D. K. Broster

“ At one end was a multitude of silver-stemmed birches, of whom some loved the loch (or their own reflection) so dearly that they leaned over it until the veil of their hair almost brushed its surface; and with these court ladies stood a guard of very old pines, severe and beautiful, and here and there was the feathered bravery of a rowan tree. Everywhere underfoot lay a carpet of bogmyrtle and cranberry, pressing up to the feet of the pungent-berried junipers and the bushes of the flaming broom, now but dying fires. ”

“ Ten minutes later Louis with his score of men had dashed into the dusk and the wind and the singing bullets.
The minute hand had made more than half the circuit of the Sèvres clock in the Marquise’s boudoir, the dusk had deepened to dark, the sound of firing had drifted away, before the tramp of feet sounded again outside the little pavilion door. Some one knocked vigorously with the hilt of a sword, and the old man waiting anxiously in the passage hastened to undo the bolts. His round of lantern light fell on a white scarf and a smiling mouth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So, beneath the cavernous half-seen gilding of the great Salle Verte, down the basement stairs and along the bare prison-like corridor below, carrying the lamp, went the Duchesse de Trélan in her respectable black dress and fichu, and behind her walked, still half stupefied, the man who had once made such persistent and unavailing love to her. And it was in this guise, very exactly that of a thief in the night, that the Comte de Brencourt came for the first time to her house of Mirabel. ”

“ One shot sped over the bowed head into the trunk of the beech, the other ploughed straight across L'Oiseleur's breast, cutting the ribbon of his Cross of St. Louis as neatly as though it had been done on purpose, and sending the cross itself spinning to his feet. But he never moved.
And after a little the clearing, recently so clamorous with emotion, was quiet again, and a bird, hopping cautiously out on a twig of the beech tree, looked down with one round, bright eye on the strange fruitage it bore. Probably it had never before seen a man stand so still. ”

“ And as his head sank back in profile on the low pillow M. des Graves recognised him.
He was terribly altered; his face, with its shadows, its pinched nostrils and hollow temples, waxlike in pallor and transparency. Round the mouth and on the brow was scored the track of past pain, but what every lineament bore most plainly was the stamp of an exhaustion so profound that it seemed as if physical suffering must be over now for ever—could have no more power over the body on which it had so fully worked its will. ”

“ And where this shore was widest it unexpectedly sent out into the lake a jutting crag of red granite, grown upon in every cranny with heather, and crowned with two immense Scots pines.
The loch’s beauty, on this early summer morning of 1745, seemed at first to be a lonely and unappreciated loveliness, yet it was neither. On its northern shore, where the sandy bank, a little hollowed by the water, rose some three feet above it, a dark, wiry young Highlander, in a belted plaid of the Cameron tartan, was standing behind a couple of large juniper bushes with a fowling-piece in his hands. ”

“ Could a heart, not very young, break with excess of happiness and gratitude? Spring’s joy was not like this—not so secure, not so blest. Surely this, the joy of autumn, was better!
Her eyes were full of tears as she looked at the golden tranquillity before her, the still trees whence floated the murmur of Marthe’s pigeons, the late flowers, the windless blue sky behind the poplars. But they did not fall; and after sitting a moment longer gazing before her she rose, and going to the window, looked in. Marthe, alone once more, was still seated at the harpsichord. ”

“ If this Aymar, who had been so near death after paying part of it, found what remained almost more than he could endure, who could wonder? For whom had he done it—a friend, a comrade? He must love him extraordinarily. But how could any one accept such a sacrifice, greater than that of life itself? Perhaps the unknown was not aware of it. Perhaps he was dead. It was to be hoped so, for then this immolation could, surely, cease.
Not for the first time in his vigil, Laurent bent forward and felt L'Oiseleur's pulse. ”

“ The next instant she was in his arms, and her lips met his, while all the little stucco Cupids round the cornice smiled down, in the half-dusk and the firelight, at the foolish mortals who had resolved that they would never betray their hearts to each other.
“Lucienne, my love, my love!” murmured the young man passionately. “Oh, I never thought . . . I never meant to tell you. . . . Shut your eyes, and let me kiss them . . . your hair smells of violets. . . .”
“Louis, Louis!” said the girl, trying, after a moment, to free herself, “what are we doing?—Oh, what are we doing?” ”

“ Unless Puisaye, now that d'Hervilly is dying . . . though I do not believe that Puisaye is the man to save us. Yet we may beat them off."
"Will you promise me, then, to do your utmost, if the worst happens, to save yourself, for Anne's sake, if not for your own? Will you promise me that, Fortuné?"
La Vireville looked him in the eyes and gripped the hand he held. "Yes, I promise you that, René. So it be not inconsistent with honour, I will do my best to save myself—and if you are killed, and I live to return, Anne shall be my . . . son." ”

“ Versailles, Dreux, Alençon, Rennes, Pontivy—like beads on a chaplet they had slid past Valentine de Trélan, like locks on a smooth river or canal, opened for her by that bit of paper in Barras’ handwriting. She was herself amazed by the ease of her journey, that journey which was really a flight, hardly realising how much things were changed from the days, for instance, of the Terror, and how many people travelled comfortably now-a-days and contrived to elude showing their passports if they were out of date. And she had in her possession something much more potent than a mere passport. ”

“ Aymar, for God's sake! What have you to reproach yourself with—except the most damnable ill-luck? . . . Oh, mon ami, look at me, and you will see that I am speaking the naked truth!"
But Aymar did not look at him. His shoulders moved suddenly, he brought his bent left arm under his forehead as he lay there, and in a moment more Laurent de Courtomer had the dubious satisfaction of accomplishing what neither physical pain nor prolonged mental torture, neither the catastrophe of the Bois des Fauvettes nor the contempt and insults of the Château d'Arbelles had been able to bring about. ”

“ He was to die without having known the best that life could give him. It would have been some comfort to remember at the last that he had had his heart’s desire. It was the very poorest kind of consolation to feel that he might have known it, and had not. It seemed to the young man that he could better have borne to see Gilbert and Lucienne together with his own living eyes (as indeed he had schooled himself to realise that he must see them) than that their union should date from an epoch when he, blown somewhere about the winds of the world, could no longer behold it. ”

“ Or am I dead, too?”
“The Duchesse is not alive,” responded Valentine with a faint smile. “You are speaking to Madame Vidal, the concierge of Mirabel.”
“Good God!” exclaimed the Comte de Brencourt, springing upright.
“How else do you suppose I could be here?”
“You are jesting!” cried he, still incredulous. “You . . . you . . . a concierge! Does no one know you? Then you are poor—in want! Madame, Madame! . . .”
Valentine lifted a hand. “Please, Monsieur de Brencourt, do not agitate yourself! I am not in want. There is no one left at Mirabel to recognise me—my portrait had a pike put through it. ”

“ Ah, my dear Avoye, with your little white ingénue's mind . . . if you knew!"
"Please drop these hints, Eulalie, and tell me straight out what you mean!"
"With pleasure," replied Mme de Morsan, arranging her mantle. "Ask Aymar, then, whether he did not really send his famous letter to the enemy as the price of a woman's life!"
"Absurd!" exclaimed Mme de Villecresne, now thoroughly roused. "I wonder you have not more sense!"
Eulalie smiled sweetly. "Oh, I know why you are angry. You think that there is only one woman in the world for whom Aymar would do such a thing." ”

“ But the accompaniments of life had been beyond the ordinary, and the stress of war, the daily perils, the spectacle of the faith which inspired the humble to fight and taught them how to die had ripened to an early unfolding the seed which had never room to grow until, in that bitter conflict, Gilbert had torn up for ever the upas-tree of his own overshadowing will. ”

“ No news had come yet, but the Allée was at such a short distance from the farm that if it came she could easily be informed.
So she walked among the menhirs, Les Vieilles, Les Veilleuses, and the menhirs watched her as she went, and she knew it. They were yellow with lichen, rust-red with it, grey with it; the heather was about their deep roots, older than the oldest trees. Ancient, terrible, venerable, four ranks of them, they marched for ever up the rise and over it towards some invisible goal. Valentine de Trélan with her forty-five years felt very young, very ignorant beside them. ”

“ Highly pleased at this unwonted manifestation of interest, Laurent sat down by the window. Captivity had hardly yet had time to be irksome; he had been too much occupied. But, even if La Rocheterie's life no longer depended on his care, he had no visions of escape, though obviously the climb down from the unbarred window presented only one difficulty to a young and vigorous man—the sentry below. Laurent's heart, however, was chained for the present in this room, where he had acquired something personally more precious than what he had lost. ”

“ And the priest looked at Gilbert as the latter lay back in his chair smiling at the violent love which Louis and his spaniel were making to each other, and knew that he and his spiritual son were at last in that relationship of perfect understanding which had always been his ideal and which he had never thought would come to be. The ascetic in M. des Graves let itself be swept outwards on that warm tide of affection. He began to experience a very natural and human longing to break down a little the inflexible barriers which he had built about his own inner life. ”

“ When did any captured Breton or Vendean, even the humblest peasant, ever ask for mercy? Thousands of them have laid down their lives readily in the cause they fought for, and hundreds of gentlemen, too. And would you have me—through your mouth or my own it matters little—would you have me, a leader, be the first in either of those lists to play the recreant? Was it for that you wrought and gave me that scarf there—that when the crucial moment came I should deal the cause it represents such a stab in the back as my humiliation would be? ”

“ Lying there so straight and motionless and low, Aymar de la Rocheterie, in the hands of his enemies, had the aspect of a dead Crusader.
And it was of him that vile thing had just been said, the other side of the door!
Laurent stood petrified. He felt himself guilty, polluted, a party to that terrible lie. His instant impulse was to cry to the still figure, "Forgive me for having even heard it—for not having had time to deny it for you . . . this idea of a madman! You betray your men!" Then the knowledge swamped him like a flood to what deaf ears he would cry. L'Oiseleur was . . . surely . . . ”

“ For a long moment there was intense silence, into which only the clock on the mantelpiece intruded. At last he spoke. “I want to help you, Louis; I think you know that.”
Louis lifted a pale, dangerous face. “I don’t know anything,” he said with extraordinary intensity. “I have no feelings about anybody in the world—except Gilbert. And I hate him. . . . Let me go!”
The priest stood aside. “You can go, Louis. . . . Twenty years of comradeship and two days hatred. . . . Perhaps you can see better than I how it will end. God have mercy on all of us!” ”

“ Think of our enemies saying, ‘At the last moment the Duc de Trélan’s heart failed him, and he humbly besought the First Consul for his life.’ How would that sound in the streets of Paris next week . . . and when the King comes back?”
Valentine flinched. Her lips were grey. Indeed she did not like the sound of it.
“But, Gaston,” she said, those lips quivering, “for the cause you have done more than enough. You have done everything that mortal man could do, you, the last in arms—more than Cadoudal, who was so strong—more than all the rest!” ”

“ My name is Courtomer—Laurent de Courtomer. I have always lived in England."
"And mine," said the other, setting down his glass, "is La Rocheterie—Aymar de la Rocheterie, at your service. For my part, I have always lived in France."
"What!" cried Laurent, nearly bounding out of his blanket. "La . . . La Rocheterie . . . L'Oiseleur! You, Monsieur, are L'Oiseleur! Is it possible!"
In a lesser degree his companion also showed surprise. "My name is then known to you, Monsieur? But this is not Brittany!"
"But I am a Frenchman—and a Royalist!" cried M. de Courtomer. ”

“ I have tried—I promised the Princess—but I can’t, I can’t, Louis . . . it’s impossible!”
The heart against which she lay beat furiously, all its hot young blood vibrating to her words. The ghostlike room went dim; she alone was real—too real, overpoweringly human and appealing. And everything pleaded for her—the scent of her hair, Saint-Ermay’s own temperament, his past of facile conquests. . . . Probably only one thing could have saved him; it was on his side now.
“Lucienne,” he said in a strangled voice, “it is impossible. I cannot be such a hound, though God knows I would like to be. ”

“ He stopped and coloured a little.
“What, Roland?”
“Forgive me, Madame, but would the Duc approve of such a step?”
Her own colour faded a little as she met his eyes. And then with courage, she answered, “No, Roland, I am afraid he might not. He is, as you know . . . very proud. But it is not as if he personally would have a hand in it. A wife’s mortal anxiety will excuse anything. I should go as one woman—as one wife—to another . . . an independent step.”
“Shall you tell M. de Trélan of it this afternoon?” asked Roland, with his eyes on the floor.
Valentine did not answer for a moment. ”

“ Oh, Madame, he has told me . . . of that wonderful devotion, that never tired . . . night after night, day after day, not only when he was so near death, but for weeks afterwards, and he—your son—unused to anything of the kind. . . ."
"I have found once or twice in my life, Madame," said Virginia de Courtomer softly, "that a man can be tenderer than a woman on occasions. I like to think that my Laurent belongs to that company." ”

“ Louis was not disturbed at the prospect; he had faced it too often. And amid the wreck of everything that makes a man’s life, of family ties, of high and warlike hopes, of love itself, he had retained a kind of serenity—a gift not always to be found in conjunction with a brilliant and reckless courage such as his, and proportionately the more valuable in the hour of disaster. Yet Gilbert was dead; M. des Graves was gone—killed or taken at Le Mans, he knew not which—he should never see Lucienne now. ”

“ As a man who is fording a river may come unexpectedly on a deep and eddying current that threatens his balance, so did Artus de Brencourt find himself losing foothold in the wholly unlooked for temptation which suddenly assailed him. Could it be blamed, the lie which should rid this beloved lady of the ghost of that worthless husband who had left her to this, the husband who in effect had been dead to her for years—and who probably really was dead by this time? For those suspicions as to de Kersaint’s identity were absurd. ”

“ M. Perrelet seemed pleased, and, presumably of set purpose, he talked a little as he did the dressings. But his patient did not respond to his encouragement, and Laurent could not disguise from himself that he himself was beginning to be a trifle . . . yes, disappointed in him. La Rocheterie was very likely in pain from the wound in his chest with every breath he drew, and, worse, was so drained of vitality that he could not move or lift a hand to help himself, but somehow one would have thought that, by this time, a man of his fibre would have rallied a little in spirit, if not in body. ”

“ Gilbert sprang up and went over to him. “Lie down!” he said. “Don’t you know me, Louis?”
“Of course I do,” responded the Vicomte in a thick voice. His eyes were extraordinarily bright. “You are Antoine de Bercy . . . I wish I had killed you . . . liar! . . . you are not fit to speak her name. . . .” His voice tailed off into something incoherent.
“Lie down!” said Gilbert emphatically, and forced him to obey. He was becoming very uneasy. A man of the most punctilious delicacy in a matter of the kind, he would rather have heard anything than his cousin’s private affairs. ”

“ M. de Brencourt’s whole soul was so set on getting Gaston de Trélan out of the mortal peril in which he stood, that he did not analyse his motives over closely. He had entered on the attempt for Valentine’s sake—and a little, too, for the sake of his own self-respect. And the Duc had sent a message of regret; from him of all men that was no empty form of words. Yet Artus de Brencourt was under the impression that he cared very little about de Trélan’s fate in itself. But it is hard to know one’s own heart. ”

“ Some three quarters of an hour afterwards Laurent stood, lantern in hand, in the smugglers' cave, the "Panier," and looked remorsefully down at Aymar, lying at his feet on the rough bed of sailcloth and seaweed in the profound slumber of exhaustion. His own burst of irritation had subsided now, and the sight of that bandaged arm made him doubly ashamed of it; though as for having forced Aymar, as he had, to use the last shred of his strength, he did not see what else he could have done. ”

“ The Comte flung out his free hand. “You are going to your death!” he said wildly. “You are mad—I have warned you . . . Where is Mme de Trélan, she might——”
“Leave my wife’s name out of your fabrications, if you please!” said Gaston like a rapier thrust, turning on his heel towards him for a brief instant. “Well, Roland?”
The thunderstruck young man approached with the cloak, and put it on his leader’s shoulders in the midst of an extraordinary silence which even Artamène did not dare to break. It was the messenger of destiny himself who broke it, with something between a sob and a laugh. ”

“ The saints see with clearness that what the world calls suffering is not always misery, and that what the world calls happiness is not always joy, and are separated by this knowledge from the society in which they live far more effectually than by convent walls. And since Madame Elisabeth de France was a saint, it was her ideals, and not the fact that she had never known the force of human passion, which made her feel that she could hardly stop to be sorry for the girl whom she loved as her own daughter. She saw Lucienne’s way so plainly. ”

“ Aymar de la Rocheterie shut his eyes and slightly shook his head. "Impossible!" He lay so a moment without moving, his hand still in Laurent's, and then, reopening his eyes, said in a rather exhausted voice, "Some day, perhaps, I will tell you the story. But . . . just now . . . there are things which I cannot tell any one. I have to ask your forbearance for that, just as I most sincerely ask your pardon for my behaviour, my want of consideration. I daresay unhappiness makes one blind, and I have not been . . . very happy."
His hand stiffened. Laurent put his other over it. ”

“ That life itself is little enough to give, God knows, but at least it is more than I should have been able to give had I been killed in Brittany, where all we tried to do by the sword has proved so vain. For to fall like this means immortal shame to the conqueror, and you will see, Valentine, that the blot of the violated safe-conduct and its sequel will not easily or soon be washed from Bonaparte’s reputation, whatever lustre the future may add to it; and so I like to think that my death will do more for the cause than my life could ever have done. ”

“ With eyes tightly shut as if she were unwilling for outward objects to break the trance of misery, she recalled every detail of Gilbert’s visit. Shame, and something like anger at her own stupidity, came over her, for now he must know, he must guess their secret. Not even Gilbert could think that she cared like that for his cousin. But the torturing anxiety for Louis came to banish her own confusion. If only he were safe, nothing mattered; the world might think what it liked. It was only Louis, Louis that she wanted! ”

“ It was plain that he did not know what he was doing.
“I wager he is thinking of a woman,” whispered Artamène, bringing himself nearer to his friend. “It seems a quieting occupation; suppose we think of one too! But on whom shall I fix my thoughts . . . and you, Roland?”
A slight flush, invisible in the poor light, dyed young de Céligny’s cheek as he answered, with a suspicion of embarrassment, “I will think of that poor old lady next door. Will the Abbé exorcise her, do you think, from the spell of . . . what was it—Mirabel? And, by the way, what is Mirabel?” ”

“ The Marquis did not move a muscle. “I don’t know,” he said.
Saint-Ermay sprang to his feet. “You can’t think it, Gilbert! I will give you my word of honour—I will swear it by anything you please. If you refuse to believe me it is your own doing. . . . My God, you must believe me!”
Still with his horrible and judicial calm Gilbert surveyed his cousin, shaken so violently from his ordinary nonchalance. At last he said slowly: “Yes, in this instance I will believe you.”
“Then, as God sees me,” said Louis solemnly, “you have not the slightest shadow of a foundation for your suspicion. ”

“ Valentine could believe it, but the watchers had some spell to make one linger. . . .
It was as she turned from looking at the distant pines and the sunset that she became aware she was not alone in the Allée des Vieilles. Some way off a man was standing by one of the tallest menhirs; indeed, she almost thought that he was leaning against it. It gave her a start at first to find that, when she had thought she was alone, she was being observed. He must have ridden up unheard on the heather, for outside the double avenue a black horse was bending its head towards that arid nourishment. ”

“ You intend to marry that unhappy lady with the consent of her will but not of her heart. You have been wronged in thought, I grant you; you are within your rights, I grant you—but have you no chivalry, have you no pity? Do you really mean to wreck two lives, and your own also—for nothing but misery and disillusionment can come of such a union?”
“You would suggest that I abdicate in favour of my cousin?” asked the Marquis.
“That is my meaning,” answered M. des Graves.
There was another long silence, while Gilbert, his head between his clenched hands, stared at his shoe buckles. ”