Chapter 18

HOW TWO SOLDIERS CAME HOME FROM SPAIN

The family scandal was great. Angelot, if he had ever thought about such possibilities at all, would never have imagined that his relations could be so angry with him; and this without exception. Monsieur de Sainfoy, the most entirely justified, was by far the gentlest. Madame de Sainfoy's flame of furious wrath enveloped every one. She refused at first even to see Monsieur Urbain; she vowed that she would leave Lancilly at once, take Hélène back to Paris, let the odious old place fall back into the ruin from which she wished it had never been rescued, shake herself and her children free from the contact of these low, insolent cousins who presumed so far on their position, on the gratitude that might be supposed due to them. Urbain, however, having stuck to his point and obtained a private interview with her, in which he promised that his son should be sent away, or at least should annoy her no more, her tone became a little milder and she did not insist on breaking up the establishment. After all, Urbain pointed out, _Tout va bien!_ It was to be expected that an imperial order would very soon decide Hélène's future and check for ever young Angelot's ambition. Madame de Sainfoy perceived that it was worth while to wait.

In the meantime, the philosopher's nature was stirred to its depths. If it had not been for his wife's strong opposition, he would have insisted on Angelot's accepting one of those commissions which Napoleon was always ready to give to young men of good family, sometimes indeed, when the family was known to be strongly Royalist, making them sub-lieutenants in spite of themselves and throwing them into prison if they refused to serve. Anne would not have it. She was as angry with Angelot as any one. That he should not only have been taken captive, soul and body, by Lancilly, but should have put himself so hopelessly in the wrong, filled her with rage and grief. But she would not have matters made worse by committing her boy to the Empire. She would rather, as Monsieur Joseph suggested, pack him off across the frontier to join the army of the Princes. But then, again, his father would never consent to that.

"Why do they not send the girl away!" she cried. "Why not send her to a Paris convent till they find a husband for her! We do not want her here, with that pale face and those tragic eyes of hers, making havoc of our young men. I respect Hervé for refusing that horrible General, but why does he not take means to find some one else! They are beyond my understanding, Hervé and Adélaïde. I wish they had never come back, never brought that girl here to distract my Angelot. He was free and happy till they came. Ah, mon Dieu! how they make me suffer, these people!"

"Do not blame them for Angelot's dishonourable weakness," said her husband, sternly. "If your son had possessed reason and self-control, which I have tried in vain all my life to teach him, none of all this need have happened. There is no excuse for him."

"I am making none. I am very angry with him. I am not blaming your dear Sainfoys. I only say that if they had never come, or if Providence had given them an ugly daughter, this could not have happened. You will not try to deny that, I suppose!"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"Your logic is faultless, my dear Anne. If you had not married me, there would have been no handsome boy to fall in love with a pretty girl. And if La Marinière had not been near Lancilly--"

"Are you ever serious?" she said, and swept out of the room.

His strong face was grave enough as he looked after her.

But in Angelot's presence there was no such philosophical trifling. He was made to feel himself in deep disgrace with both his parents, and he was young enough to feel it very keenly. After the first tremendous scolding, they hardly spoke to him; he went in and out in a gloomy silence most strange to the sunny life of La Marinière. And at Les Chouettes it was no better.

In truth, Angelot found his uncle Joseph's deep displeasure harder to bear than that of any one else. There was something clandestine about the affair which touched the little gentleman's sense of honour; his code of manners and good breeding was also offended. He knew life; his own younger days had been stormy; and even now, though respecting morality, he was not strict or narrow. But such adventures as this of Angelot's seemed to him on a lower plane of society than belonged to Lancilly or La Marinière. A secret meeting at night; climbing ivy like a thief; making use of his familiarity with the old house to do what, after all, was an injury as well as an offence to its owners,--all this was matter of deep disgust to Monsieur Joseph.

"I thought Ange was a gentleman!" he said; and to Henriette, who with bitter tears confessed to him her part in the story, he would not even admire the daring spirit in which he and she had often rejoiced together.

"Hélène's fault, you say, child? No, we will not make that excuse for him. If the poor girl was unhappy, there were other ways--"

"But what could he have done, papa? Now you are very unkind. If she asked him to come, could he have said no? Is that the way for a gentleman to treat a lady?"

Riette had posed him, and she knew it. But she did not reap any personal advantage.

"As to that," he said, "the whole thing was your fault. I did not send you to Lancilly to carry messages, but to learn your lessons. What did it matter to you if your cousin Hélène was unhappy? In this world we must all be unhappy sometimes, as you will find. Go to bed at once. Consider yourself in disgrace. You will stay in your room for two days on bread and water, and you will not go to Lancilly again for a long time, perhaps never. I am sorry I ever sent you there, but in future Mademoiselle Hélène's affairs will be arranged without you."

Riette went obediently away, shaking her head. As she went upstairs she heard her father calling to Marie Gigot, giving severe commands in a nervous voice, and she smiled faintly through her tears.

"Nevertheless, little papa, we love our Ange, you and I!" she said.

Angelot wandered about solitary with his gun and Négo, avoiding the Lancilly side of the country, and keeping to his father's and his uncle's land, where game abounded. For the present his good spirits were effectually crushed; and yet, even now, his native hopefulness rose and comforted him. It was true every one was angry; it was true he had given his word of honour not to attempt to see Hélène, and at any moment her future might be decided without him; but on the other hand, her father had promised that she should not marry Ratoneau; and he and she, they were both young, they loved each other; somehow, some day, the future could hardly fail to be theirs.

In the meantime, Angelot was better off among his woods and moorlands than Hélène in her locked room, all the old labyrinths and secret ways discovered and stopped. The vintage was very near, for the last days of September had come. Again a young moon was rising over the country, for the moon which lighted Hélène to La Marinière on her first evening in Anjou had waned and gone. And the heather had faded, the woods and copses began to be tinted with bronze, to droop after the long, hot season, only broken by two or three thunderstorms. The evenings were drawing in, the mornings began to be chilly; autumn, even lovelier than summer in that climate which has the seasons of the poets, was giving a new freshness to the air and a new colour to the landscape.

One day towards evening Angelot visited La Joubardière. He went to the farm a good deal at this time, for it was pleasant to see faces that did not frown upon him, but smiled a constant welcome, and there was always the excuse of talking to Joubard about the vintage. And again, this evening, the Maîtresse brought out a bottle of her best wine, and the two old people talked of their son at the war; and all the time they were very well aware that something was wrong with Monsieur Angelot, whom they had known and loved from his cradle. The good wife's eyes twinkled a little as she watched him, and if nothing had happened later to distract her thoughts, she would have told her husband that the boy was in love. Joubard put down the young master's strange looks to anxiety, not unfounded, about his uncle Joseph and the Chouan gentlemen. Since Simon's spying and questioning, Joubard had taken a more serious view of these matters.

"Monsieur Angelot has been at Les Chouettes to-day?" he said. "No? Ah, perhaps it is as well. There were two gentlemen shooting with Monsieur Joseph--I think they were Monsieur des Barres and Monsieur César d'Ombré. A little dangerous, such company. Monsieur Joseph perhaps thinks a young man is better out of it."

Angelot did not answer, and turned the conversation back to the vintage.

"Yes, I believe it will be magnificent," said the farmer. "If Martin were only here to help me! But it is hard for me, alone, to do my duty by the vines. Hired labour is such a different thing. I believe in the old rhyme:--

'L'ombre du bon maître Fait la vigne croître!'

Monsieur your father explained to me the meaning of it, that there must be no trees in or near the vineyard, no shadow but that of the master. He found that in a book, he said. Surely, I thought, a man must have plenty of time on his hands, to write a book to prove what every child knows. Now I take its meaning to be deeper than that. There is a shadow the vine needs and can't do without. You may talk as you please about sun and air and showers; 'tis the master's eye and hand and shadow that gives growth and health to the vines."

"Don't forget the good God," said Maîtresse Joubard. "All the shadows of the best masters won't do much without Him."

"Did I say so?" Her husband turned upon her. "It is His will, I suppose, that things are so. We must take His creation as we find it. All I say is, He gives me too much to do, when He sets me on a farm with five sons and leaves me there but takes them all away."

"Hush, hush, master; Martin will come back," his wife said.

Nearly a month ago she had said the same. Angelot, standing again in the low dark kitchen with her slender old glass in his hand, remembered the day vividly, for it had indeed been a marked day in his life. The breakfast at Les Chouettes, the hidden Chouans, General Ratoneau and his adventure in the lane, and then the wonderful moonlight evening, the coming of Hélène, the dreams which all that night waited upon her and had filled all the following days. Yes; it was on that glorious morning that Maîtresse Joubard, poor soul, had talked with so much faith and courage of her Martin's return. And Angelot, for his part, though he would not for worlds have said so, saw no hope of it at all. The last letter from Martin had come many months ago. The poor conscript, the young Angevin peasant, tall like his father, with his mother's quiet, dark face, was probably lying heaped and hidden among other dead conscripts at the foot of some Spanish fortress wall.

Angelot set down his glass, took up his gun, looked vaguely out of the door into the misty evening, bright with the spiritual brilliance of the young moon.

"If Martin comes back, anything is possible," he was thinking. "I should believe then that all would go well with me."

From the white, ruinous archway that opened on the lane, a figure hobbled slowly forward across the gleams and shadows of the yard. The great dog chained there began to yelp and cry; it was not the voice with which he received a stranger; Négo growled at his master's feet.

Angelot's gaze became fixed and intent. The figure looked like one of those wandering beggars, those _chemineaux_, who tramped the roads of France with a bag to collect bones and crusts of bread, the scraps of food which no good Christian refused them, who haunted the lonely farms at night and to whom a stray lamb or kid or chicken never came amiss. This figure was ragged like them; it stooped, and limped upon a wooden leg and a stick; an empty sleeve was pinned across its breast. And the rags were those of a soldier's uniform, and the dark, bent face was tanned by hotter suns than the sun of Anjou.

Angelot turned to the old Joubards and tried to speak, but his voice shook and was choked, and the tears blinded his eyes.

"My poor dear friends--" he was beginning, but Joubard started forward suddenly.

"What steps are those in the yard? The dog speaks--ah!"

The old man rushed through the doorway with arms stretched out, wildly sobbing, "Martin, Martin, my boy!"--and clasped the miserable figure in a long embrace.

"Did I not say so, Monsieur Angelot?" the little mother cried; and the young man, with a sudden instinct of joy and reverence, caught her rough hand and kissed it as she went out of the door. "Tell madame she was right," she said.

Angelot called Négo and walked silently away. As he went he heard their cries of welcome, their sobs of grief, and then he heard a hoarse voice ringing, echoed by the old walls all about, and it shouted--"Vive l'Empereur!"

Angelot felt strangely exalted as he walked away. The heroism of the crippled soldier touched him keenly; this was the Empire in a different aspect from any that he yet knew; the opportunism of his father and of Monsieur de Mauves, the bare worldliness of the Sainfoys, the military brutality of Ratoneau. The voice of this poor soldier, wandering back, a helpless, destitute wreck, to end his days in his old home, sounded like the bugle-call of all that generous self-sacrifice, that pure enthusiasm for glory, which rose to follow Napoleon and made his career possible. Angelot felt as if he too could march in such an army. Then as he strode down the moor he heard Hervé de Sainfoy's voice again: "And why not even now?" and again he thought of those dearest ones now so angry with him, whose loyalty to old France and her kings was a part of their religion, and whom no present brilliancy of conquest and fame could dazzle or lead astray.

Thinking of these things, Angelot came down from the moor into a narrow lane which skirted it, part of the labyrinth of crossing ways which led from the south to La Marinière and Lancilly. This lane was joined, some way above, by the road which led across the moor from Les Chouettes. It was not the usual road from the south to Lancilly, but turned out of that a mile or two south, to wander westward round one or two lonely farms like La Joubardière. It ran deep between banks of stones covered with heather and ling and a wild mass of broom and blackberry bushes, the great round heads of the pollard oaks rising at intervals, so that there were patches of dark shadow, and the road itself was a succession of formidable ruts and holes and enormous stones.

In this thoroughfare two carriages had met, one going down-hill from the moorland road, the other, a heavy post-chaise and pair, climbing from the south. It was impossible for either conveyance to pass the other, and a noisy argument went on, first between the post-boy and the groom who drove the private carriage, a hooded, four-wheeled conveyance of the country, next between the travellers themselves.

Angelot came down from the steep footpath by which he had crossed the moor, just as the occupant of the post-chaise, after shouting angrily from the window, had got out to see the state of things for himself. He was a stranger to Angelot; a tall and very handsome young man of his own age, with a travelling cloak thrown over his showy uniform.

"What the devil is the matter? Why don't you drive on, you fool?" he said to the post-boy, who only gesticulated and pointed hopelessly to the obstacle in front of him.

"Well, but drive through them, or over them, or something," cried the imperious young voice. "Are you going to stop here all night staring at them? What is it? Some kind of _diligence_? Look here, fellow--you, driver--get out of my way, can't you? Mille tonnerres, what a road! Get down and take your horse out, do you hear? Lead him up the bank, and then drag your machine out of the way. Any one with you? Here is a man; he can help you. Service of the Emperor; no delay."

Apparently he took Angelot, in the dusk, for a country lad going home. Before there was time to show him his mistake, a dark, angry face bent forward from the hooded carriage, and Angelot recognised the Baron d'Ombré, who gave his orders in a tone quite as peremptory, and much haughtier.

"Post-boy! Back your carriage down the hill. You see very well that there is no room to pass here. Pardon, monsieur!" with a slight salute to the officer.

"Pardon!" he responded quickly. "Sorry to derange you, monsieur, but my chaise will not be backed. Service of His Majesty."

"That is nothing to me, monsieur."

"The devil! Who are you then?"

"I will give you my card with pleasure."

César d'Ombré descended hastily from the carriage, while Monsieur des Barres, who was with him, leaned forward rather anxiously.

"Explain the rule of the road to this gentleman," he said. "He is evidently a stranger. I see he has two servants behind the carriage, who can help in backing the horses. Explain that it is no intentional discourtesy, but a simple necessity. The delay will be small."

The tall young stranger bowed in the direction of the voice.

"Merci, monsieur. Your rules of the road do not concern me. I give way to no one--certainly not to your companion, who appears to be disloyal. I had forgotten, for a moment, the character of this country. The dark ages still flourish here, I believe."

The Baron d'Ombré presented his card with a low bow.

"Merci, monsieur. Permit me to return the compliment. But it is almost too dark for you to see my name, which ought to be well known here. De Sainfoy, Captain 13th Chasseurs, at your service. Will you oblige me--"

"It is not necessary at this moment, monsieur. You will not meet me at the Château de Lancilly."

"But you may possibly meet me--Vicomte des Barres--for your father and I sometimes put our old acquaintance before politics--" cried the voice from the carriage. "You will be very welcome to your family. But this arranges matters, Monsieur le Capitaine, for you are on the wrong road."

"Sapristi! The wrong road! Why, I picked up a wounded fellow and brought him a few miles. He got down to take a short cut home, and told me the next turn to the right would bring me to Lancilly. He was lying, then? A fellow called Joubard, not of my regiment."

"What do you say?" said d'Ombré to Angelot, who had already greeted him, lingering in the background to see the end of the dispute.

Georges de Sainfoy now first looked at the sportsman standing by the roadside, and Angelot looked at him. Monsieur des Barres, a little stiff from a long day's shooting--for he was not so lithe and active as his host, and not so young as the Baron--now got down from the carriage and joined the group.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Ange," he said kindly. "You have been shooting, I see, but not with your uncle. Have you met before, you two?" He glanced at Georges de Sainfoy, who stared haughtily. Even in the dim dusk Angelot could see that he was wonderfully like his mother.

"No, monsieur," he answered. "Not since twenty years ago, at least, and I think my cousin remembers that time as little as I do."

He spoke carelessly and lightly. De Sainfoy's fine blue eyes considered him coldly, measured his height and breadth and found them wanting.

"Ah! You are a La Marinière, I suppose?" he said.

"Ange de la Marinière, at your service."

Georges held out his hand. It was with an oddly unwilling sensation that Angelot gave his. Though the action might be friendly, there was something slighting, something impatient, in the stranger's manner; and the cousins already disliked each other, not yet knowing why.

"Are my family well? Do they expect me?" said Georges de Sainfoy.

"I believe they are very well. I do not know if they expect you," Angelot answered.

"Is it true that this is not the road to Lancilly?"

D'Ombré growled something about military insolence, and Monsieur des Barres laughed.

"Pardon, gentlemen," said De Sainfoy. "I am impatient, I know. A soldier on his way home does not expect to be stopped by etiquettes about passing on the road. My cousin knows the country; I appeal to him, as one of you did just now. Is this the way to Lancilly, or not?"

Angelot laughed. "Yes--and no," he said.

"What do you mean by that? Come, I am in no humour for joking."

Angelot looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.

"It is _a_ road, but not _the_ road," he said. "No one in his senses would drive this way to Lancilly. This part of it is bad enough; further on, where it goes down into the valley, it is much worse; I doubt if a heavy carriage could pass. You turned to the right too soon. Martin Joubard forgot this lane, perhaps. He would hardly have directed you this way--unless--"

"Unless what?"

"Unless he wished to show you the nature of the country, in case you should think of invading it in force."

The two Chouans laughed.

"Well said, Angelot!" muttered César d'Ombré.

Georges de Sainfoy, stiff and haughty, did not trouble himself about any jest or earnest concealed under his cousin's speech and the way the neighbours took it. He realised, perhaps, that in this wild west country the name of Napoleon was not altogether one to conjure with, that he had not left the enemies of the Empire behind him in Spain. But he realised, too, that this was hardly the place or the time to assert his own importance and his master's authority.

"Do you mean that this road is utterly impassable?" he said to Angelot. "How then did these gentlemen--"

"They did not come from Lancilly. They drove across the moor from my uncle's house, Les Chouettes, and turned into the lane a few hundred yards higher up. As to impassable--I think your wheels will come off, if you attempt it, and your horses' knees will suffer. Where the ruts are not two feet deep, the bare rock is almost perpendicular."

"Still it is not impassable?"

"Not in a case of necessity. But you will not attempt it."

"And why not?"

"Because on this hill Monsieur des Barres and Monsieur d'Ombré cannot back out of your way, and you can back out of theirs--and must."

"'Must' to me!" Georges de Sainfoy said between his teeth.

"Let us assure you, monsieur, that we regret the necessity--" Monsieur des Barres interfered in his politest manner.

"Enough, monsieur."

De Sainfoy gave his orders. His servants sprang down and helped the post-boy to back the horses to the foot of the hill. It was a long business, with a great deal of kicking, struggling, scrambling, and swearing. Monsieur des Barres' carriage followed slowly, he and Georges de Sainfoy walking down together. The Baron d'Ombré lingered to say a friendly good-night to Angelot, who was not disposed to wait on his cousin any further. That night there was born a kind of sympathy, new and strange, between the fierce young Chouan and the careless boy still halting between two opinions.

"Old Joubard's son is come back, then?" César asked. "Will that attach the old man to the Empire? Your uncle can never tell us on which side he is likely to be."

"Dame! I should think not!" said Angelot. "Poor Martin--I saw him just now. He has left a leg and an arm in Spain."

"Poor fellow! That flourishing cousin of yours is better off. On my word, we are obliged to you, Monsieur des Barres and I. If you had not been there to bring him to his senses--Come, Angelot, this country is not a place for loyal men. Do you care to stay here and be bullied by upstart soldiers? Start off with me to join the Princes; there is nothing to be done here."

"Ah!" Angelot laughed, though rather sadly. "Indeed, you tempt me--it is true, there is nothing here. But I have a father, and he has a vintage coming on. After that--I will consider."

"Yes, consider--and say nothing. I see you are discontented; the first step in the right way. Good-night, my friend."

If discontent had been despair, the army of the emigrants might have had a lively recruit in those days. But Martin Joubard had come back, so that anything seemed possible. Hope was not dead, and his native Anjou still held the heart of Angelot.