“cupid is a casuist,
a mystic, and a cabalist.
can your lurking thought surprise,
and interpret your device?”
that which has been taken by the sword must be held by the sword. in corsica the blade is sheathed, but it has never yet been laid aside. the quick events of july thrust this sheathed weapon into the hand of colonel gilbert, who, as he himself had predicted, was left behind in the general exodus.
“if you are placed in command at bastia, how many, or how few men will suffice?” asked the civil authority, who was laid on the shelf by the outbreak of war.
and colonel gilbert named what appeared to be an absurd minimum.
“we must think of every event; things may go badly, the fortune of war may turn against us.”
“still i can do it,” answered the colonel.
“the empire may fall, and then corsica will blaze up like tow.”
“still i can do it,” repeated the colonel.
it is the natural instinct of man to strike while his blood is up, and the national spirit on either side of the rhine was all for immediate action. the leaders themselves were anxious to begin, so that they might finish before the winter. so the preparations were pushed forward in germany with a methodical haste, a sane and deliberate foresight. in france it was more a question of sentiment—the invincibility of french arms, the heroism of french soldiers, the napoleonic legend. but while these abstract aids to warfare may make a good individual soldier of that untidy little man in the red trousers, who has, in his time, overrun all europe, it will not move great armies or organize a successful campaign. for the french soldier must have some one to fight for—some one towering man in whom he trusts, who can turn to good account some of the best fighting material the human race has yet produced. and napoleon iii was not such a man.
it is almost certain that he counted on receiving assistance from austria or italy, and when this was withheld, the disease-stricken, suffering man must assuredly have realized that his star was sinking. he had made the mistake of putting off this great war too long. he should have fought it years earlier, before the prussians had made sure of those steady, grumbling bavarians, who bore the brunt of all the fighting, before his own hand was faltering at the helm, and the face of god was turned away from the napoleonic dynasty.
the emperor was no tactician, but he knew the human heart. he knew that at any cost france must lead off with a victory, not only for the sake of the little man in the red trousers, but to impress watching europe, and perhaps snatch an ally from among the hesitating powers. and the result was saarbrück. the news of it filtered through to colonel gilbert, who was now quartered in the grey, picturesque watrin barracks at bastia, which jut out between the old harbour and the plain of biguglia. the colonel did not believe half of it. it is always safe to subtract from good news. but he sat down at once and wrote to denise lange. he had not seen her, had not communicated with her, since he had asked her to marry him, and she had refused. he was old enough to be her father. he had asked her to marry him because she would not sell perucca, and he wanted that estate; which was not the right motive, but it is the usual one with men who are past the foolishness of youth—that foolishness which is better than all the wisdom of the ages.
from having had nothing to do, colonel gilbert found himself thrown into a whirl of work, or what would have been a whirl with a man less calm and placid. very much at ease, in white linen clothes, he sat in his room in the bastion, and transacted the affairs of his command with a leisurely good nature which showed his complete grasp of the situation.
with regard to denise, this middle-aged, cynical frenchman grasped the situation also. he was slowly and surely falling in love with her. and she herself had given him the first push down that facile descent when she had refused to be his wife.
“mademoiselle,” he wrote, “to quarrel is, i suppose, in the air of corsica, and when we parted at your gate some time ago, i am afraid i left you harbouring a feeling of resentment against me. at this time, and in the adverse days that i foresee must inevitably be in store for france, none can afford to part with friends who by any means can preserve them. in our respective positions, you and i must rise above small differences of opinion; and i place myself unreservedly at your service. i write to tell you that i have this morning good news from france. we have won a small victory at saarbrück. so far, so good. but, in case of a reverse, there is only too much reason to fear that internal disturbances will arise in france, and consequently in this unfortunate island. it is, therefore, my duty to urge upon you the necessity of quitting perucca without delay. if you will not consent to leave the island, come at all events into bastia, where, at a few minutes' notice, i shall be able to place you in a position of safety. i trust i am not one who is given to exaggerating danger. ask mademoiselle brun, who has known me since, as a young man, i had the privilege of serving under your father, a general who had the gift of drawing out from those about him such few soldierly qualities as they might possess.”
denise received this letter by post the next morning, and, after reading it twice, handed it to mademoiselle brun, who was much too wise a woman to ask for an explanation of those parts of it which she did not comprehend. indeed, she was manlike enough to pass on with an unimpaired understanding to the second part of the letter, whereas most women would have been so consumed by curiosity as to be unable to give more than half their mind to the colonel's further news.
“and—?” inquired mademoiselle—a frenchwoman's way of asking a thousand questions in one. mademoiselle brun knew all the conversational tricks that serve to economize words.
“it is all based upon supposition,” said the erstwhile mathematical instructress of the school in the rue du cherche-midi. “it will be time enough to arrive at a decision when the reverse comes. the count de vasselot or the abbé susini will, no doubt, warn us in time.”
“ah!” said mademoiselle brun.
“but, if you like, i will write to the count de vasselot,” said denise, in the voice of one making a concession.
mademoiselle brun thought deeply before replying. it is so easy to take a wrong turning at the cross-roads of life, and assuredly denise stood at a carrefour now.
“yes,” said mademoiselle at length; “it would be well to do that.”
and denise went away to write the letter that lory had asked for in case she wanted him. she did not show it to mademoiselle brun, but went out and posted it herself in the little square box, painted white, affixed to the white wall on the high-road, and just within sight of olmeta. when she returned she went into the garden again, where she spent so great a part of these hot days that her face was burnt to a healthy brown, which was in keeping with her fearless eyes and carriage. mademoiselle brun, on the other hand, spent most of her days indoors, divining perhaps that denise had of late fallen into an unconscious love of solitude.
denise returned to the house at luncheon-time, entered by the window, and caught mademoiselle brun hastily shutting an atlas.
“i was wondering,” she said, “where saarbrück might be, and whether any one we know had time to get there before the battle.”
“yes.”
“but colonel gilbert will tell us.”
“colonel gilbert?” inquired denise, turning rather sharply.
“yes. i think he will come to-day or to-morrow.”
and mademoiselle brun was right. in the full heat of the afternoon the great bell at the gate gave forth a single summons; for the colonel was always gentle in his ways.
“i made an opportunity,” he said, “to escape from the barracks this hot day.”
but he looked cool enough, and greeted denise with his usual leisurely, friendly bow. his manner conveyed, better than any words, that she need feel no uneasiness on his account, and could treat him literally at his word, as a friend.
“in order to tell you, with all reserve, the good news,” he continued.
“with all reserve!” echoed mademoiselle brun.
“good news in a french newspaper, mademoiselle—” and he finished with a gesture eloquent of the deepest distrust.
“i was wondering,” said mademoiselle brun, speaking slowly, and in a manner that demanded for the time the colonel's undivided attention, “whether our friend the count de vasselot could have been at saarbrück.”
“the count de vasselot,” said colonel gilbert, with an air of friendly surprise. “has he quitted his beloved chateau? he is so attached to that old house, you know.”
“he has joined his regiment,” replied mademoiselle brun, upon whom the burden of the conversation fell; for denise had gone to the open window, and was closing the shutters against the sun.
“ah! then i can tell you that he was not at saarbrück. the count's regiment is not in that part of the country. i was forgetting that he was a soldier. he is, by the way, your nearest neighbour.”
the colonel rose as he spoke, and went to the window—not to that where denise was standing, but to the other, of which the sun-blinds were only half closed.
“you can, of course, see the chateau from here?” he said musingly.
“yes,” answered mademoiselle brun, with an uneasy glance.
what was colonel gilbert going to say?
he stood for a moment looking down into the valley, while denise and mademoiselle brun waited.
“and you have perceived nothing that would seem to confirm the gossip current regarding your—enemy?” he asked, with a good-natured, deprecatory laugh.
“what gossip?” asked mademoiselle, bluntly.
the colonel shrugged his shoulders without looking round.
“oh,” he answered, “one does not believe all one hears. besides, there are many who think that in such a remote spot as corsica, it is not necessary to observe the ordinary—what shall i say?—etiquette of society.”
he laughed uneasily, and spread out his hands as if, for his part, he would rather dismiss the subject. but mademoiselle brun could be frankly feminine at times.
“what is the gossip to which you refer?” she asked again.
“oh, i do not believe a word of it—though i, myself, have seen. well, mademoiselle—you will excuse my frankness?—they say there is some one in the chateau—some one whom the count wishes to conceal, you understand.”
“ah!” said mademoiselle, indifferently.
denise said nothing. she was looking out of the window with a face as hard as the face of mademoiselle brun. she looked at her watch, seemed to make a quick mental calculation, and then turned and spoke to colonel gilbert with steady, smiling eyes.
“you have not told us your war news yet,” she said.
so he told them what he knew, which, as a matter of fact, did not amount to much. then he took his leave, and rode home in the cool of the evening—a solitary, brooding man, who had missed his way somehow early on the road of life, and lacked perhaps the strength of mind to go back and try again.
denise said good-bye to him in the same friendly spirit which he had inaugurated. she was standing with her back to the window from which she had looked down on to the chateau of vasselot while colonel gilbert related his idle gossip respecting that house. and mademoiselle brun, who remembered such trifles, noted that she never looked out of that window again, but avoided it as one would avoid a cupboard where there is a skeleton.
denise, who consulted her watch again so soon as the colonel had left, wrote another letter, which she addressed in an open envelope to the postmaster at marseilles, and enclosed a number of stamps. she went out on to the high-road, and waited there in the shade of the trees for the diligence, which would pass at four o'clock on its way to bastia.
the driver of the diligence, like many who are on the road and have but a passing glimpse of many men and many things, was a good-natured man, and willingly charged himself with denise's commission. for that which she had enclosed was not a letter, but a telegram to be despatched from marseilles on the arrival of the mail steamer there. it was addressed to lory de vasselot at the cercle militaire in paris, and contained the words—
“please return unopened the letter posted to-day.”
