath whistled through his teeth.

He lighted two candles, and carrying them, alight, in one hand--not
without dexterity, for candles played an important part in his life--he
went forward. The flickering light showed his face to be a fat one, kind
enough, gleaming now with perspiration and fear, but shiny at other times
with that Christian tolerance which makes men kind to their own failings.
It was very dark within the house, for all the shutters were closed.

The Abbé lighted a third candle and fixed it, with a drop of its own wax,
on the high mantel of the great banqueting-hall. There were four or five
candlesticks on side-tables, and a candelabra stood in the centre of a
long table, running the length of the room. In a few minutes the Abbé had
illuminated the apartment, which smelt of dust and the days of a dead
monarchy. Above his head, the bats were describing complicated figures
against a ceiling which had once been painted in the Italian style, to
represent a trellis roof, with roses and vines entwined. Half a dozen
portraits of men, in armour and wigs, looked down from the walls. One or
two of them were rotting from their frames, and dangled a despondent
corner out into the room.

There were chairs round the table, set as if for a phantom banquet amid
these mouldering environments, and their high carved backs threw
fantastic shadows on the wall.

While the Abbé was still employed with the candles, he heard a heavy step
and loud breathing in the hall without, where he had carefully left a
light.

"Why did you not wait for me on the hill, _malhonnête_?" asked a thick
voice, like the voice of a man, but the manner was the manner of a woman.
"I am sure you must have heard me. One hears me like a locomotive, now
that I have lost my slimness."

She came into the room as she spoke, unwinding a number of black, knitted
shawls, in which she was enveloped. There were so many of them, and of
such different shape and texture, that some confusion ensued. The Abbé
ran to her assistance.

"But, Madame," he cried, "how can you suspect me of such a crime? I came
early to make these preparations. And as for hearing you--would to Heaven
I had! For it needs courage to be a Royalist in these days--especially in
the dark, by one's self."

He seemed to know the shawls, for he disentangled them with skill and
laid them aside, one by one.

The Comtesse de Chantonnay breathed a little more freely, but no friendly
hand could disencumber her of the mountains of flesh, which must have
weighed down any heart less buoyant and courageous.

"Ah, bah!" she cried, gaily. "Who is afraid? What could they do to an old
woman? Ah! you hold up your hands. That is kind of you. But I am no
longer young, and there is my Albert--with those stupid whiskers. It is
unfilial to wear whiskers, and I have told him so. And you--who could
harm you--a priest? Besides, no one could be a priest, and not a
Royalist, Abbé!"

"I know it, Madame, and that is why I am one. Have we been seen, Madame
la Comtesse? The village was quiet, as you came through?"

"Quiet as my poor husband in his grave. Tell me? Abbé, now, honestly, am
I thinner? I have deprived myself of coffee these two days."

The Abbe walked gravely round her. It was quite an excursion.

"Who would have you different, Madame, to what you are?" he temporized.
"To be thin is so ungenerous. And Albert--where is he? You have not
surely come alone?"

"Heaven forbid!--and I a widow!" replied Madame de Chantonnay, arranging,
with a stout hand, the priceless lace on her dress. "Albert is coming. We
brought a lantern, although it is a moon. It is better. Besides, it is
always done by those who conspire. And Albert had his great cloak, and he
fell up a step in the courtyard and dropped the lantern, and lost it in
the long grass. I left him looking for it, in the dark. He was not
afraid, my brave Albert!"

"He has the dauntless heart of his mother," murmured the Abbé,
gracefully, as he ran round the table setting the chairs in order. He had
already offered the largest and strongest to the Comtesse, and it was
creaking under her now, as she moved to set her dress in order.

"Assuredly," she admitted, complacently. "Has not France produced a
Jeanne d'Arc and a Duchesse de Berri? It was not from his father, at all
events, that he inherited his courage. For he was a poltroon, that man.
Yes, my dear Abbé, let us be honest, and look at life as it is. He was a
poltroon, and I thought I loved him--for two or three days only, however.
And I was a child then. I was beautiful."

"Was?" echoed the Abbé, reproachfully.

"Silence, wicked one! And you a priest."

"Even an ecclesiastic, Madame, may have eyes," he said, darkly, as he
snuffed a candle and, subsequently, gave himself a mechanical thump on
the chest, in the region of the heart.

"Then they should wear blinkers, like a horse," said Madame, severely, as
if wearied by an admiration so universal that it palled.

At this moment, Albert de Chantonnay entered the room. He was enveloped
in a long black cloak, which he threw off his shoulders and cast over the
back of a chair, not without an obvious appreciation of its possibilities
of the picturesque. He looked round the room with a mild eye, which
refused to lend itself to mystery or a martial ruthlessness.

He was a young man with a very thin neck, and the whiskers, of which his
mother made complaint, were scarcely visible by the light of the Abbé's
candles.

"Good!" he said, in a thin tenor voice. "We are in time."

He came forward to the table, with long, nervous strides. He was not
exactly impressive, but his manner gave the assurance of a distinct
earnestness of purpose. The majority of us are unfortunately situated
toward the world, as regards personal appearance. Many could pass for
great if their physical proportions were less mean. There are thousands
of worthy and virtuous young men who never receive their due in social
life because they have red hair or stand four-feet-six high, or happen to
be the victim of an inefficient dentist. The world, it would seem, does
not want virtue or solid worth. It prefers appearance to either. Albert
de Chantonnay would, for instance, have carried twice the weight in
Royalist councils if his neck had been thicker.

He nodded to the Abbé.

"I received your message," he said, in the curt manner of the man whose
life is in his hand, or is understood, in French theatrical circles, to
be thus uncomfortably situated. "The letter?"

"It is here, Monsieur Albert," replied the Abbé, who was commonplace, and
could not see himself as he wished others to see him. There was only one
Abbé Touvent, for morning or afternoon, for church or fête, for the
château or the cottage. There were a dozen Albert de Chantonnays, fierce
or tender, gay or sad, a poet or a soldier--a light persifleur, who had
passed through the mill, and had emerged hard and shining, or a young man
of soul, capable of high ideals. To-night, he was the politician--the
conspirator--quick of eye, curt of speech.

He held out his hand for the letter.

"You are to read it, as Monsieur le Marquis instructs me, Monsieur
Albert," hazarded the Abbé, touching the breast pocket of his soutane,
where Monsieur de Gemosac's letter lay hidden, "to those assembled."

"But, surely, I am to read it to myself first," was the retort; "or else
how can I give it proper value?"




CHAPTER XI


A BEGINNING

There may be some who refuse to take seriously a person like Albert de
Chantonnay because, forsooth, he happened to possess a sense of the
picturesque. There are, as a matter of fact, thousands of sensible
persons in the British Isles who fail completely to understand the
average Frenchman. To the English comprehension it is, for instance,
surprising that in time of stress--when Paris was besieged by a German
army--a hundred _franc-tireur_ corps should spring into existence, who
gravely decked themselves in sombreros and red waist-cloths, and called
themselves the "Companions of Death," or some claptrap title of a similar
sound. Nevertheless, these "Companions of Death" fought at Orleans as few
have fought since man walked this earth, and died as bravely as any in a
government uniform. Even the stolid German foe forgot, at last, to laugh
at the sombrero worn in midwinter.

It is useless to dub a Frenchman unreal and theatrical when he gaily
carries his unreality and his perception of the dramatic to the lucarne
of the guillotine and meets imperturbably the most real thing on earth,
Death.

Albert de Chantonnay was a good Royalist--a better Royalist, as many were
in France at this time, than the King--and, perhaps, he carried his
loyalty to the point that is reached by the best form of flattery.

Let it be remembered that when, on the 3rd of May, 1814, Louis XVIII was
reinstated, not by his own influence or exertions, but by the allied
sovereigns who had overthrown Napoleon, he began at once to issue
declarations and decrees as of the nineteenth year of his reign, ignoring
the Revolution and Napoleon. Did this Bourbon really take himself
seriously? Did he really expect the world to overlook Napoleon, or did he
know as all the world knows to-day, that long after the Bourbons have
sunk into oblivion the name of Napoleon will continue to be a household
word?

If a situation is thus envisaged by a King, what may the wise expect from
a Royalist?

In the absence of the Marquis de Gemosac, Albert de Chantonnay was
considered to be the leader of the party in that quiet corner of
south-western France which lies north of Bordeaux and south of that great
dividing river, the Loire. He was, moreover, looked upon as representing
that younger blood of France, to which must be confided the hopes and
endeavours of the men, now passing away one by one, who had fought and
suffered for their kings.

It was confidently whispered throughout this pastoral country that August
Persons, living in exile in England and elsewhere, were in familiar and
confidential correspondence with the Marquis de Gemosac, and, in a minor
degree, with Albert de Chantonnay. For kings, and especially deposed
kings, may not be choosers, but must take the instrument that comes to
hand. A constitutional monarch is, by the way, better placed in this
respect, for it is his people who push the instrument into his grasp, and
in the long run the people nearly always read a man aright despite the
efforts of a cheap press to lead them astray.

"If it were not written in the Marquis's own writing I could not have
believed it," said Albert de Chantonnay, speaking aloud his own thoughts.
He turned the letter this way and that, examining first the back of it
and then the front.

"It has not been through the post." he said to the Abbé, who stood
respectfully watching his face, which, indeed, inspired little
confidence, for the chin receded in the wrong way--not like the chin of a
shark, which indicates, not foolishness, but greed of gain--and the eyes
were large and pale like those of a sheep.

"Oh, Heaven forbid!" cried the Abbé. "Such a letter as that! Where should
we all be if it were read by the government? And all know that letters
passing through the post to the address of such as Monsieur Albert are
read in passing--by the Prince President himself, as likely as not."

Albert gave a short, derisive laugh, and shrugged his shoulders, which
made his admiring mother throw back her head with a gesture, inviting the
Abbé to contemplate, with satisfaction, the mother of so brave a man.

"_Voilà_," she said, "but tell us, my son, what is in the letter?"

"Not yet," was the reply. "It is to be read to all when they are
assembled. In the mean time--"

He did not finish the sentence in words, but by gesture conveyed that the
missive, now folded and placed in his breast-pocket, was only to be
obtained bespattered with his life's blood. And the Abbé wiped his clammy
brow with some satisfaction that it should be thus removed from his own
timorous custody.

Albert de Chantonnay was looking expectantly at the door, for he had
heard footsteps, and now he bowed gravely to a very old gentleman, a
notary of the town, who entered the room with a deep obeisance to the
Comtesse. Close on the notary's heels came others. Some were in riding
costume, and came from a distance.

One sprightly lady wore evening dress, only partially concealed by a
cloak. She hurried in with a nod for Albert de Chantonnay, and a kiss for
the Comtesse. Her presence had the immediate effect of imparting an air
of practical common-sense energy to the assembly, which it had hitherto
lacked. There was nothing of the old _régime_ in this lady, who seemed to
over-ride etiquette, and cheerfully ignore the dramatic side of the
proceedings.

"Is it not wonderful?" she whispered aloud, after the manner of any
modern lady at one of those public meetings in which they take so large a
part with so small a result in these later days. "Is it not wonderful?"
And her French, though pure enough, was full and round--the French of an
English tongue. "I have had a long letter from Dormer telling me all
about it. Oh--" And she broke off, silenced by the dark frown of Albert
de Chantonnay, to which her attention had been forcibly directed by his
mother. "I have been dining with Madame de Rathe," she went on,
irrepressibly, changing the subject in obedience to Albert de
Chantonnay's frown. "The Vicomtesse bids me make her excuses. She feared
an indigestion, so will be absent to-night."

"Ah!" returned the Comtesse de Chantonnay. "It is not that. I happen to
know that the Vicomtesse de Rathe has the digestion of a schoolboy. It is
because she has no confidence in Albert. But we shall see--we shall see.
It is not for the nobility of Louis Philippe to--to have a poor
digestion."

And the Comtesse de Chantonnay made a gesture and a meaning grimace which
would have been alarming enough had her hand and face been less dimpled
with good nature.

There were now assembled about a dozen persons, and the Abbé was kept in
countenance by two others of his cloth. There were several ladies; one of
whom was young and plain and seemed to watch Albert de Chantonnay with a
timid awe. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, seated next to the Comtesse de
Chantonnay, was the only lady who made any attempt at gay apparel, and
thus stood rather conspicuous among her companions clad in sober and
somewhat rusty black. All over the west of France such meetings of the
penniless Royalists were being held at this time, not, it has been
averred, without the knowledge of the Prince President, who has been
credited with the courage to treat the matter with contempt. About no
monarch, living or dead, however, have so many lies been written, by
friend or foe, with good or ill intent, as about him, who subsequently
carried out the astounding feat of climbing to the throne of France as
Napoleon III. And it seems certain that he has been given credit for
knowing much of which he must have been ignorant to an extent hardly
credible, even now, in face of subsequent events.

The Comtesse de Chantonnay was still tossing her head, at intervals,
at the recollection of the Vicomtesse de Rathe's indigestion. This was
only typical of the feelings that divided every camp in France at this
time--at any time, indeed, since the days of Charlemagne--for the French
must always quarrel among themselves until they are actually on the brink
of national catastrophe. And even when they are fallen into that pit they
will quarrel at the bottom, and bespatter each other with the mud that is
there.

"Are we all here?" asked Albert de Chantonnay, standing in an effective
attitude at the end of the table, with his hand on the back of his chair.
He counted the number of his fellow-conspirators, and then sat down,
drawing forward a candelabra.

"You have been summoned in haste," he said, "by the request of the
Marquis de Gemosac to listen to the perusal of a letter of importance. It
may be of the utmost importance--to us--to France--to all the world."

He drew the letter from his pocket and opened it amid a breathless
silence. His listeners noted the care with which he attended to gesture
and demeanour, and accounted it to him for righteousness; for they were
French. An English audience would have thought him insincere, and they
would have been wrong.

"The letter is dated from a place called Farlingford, in England. I have
never heard of it. It is nowhere near to Twickenham or Clarement, nor is
it in Buckinghamshire. The rest of England--no one knows." Albert paused
and held up one hand for silence.

"At last," he read--"at last, my friends, after a lifetime of fruitless
search, it seems that I have found--through the good offices of Dormer
Colville--not the man we have sought, but his son. We have long suspected
that Louis XVII must be dead. Madame herself, in her exile at Frohsdorff,
has admitted to her intimates that she no longer hoped. But here in the
full vigour of youth--a sailor, strong and healthy, living a simple life
on shore as at sea--I have found a man whose face, whose form, and manner
would clearly show to the most incredulous that he could be no other than
the son of Louis XVII. A hundred tricks of manner and gesture he has
inherited from the father he scarce remembers, from the grandfather who
perished on the guillotine many years before he himself was born. No
small proof of the man's sincerity is the fact that only now, after long
persuasion, has he consented to place himself in our hands. I thought of
hurrying at once to Frohsdorff to present to the aged Duchess a youth
whom she cannot fail to recognize as her nephew. But better counsels have
prevailed. Dormer Colville, to whom we owe so much, has placed us in his
farther debt for a piece of sage advice. 'Wait,' he advises, 'until the
young man has learned what is expected of him, until he has made the
personal acquaintance of his supporters. Reserve until the end the
presentation to the Duchesse d'Angouleme, which must only be made when
all the Royalists in France are ready to act with a unanimity which will
be absolute, and an energy which must prove irresistible.'

"There are more material proofs than a face so strongly resembling that
of Louis XVI and Monsieur d'Artois, in their early manhood, as to take
the breath away; than a vivacity inherited from his grandmother, together
with an independence of spirit and impatience of restraint; than the
slight graceful form, blue eyes, and fair skin of the little prisoner of
the Temple. There are dates which go to prove that this boy's father
was rescued from a sinking fishing-boat, near Dieppe, a few days after
the little Dauphin was known to have escaped from the Temple, and to
have been hurried to the north coast disguised as a girl. There is
evidence, which Monsieur Colville is now patiently gathering from these
slow-speaking people, that the woman who was rescued with this child was
not his mother. And there are a hundred details known to the villagers
here which go to prove what we have always suspected to be the case,
namely, that Louis XVII was rescued from the Temple by the daring and
ingenuity of a devoted few who so jealously guarded their secret that
they frustrated their own object; for they one and all must have perished
on the guillotine, or at the hands of some other assassin, without
divulging their knowledge, and in the confusion and horror of those days
the little Dauphin was lost to sight.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.