CHAPTER XVI

THE AGENT DE LA CORRESPONDANCE

(1)

It was not until the _Seaflower's_ boat was actually pulling off from the shore, and his feet were sunk in the wet sand of Porhoët Bay, that Fortuné de la Vireville realised how much more serious than he had imagined might prove the results of the ridiculous accident which had befallen him a few hours previously at St. Helier. Embarking, according to arrangement with the Prince de Bouillon, on the lugger _Seaflower_ with a view to being landed, not at Kerdronan as usual, but at Porhoët, where Grain d'Orge was to meet him, he had had the misfortune to receive upon his left foot the full weight of a refractory water-cask of considerable size, which, escaping from the hands of a clumsy sailor, had rolled vehemently down a gang-plank upon him before he could get out of its way. It is true that when he had finished swearing he had found the episode rather ludicrous, and had laughed at himself for his ill-luck, and that on board the lugger, slipping along with an easy evening breeze from Jersey, the damaged foot, though it had sufficiently pained, had not greatly incommoded him. But here, at midnight, alone on the hostile coast of France, he knew for the first time that he was indeed disabled, and that he could not fully rely on that vigorous body of his which for thirty odd years had seldom failed to respond to the often exorbitant demands that he made upon it. It was not at all a pleasant thought, and, standing there at the water's edge, La Vireville uttered a final and more fervent malediction upon the water-cask.

The boat which had landed him, with its muffled oars, was already out of hearing, though it was still visible, a lessening dark lump upon the quiet sea. Even the lugger, farther out, could almost be discerned by one who knew where to look for her, though the moon which, a week ago, had lighted the way to Jersey for Anne-Hilarion, was obscured this evening. La Vireville glanced about the beach. As far as could be ascertained in the dusk, it was quite deserted; there was no sound but the lap of the incoming tide, and no sign whatever of Grain d'Orge, who should of course have been there to meet him. And, since the émigré had no acquaintance with these few miles of coast, without a guide he was helpless; an attempt to penetrate inland would probably end in his running into an enemy patrol--in spite of the truce, the last thing he wished to do--and even in Porhoët village he had no idea which house he was to make for. Moreover, he was lame--a great deal more lame than he had had any idea of, or he would hardly have landed. . . . And, cursing Grain d'Orge, he began to limp away from the water's edge. In any case, it would be more prudent to approach the low cliffs, where it was darker, than to stand where he was; and under the cliffs, if nothing better offered, he must wait for his dilatory guide.

M. de la Vireville went painfully over the tract of large, rolling pebbles between him and the cliffs, the sweat breaking out on his forehead; but, not having 'chouanné' for nothing, he set his teeth and persevered, throwing his weight as much as possible on his sound foot and on the stick with which the captain of the _Seaflower_ had furnished him. "Devilish odd I must look from the cliff," he reflected, "if there's a patrol up there." But, apparently, there was no patrol, and having pursued his way unmolested up the purgatorial bank he sat down, with a sigh of relief, his back against the cliff, and waited, either for discovery or guidance.

"There is at least one thing to be thankful for," he reflected, "and that is, that I have not the child with me now." But all the same it seemed strange not to have him, and to know no anxiety but for his own personal safety--a burden he was so accustomed to carrying that he scarcely felt its weight.

* * * * *

La Vireville had been there, propped against the cliff, for perhaps half an hour, before he heard the owl's cry. He answered it faintly and cautiously, perceiving, to his astonishment, that it came from seaward, and in a little beheld the dim figure of a man detach itself from an overturned boat on the shingle. As it came towards him it looked, by some trick of the faint light, as unreal as the little bay itself, though it wore the usual peasant's costume, appropriate enough to the scene, and had over its shoulder a large net. When this individual was within distance, La Vireville told him softly what he thought of him, for the apparition was Grain d'Orge.

"I was under the boat watching the cliff," said the Chouan, undisturbed by his leader's abuse. "If I had taken Monsieur Augustin up the cliffs when he landed we might both have been shot--in spite of the truce. They shot three men yesterday. But now we can go on to the village."

"I wanted to get farther than that to-night," said La Vireville, "though the devil knows how I am to manage it now. Is it impossible to push on to Carhoët at present?"

"There are hussars quartered at Carhoët to-night," answered his guide. "They leave to-morrow, probably."

La Vireville began to struggle to his feet. "I see. That is sufficient reason against attempting it. There is another reason, too, why I should not get so far. You may have to carry me as it is, mon vieux. I am as lame as a duck. If we should chance to meet a patrol, you must run for it, and leave me to take my chance. Do you hear?"

The Breton turned a stolid face on him. "Yes, I hear. But I am not good at running. Is Monsieur Augustin ready?"

"As ready as he is ever like to be. Where are you taking me?"

"To a fisherman's cottage just outside Porhoët. There is no one there but a woman--Madame Rozel."

"The fisherman's wife?"

"His widow, some say," responded Grain d'Orge. And he then added the somewhat surprising information: "It is she who has acted as the agent of the late Monsieur Alexis here."

"Really!" said La Vireville--not that he was particularly surprised at the choice of a woman for such a post. He put his hand on his follower's shoulder, and, with Grain d'Orge's arm round him, moved off towards the cliff path.

(2)

Not a gleam of light came from the solitarily-standing little cottage when at last they reached it, but after Grain d'Orge had knocked softly its door opened as though by magic. A whisper, and the Chouan turned to his disabled leader and helped him into the blackness within, past a figure of which only the glimmering coif could be guessed. The door was shut, and then, standing rather dazed in the dark, La Vireville heard the scrape of flint and steel. In another moment the occupant of the cottage had lit the lamp that stood ready on the table, and had turned towards the two men.

The light, seeming by its suddenness more potent than it really was, showed to the émigré a woman of about thirty, of a face and figure extraordinarily unlike what he expected, just then, to see.

"Welcome, Monsieur," she said in a low voice, and the purity of the accent, coming from under the wide peasant's cap, made La Vireville jump. He stammered out something, staring at her, and then he found that she was asking him if he would not eat.

He sat down, puzzled, to the bread and meat and wine ready on the table, and the Breton, after a moment's hesitation, did the same. As a matter of fact, La Vireville was passably hungry, and not a little exhausted by his painful walk. But he could scarcely eat for watching the slim hands that cut the bread and poured his wine. They were brown enough, but the shape and the well-tended nails betrayed them. At last he began to feel annoyed with Grain d'Orge for keeping him in the dark as to the identity of his hostess, since to believe for a moment that she was a fisherman's wife was impossible. If not a lady of great quality she was no woman of the people. And, seizing an opportunity when she was gone from the room, he addressed his guide.

"What the devil do you mean by foisting me upon a gentlewoman in this fashion? Who is she?"

Grain d'Orge went on stolidly eating.

"As I told Monsieur Augustin, she is the agent for the Jersey correspondence of the late M. Alexis. She passes here as Mme. Rozel, a fisherman's----"

"Fisherman's fiddlestick!" interrupted his leader impatiently. "Do you think I am as blind as the people of Porhoët?"

"But I do not know her other name, if she have another," said the Breton. "I do not even know that of the late M. Alexis, but doubtless Monsieur Augustin knows it."

La Vireville did know it, or thought he did. Under that cognomen, he believed, had been concealed the identity of a gentleman from the St. Pol de Léon country, a M. de Kérouan or something of the sort. This, however, did not help him much, and when Mme. Rozel came back he found himself observing her for the next few minutes with an increasing interest. Her face was rather pale, with an intense clear pallor that was accentuated rather than reduced by the lamplight, and she had wide, beautiful brows. The mouth was sad and resolute; her whole expression was sad, but it was resolute too, and when suddenly she lifted her eyes and looked her guest full in the face he received, for the second time since his entrance, an unmistakable shock. They were, unquestionably, the most expressive eyes he had ever seen in a woman. The Chevalier de la Vireville divined in his hostess depths which it had been interesting to explore had not both leisure and inclination been lacking to him.

Mme. Rozel, however, veiled those eyes again and said very little, and after a time Grain d'Orge rose, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, crossed himself, muttered a prayer, and announced that he was going out to watch the roads and would not be back till morning. But La Vireville still sat on at the table, the lamplight beating full on his own lean, strongly-marked features, with their look of humour and daring, on the cleft in his determined chin, and on his dark hair, clubbed and ribboned indeed, but somewhat disordered from the sea-wind. Yet it was curiosity, not hunger, which kept him there, his half-emptied glass between his fingers, engaging his hostess in talk almost perceptibly against her will. Her replies were very brief, and at first he himself made wary conversational moves; for though he really placed almost absolute reliance on Grain d'Orge's knowledge and discretion in a matter of this kind, yet there existed always in this business, a need for caution, and there was just the hundredth part of a chance that she was not, after all, what that astute old Chouan asserted her to be--the agent de la correspondance. But Mme. Rozel's prudence, if anything, exceeded his own; indeed, after a little fencing on both sides it began to seem to La Vireville that she was--necessary circumspection apart--a trifle hostile to him. Possibly she, on her side, felt that he might not be what Grain d'Orge, when he made arrangements for her to receive him, had given him out to be. And yet, from the trend of their guarded converse, it seemed rather that she tacitly resented his coming to take the dead leader's place--for so much she allowed him to gather that she knew of his purpose. But why should she resent it?

He suddenly fired a direct question at her.

"Have you any reason to believe, Madame, that the death of the late M. Alexis was due to anything other than the fortunes of war? I have heard a rumour of treachery. It is true, at any rate, is it not, that he was surprised?"

He saw the swift colour rush over her face, and flee in an instant, leaving her ivory pallor still more pale. Instead of answering him she got up, and took the remains of the loaf to put away in the press against the wall--a pretext, the questioner was sure, to withdraw her face from his further observation.

"Yes, he was surprised," she said in a low voice, her back to him. "He was sitting at table in the farm. It was all over very suddenly. He was . . . he was shot through the head. He did not suffer. . . . O my God," she burst out suddenly, "if only I _knew_ whether it was treachery or no--and if so, whose!"

Yes, there were indeed hidden fires there! The vehemence, the breaking passion in her voice, had somehow jerked La Vireville, lame as he was, to his feet. The question flashed through him. What then had been Mme. Rozel's relations with the slain 'Alexis' that she felt his loss thus acutely? Purely those of political partisanship? Or had she, perchance, been his mistress? The thing was not unknown among the Royalist leaders in the West of France, though it was rare. There was Charles du Boishardy himself as an example--to be, in fact, in a few weeks a fatal example--of laxity in that respect, and, to cite a greater name, Charette's reputation was by no means conformable to that of the unblemished first leaders of the grande guerre, the Vendée, whose work he carried on.

With that cry, wrung so evidently from a torn heart, M. Alexis' agent had swung round from the press, and was looking full at the man who faced her across the table by which he was supporting himself.

"Que diable!" thought the émigré, "I verily believe she thinks _I_ had something to do with that ball in the head!"

Whether his surmise was painted on his countenance, or for whatever reason, Mme. Rozel next instant recovered herself, and removed those accusing eyes--if they were accusing.

"Pardon me, Monsieur," she said hurriedly, "and pray be seated again. I was so . . . so intimately associated with the plans and hopes of Monsieur Alexis that I have felt his death, I confess, very deeply."

"That is easy to understand, Madame," replied her guest, dropping back, at her bidding, in his chair. "You will perhaps permit me to offer my most sincere condolences on what is, besides, a very great loss to our cause. I hope, however, that since I am here by M. du Boishardy's express wish, and not by any desire of my own, that I may count on your co-operation?"

She too had sat down again, after that brief outburst, and seemed to have got rid, perhaps by its means, of some of her latent hostility. "As long as I can, Monsieur, certainly," she said, sighing, her cheek on her hand. "But my work here is done, and I leave in a day or two for the Channel Islands."

And at that piece of information La Vireville no longer felt any doubts as to the nature of the bond which had united her to the departed leader. He had another thought, too, about the fundamental drawback of employing a woman in a position such as hers--a point on which he kept on other counts an open mind, even recognising certain advantages in it. "A man," he said to himself now, "would not resign a post like this just because his superior officer was killed. A change of leadership is just the time when she could have proved herself of most use."

"I regret to hear that, Madame," he said aloud, drily.

"It was my--Monsieur Alexis' express wish if anything happened to him," said she, as if aware of the unspoken criticism, as if careless, too, what implications of intimacy were contained in that avowal.