CHAPTER X

HAPPENINGS IN A POSTCHAISE

(1)

Anne-Hilarion was sorry to say good-bye to the _Trois Frères_ at Caen, and all the way up the river from the little port at Ouistreham he sat quietly on deck with a pensive expression. That the vessel's speed at sea had not been very noticeably greater than that with which she now approached the spires of the town distressed him not at all. Everything about her had been delightful, from her dolphin figurehead to her old-fashioned poop, and he only regretted that M. le Chevalier had not allowed him to chatter to her crew as much as he desired.

La Vireville too owed the old barque gratitude. Whether her master really believed his story or no, he had kept to his contract, and asked few supplementary questions. It had been a fine breezy morning when the émigré stood on her deck as she lumbered along the coast towards Dieppe, and looked up at the tricolour beating at the mizen, reflecting that it was the first time he had ever sailed beneath this parvenu flag of his country. Two or three miles out at sea a couple of frigates were visible, the rearguard of the Brest fleet. Against those vessels that flag was their talisman. But he had not looked at it with love for all that.

* * * * *

The alluring prospect of a long ride in a postchaise had been purposely held out to the Comte de Flavigny as he regretfully left the _Trois Frères_, clutching the striped and polished foreign shell which the captain had given him at parting. It was true that there were some rather unpleasant formalities to be gone through first, in a place which he was told was M. le Maire's office, where a man with a red, white, and blue scarf tied in a great bow--a man whom he instinctively disliked--asked M. le Chevalier a great many questions, and looked at him, Anne-Hilarion, very suspiciously. At last, however, he wrote something on the papers which M. le Chevalier had produced, and then they went to a little hôtel and had a meal, and presently Anne was being assisted into a two-horsed postchaise not quite like those he had seen in England.

"All's well that ends well!" said M. le Chevalier, his mouth relaxing, as with great crackings of the postilion's whip they rolled through the streets of Caen. "They were suspicious of thy good uncle, Anne . . . Annibal, I should say. Imagine, they were disinclined to believe what he said--he who has always been noted for his veracity. But the papers of thy other uncle--the one we left behind at Abbeville, in . . . in bed--convinced them at last."

"You had, perhaps, to invent some more histories about us," suggested his fellow-traveller.

"My nephew, I had. However, they need not concern you. Our kinship still continues."

"Of that," remarked the Comte de Flavigny earnestly, "I am glad." He slipped his hand under his friend's arm. "That other, I did not like him. Could you be my uncle in England also, do you think?"

"Yes, little cabbage," said the Chouan, pulling a curl. "I shall be delighted, once in England again, to assume any relationship you please. At present I feel something like an inexperienced grandmother."

Anne-Hilarion gave a squeak of laughter and hugged his arm. "You are so amusing," he said, looking up at La Vireville with appreciative eyes. "How long before we get to England, M. le Chevalier?"

"That I am afraid I cannot tell you. Only a few days, I trust. But this is how we hope to get there. We shall arrive to-night at a place called Vire, and tomorrow we shall go on to Granville, which, as perhaps you know, Anne, is the nearest port, but one, of all France to Jersey. I think, however, that we shall not enter Granville itself, but that somewhere on the coast we will hire a fisherman's boat to take us to Jersey. And Jersey, you know, is English, and from there it is easy to go to England. Also, after we have left Vire, we shall be on the edge of the country of the Chouans of Normandy, and so we may find friends. And thus I have hopes that there will be no difficulty in procuring a boat, provided that nothing disagreeable happens to us in the town of Vire; for in towns, my dear Anne, they have not that entire faith in the candour of your uncle that we could wish."

"Another boat!" exclaimed Anne. "I shall like that, if the sea is not rough. And then another after that! For Jersey is an island, is it not?"

"You are singularly well informed, nephew. Jersey _is_ an island, and one, moreover, which is a good deal nearer to France than to England. Very probably, you will go home in an English man-of-war. I think you are enjoying your tour in France, are you not, nephew Annibal?"

"Yes, since _you_ came, M. le Chevalier," replied the child. "But I do want to see Papa soon, and Grandpapa, and Elspeth, and----" He checked himself with a sigh. "I suppose I shall never see it again. M. le Chevalier, do you think the grey cat will have eaten it?"

"Eaten what, my child?" asked the émigré, looking down into the dark eyes, clouded with a sudden apprehension. "Ah, you mean your goldfish?"

Anne nodded, the tiniest little droop at the corners of his mouth.

"I think," said the Chevalier de la Vireville, taking his hand, "that we shall find, when we get to Cavendish Square, that Elspeth has contrived to bring away the goldfish from the house of the old ladies, and that it will be swimming round and round on Grandpapa's table in the library."

A gleam of hope passed over the Comte de Flavigny's grave face, and died away as he said dolefully, "I do not see how Elspeth could find it, and perhaps the old ladies would not let her in. And . . . and . . . where _is_ Elspeth?"

"I am sure that she is quite safe," answered La Vireville in a consoling tone. "She will be in London, you may be certain, before we are. . . . My child, what _is_ the matter?"

For Anne-Hilarion, overtaken by a sudden whirlwind of sobs, had buried his head in the corner of the chaise.

(2)

It was the inevitable breakdown come at last. Had La Vireville reflected a moment, he need not have been so startled; rather would he have felt surprise that it had not happened earlier. For a child of Anne-Hilarion's tender years to have been through so much without the occurrence of something of the sort would have been phenomenal, had his companion paused to think of it. But the little boy was so sedate in his ways that he gave the impression of being older than he was, and La Vireville was not experienced as a nurse. However, some explanation of this seizure did dawn upon him after a moment.

"My poor little rabbit!" he exclaimed, putting his arm round him. "There, don't cry so--it is all right! You will soon see Elspeth again; and meanwhile, here is your uncle to look after you."

But the little rabbit did not, apparently, want even his adoptive uncle. He burrowed yet farther into the cushions of the carriage, his whole body convulsed with weeping. Fragmentary ejaculations of "Papa! Papa!" mingled with appeals for his grandfather and for Elspeth emerged from his sobs, which now started to partake of the character of screams. His grief was getting beyond his control, and La Vireville began to be alarmed. Not only did he think that such abandonment of distress must be bad for the child, to whose nature it seemed so foreign, but it also occurred to him that a passer-by, or even possibly the postilion, hearing such testimony of affliction, and becoming curious as to what was going forward in the chaise, might institute an investigation which could hardly fail of being disastrous. Anne in this state would certainly give the impression that he was being kidnapped--by his rescuer. The émigré pulled up the window nearest to him, which was open, and redoubled his efforts to quiet the boy.

"I want to go home!" screamed Anne. "I want Papa! I want Papa! I want my goldfish!" He beat with his fists against the dingy cushions, and even repulsed his dear Chevalier's attempts at consolation. Fortuné hardly knew him for the same child.

And meanwhile they were slowing down at the entrance to Villers-Bocage, a small place which would not have called for this attention but for the fact that the whole infant population appeared to be at play upon the road, thereby causing their pace to slacken.

"Anne, you _must_ be quiet!" said his 'uncle,' giving him a little shake, and speaking with a severity which he had never thought to employ towards him.

He might as well have tried to restrain a thunderstorm; he had better have been dealing with a refractory Chouan. Anne was now physically incapable of obeying him, nor were the narrow confines of the chaise sufficient to enclose the torrents of his woe.

La Vireville's heart sank as the vehicle came to a standstill, and in another moment the head of the postilion, a Norman youth with a flaming crop of hair, appeared like a setting sun at the window. La Vireville instantly motioned to him to proceed. The youth continued to make signs outside the glass, while other heads, of a rustic type, began to gather behind him. At last, rapidly losing his temper, La Vireville let down the glass.

"What the devil have you pulled up for?" he demanded. "Go on, confound you! We don't want to stop here!"

"I thought something was wrong," responded the youth, though how he could have heard anything through the beat of his horses' hoofs was hard to say. But by now Anne's lamentations, flowing through the opened window, were convincing the inhabitants of the little town that the postilion's surmise was just.

"There is nothing whatever wrong," asserted La Vireville shortly, and, on the surface, mendaciously. "Drive on at once!" And he began to pull up the window.

Ere he could fulfil his intention a large, knotted hand was laid upon it, and its frame became the setting for another study in genre--a large, solemn, be-whiskered old face surmounted by a hat of ancient fashion decorated with a tricolour cockade. The sight of this emblem, and still more of the parti-coloured sash crossing its wearer's breast, caused in the Chouan an outburst of silent blasphemy. From absurd the situation had become dangerous. The worst had come upon them--the intervention of officialdom--and that in a place where they need never have encountered it but for Anne-Hilarion's unfortunate access of woe.

"Well, citizen, and why have you stopped here?" demanded this apparition.

"Parbleu, citizen, that is just what I want to know!" ejaculated the émigré, a trifle taken aback. "The postilion took it into his head to pull up without orders, because he said he heard my little nephew crying--as you perceive."

"In truth, I do perceive it," returned the ancient drily, with his hand to his ear to catch La Vireville's reply through the all-pervading sound of sobbing. "And what is he crying for?"

Since La Vireville could hardly reply, "Because he is suddenly overcome with longing for his émigré father and his English grandfather in London, whither I am taking him," he said, much more tamely, "Because, citizen, he is tired, and perhaps a little hungry."

The old man bent his gaze upon Anne, who, looking up at that moment, suspended a howl to return the compliment. "Poor child!" he said unexpectedly. "You are in haste, citizen?"

"Oh, so-so," replied La Vireville. It did not seem altogether desirable to admit that he was, very much in haste.

"You have come from far?"

"Only from Caen this morning. Do you wish to see my papers, citizen procureur-syndic?" For the Chouan guessed that he spoke with that official--in less Republican phrase, the mayor.

"Presently," said the other. "For the moment I was going to suggest that as my daughter is, I know, preparing some excellent soup for déjeuner, and since the little boy is crying because he is hungry . . ."

"You are too kind, citizen," said La Vireville, at once touched, astonished, and full of a wish that he had not ascribed Anne's tears to a quite problematical appetite. "But I fear that, though not unduly pressed, we can hardly spare the time to get out. And indeed we have some food with us."

"But not good hot soup, I feel sure," said this benevolent old mayor. "See, I will send for a bowl of it while you show me your papers. One of my grandchildren here shall go for it. Here, Toinette, run off to your mother and tell her----" The rest was lost as he turned away from the window.

"I don't want any soup," immediately said (like a later famous character) Anne-Hilarion. He spoke peevishly, and, what was much worse, in English. The apparition of the unknown official had distinctly sobered him, but he was still intermittently heaving with sobs.

"My child," interposed La Vireville in the same tongue, since he dared not say it in French, "I have told you before that you _must_ not talk English!" And he went on quickly in his own language, "Take the bowl of soup when it comes, to please this kind old man, and then we shall be able to go on again."

"But I don't want it!" repeated Anne--reverting, however, to French. Then he added, just as the procureur-syndic was turning back to the window again, "Why must I not talk English, M. le Chevalier?"

"Oh, untamable tongue of childhood!" thought the luckless Chouan. Anne had called him by his title too! The situation hung on the mayor's deafness. La Vireville frowned at Anne, said meaningly in a low tone, "Thy _uncle_ wishes thee to drink the soup, Annibal!" and immediately after, in a loud one to the old man, "Will the citizen procureur-syndic see my papers now? He will find them in good order." For on that score at least, since his interview at Caen, he was happy.

As the citizen expressed his desire and readiness to do so without any demur, it seemed clear that he had not caught the child's remarks, so that Fortuné was not called upon to put into practice the wild expedients which had scurried through his fertile brain--as, to assert that his proper name was Chevalier (which would not be borne out by those papers in the name of Duchâtel) or (on the chance that the sound of English was unfamiliar to the procureur-syndic) that Anne-Hilarion had been pedantically brought up to speak Latin on occasions. He began to pull out his papers and was preparing to leave the chaise, when the mayor suggested that he should enter instead, and since the traveller could find no good reason against this, he gathered the now tearless Anne-Hilarion out of the way--for there were only two seats--and set him on his knee, while the old man got out his spectacles and wetted his thumb for the proper perusal of the documents.

Then the soup came, borne by an elderly, responsible person of about ten. Neither she, however, nor the train of smaller fry who accompanied her were exempt from curiosity, and clambered up on both steps of the chaise to witness its consumption. Anne received the refreshment with resignation. It was all very kind and homely and unexpected, this gift from the enemy, but if anybody ever realised the discomfort caused by coals of fire on the head, it was M. de la Vireville. Nor was he unaware of the ludicrousness of his position, conscious that possible pursuers on the road from Caen might overtake them because their postchaise, instead of hastening towards the coast, was stationary in the _place_ of Villers-Bocage, while a little boy unwillingly drank soup in the company of the official who ought to be arresting them.

The old mayor, who was taken with Anne because, as he explained, his numerous grandchildren were mostly girls, would plainly have liked to talk to him--a proceeding which, in the child's present unnerved state, would surely have resulted in some disastrous revelation or other. But Anne, for once, was not inclined to converse, and also there was the soup to be disposed of. Never, to La Vireville's knowledge, had soup been so hot in this world; it seemed to him that it must have been specially heated by demons in a lower, so long did it take to consume.

At last--at long last--the ordeal was over, the nearly empty bowl handed back to Toinette, her train ejected from the steps, the postilion on his horse, the charitable old procureur-syndic back, smiling, on the stones of the _place_. The horses jerked forward . . .

"Well, nephew Annibal," began La Vireville, "of all the uncomfortable quarters of an hour----" But nephew Annibal, worn out by emotion and full of good soup, had fallen instantly asleep like a puppy, his head against the Chouan's breast.

(3)

Fortuné shifted the child so that he should lie more comfortably. Tear-stains were on Anne-Hilarion's cheeks, and round his mouth traces of the refreshment which his harassed uncle had forced upon his appetite. "Pauvre mioche!" thought 'Monsieur Augustin,' looking down at the head now resting on his arm. And he thought also, "I never knew he had it in him to be so troublesome!"

For himself, he fell into reflection over recent events--the first opportunity, so it seemed to him, that he had had to review them in quiet, for on board the _Trois Frères_, a peaceable enough refuge in itself, he felt always on the point of having to talk to the captain or to fend off awkward inquiries. Yet it was in the captain's cabin, after breakfast that first morning, that Anne had given him a more or less detailed account of happenings at Rose Cottage; how M. Duchâtel had taken him to the Cathedral and had been very friendly and talkative, and of the particularly sound sleep which had come upon him, Anne-Hilarion, that evening. It had needed questioning to bring out the story of Mlle. Angèle's nasty-tasting posset, for he was too innocent to connect that draught with his slumbers. No details, however, could be furnished of the departure from Dover, anxious as Fortuné was to obtain them, for the simple reason that the small traveller had not wakened till midway between England and France, in what he had reported to be "a little ship, not so big as this." From what he could gather La Vireville thought it must have been a lugger, Heaven knew how procured.

On arrival at Calais, M. Duchâtel appeared to have conveyed Anne, frightened, as he admitted, but still somewhat stupefied, to a private house--unidentifiable from the child's description--to have put him to bed and left him behind a locked door, lest, as he put it, his father's enemies should break in and steal him away. For he had told Anne that he was taking him to France by his father's wish, expressed through the old ladies, his father's friends, and the child had believed him. So Anne thought he was going to Verona, and at first was not ill-pleased.

It had been, he thought, afternoon when he had been imprisoned in this way at Calais, and yet they had not left that town till next day; of that Anne was positive. He could give no reason for the delay. La Vireville was driven to suppose that Duchâtel had some secret service business of his own in Calais--possibly unknown to Mme. de Chaulnes, who had spoken so exultantly about the twenty-four hours' start. Moreover, he probably little expected to be pursued so soon. But the delay in Calais had been providential from Fortuné's point of view. He could not help wondering now, or a second or two, whether, supposing the pursued to be at present hunting the pursuer, the soup episode might not prove as providential from Duchâtel's.

That was all the conversation which he and Anne had had on the point at the time, owing to the advent of a sailor into the cabin; but later, that evening in fact, as Anne was looking over the side at the water, tinged with sunset, which heaved slowly past, he suddenly said:

"The ship I came from England in moved about more than this, M. le Chevalier."

"Mon oncle," corrected La Vireville, looking round to see if anyone was in earshot. "Did it, Annibal? Were you frightened?"

"I was down in a cabin," said Anne. "I could not see the sea then. But I knew I was in a ship. And I thought"--he paused, and then went on--"I thought you were drowned, mon oncle, and that it was my fault."

"Thought I was drowned, child? How could that be--and why should it be your fault?"

"Like my dream," said the little boy, staring hard over the bulwark at the sea. "You were drowned because . . . because I . . . I told _them_ things about you." His face was scarlet.

"Well, my child," said the émigré, putting his arm round him, "it does not matter so much if you did." And, seeing signs of still greater emotional discomfort, he embellished this questionable statement. "It does not matter the scratch of a pin. I like to be talked about, Anne--it's a failing of mine! . . . But everybody doesn't, you know, little one. Did you tell them much about anybody else?"

Anne had put his knuckles into his eyes, and in a small and faltering voice had confessed that he had talked about M. de Soucy and a little about M. l'Abbé, because 'they,' the old ladies, were Papa's friends, and he did not know . . .

La Vireville took him on to his knee, and after waiting to see that the captain was not really coming right up to them, whispered to him not to cry. "You are not to blame, child," he went on. "Those old ladies cheated you, as they have cheated older and wiser folk. But there is one thing--a place, not a person . . . I wonder if you told them the name of the place where the expedition is going to land? Can you remember if you did?"

His tone was very gentle as he put the question through Anne's rather tangled curls into his ear, but there was a lively anxiety in his eyes.

"I could not remember," sighed the little boy almost apologetically. "I tried. They said they would give me a crown piece for my money-box if I could. I cannot remember it now."

"Don't try!" said La Vireville hastily, thanking his Maker, though not doubting that the name would eventually be known through some other agency.

"And I said," proceeded Anne, "that if I could remember it I would not tell them--no, that part came in my dream, where the Queen of Elfland was in the boat," he corrected conscientiously. "I said, really, that I often forgot names and remembered them, sometimes, afterwards."

"And did they ask you afterwards? Did M. Duchâtel ask you?"

It appeared that the old ladies had asked him afterwards, and that M. Duchâtel's solicitude on the point, though vain, had been extreme all the way from Calais to Abbeville. But M. Duchâtel had never, it seemed, been actually unkind (it would not have suited his book, thought La Vireville) and it was not till the episode of the Citizen Pourcelles' declamation that the Verona idea had lost its hold on Anne's mind. But then, child though he was, he had gathered from the turgid but unequivocal statements of the Ode that he was not in the company of those who could in any way be described as 'Papa's friends.'

Yet, except for that final shower of tears at Abbeville, it did not appear that the kidnapper had ever had any trouble with the little boy. The rescuer, now, could not say so much.