CHANTEMERLE A ROMANCE OF THE VENDEAN WAR

BY D. K. BROSTER AND G. W. TAYLOR

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1911

“Melius est nos mori in bello quam videre mala gentis nostræ et sanctorum”

PROLOGUE SAINT LUCIAN’S DAY

It was a large room, a room in a palace grown to be a prison in all but name. A bright fire crackled on the hearth at one end, the firelight danced on the walls, the dusk drew on, and a girl looked out of the window at the whirling snowflakes.

She stood in the embrasure of the window farthest from the door, leaning her head against the glass, and her pose suggested that she was in a daydream. On this January afternoon of 1792 the Tuileries seemed deserted. Outside, in the great empty garden, the trees stood up black and bare, for the snow was not settling on them. And though the girl’s eyes followed the snowflakes, her thoughts were probably much further away, for she did not hear the door open, nor turn until she was conscious of a footfall behind her.

In front of her stood a young man. His hands were full of violets. It was light enough for her to see perfectly his handsome, smiling face, and for him, though she had her back to the window, to notice, if he chose, how the wild-rose of her cheek was enhanced by the deep mourning which she wore. Apparently the two knew each other intimately, for no greeting passed between them save a smile.

“Are those for me?” asked the girl as one who has no doubt of the answer, and she half held out her hands. “I thought you had forgotten.”

“Have I ever forgotten your name-day?” he retorted. “You should have had them this morning to greet you, but I was on guard, and promised myself the pleasure of bringing them in person.” He placed the fragrant mass in her two hands, and as he did so he caught one lightly by the wrist and kissed it. “Your subject offers his belated homage,” he said gaily.

A slow, beautiful colour mounted to the girl’s cheek, and she laid her face in the violets to cool it. “They are exquisite,” she said in a low voice. “They are more beautiful than—than some of my gifts to-day.”

The giver shook his head. “Those others must be worth very little, then, if my poor flowers can surpass them. You are flattering me, Lucienne.”

For answer the girl laid down her burden on a small table near her. “You shall see,” she said merrily, and, drawing from her pocket a shagreen case of some size, she opened it. “I know that I ought not to make comparisons, but surely your violets are more beautiful than this?”

The young man looked with a critical expression upon its contents. “Yes,” he admitted at length. “I do not care for cameos myself, though if size is a criterion of value it should be a magnificent one. The Marquise, I suppose?”

The girl nodded as she snapped to the case. “She says it is an heirloom. But I like violets better than heirlooms.”

“And what has Gilbert sent you—no, I see it on your finger. May I look?”

She held out her hand without answering, and the firelight caught the single magnificent ruby as she did so. Her companion did not take her hand.

“That,” he said gravely, “is a royal gift. I wonder still more at my presumption in making so worthless an offering, for my flowers won’t even last, like my aunt’s cameo.” And in his tone there was faint but unmistakable bitterness.

“But while they last they are better, and when they are dead you can bring me some more. I sometimes think,” went on the girl a trifle feverishly, fastening a handful of the violets in her breast, “I sometimes think that flowers have souls as we have.”

“I don’t think that they have anything so annoying,” returned the young man. “You would not like them so much if they had. . . . May I have one or two back again?”

She held out a few of the dark blossoms, and he put them silently into his coat, looking the while not at her, but at the ruby on her finger.

“You are standing all this time,” he said abruptly when he had finished, “and it grows cold here. Shall we talk a moment by the fire? I must not stay long.”

The girl moved away at once. A little shiver had indeed gone over her, and she had quite lost the colour of a few moments ago, and more besides. “You are going to the King, perhaps?” she hazarded over her shoulder as he followed her to the fireplace.

“No; to Bertrand-Moleville, if I can find him. I hardly saw a soul as I came up. Where is everybody—where is Madame de Fontenelle—and why are you alone? It is very rare to find you so!”

“The Princess is in her oratory, and will probably be there for some time. Madame de Fontenelle, poor old thing, has a bad migraine, and I think that Madame de Lessay, who is in waiting to-day, is receiving her brother.”

“I see. And what is your news from Chantemerle?”

“Nothing in particular,” replied the girl. The ruddy light from the fire smote upwards on her beautiful, dreamy face. “The Marquise is well, and Gilbert is building some new cottages. He writes that—that——”

“That he would rather you did not stay here much longer,” finished the young man, looking hard at her.

“Yes,” assented the girl indistinctly, dropping her head.

“He is perfectly right,” said Gilbert’s cousin. “Sooner or later you will have to leave the Court. The Princess Elisabeth, too, will insist.” His tone was almost hard, and she looked up with a dawn of surprise.

“Oh, not yet, Louis! There is no danger; no one would harm the Princess. Surely you do not think I need go yet?”

“You should not ask me,” answered the young man slowly in a low voice. He seemed to pick his words from a host of others ready on his lips, looking on the ground the while. “I have no—no right to advise you, and . . . and . . . Lucienne!”

The name burst from him on a cry, for they had both looked up, and with the meeting of their eyes all pretence was over between them. 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?”

“What we were always meant to do, my heart,” said he hardily. “No, I shall not let you go. I will never let you go again, little love. But we will both leave France—and in England——”

“Louis, Louis, don’t break my heart! You know we can’t!” And, abandoning her attempt at loosing herself, and clinging all the closer, she broke into pitiful sobbing.

His arms only closed round her the firmer. “Don’t cry, my darling! Of course we can. The Abbé Moustier—you remember him—is in Paris just now; I know where he lodges. He can marry us at once—to-morrow, if you like, at the Recollets. Then, when I have procured a passport, which is the only obstacle to getting away at once——”

“Louis . . . you know that there is another!” she gasped. “Gilbert . . . we can’t—you know we can’t!”

A change passed over her lover’s face; it set and hardened. “My God!” he broke out fiercely, “why should we consider Gilbert? What is his claim compared to mine? What is his happiness compared to yours—his, who has never known what it is to love, else he could never have left you so long unclaimed? Gilbert is nothing to us.” And he kissed her again.

“O Louis . . . for God’s sake let me go! You don’t know what you are doing!”

“I do know very well,” returned the young man. “I am going to take you away from Gilbert. . . . Have I frightened you, my heart? You know that for Heaven itself I would not harm you. There!” He loosed his hold, and she was free.

“Louis . . . you cannot, you dare not do such a thing!”

“Do you think that I am afraid of Gilbert?” he asked.

She put both her hands on his folded arms. “No, Louis, not of him, nor of any man—but of dishonour.”

Something that was not the best part of him leapt into the young man’s eyes as he looked down at her with a sudden little smile. “The dishonour won’t be mine, Lucienne!”

She shrank away at that, and covered her face with her hands. “And he is your cousin—your friend,” she murmured.

“What of that? Does that give him a claim to dispose of both our lives? He is not your husband, Lucienne. What is it that you were affianced to him since you were a child—before you were old enough to have even a nominal choice? Is it such a crime, then, to have loved you, when I have known you as long as he, when I have seen you constantly for years—more often, perhaps, than he has done? Look at me and answer!” Gently but firmly he pulled away her hands.

“It may not be a crime,” she said. “I cannot tell . . . O Louis, what am I to say to you . . . for you know what I would give that it might come true—but it is . . . treachery.”

Dominated as he was by his passion, the young man slowly changed colour. “Treachery is a big word, and a disastrous,” he said after a moment. “Will it—will my wife call me traitor?”

“She will call herself so,” said the girl faintly.

“Listen, Lucienne,” said her lover, catching her hands. “Treachery be it, then! I do not care. I love you too much to consider honour. Of two things one must choose the best. I choose you, and my honour shall go.” He had her in his arms again, and kissed her hair with a dangerous quietness. The plaster Loves smiled at each other, for they had known that they would win, and the struggle only entertained them, since it would grace their victory the better.

The girl lifted a white face. “Louis, I conjure you . . . he trusts you, he trusts us. He has always trusted us, nobly, generously——”

“Are you going to sing Gilbert’s praises to me?”

“—Generously and fully. You have been boys together—we cannot do this. It is like stabbing him in the back. O Louis, dear Louis, you know I would come with you if I could—you do not think it is easy for me either, do you, Louis? . . . You know that I love you with all my heart . . . but I can’t do it. . . . Mary Mother! help me—help him!” Her eyes closed; her hands, imprisoned as she was, joined themselves. And for the second time the young man, now nearly as white as she, let her go.

“I want no saints between us, Lucienne,” he said, very low. “You are saint enough for me. . . . And you have no need to invoke angelic protection against me; you have had it, I think, these many months . . . else you would have known before to-day what I never meant to tell you even now, God knows!”

The sudden agony in his voice showed the girl that the day was not yet lost. Still there was time for the anguish of victory. But was it not for defeat that her soul cried out? . . . Not till now did she realise that under this strife of the heart there lay a jewelled picture in her mind—the little chapel at the Recollets, the decked altar, the priest bending over two figures that knelt there side by side. It flashed up now, warm and brilliant, flashed and faded as she turned away, falteringly crossed the room, and sank down on the brocaded cushions of the couch.

Her lover looked up and slowly followed her out of the firelight. “Is this to be the end of the dream, then?” he asked huskily.

She whispered “Yes” almost inaudibly, and catching at his hand carried it to her lips. He pulled it instantly away, and the lace at his wrist, catching on a bracelet, tore. “Don’t do that!” he exclaimed, “if you want this to be the end. . . . My God, how can it!”

She only said, with a little gasp: “Your ruffle is torn. I am sorry . . .”

And he stood staring at her, as, white as a lily, she sat there propped by the cushions, her hands idle and open on her lap, and seemed scarcely to see him. Then he turned away without a word and went slowly to the fireplace.

The girl sat looking with anguished eyes at the figure thrown up dark against the firelight, and the bent brown head over which showed on the marble the carved lilies of France. There was nothing dramatic in his attitude; he seemed to be examining his torn lace . . . a long time.

Suddenly all the Amorini grew grave, crowded together, and looked down from their coigns in alarm. The young man had turned away from the hearth. His face was very drawn; his eyes, that they and she had always known so gay and kind, were steel-bright and hopeless. He came straight across the room and dropped on his knees beside the girl.

“God knows,” he said hoarsely, “I never meant that you should know. God knows I have struggled against it. If things had been different. . . . Lucienne, at least kiss me once more!”

Unnaturally calm now, she took his upturned face in her hands. “Louis, he trusts us,” she said simply, and stooped her lips to his. “Now go,” she said less assuredly. “Go, Louis. . . .”

“Before you have time to repent,” said he bitterly. “I shall repent all my life. God! what a fool I am being—and all for a word called honour!”

“Dear, dear Louis,” said the girl, half maternal, half frightened, “it is more than that. Oh, believe me, how could we ever be happy together if——”

“Better than we can be happy apart!” he broke in. “But you are right, Lucienne; it is not, after all, for a word; it is for Gilbert himself. If it had been any other man. . . . I wish it were, I wish it were!”

“Yes, he trusts us,” she repeated again. “And he must never know.”

“No, he must never know. But I shall love you, my darling, all my life long. And sometimes—very rarely, of course”—he tried to smile—“you will think of me. . . . And, meanwhile, I shall still see you sometimes.”

“But not often,” she said. “O Louis, not often! It would not be right—I could not bear it. . . . I think I would rather never see you again.” Two great tears ran down her cheeks and lay like dew on the violets at her breast.

All the Cupids on the ceiling stiffened back to their places, and pretended that they had never taken any interest.

CHAPTER I “MONSIEUR MON COUSIN”

On a certain bleak March afternoon of the year 1774 a solemn, long-legged boy of ten or eleven sat curled up in a window-seat of his father’s château of Chantemerle in Poitevin Vendée, and pressed his nose wistfully against the cold panes. The rain, on the wings of a fitful wind, hurled itself in blurring gusts against the glass, and even hissed now and then on the glowing logs of the great hearth. But the owner of the motionless black head, with its neat ribbon and queue, was not watching for a chance of going out, nor even wishing that the rain would cease; he was awaiting, between doubt and desire, the greatest change of his short young life.

Gilbert-Octavien-Félix-Anne de Chantemerle, Comte de Château-Foix, was an only child, and he had never left the house of his birth, nor had he seen many persons from the outside world come into it—and never one of his own age. To the society of his elders he was well accustomed, owing to it the greater part of his serious demeanour. He had been educated at first chiefly by his father, the student, the follower of the newer lights, and latterly also by the Curé of the parish, who held with the philosophe Marquis a friendship of a very old and tried intimacy. Gilbert was, perhaps, equally fond of both his instructors. When he played—which was seldom—he played alone; but he was not unhappy, and he had no idea that he was lonely. Diligent at his lessons, obedient though not docile to authority, he had one kingdom of which he was absolute master—that of his dreams and his books. He desired no other.

But now everything was changed. He would work and play alone no longer. It was a thought half sad, half delightful, but most of all perplexing, for what would he be like, this mysterious kinsman and playmate? Even Gilbert’s father knew very little about him. The motherless only child of the Marquis’ favourite cousin, confided by the latter on his death-bed to the care of M. de Château-Foix, the boy was not altogether acceptable to the Marquise. But she had to yield to her husband in the matter. Château-Foix did not wish the young Vicomte de Saint-Ermay to be brought up in Paris, where his mother’s relatives were on the way to secure over him an influence which the Marquis did not consider desirable. Like a wise woman, Madame de Château-Foix made in the end something of a virtue of this necessity, and she was really prepared to give the small stranger a warm welcome.

The preparation of that welcome indeed, in the more material sense, had but this moment engaged her when she came down the staircase to await the travellers in the hall. The Marquis had been to Paris to fetch his small relative and was to bring him in the diligence as far as Pouzauges, where his own coach would meet him.

Madame de Château-Foix was a very handsome woman, to whom the term “beautiful” had never been applied. For her years, which were short of forty, she had, possibly, a too majestic port. Wearing her powdered hair in the very high and narrow style of the prevailing fashion, and, for the provinces, somewhat elaborately dressed, she came down the staircase gently chafing her hands.

“How chilly it is!” she said, as she reached the bottom. “Are you not catching cold there, Gilbert?”

“No, thank you, mamma; I am quite warm,” replied the boy, without turning his head.

His mother rustled softly along the hall to the fireplace. She was restless; the arrival of this little boy meant so much—so much, perhaps, of change; more, she was sure, than her husband seemed to realise.

“Come here, Gilbert,” she said suddenly.

The boy slipped obediently off the window-seat. He was not a good-looking nor even a particularly attractive child, but he was tall for his age, and well grown.

The Marquise put her hands on his shoulders and surveyed him for a moment; then she kissed him. “You quite understand, do you not, Gilbert, about your cousin? He is to be a new brother for you, and you are always to treat him as if he were your own younger brother, and make him feel that this is his home. But . . . remember, my dear boy,” her voice trembled a little, “remember that your father and mother love you none the less dearly because—because your cousin Louis is coming to live here; and remember, too, that he has no father nor mother of his own.”

“Yes, mamma,” said the boy, making no allusion to the thousand queries and surmises with which his own mind was filled. His mother kissed him again, and, released, he went slowly back to his post. But hardly had he got there before he called out with real boyish excitement: “Here they come! here they come! They’re in the straight bit of the avenue—and Jean-Baptiste is so wet. I can see the rain running off his hat in a stream!”

A moment or two later the domestics were opening the heavy doors to admit, from a background of torrential rain, a tall man leading by the hand a small figure wrapped about in a cloak. Muffled as this was, it extricated a hand on the threshold, and punctiliously plucked off its hat, revealing a curly, golden-brown head. The Marquise swept to meet the two.

“Here we are,” said her husband cheerfully, uttering the instinctive banality of most arrivals. He kissed Madame de Château-Foix’ fingers, and then her cheek. “And here is the celebrated traveller,” he added, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder and bringing him forward. “Louis, here is your aunt, who is very glad to see you.”