CHAPTER XXXVIII

FLOWER OF THE GORSE

(1)

A brilliant May morning of sun and wind was exulting over the beautiful harbour of St. Peter Port at Guernsey, and over the old town rising steeply like an amphitheatre from its blue waters. But the aged salt who was making his way up one of the narrow streets with a basket of freshly caught lobsters on his arm was not particularly responsive to the sunshine; indeed, the air with which he paused and mopped his red face suggested that an injured "Very hot for the time of year!" would issue from his bearded mouth in response to any greeting.

As he put away his bandana and prepared to resume his ascent of the cobbles, he observed two persons coming down, one behind the other--a young man in uniform, and, in front of him, a girl in the old Guernsey costume of chintz-patterned, quilted gown, opening in front over the black stuff petticoat into the pocket-holes of which, after the island fashion, it was tucked. This damsel came tripping down, despite the steepness of the street, happy no doubt in the conviction that the officer behind her was admiring her trim feet and ankles in their blue stockings and buckled black velvet shoes. Unfortunately the officer could not see her pretty face, framed in a close mob cap under an ugly bonnet with enormous bows. Only the ascending fisherman, at the moment, had a sight of that, and yet his gaze was fixed precisely on the soldier behind her, scenting a possible purchaser in him rather than in the native maiden. And the officer, too, seemed to have his eye on the fisherman, and slackened his pace as he came nearer. So Beauty, casting half a glance on the writhing lobsters, passed unheeded.

"I suppose you can't tell me, mon vieux, the name of that vessel just come into harbour?" asked the officer, stopping.

The uniform was English, but the wearer did not look quite English, and he spoke in French. As a native of the Channel Islands the ancient mariner accosted should have understood that tongue, but for purposes of his own he affected not to do so.

"Very fine they are, indeed, sir!" he replied, peering into his basket. "Comes from the rocks over by L'Etac, they do. You wants to now the price? Well, this one----" and he held out a freckled ebony form that slowly waved its spectral antennae at the young officer.

The latter pushed it aside with an impatient cane. "No, no--I don't want one of those things to-day. I wish to know what that vessel down there is--and I am sure you understand me perfectly!"

Having observed with one eye that the officer's other hand was moving in the direction of his waistcoat pocket, the seafarer turned both in the direction of the Frenchman's pointing cane. "Ah, yon, just about to make fast," he said, pointing, too, with the rejected lobster. "She'll likely be the Government sloop _Cormorant_, bound for Jersey, come in here with despatches. Thank you, sir! And you won't take this beauty home to your good lady?"

But the young officer shook his head with a smile, and continued his downward path to the harbour.

Although to many dwellers in a port, especially in an island port, the mere arrival and identification of a vessel is in itself a matter of interest, this young Frenchman had a particular reason for questioning the fisherman. The major of his regiment was ill; medicaments had been ordered from England, and Lieutenant Henri du Coudrais, finding himself unoccupied after an early parade, had offered, on news of the arrival of a sail, to go down to the harbour, instead of the major's servant, and ascertain if the drugs in question had come.

But the sloop, when he got down to the quayside, had only just finished making fast. Evidently she had a passenger, for he observed among the sailors on her deck a tall man in a grey redingote, whose general appearance seemed, somehow, to be familiar. But he could not see his face, and thought no more about him till in a few moments he came over the gang-plank.

And then, in one and the same instant, Henri du Coudrais saw that the passenger's left sleeve was pinned to his breast, and recognised him. A second later, and he had himself been recognised by those keen eyes.

"M. du Coudrais!" called out the newcomer. "What good fortune brings you here? I was just about to ask my way to your lodging."

The young officer had been stricken dumb for a moment. "M. de la Vireville!" he exclaimed at last. "Is it possible?"

"Why not?" asked La Vireville, holding out his hand. "But I suppose you thought that I was dead?"

"Indeed we did!" confessed his compatriot, grasping the proffered hand warmly. "After many inquiries, we were convinced at last. Then you escaped after all! But I am sorry to see . . ."

"Oh, I left that at Houat," said Fortuné composedly. "An unnecessary luxury, two arms, I assure you, mon ami. I cannot think how I ever found work for both. You are surprised to see me? Well, I am on my way to Jersey; the sloop sails again this afternoon. I came by her because she was touching here, and I wished to wait upon you and Mme. de Guéfontaine."

"For my part, Chevalier, I am delighted to see you," said du Coudrais, with much cordiality, "and I hope you will do me the honour of dining with me; but my sister, I am sorry to say, is not with me for the moment. She is over in Sark."

"In Sark?" repeated Fortuné, surprised, looking instinctively over the intense blue to where, six or seven miles away, the little island floated like a rock-set jewel. "When will she return?"

"Not until to-morrow or the day after, I am afraid," answered her brother. "She has gone over to see a poor émigré family settled in a farm there--that of an old nurse, in fact. She generally spends a night or two with them. I need not tell you, Chevalier, how sorry she will be to miss you. Could you not stay here till her return? The hospitality that I can offer you is not very sumptuous, but I should be deeply honoured by your acceptance of it."

Fortuné bit his lip thoughtfully, still looking over the sea to Sark. Then he shook his head. "I thank you a thousand times, but I cannot stay. I am awaited at Jersey. . . . Will you give me a word in private, M. du Coudrais?--over there, for instance, at the end of the jetty, would serve."

"Willingly," said Raymonde's brother, and followed him.

"You may possibly guess, Monsieur," began La Vireville, still preoccupied with the sight of Sark, "why I wish to wait upon Mme. de Guéfontaine?"

The young officer took on a very discreet air. "You are, perhaps, in need of an agent de la correspondance over there again?"

La Vireville smiled. "Of that--and more," he said. "God knows I have little enough to offer her--probably she won't even look at me--but I should be glad to know that I had your consent to address your sister."

"M. le Chevalier," retorted Henri du Coudrais, "do you suppose that I have forgotten last April? I have not met any man to whom I would sooner commit my sister. As for Raymonde--but she must speak for herself."

"You are very kind, du Coudrais," said La Vireville, but he sighed. "I wish I could think your sister would be as easily pleased. . . . It is only right to point out to you that I have neither money, nor prospects, nor a home, nor even two arms, to offer her----"

"But you asserted just now that one was sufficient," observed Henri du Coudrais, leaning back with a smile against the rail that ran out to the beacon light. "As for fortune or prospects, which of us émigrés has those nowadays? And upon my soul, I don't know a woman on earth who is less set on either than Raymonde."

"I suppose that I ought not to ask if there is any other man?"

"There was the Duc de Pontferrand; she refused him last October--just at the time, Monsieur Augustin, when she was making inquiries about you in London from the old gentleman whose name I cannot remember, who lives with a little boy in Cavendish Square."

"I know she did that, God bless her!" said La Vireville. "I did not, of course, know about the Duc." He fell silent, fingering the rail and still gazing out to sea. It occurred to du Coudrais that though he had the look of one who has weathered a long and trying illness, he yet seemed in some indefinable way a younger man.

"Why should I not hire a boat and sail over to Sark?" asked La Vireville suddenly. "My wooing must in any case be rough and ready. I could be back before the _Cormorant_ sails, if I went at once."

"Ma foi, an excellent idea!" said Raymonde's brother heartily. "That is, of course, the solution. I will procure you a boat, if you wish. You must be sure to take a native with you, even though the distance be not great, for sailing hereabouts is dangerous, if only on account of the hidden rocks--'stones,' as they call them." He looked about him. "There is Tom Le Pelley; he would serve your purpose."

(2)

A quarter of an hour later La Vireville was sailing over that laughing expanse towards the gem of rose and emerald and flame, whose beauty, though his eyes were set upon it all the while, he hardly marked. The boatman spoke of channels and swift tides, of the Anfroques, the Longue Pierre, the Goubinière, but names of reefs and rocks went by La Vireville unheeded. He was going to put to the test what Anne-Hilarion had shown him. He was liberated at last from his servitude of mind, and he wanted Raymonde--wanted her with all his heart. It was very strange to him now that he had not known this when he was with her more than a year ago.

Du Coudrais had given him the name of the farm which Mme. de Guéfontaine had gone to visit, and once landed he found it easily enough, for there were not many of them on that slender strip of an isle, pillared on its rocks and magic caves. But Raymonde was not there, and they told him that she was out on one of the headlands.

And there, after a space, he found her, among the golden brands of the gorse, looking out to sea in the direction of the coast of France. The wind blew against her; she shaded her eyes with her hand under her little three-cornered hat, as from the lovely land of exile she gazed intently at a dearer shore. She did not see him, nor, from the talk of the wind in her ears, hear his footsteps brushing through the gorse--and Fortuné stopped short, for now that he beheld her again with his bodily eyes he knew that his desire for her was even greater than he had thought, and in proportion the fear swelled in him to conviction that so great a gift could never be meant for him. So he stood there bareheaded in the sunshine, his heart mingled flame and water, aching to see her hidden face, and yet afraid to put his destiny to the touch. But at last, since she was still unconscious of his presence, he was forced to make it known.

"Madame!"

And at that she turned round with a start. Colour swept over her face and was gone again, and in her eyes there was something that was almost fear.

"Monsieur . . . de la Vireville!" she exclaimed, on a sharp catch of the breath.

It was the first time, as he instantly realised, that she had ever called him by his name, that name which was dipped for her in such painful memories.

"Me voici!" said he, and casting his hat on to a gorse bush advanced to kiss her hand.

"I . . . I am not sure . . . that you are not a ghost!" she said, not very steadily, as she surrendered it.

"Indeed I am not!" he unnecessarily assured her, for the kiss he put on it must have convinced her that he was flesh and blood, and perhaps the wave of colour which once more dyed her face derived its temperature from the warmth of that salutation.

"But you . . . M. le Chevalier, but you _have_ returned from the dead! They told me you had been shot!"

"Yes, I _have_ returned from the dead," agreed Fortuné--"for a purpose."

She did not ask what the purpose was; she still seemed shaken, uncertain of herself and of him. But her gaze, swift and compassionate, swept over everything that the sunlight showed so relentlessly--the traces of past suffering on his face, the added grey at his temples, and the pinned-up sleeve.

"Ah, que vous avez dû souffrir!" she said to herself. Then she put her hand to her head, as if she still felt herself in a dream.

"But where have you come from, M. le Chevalier?" she asked. "And why are you here, in Sark?"

He looked at her full, and answered bluntly, "To ask you to marry me!"

But as, giving an exclamation, she turned away, he hastily abandoned this ground.

"I have nothing to offer you, Madame," he went on quickly. "Neither money nor position nor a home, nor even two arms to defend you. The Republic has taken all those. And--for I am determined to be very frank with you--I must tell you that for ten years my heart has not been my own to offer. It was pledged to a memory. It has come back to me now, thank God, but I fear it has the dust of those years on it, and I am no longer very young." He paused a moment, and the sea of Sark, that is for ever booming in its enchanted caverns, gave a dull echo to his words. "It is because you too, Raymonde, have greatly loved and hated--I happen, do I not, to know how much?" he added, with the shadow of a smile--"that I am thus open with you. But my old love and hate are both over and done with now. I have a new, a better love--and it is all yours, as long as I shall live."

Mme. de Guéfontaine was examining a single childish bloom of gorse, just outgrowing its rough yellow-brown pinafore. And she said nothing.

"I have no time to wrap this meagre offer in fair phrases," went on Fortuné. "I doubt if they would improve it, and you are not, I think, the woman to care for them. I can only say this over and over again, that I love you and that I want you. It was you--the thought of you--that saved me at Quiberon; I used to dream of you at Houat. _Raymonde!_"

Still she did not answer, and stood with her head averted.

"Raymonde," said he, coming a little nearer, mingled command and entreaty in his tone, "for God's sake put down that flower and answer me!--only do not send me back to France with a refusal! If you cannot make up your mind to-day--and I must crave your forgiveness indeed for so blunt and hasty a wooing--at least let me take back with me a glimmer of hope!"

At that she looked up. Her face was transfigured, but he dared not try to interpret its new meaning.

"You are going back to France, in spite of everything, to that old life of peril and hardships?"

"Of course," said he. "But if you would accept it, I should have a home to offer you in Jersey. And when better days come----"

She interrupted him. "You misunderstand me, M. le Chevalier. I should not marry any man who was risking his life over there, to stay behind myself in safety. A wife's place, if she can help him, is with her husband." A smile wove itself into the beautiful radiance. "Shall you not need an agent at Kerdronan?"

For a second the gorse heaved beneath him. "Do you mean what you are saying?" cried La Vireville, seizing her wrist. "Will you really marry a penniless cripple who has nothing but his sword?"

Her smile was brilliant now, and dazzled Fortuné while she faced him, captive, as on a certain morning a year ago. "No, M. de la Vireville, I shall marry a man! As you know, for three years I had hated your name. But, as you wear it, I have long seen that I could not take a nobler."

* * * * *

So the woman he desired lay at last against Fortuné de la Vireville's breast, and up from the sea of gorse in which they stood welled the warm honey-sweet scent that is like no other in the world to steal away the heart. The wind had dropped to a caress; it caught at Raymonde's gown no longer, and out over the illimitable wrinkled blue, from the height on which they stood, the poised gulls looked like slowly drifting flecks of snow.

But out over there was also the long purple line of Jersey, and his pledged word. Time was all too short. As long as he lived the scent of gorse would always bring this hour to him, but the actual hour itself was measured with very few sands.

"Will you come back with me now to Guernsey, to your brother, Raymonde?" he asked softly, stooping his head.

"Yes," she answered, without moving. Her voice sounded like a voice in a dream.

"And I will return from Jersey, and we will be married at once?"

"Yes," she said again.

"My God, I can't believe it!" said Fortuné to himself, and kissed her once more.

So they went together to the little farm, itself named from the gorse, the Clos-ajonc, to tell her pensioners that she was leaving them immediately. And, no doubt to show that she did not consider him so maimed as to be incapable of affording her support, Raymonde leant all the way upon his arm.