CHAPTER XIV

CÆSAREA THE GREEN

(1)

The port of St. Helier, reached at last after such vicissitudes of seafaring, was ringing with Jersey-French and English, and here and there with the genuine tongue of Gaul, for the place was full of Royalist refugees. As the tall Frenchman with the bandaged head, holding by the hand the little boy in the dishevelled English clothes, made his way between fishermen, loiterers, and an occasional man-of-war's man from the English frigate in the roads, he nodded to an acquaintance or two, not staying, however, to satisfy the curiosity of any.

It happened that their road from the harbour led through some stalls of market produce. Anne was chattering gaily as they passed between heaps of apples and onions, when the course of his legs was suddenly checked, and, through surprise, that of his tongue also, by the fact that his conductor had stopped. He looked up, and followed the direction of his friend's eyes to where, by a stall a little farther on, two women had paused. The one was an upstanding Jersey peasant girl with a basket on her arm, the other a little elderly lady in black. At the moment one of her diminutive hands was resting on a robust cabbage, where it looked like a belated butterfly.

"No, this is larger than I require," she was saying, in the prettiest broken English.

La Vireville, followed by Anne, went up behind her and stooped over her.

"Reconsider your decision, petite maman, I pray you," he said softly. "A man is hungry after the sea, and there are two of us----"

The reticule in the lady's other hand went to earth as she turned and grasped his arm. "Fortuné! Mon fils! Dieu soit loué! But I expected you days ago! I have been in torment that you came not. Where have you been--and ah, my God, what have you done to your head?"

The little white hands went fluttering over him as if they must assure themselves that he was really there. He was so much taller than she that to meet her upturned face with its delicate cheeks and young eyes he had to stoop a long way. The kiss was given and returned among the stalls with that candour of the Latin races, the testimony of whose emotions is not confined to withindoors, and it is probable that for Mme. de la Vireville at that moment, if not for her son, the market-place did not exist. And being half French itself, it looked on with sympathy.

But the man at least remembered the existence of someone else, and while those fingers were still stroking his arm and the soft voice was yet asking him questions, he caught hold of his mother's hand.

"You want to know where I have been, ma mère? I have been in France with a travelling companion, whose acquaintance you must now make. Here he is."

Mme. de la Vireville, still under the sway of emotion, turned, looking for something of the size of her son. So at first she saw no one. Then she gave an exclamation.

"Anne, let me present you to my mother. Ma mère, this is the Comte Anne-Hilarion de Flavigny. We will tell you our adventures presently; but just now I fancy that M. le Comte is hungry."

"The little angel!" murmured Mme. de la Vireville, and this time it was she who had to stoop. "He shall come home with us at once, le cher petit."

And Anne finished his journey, therefore, holding a hand of each.

(2)

Mme. de la Vireville lived in the plainest way in a small house in St. Helier. Indeed no other manner of life was open to her, for she and her son were very poor, though they had not always been so. But resource was innate to her French blood. Besides, Jersey was dear to her--dearer at least than England would have been--for it was near France, and those expeditions in which Fortuné so frequently hazarded his life had Jersey for their starting-point. So, at irregular intervals, she was able to see him; sometimes he even slept a night or two beneath her roof. Every time they parted she knew that the odds were considerably on the side of their never meeting again. But she had in her little body the soul of a hero, and in consequence her son kept back few secrets from her; indeed, he often came to her for advice, as he would have done to a comrade. In spite of great sorrows she had about her something eternally young, something in the mind corresponding to the almost infantine freshness of her oval face under its crown of grey hair.

* * * * *

The simple meal was gay. The small visitor, bathed, brushed, even mended as to his more noticeable rents, had one side of the table to himself, and plied a very creditable knife and fork. How much he loved and admired Fortuné, and how fond Fortuné was of him, soon became apparent to Mme. de la Vireville; and when she slipped out into the kitchen to put the last touches to the salad, Jeanne Carré, the Jersey girl, observed respectfully:

"One might almost say, Madame, that it was M. le Chevalier's son sitting there at table with you!"

A vivid look of pain shot across Mme. de la Vireville's face, and was gone in an instant. "Yes, might one not, my child?" she answered quietly. But later, when she was back in the little parlour with her guests, and sat for a moment studying the two, her gaze was clouded with a profound sadness. And, as it happened, her son looked up and caught the expression. His eyes smiled at her, but his mouth was grave.

At the end of the repast Anne-Hilarion was installed in an arm-chair with a book, while mother and son conferred together on the window-seat.

"You will oblige me, Fortuné," began Mme. de la Vireville, "by going as soon as possible to a surgeon. You are telling me the truth when you say that it is nothing serious?" she added, eyeing the bandage round his head with suspicion.

"Have you ever known me lie to you, little mother?" he retorted. "The bullet must have struck the mast and glanced off on to my head, which is equally hard. I promise you that I will have the scratch attended to. But first I must make inquiries about the English frigate. Should she be sailing this afternoon or evening, as I suspect, Anne must go in her."

"You will not go with him yourself, Fortuné?"

"No, I must find an officer to whom to confide him. It should not be difficult. And after that I must see the Prince without delay; I am already four or five days late, and as usual there is some business about landing muskets."

The light that had sprung into his mother's eyes died out of them. "Surely, if you are not going to England, you could stay here this one night?"

La Vireville bent forward and kissed her. "We will see, my heart. Meanwhile, I leave M. le Comte in your charge."

(3)

A couple of hours later he returned with a young man in uniform, and Mr. Francis Tollemache, of His Britannic Majesty's Navy, had his first glimpse of a French interior.

"My mother speaks a little English," said La Vireville encouragingly in that tongue, "and Anne is fluent except when he talks Scotch. The _Pomone_ is sailing for Weymouth this afternoon," he explained to Mme. de la Vireville. "Her captain will give Anne a passage, and Mr. Tollemache, who has a few days' leave on arrival, will be kind enough to take him to London with him."

And while his mother started to captivate the young lieutenant, La Vireville took his travelling companion on his knee and told him what had been arranged. Anne-Hilarion quietly hid his face in the émigré's breast, and the latter half thought that he was crying--a rare occurrence.

"You will not mind, will you, Anne, that I do not come with you?" he asked coaxingly. "They will be very kind to you on board the man-of-war, and you will like to see a frigate. In a few days you will be back with Grandpapa; I don't suppose Papa will have got home yet. Think how anxious they must be about you in Cavendish Square!"

But Anne would say nothing save, in a little voice, "I wish you were coming, M. le Chevalier; I wish you were coming!"

And La Vireville, holding him tight, was surprised to find how much he wished he were.

"You promised to be my uncle in England also," said the little boy presently in rather a melancholy voice.

"Well, so I will, my child, when next I come over. But I have my folk in Brittany to look after now. You remember Grain d'Orge and the rest, don't you?"

Meanwhile Mr. Tollemache, at the other side of the room, had brought about the very catastrophe he wished to avoid, having from sheer apprehension talked in his own tongue (he knew no other) so fast and so loud to Mme. de la Vireville that he had caused the complete shipwreck of what had never been a very sea-worthy vessel--her English. She had therefore relapsed into French and he into silence. Perceiving this, La Vireville put down Anne and went over to them.

"Suppose, ma mère," he suggested, "that we leave the fellow-travellers to make each other's acquaintance without us?" And the next moment the Comte de Flavigny and Mr. Tollemache were left alone.

Anne-Hilarion looked a trifle shy, but eyed his new acquaintance with interest; Mr. Tollemache, on the other hand, appeared to be suffering a certain degree of anguish, and to have no idea what to say. It was Anne, therefore, who broke the ice by remarking: "You are going to take me in your ship, Monsieur?"

"Yes," said the sailor. "Old--I mean the captain has given permission."

"You are not the captain then?"

"God bless me, no!"

"That was the ship--that large one we saw at entering?"

The young man nodded. "The _Pomone_, forty-four guns. I'll show you all over her when we get on board." And, seeing the direction of the little boy's eyes, he half shamefacedly hitched forward his sword. "Would you like to look at this?"

Anne came nearer, and in order better to approximate their heights Mr. Tollemache decided to sit down. Anne then stood by his knee and examined the sword-hilt with gravity. After which he said, in his most earnest manner, "I should very much like to see your ship, Monsieur. You see, I have been in a great many lately, and they were all different. Yes, if you would please draw your sword. You have perhaps killed pirates with it?" . . .

When La Vireville came back in a quarter of an hour or so he felt--was it possible?--a tiny prick of jealousy at seeing Anne on the young lieutenant's knee. It was true that the child slipped off at once and came to him, but his conversation for the moment was entirely pervaded by the scraps of information he had just acquired about the British Navy.

"By Jove, it's time to go!" exclaimed Mr. Tollemache, catching sight of the clock. "Are the boy's things ready?"

"He has only got what he stands up in," said La Vireville, smiling. "No, here's my mother with a bundle she has put together, but Heaven knows what is in it."

"Well, there will be no lack of boat-cloaks to keep him warm," returned the sailor. "I promise you I will look after him; he seems a jolly little beggar." And he added feelingly: "It's a mercy he can talk English!"

So, farewells to Mme. de la Vireville over, they walked down to the quay, the new protector and the old, with Anne between them. A boat's crew from the frigate was already waiting at the slip. La Vireville went down on one knee and put an arm about his little comrade.

"Will you kiss me, Anne?"

For answer, Anne clung to him so tightly that a curl became entangled on a button and took a deal of disengaging. . . .

Then once again Anne was in a boat--but not with him. La Vireville turned on his heel with Mr. Tollemache's "Give way, men!" in his ears, then changed his mind, and stood watching the progress of the gig as the oars urged it forward over the dancing water. The small figure in the stern looked back at him all the time.

(4)

Philip d'Auvergne, titular Prince de Bouillon and captain in the British Navy, received the Chevalier de la Vireville rather petulantly in the little house which he inhabited under the shadow of the half-ruined castle of Montorgueil, over at Gorey. He was a good-looking, florid man of one-and-forty, somewhat overfond of surrounding with circumstance the title which had so strangely descended upon him, and converted an unknown naval officer of Jersey into a French prince of the house of Turenne--deprived, it is true, of his principality by the Revolution--while leaving him all the while a British subject. At heart he was generous and loyal.

"What the devil is this I hear about a wild-goose chase to France after a little boy, M. de la Vireville?" he began angrily. "Is this the meaning of your being so long overdue? I wanted you yesterday to land a party of émigrés near Cancale, and I had to employ Chateaubriand instead."

"Permit me to observe to your Highness," returned the culprit coolly, "that I am not, at this moment, disposed to lend my services to that side of the correspondence. My men in my own command have a prior claim on my attention just now."

"I am glad you realise that, Monsieur," retorted the Prince rather tartly. "Yet the muskets and ammunition have been waiting for them nearly a week."

La Vireville gave his shoulders a slight shrug. "The delay was unavoidable, mon Prince," he said, wondering whether it were the hot room which was making his head ache so. "I am ready to superintend the landing of that cargo whenever you please."

The Prince seem mollified. "Good," he remarked. "Sit down, M. de la Vireville, and before we go into details over that affair I will tell you an important piece of news. . . . You have nothing serious the matter with your head, I trust?"

"Nothing," the émigré assured him, as, half expecting that he was going to be told about the Carhoët command, he took a seat opposite Captain d'Auvergne at the big table, strewn with maps and papers.

"His Majesty's Government," went on the Prince, bringing out the words as if their utterance gave him pleasure, "have decided to support a Royalist expedition this summer to the coast of France, to land perhaps in Southern Brittany, perhaps in Vendée. You could co-operate with your Chouans, I suppose?"

"A little while ago, mon Prince," replied La Vireville, "I should have said No. But, having already heard of the likelihood of such a step, I took the opportunity of sounding my men on the point yesterday--by which your Highness sees that my delay has not been without fruit. And I am now convinced that I could, with some difficulty, get them to follow me to Finistère or Morbihan, but south of the Loire, no. They would never leave Brittany."

Leaning back in his carved chair, with the crown on the top, the Prince de Bouillon digested this information. La Vireville thought that his face had a little fallen on learning that the proposed expedition was no secret to his visitor. Although he liked him in spite of them, the Chouan was well aware of Captain d'Auvergne's weaknesses, and he let his gaze stray up to the framed pedigree on the wall behind the Prince's head that showed where, in the mists of the thirteenth century, that branch had burgeoned on the ancient stem of La Tour d'Auvergne which was to blossom, during the eighteenth, in the present scion. From that it wandered out of the window, whence he could see the blue expanse of Gorey Bay. He wondered whether the _Pomone_ had weighed yet. . . . Confound this beating in his head!

His Serene Highness suddenly bent forward and laid a hand on his arm. "La Vireville, I am afraid you are unwell! It _is_ your head, then; what have you done to it?"

"I beg your pardon," exclaimed the émigré, removing the hand with which he had unconsciously covered his eyes. "The fact is that I have a damnable headache--a relic of the wild-goose chase, nothing more. It will be gone to-morrow, Monseigneur."

"Then to-morrow, my dear fellow, will serve us to discuss matters. I was sure," said the good-natured Prince, "that there was something under that bandage, and that you have not had it attended to since you landed. No, I thought not. Will you take a glass of wine? . . . Well, go home to Madame de la Vireville, make her my compliments, and tell her that I am sending my surgeon to see you at once."

But as La Vireville left Gorey he wondered whether it were not rather a touch of heartache than of headache that he had.

(5)

The smile which Mme. de la Vireville gave the Prince's surgeon when, after examination of her son's hurt, he ordered him at least three days' complete rest, must have gone to his head, for, being a young man and a jocular, he remarked to his patient as he left, "You have a trifle on the breast of your coat, Monsieur--an involuntary token at parting, I take it--which you may like to know of. . . . I hope I have not been indiscreet!"

La Vireville, who, in obedience to orders, was then lying at full length on the little sofa, stared at the speaker rather haughtily and made no answer. But when the door had shut he said, "Look at my coat for me, little mother, and let us see what that farceur meant."

Mme. de la Vireville, who had the sight of a girl, bent over him, and after a second pointed to where, round a button, were tangled two long bright brown hairs.

Her son frowned, then he smiled. "Take them off, my little heart, and keep them for me. I may as well have some souvenir of my 'nephew,' since it is likely to be long enough before I see him again."

Later he was still lying there, and she sat on a stool beside him, her head resting against his pillow, her hand in his. Suddenly he said, though he had been silent a long time:

"I think if . . . I think _hers_ would have been like Anne."

She understood him perfectly, because she, and she alone, knew the bitter grave where his heart was buried.

"Yes . . . but he would have been less fair." She put her hand on his dark hair, and, drawing his bandaged head to her shoulder, kissed it passionately.