so it was roland, now openly betrothed to marthe, who came to la vergne a week later, bringing gaston’s letter announcing that the die was cast, and it was roland who told valentine more fully of the great gathering of royalist chiefs at la jonchère, surrounded by almost inaccessible forest, and guarded by more than a thousand peasants. the young man, though not himself admitted to the conferences, had seen some of the leaders, chatillon and bourmont and la prévalaye and sol de grisolles, and d’autichamp the vendean, and georges cadoudal whom he had missed at hennebont. their three days of deliberation had resulted in a decision for a general levy of arms in the west. the date fixed was the fifteenth of october. “not very long to wait, madame!” said hermes enthusiastically.
no, for gaston’s wife the time was all too short till the clash of arms,—but all too long till his promised visit. for in his letter he had said that before the hour of action broke he should, please god, come and show her all that was in his heart for her. and valentine looked at the words every day, as september, full of rumours, ripened towards october.
in the first week in october came the news that fighting had already begun in northern brittany, and with success, for the chevalier de la nougarède, “achille le brun,” had hardly got back from la jonchère than he raised the standard, and beat, at argentré, the republican general schildt who had come out of rennes to attack him. and even before that d’andigné, the comte de chatillon’s very competent chief of staff, had inflicted a severe little defeat at noyant on eight hundred of the old, tried soldiers who had formed part of the garrison of milan.
on the other hand there was bad news from holland, where brune had defeated the allied anglo-russian forces of the texel expedition on september 19; and worse from switzerland, where, six days later, masséna inflicted such a severe defeat on korsakoff at zurich that suwaroff, coming from italy to join his countryman, had difficulty in saving his own army. valentine was uneasy at these tidings of the republic’s triumph on a large scale, but neither she nor the other two women fully comprehended how they isolated the royalists of the west. and though she wondered why the forty-five thousand english and russians could not have been landed directly on the soil of france, in brittany or vendée, instead of in holland, she could not foresee that a little later brune’s whole army, set free by the capitulation of alkmaar, would be employed against the chouans. she worked at the last golden fleur-de-lys on gaston’s scarf, and helped mme de la vergne and marthe in their household employments and in the orchard, for there were fewer men than ever, séraphin and two of the farm boys having gone to join the lilies.
and once or twice, in that st. luke’s summer come before its time, she found her steps turning towards the sea. she went there twice with marthe. she would have liked to go there again with gaston, but she knew that desire unlikely of fulfilment. and the sea was so changed—calm with an unearthly calm; shining with a pure, still radiance, and warded by great slow-moving fleets of cloud galleons like mother-of-pearl, that were reflected, far-gleaming, in the water over which they sailed. yes, this october sea was as far removed from a tranquil blue sea of summer as from that beautiful september sea, where there had been wind and rainbow shadows—and the yellow poppy, which bloomed no longer. there shone instead the golden leaves of the poplars at la vergne, incredibly yellow against the distant sea, on the one or two days that the sea had colour. but mostly it was of that indescribable hue of nacre.
and when would gaston come?
when he did come valentine would have given everything in the world that he had not.
old colette, the cook, who had gone to the tiny village for her marketing, came back on one of these still mornings rather flustered, reporting that there were soldiers there. it was a most startling as well as a most unpleasant novelty. in none of the previous risings had blues ever been seen at la vergne. the ancient woman at first reported the invaders to be about a hundred; later she came down to a dozen.
but half that number could terrorise the place. and why were they there? the three ladies at the chateau had nothing to hide—as yet, nothing, for themselves, to fear; nevertheless they were in a fever. if word could only be sent to the “marquis de kersaint” in case he were on his road! but word could not be sent. valentine comforted herself and them by the assurance that he would not come without an escort, and would therefore have nothing to fear from a handful of blues. he would never come alone.
but that was precisely what her husband did, riding in quietly to the stable-yard at dusk of that october day, and, finding no one there, putting up his horse with his own hands. and marthe, hearing unwonted sounds, ran out from the kitchen and found him in the act, with zéphyr very much at home, and pulling down hay from his old rack.
“o, monsieur le duc! monsieur le duc!” she cried.
“mademoiselle,” said gaston, laughing, “i do indeed apologise for making free of your provender without permission. may i plead that it is for your own horse?”
she darted at him while zéphyr whinnied for recognition. “why did you choose to-day to come, monsieur de trélan? we have been so praying that you would not. do not say that you are alone, unescorted! for . . . did you not know it? . . . there are soldiers in the village!”
there was a moment’s silence. “no, i did not know it,” said the duc quietly. “had i known, i should not have come alone. but i did not enter the village, so they will not have seen me.” he paused, passing his hand once or twice over zéphyr’s neck, and said in a voice which, despite himself, revealed how intensely he disliked the idea, “i do not wish to involve you in unpleasantness. perhaps the simplest thing would be to ride away again at once.”
marthe shook her head. now that he was here, risk or no risk, he must see his wife. perhaps indeed there was greater risk in going back.
“you must stay,” she said. “and we have taken certain precautions. come to the house, monsieur le duc, and i will show you, even before you see mme de trélan.”
“and zéphyr—if they should search? he becomes your horse once more, i suppose? but my saddle, mademoiselle, what of that? unless you can persuade them that you always use a man’s!”
“here is mine quite near,” she said, pointing to it, “and it fits him, of course. yours—it has holsters, too!—we must hide in the loft.” they hid it, and in a few minutes she was showing m. de trélan the old hiding-place in the dining-room. “it is very ingenious, the way one gets there,” she added.
it was very ingenious. against the painted panels stood a massive sideboard which four men could scarcely have stirred from its place. but when marthe touched a spring a section of it turned upon itself and gave access to a tiny room behind, whose door formed part of the panelling.
“a very charming little retreat,” observed the duc, smiling. “but i hope that you do not expect me to deprive myself of your society, mademoiselle, by spending all my time in there?”
“we should be the last to wish to banish you, monsieur. but there it is ready, if you—get tired of us! yet i think you have run all the risk you are likely to run . . . unless they know.”
“that, i think, is impossible,” said gaston. and then valentine, attracted by voices, entered. marthe slipped out with the speed of a swallow.
“o my darling, my darling, why have you come?” was her first word.
“ma foi,” returned her husband gaily, as he kissed her, “apparently to be put aside, like the bread, in that sort of garde-manger there—at least that is the fate mlle marthe designs for me. it is not my intention, however.”
“gaston, you should not have come!” she repeated.
“chère amie, what a greeting. shall i go again?”
“no, no!” she clung to his arm. “you did not know, of course!”
“no,” he said more gravely, “i did not know. it would not have been right for me to come if i had known.” then he looked at her and said with deliberation, “i am only thankful that i did not know!”
they had all of them that in the blood which responds to the stimulus of danger, and supper, in the room whence the hiding-place was so easily accessible, was a cheerful meal. during its course news arrived that the soldiers had left the village altogether. so they went with light hearts into the salon, and there the leader of finistère told the three ladies what in a few days they would divine for themselves, the outline of the main plan of campaign, and why what seemed the hazardous plan of attacking large towns instead of small was the better. for in the small towns, violently anti-royalist as they were, the whole population was armed, and the walls and palisades loopholed, so that the losses involved in the capture of such positions, without artillery, would be too heavy to be worth incurring. on the other hand the large towns were often insufficiently garrisoned for their size, opinion therein was more moderate, sometimes secretly favourable, and even an unsuccessful attack would benefit the royalists, since it would draw off the republican troops from the country districts.
“it is a good thing that we are going to begin fighting in earnest,” he concluded, “for soon i shall not be able to hold in my followers. do you know what lucien and roland did the other day for a wager—strolled, in full uniform, through the streets of lanvennec in broad daylight! the republicans were just changing guard, and were, i fancy, too much petrified by their audacity to take in what was happening. anyhow my young sparks had completed their promenade before the chase began. it was i who had them arrested.”
he had barely finished the story when steps came flying down the passage, the door was unceremoniously opened, and marthe’s maid, shutting it behind her, stood there panting. “soldiers!” she gasped, “they are in the house . . . some in the garden . . . they are coming here now.” indeed, through the closed door could clearly be heard approaching feet and the clank of spurs—feet that cut off the possibility of swift retreat to the cachette in the dining-room. in another moment their owners would be in the salon.
valentine, turning quite white, went to her husband’s side, and gaston, who had jumped up, looked quickly round the room. “the window,” he suggested; but at the same moment came a blow on the shutters outside.
“no, no!” exclaimed marthe, as pale as mme de trélan. “behind you—the hangings!” and she all but pushed him to the wall, parted the hangings of woven indian stuff, and with her little hands drew them hastily over him again. then she ran to the long window, on which repeated blows were raining. mme de la vergne, nervous but collected, went to the door. and valentine was left by the hearth to see that marthe’s work was not completed. for under the thin gay riot of branches, birds and flowers that concealed him, were only too plainly visible gaston’s boots—the hangings did not quite reach the floor. it seemed to her that in that second she knew the concentrated anguish of a lifetime—for marthe’s quick wit had been right; it was the only possible place in the room. yet she had seized a brocaded cushion from the sofa, had cast it down against the hangings on her husband’s feet as though it had fallen there, and, placing a low chair in front of it, had herself sat down as a living screen, all before the door actually opened and the republican officer and his men came in.
if the search had been anything but perfunctory, gaston de trélan must have been discovered. but the officer, it was obvious, had no idea whom the chateau de la vergne was harbouring, nor indeed, that it was specifically harbouring anybody, and he was almost apologetic at disturbing the ladies. but—orders were orders. round the salon, therefore, he merely took a long glance, and when they had searched the rest of the house with about the same particularity, the blues went away, and the inmates of the chateau could sleep in perfect security.
but not valentine. for all her courage and resource she came near breaking down when she was at last alone with her husband.
“i feel as if i should never sleep again!” she said, pressing the palms of her hands over her eyes. “i see nothing but those men’s faces and the way they looked round the room. gaston, gaston, i am not fit to be your wife!”
“never would i have come,” said he remorsefully, holding her in his arms as they stood by the hearth in her room, “never would i have come had i known it would be to put you to such strain!”
“gaston, is it true that the royalists have no artillery?”
“yes,” he replied unwillingly.
“and these republican victories in holland and switzerland—are they not very unfortunate?”
“they are not fortunate, certainly. but the greater the odds, the greater the glory.”
“gaston, i . . . i do not think i can let you go!”
to this he said nothing, but very tenderly kissed her hair, as he held her. and now she began to see the price that every woman pays who stands where she did.
“you know,” she said, after a pause, “i think i must be, ordinarily, without imagination. i think of you and danger always, every moment that i breathe, but they never seem together, and only to-night, when danger was in the room with you and i sat there pretending to sew—thank god it was not your scarf that i had—thinking every moment that one of them would pick up that cushion and you would be dragged out—it was only then that i realised what danger is. . . .”
but all night she realised it, and all night, whether she woke, or slept in snatches, she saw the price that she must pay, although he was safe for the moment at her side. gaston, too, lay long awake, and they talked; but he must rise and ride away before sunrise, and, campaigning having given him the gift of sleep at will, after a while he slept.
he could sleep, yes; for though reluctant to leave her he was going to what he desired, to what she—strange irony—had prayed, years ago, that he might desire—a man’s work, a man’s hazards, a man’s endurances. long unanswered, that slow prayer of hers had found ample fulfilment now . . . and she was beginning to learn the cost of its realisation. his hand held at last the hilt of a blade that was worthy of him—but its point was in her heart.
once in her torment she slipped out of bed and wandered distractedly round the dark room. she went, without conscious purpose, towards the deep recessed window, and, feeling her way to the curtains, met on the window-seat something long and hard and cold. her fingers told her that it was gaston’s sword, which he had laid there. and, hating it and loving it at once, she knelt down and laid her forehead against the scabbard. “bring him back to me! bring him back!” but what could a sword do against a bullet?
valentine looked out. the night had been dull and cloudy, but it was now getting towards dawn. she had a desire to see gaston more clearly, and, leaving the curtain half drawn, she went back towards the bed. then she wished she had left the window veiled. in that grey light how pale he looked, lying there motionless in the ancient bed, whose twisted posts recalled the great candlesticks she had set out at mirabel for the requiem mass that was never said. ah, what horrible presentiments seized one in this wan, uncourageous hour! she had a yearning to wake him, to hear him speak; she even pressed her hand over her mouth as she stood there by him lest she should do it, but all the time she knew that an impulse such as that had no chance against the deep, protective instinct which immediately overrode it. he must sleep, because he would have need of strength to-day whither he went.
cold and heartsick, she crept back at last into bed and lay there, still wakeful, in agony. how often in the weeks of tension that were coming would she not lie and crave for the pain that she had now—the anticipated pain of parting. for a little time longer she could listen to his quiet breathing. to have done that to-morrow and the morrow after would be the whole of bliss, for she would have known that he was safe. but to-morrow night——
she did fall asleep in the end. a slight sound woke her. gaston, fully dressed, was kneeling by her side.
“o, my heart, is it time already?”
“it wants five minutes, beloved.”
in that black night valentine had determined that, if it killed her, she would not fail him at the moment of parting. “i must get up, then, and give you your scarf,” she said, raising herself.
“you must fasten it on for me,” said he.
“no, gaston, not over your uniform—and you without an escort! it is too conspicuous . . . i wish now that i had not worked the ends in gold. no; hide it in your breast, and put it on when you are back!” she had slipped out of bed, had found the symbol, and was holding it close to her.
“very well, most dear,” said he, smiling. “i wanted your fingers to knot it round me, but perhaps you are right. it is from your hands that i receive it, which is all that matters.” he knelt and took it from her, kissed the folded silk, and opening the breast of his uniform, put it over his heart. she stooped over him suddenly.
“i am not worthy of you, my dearest, for last night . . . if i could have kept you back, i would. this morning i . . . i desire you to go. but i am weak, gaston; only promise me that you will think of me as i wish to be in this, and not as i . . . as i am!”
still kneeling, he caught her hands. “have you then so little knowledge of what you are to me, valentine—you, my star, my standard with the lilies, my oriflamme itself!”
