Gilbert Parker

“ Highness means in very truth to make me your kinsman in the succession."
"And why not, why not?" testily answered the Duke, who liked not to be imperfectly apprehended. Then he added more kindly: "Why not—come, tell me that, cousin? Is it then distasteful?"
Philip's heart gave a leap and his face flushed. "I have no other kinsman," he answered in a low tone of feeling. "I knew I had your august friendship—else all the tokens of your goodness to me were mockery; but I had scarce let myself count on the higher, more intimate honour—I, a poor captain in the English navy." ”

“ But if the wasp nip, you make him pay for it, the head and the tail—yes, I think -me. . . . There's the Eperquerie," he added quickly, nodding in front of him.
The island of Sark lifted a green bosom above her perpendicular cliffs, with the pride of an affluent mother among her brood. Dowered by sun and softened by a delicate haze like an exquisite veil of modesty, this youngest daughter of the isles clustered with her kinsfolk in the emerald archipelago between the great seas.
The outlines of the coast grew plainer as the Hardi Biaou drew nearer and nearer. ”

“ The Duke interjected a disdainful laugh. Suddenly there shot into Detricand's mind a suggestion, which, wild as it was, might after all belong to the grotesque realities of life. So he added with deliberation:
"If alliance must still be kept with this evil government of France, then be sure there is no Vaufontaine who would care to inherit a duchy so discredited. To meet that peril the Duc de Bercy will do well to consult his new kinsman—Philip d'Avranche."
For a moment there was absolute silence in the room. The old nobleman's look was like a flash of flame in a mask of dead flesh. ”

“ He said the last words slowly, for, whatever else he was, he was a loyal English sailor, and he wished the Duc de Bercy to know it, the more convincingly the better for the part he was going to play in this duchy, if all things favoured.
"Tut, tut, what has that to do with it?" answered the Duke. "What has poverty to do with blood? Younger sons are always poor, younger cousins poorer. As for the captaincy of an English warship, that's of no consequence where greater games are playing—eh?"
He eyed Philip keenly, yet too there was an unasked question in his look. ”

“ At last her sagacity impelled her to say:
"If a man's eyes won't see, elder-water can't make him; if he will—ah bah, glad and good!" Both arms went round Guida, and hugged her awkwardly.
Her voice came up but once more that morning. As she left Guida in the doorway, she said with a last effort:
"I will have one bead to pray for you, trejous." She showed her rosary, and, Huguenot though she was, Guida touched the bead reverently. "And if there is war, I will have two beads, trejous. ”

“ While Philip spoke the Duke never took eyes from his face—that face so facile in the display of feeling or emotion. The voice also had a lilt of health and vitality which rang on the ears of age pleasantly. As he listened he thought of his eldest son, partly imbecile, all but a lusus naturae, separated from his wife immediately after marriage, through whom there could never be succession—he thought of him, and for the millionth time in his life winced in impotent disdain. He thought too of his beloved second son, lying in a soldier's grave in Macedonia ”

“ The splendour of youth is its madness, and the splendour of that madness is its unconquerable belief. And great is the strength of it, because violence alone can destroy it. It does not yield to time nor to decay, to the long wash of experience that wears away the stone, nor to disintegration. It is always broken into pieces at a blow. In the morning all is well, and ere the evening come the radiant temple is in ruins.
At night when Guida went to bed she could not sleep at first. ”

“ Your Highness knows well what honour claims of me."
"There are hundreds of officers to take your place; in the duchy of Bercy there is none to stand for you. You must choose between your trade and the claims of name and blood, older than the English navy, older than Norman England."
Philip's colour was as good, his manner as easy as if nothing were at stake; but in his heart he felt that the game was lost—he saw a storm gathering in the Duke's eyes, the disappointment presently to break out into wrath, the injured vanity to burst into snarling disdain. ”

“ Philip set his teeth, but replied: "I am overwhelmed to meet one whose reputation is known—in every taproom."
Neither had chance to say more, for the Duke, though not conceiving the cause or meaning of the biting words, felt the contemptuous suggestion in Detricand's voice, and burst out in anger:
"Go tell the prince of Vaufontaine that the succession is assured to my house. Monsieur my cousin, Captain Philip d'Avranche, is now my adopted son; a wife is chosen for him, and soon, monsieur le comte, there will be still another successor to the title." ”

“ In more than a little the Duke was superstitious, and on the day when he met Philip d'Avranche in the chamber of M. Dalbarade he had twice turned back after starting to make the visit, so great was his dislike to pay homage to the revolutionary Minister. He had nerved himself to the distasteful duty, however, and had gone. When he saw the name of the young English prisoner—his own name—staring him in the face, he had had such a thrill as a miracle might have sent through the veins of a doubting Christian. ”

“ Look at France now, they all fight each other there, ma fuifre! When folks begin to slap faces at home, look out when they get into the street. That is when the devil have a grand fete."
Guida's face grew paler as he spoke. The eyes of Maitresse Aimable were fixed on her now, and unconsciously the ponderous good-wife felt in that warehouse she called her pocket for her rosary. An extra bead was there for Guida, and one for another than Guida. But Maltresse Aimable did more: she dived into the well of silence for her voice; and for the first time in her life she showed anger with Jean. ”

“ Have less egotism, less vanity, monsieur. You are no more than a million others—and I—I am nothing. Come, come, there is more than one duty in the life of every man, and sometime he must choose between one and the other. England does not need you"—his voice and manner softened, he leaned towards Philip, the eyes almost closing as he peered into his face—"but you are needed by the House of Bercy."
"I was commissioned to a warship in time of war," answered Philip quietly, "and I lost that warship. When I can, it is my duty to go back to the powers that sent me forth. ”

“ Even as they rounded the point, up ran the tricolour to the brig's mizzen-mast, and the militant shouts of the French sailors came over the water.
Too late had the little yacht with her handful of guns seen the danger and gone about. The wind was fair for her; but it was as fair for the brig, able to outsail her twice over. As the Hardi Biaou neared the landing-place of the Eperquerie, a gun was fired from the privateer across the bows of the Dorset, and Guida realised what was happening. ”

“ It can come but once, this dream, fantasy, illusion—call it what you will: it belongs to the birth hour of a new and powerful feeling; it is the first sunrise of the heart. What comes after may be the calmer joy of a more truthful, a less ideal emotion, but the transitory glory of the love and passion of youth shoots higher than all other glories into the sky of time. ”

“ Why had Philip failed to keep his promise not to see her again after the marriage, till he should return from Portsmouth? It was selfish, painfully, terribly selfish of him. Why, even though she had been foolish in her request—why had he not done as she wished? Was that love—was it love to break the first promise he had ever made to his wife?
Yet she excused him to herself. Men were different from women, and men did not understand what troubled a woman's heart and spirit ”

“ When France's great trouble came to her, and the nobles fled, or went to fight for the King in the Vendee, the old Duke, with a dreamy indifference to the opinion of Europe, had proclaimed alliance with the new Government. He felt himself privileged in being thus selfish; and he had made the alliance that he might pursue, unchecked, the one remaining object of his life.
This object had now grown from a habit into a passion. It was now his one ambition to arrange a new succession excluding the Vaufontaines, a detested branch of the Bercy family. ”

“ The Duke was too blind with anger to see the start of recognition his visitors gave at sight of each other, and by a concurrence of feeling neither Detricand nor Philip gave sign of acquaintance. Wariness was Philip's cue, wondering caution Detricand's attitude.
The Duke spoke first. Turning from Philip, he said to Detricand with malicious triumph:
"It will disconcert your pious mind to know I have yet one kinsman who counts it no shame to inherit Bercy. Monsieur le comte, I give you here the honour to know Captain Philip d'Avranche." ”

“ Jersey, England, the Navy, seemed very far away.
Ambition was the deepest passion in him, even as defeating the hopes of the Vaufontaines was more than a religion with the Duke. By no trickery, but by a persistent good-nature, alertness of speech, avoidance of dangerous topics, and aptness in anecdote, he had hourly made his position stronger, himself more honoured at the Castle Bercy. He had also tactfully declined an offer of money from the Prince—none the less decidedly because he was nearly penniless. The Duke's hospitality he was ready to accept, but not his purse—not yet. ”

“ For what can long depress the youthful and the loving when they dream that they are entirely beloved? Lands and thrones may perish, plague and devastation walk abroad with death, misery and beggary crawl naked to the doorway, and crime cower in the hedges; but to the egregious egotism of young love there are only two identities bulking in the crowded universe. To these immensities all other beings are audacious who dream of being even comfortable and obscure—happiness would be a presumption; as though Fate intended each living human being at some one moment to have the whole world to himself. ”

“ A strong wind came rushing up the valley through the clear sunlight, the great trees beneath the castle swayed, and the flapping of the tricolour could be heard within. From the window-sill the dove, caught up on the wave of wind, sailed away down the widening glade. ”

“ Since that minute he, like Philip, had been in a kind of dream; on his part, to find in the young man, if possible, an heir and successor; on Philip's to make real exalted possibilities. There had slipped past two months, wherein Philip had seen a new and brilliant avenue of life opening out before him. Most like a dream indeed it seemed. He had been shut out from the world, cut off from all connection with England and his past, for M. Dalbarade made it a condition of release that he should send no message or correspond with any one outside Castle Bercy. He had not therefore written to Guida. ”

“ He roused himself again, brushed imaginary snuff from his coat, keeping time with his foot to the wheel as it went round. "I—I suppose she will wed soon. . . . I had forgotten. But she must marry well, she must marry well—she is the godchild of the Duc de Mauban. How the wheel goes round! I used to hear—her mother—sing that song, 'Gigoton, Mergaton spin-spin-spin.'" He was asleep.
Guida put by the wheel, and left the house. Passing through the Rue des Sablons, she came to the shore. It was high tide. This was the time that Philip's ship was to go. ”

“ There are the grave formalities of adoption to arrange; these I shall expedite. You shall see, Master Insolence—you, who'd throw me and my duchy over for your trade; you shall see how the Vaufontaines will gnash their teeth!"
In his heart Philip was exultant, though outwardly he was calm. He was, however, unprepared for what followed. Suddenly the Duke, putting a hand on his shoulder, said:
"One thing, cousin, one thing: you must marry in our order, and at once. There shall be no delay. Succession must be made sure. I know the very woman—the Comtesse Chantavoine—young, rich, amiable. ”

“ How brightly the stars shone, how clearly the music of the stream came over the hedge! With what lazy restfulness the distant All's well floated across the mielles from a ship at anchor in the tide-way, how like a slumber-song the wash of the sea rolled drowsily along the wind! How gracious the smell of the earth, drinking up the dew of the affluent air, which the sun, on the morrow, should turn into life-blood for the grass and trees and flowers!
CHAPTER XVII Philip was gone. Before breakfast was set upon the table, Guida saw the
Narcissus sail round Noirmont Point and disappear. ”

“ From his roundabout approach up the steep cliff in the dusk it was clear he wished to avoid notice. Of gallant bearing, he was attired in a fashion unlike the citizens of Bercy, or the Republican military often to be seen in the streets of the town. The whole relief of the costume was white: white sash, white cuffs turned back, white collar, white rosette and band, white and red bandeau, and the faint glitter of a white shirt. In contrast were the black hat and plume, black top boots with huge spurs, and yellow breeches. ”

“ We're ashore.' So much, monsieur le prince, for Admiralty charts and soundings! It's a hateful thing to see—the light green water, the deadly sissing of the straight narrow ripple like the grooves of a wash- board: and a ship's length ahead the water breaking over the reefs, two frigates behind ready to eat us.
"Up we came to the wind, the sheets were let run, and away flew the halyards. All to no purpose, for a minute later we came broadside on the reef, and were gored on a pinnacle of rock. The end wasn't long in coming. The Araminta lurched off the reef on the swell. ”