Chapter XXVII: Housekeeping of the Vicomte and the Curé

Gilbert slept late next morning. When he at last came downstairs he could not find the Marquise, and as he was looking for her he met the Curé emerging from the library. He greeted him, and asked where she was.

“Upstairs, I believe,” said the priest. “Do you want her, or were you looking for me?”

“Both, I think,” answered Château-Foix with a smile. “I will wait till she comes down. I want to finish last night’s talk. By the way, how is Louis?”

“I am afraid that he is rather worse this morning—a little light-headed, Madame said. She has sent to Chantonnay for a surgeon.”

“I must go to him,” said Gilbert, turning very pale. Everything, then, was leagued against his secret; if Louis were really delirious again it might in an hour be common property, not only in the château but in the village itself. “I must go to him at once,” he repeated, and before the priest could protest that it was unnecessary he had vanished.

About an hour later the door of Louis’ room was heard to unlock, and the Marquis, emerging, went downstairs to the library.

“I have been thinking over our conversation of last night, Father,” he began, walking straight to the writing-table. “As soon as it can possibly be arranged I shall take my mother to Nantes and see her off to England. It is increasingly dangerous here, and I should like her to be with Lucienne. I shall only be away a few days.”

The priest looked at him. “I expect you are quite right,” he said, after a perceptible pause. “But how is Louis?”

“Asleep,” returned Gilbert shortly. “He was not really delirious. I don’t think he will need the surgeon.”

“I am glad of that,” observed M. des Graves. “I told the Marquise that it was best to leave you alone, and that she need not alarm herself because the door was locked.”

* * * * * *

In this way it came about that, five days later, Louis, lying on a _chaise longue_ just inside the open windows of the library, was able to remark cheerfully: “And so we are going to have a week’s tête-à-tête, Father!”

Outside, on the flags of the balcony, M. des Graves was pacing to and fro, reading his office, and for some minutes the young man’s gaze, half affectionate, half mischievous, had been following the cassocked figure, until this time, as it passed, he addressed it.

The priest closed his breviary over his finger, and coming to the window looked down at the speaker. “A dismal prospect for you, my dear boy, isn’t it?” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Horrible!” returned Louis, with a mock sigh. “Tell me, has my aunt left you in charge of the commissariat, for I know that you will forget to order any meals? . . . No? How fortunate! Please come and talk to me, Father, or else let me go round the garden. I shall lose the use of my legs if I have to lie still much longer.”

“My dear Louis,” said M. des Graves, still with the twinkle, “delighted as I should be to sit down and amuse you to the best of my poor abilities, I must point out that a parish priest, even dispossessed, has his duties. In the first place, I must finish saying my office, in which you have interrupted me; and then I have to hear confessions in the chapel. As regards the second point, unless you promise to obey my orders I shall lock you in here until I come back. I should have thought you had had your fill of exercise lately. Now promise me!”

“Very well,” said the Vicomte, with exaggerated submission, “I tender you my oath. And pray don’t let me keep you from fulfilling holy Mother Church’s behests. I will lie here meantime and think of my sins. Would you allow me to come as far as the chapel if I succeeded in raking up sufficient of them?”

If Louis had really meant this request he would probably not have phrased it differently. M. des Graves was quite aware of this, but he was not for a second deceived. Nor did he reproach his former pupil for jesting on sacred subjects. But the humour died out of his face, and his tone became singularly impressive as he said quietly: “I should be very glad, as you know, Louis, if I thought that you really meant to recall your sins. And while I am gone I will leave you another idea to think over. I am sure you do not know it, but when you took that knife in your shoulder, there was little more than the thickness of a sheet of paper between you and almost instant death. The merest trifle more to the left, and the blade would have severed the artery. You would have bled to death where you fell. There would not have been any time to think of your sins then. . . .”

He turned away abruptly, and going out of the window disappeared along the balcony, revealing to the Vicomte’s notice, not by any means for the first time, that stern profile which was in such marked contrast to his full face. “I suppose I brought that on myself!” reflected the young man, with a half-rueful smile. “One can never depend on his sense of humour; he is largely endowed—for a priest—but it fails you when you least expect it.” And for a moment or two he contemplated, not very seriously, the picture called up by the Curé’s piece of information. “It would have been a very dirty floor to die on,” he thought, “and singularly unpleasant company.” He further pondered on the possible consequences to Gilbert, concluding dispassionately that it would have been extremely inconvenient for him. “He would never have left me till I had finished with this bleeding to death which seems to afford M. des Graves so much relish. Even then he is so deuced conscientious that if he got away he would probably have encumbered himself with my corpse—more awkward still.” The idea rather amused him, until from imaginary pictures his mind slipped on to real, and for the twentieth time since his return he knitted his brows over the question of what Gilbert had meant by his tone when he asked him if he wished to send a message to Lucienne, what precisely had passed between them at supper a few nights ago, and why his cousin had locked himself in with him the other morning. Did he, could he know anything? But there was in a sense nothing to know. . . . And since Louis was still easily tired, and it was always his habit to live in the present, he abandoned these problems, and lying there in the sunlight, half dozing, half watching the lazy clouds in the afternoon sky, thought of more recent events. That morning had witnessed Madame de Château-Foix’ departure under Gilbert’s escort. Louis imagined—but as he had been confined to his room he could not verify his surmise—that the Marquise had not proved too easy to uproot. But there was no arguing with Gilbert when he had definitely made up his mind. The only thing which really surprised the Vicomte was the very short space of time which had sufficed his cousin to carry out his intention. Lazily he ran over the details of the departure as he had witnessed them from his bedroom window; lazily he calculated the time that it would take the Marquis to get to Nantes, to see his mother off, and to return. Still more lazily he came to the conclusion that, without his cousin’s presence, there was a sort of holiday feeling in the air for which he could not wholly account. On that thought he fell comfortably asleep.

A couple of days later Louis did go round the garden on the Curé’s arm, and at the end of two more days ordered a horse to be saddled for himself. Enquiries, on its non-appearance at the stated hour, revealed the fact that M. des Graves, who had just heard of his design, had countermanded the order. Laughing, but not altogether free from vexation, the Vicomte made his way to the library.

“Your Eminence,” he began mockingly, putting his head suddenly in at the door. He had the satisfaction of seeing the priest jump.

“Now, my dear Louis,” said the latter quickly, getting up from his writing, “it is no good being angry with me. As long as Gilbert is away, you are absolute master here in everything except matters relating to your own health, of which you are no more fit to take care than a child. Come now, you know I’m right!” And he came up to the young man as he stood with his back against the door.

“Eminence,” said Saint-Ermay with great gravity, repeating his new-found appellation, “I desire you to command me in all things. Is it invidious to the absent to say that I wish your reign could be extended? Make the most of the two days remaining to you, before the State comes back to dispossess the Church!” He slipped out again.

But the priest remained for an instant looking at the just-closed door with troubled eyes. “He meant that, for all his jesting tone,” he thought to himself. “Why does he not wish Gilbert to come back the day after to-morrow?”

True or feigned, Louis’ wish seemed to possess the power to fulfil itself, for the eighth day brought, not Gilbert himself, but a letter which astonished both the Curé, its recipient, and the Vicomte. The Marquis wrote that, having met in Nantes, apparently by chance, certain agents of the Marquis de la Rouërie’s, he was going off with them to Eastern Brittany to see that leader. He did not intend to stay long, but was unable to say precisely when he would return. He would write again.

“It is so extremely unlike Gilbert,” said M. des Graves in puzzled tones to Louis, as they stood outside the library window in the twilight. “He says”—he referred again to the letter in his hand—“‘I do not think that my détour should delay me more than a week or ten days, and at that cost it seems to me well worth the making. I am very anxious to see La Rouërie again.’ La Rouërie must have made a great impression on him.”

Louis did not answer for a moment, but began to pull the petals off a rose which he had just plucked from the balustrade against which he was leaning. “Well, I daresay that we can manage to get on without him for a little,” he said slowly, his eyes bent on the flower. “It all seems quiet enough in the village just now, and there is no sign of the Directory’s molesting you any further.”

“I was not thinking of myself,” said the priest.

“I know that perfectly well,” retorted Louis coolly, “but I was.” He threw down his rose and lifted his eyes. “I know that I can’t be Gilbert to you, Father, but I’ll do whatever you wish, and between us we might manage to keep the place going till he comes back.” He looked at his companion with frank and almost wistful eyes, and in spite of his anxious thoughts the priest was greatly touched.

“My dear Louis,” he said. . . .

* * * * * *

And, as if a bargain had been struck between them, the old man and the young settled down to an odd, peaceable, and even humdrum existence in the house whose master was away they knew not where, and which served one of them as a hiding-place. The long, fine August days fell into a sort of routine. Every morning at six o’clock M. des Graves said Mass in the little chapel; then he breakfasted and betook himself to his devotions and his correspondence in the library, which had come by now to be considered as his special sanctum. About ten or eleven o’clock Louis would invade this retreat, unless, indeed, he had been for an early ride in the cool of the morning, in which case he generally appeared an hour or two earlier. But as a rule he came down late, which was scarcely surprising, for he had nothing whatever to do with his time.

After déjeuner—or dinner as it usually was—at midday the two walked in the garden, and probably had a conflict on the subject of the Curé’s going down to the village, which he was commonly determined to do, while the Vicomte set forth many prudent arguments—which sounded strangely in his mouth—on the unwisdom of the priest’s showing himself there. In the end M. des Graves would go, and Louis, fuming, or affecting despair, would accompany him. And while the priest visited the sick, the young man, waiting about in the village street, renewed old acquaintances of his boyhood—even of his childhood—and found how deep-rooted in the solemn-faced Vendean peasants was the respect and confidence accorded to their nobles. After a little while, being accepted as one of their own _seigneurs_, and accredited, from his constant companionship of the Curé, with a religious fervour which he certainly did not possess, Saint-Ermay found himself pretty well posted up in the temper of his cousin’s tenantry.

And one day the idea came to him of visiting his own. Having a capable steward, no interest whatever in improving his property, and a tolerable horror of the country, his appearances among them, since he came of age, could easily be counted on one hand. He had even—without the slightest intention of doing so—talked of getting rid of his embarrassed estate, because he knew that the suggestion annoyed Gilbert, and bred in the Marquise the sort of horror that amused him to witness. Now, after talking of this great project every day for a week, he at last set off for Poitiers, intending to be away about ten days. . . . He came back in three. The chance of visiting his property was gone for ever, for it had been declared confiscate to the nation some three weeks before. Louis found that his steward had fled, that he himself was supposed to have emigrated, that he could not even gain admission, and that the attempt to establish his identity had led to consequences so threatening as to give even his reckless temper pause. So, furiously angry, and yet not incapable of recognising the ironical justice of what had happened to him, he returned to his mornings in the village, his afternoons with rod or gun, his evenings of chess, talk, books, and early bed. After a day or two he threw off his resentment, announced a remote intention of taking steps to recover his stolen property when things were quieter, and congratulated himself that at least he was saved the expense of keeping it up. There was also the ineffaceable consolation that the mortgagees were probably as hard hit as he was himself.

More than a fortnight had passed in this renewed seclusion when there came a rude shock to its peace. One hot afternoon, after the usual contest, M. des Graves set out to visit, at some distance, a farmer injured by a fall from a hayrick; Louis and a spaniel accompanied him. The priest entered the building, leaving his companions outside, for, like most farms in Vendée, the place had but one large living and sleeping room. In a little while the farmer’s wife, learning that the young _seigneur_ was outside, went to offer him some refreshment after his long walk. She came in again very hastily, and in a low voice besought the Curé to go out to Monsieur le Vicomte, for something was wrong.

The priest went anxiously forth, and found Louis sitting on the bench by the door with his head in his hands. Between his feet, on the trampled bracken of the courtyard, lay a newspaper. A dreadful fear tore at the priest’s heart.

“Louis! what is it?” he exclaimed, stooping over him and laying a hand on his bowed shoulder.

The face which the young man raised to him did not allay the fear.

“Is it Gilbert?”

The Vicomte shook his head, and then found speech. “It is the King,” he said hoarsely. “The Tuileries are sacked, the Swiss massacred . . . the Royal Family are under the protection of the Assembly . . . _the protection of the Assembly!_ My God!”

M. des Graves was too stunned to offer comment.

“Think of it—the Queen trailing through the streets . . . through a mob!” He ground his teeth together. “God! why did I leave Paris! I might have died there with the rest—as I meant to . . .” He choked suddenly, and his head went down into his hands again.

M. des Graves sat down beside him, and put his arm about his shoulders. “My dear lad,” he said tenderly, “you had no choice—you had no choice! And we want you here, Louis. I want you, Gilbert wants you . . .”

But Louis would not be comforted, though his spaniel, whimpering, stood up and licked the hands which covered his face, and the farmer’s wife stood in the doorway clasping her two frightened children, with whom, a few minutes before, the Vicomte had been playing. Gradually it came out that he had had the newspaper in his pocket all the while. That they had not heard the news from anybody else was due to the fact of their not having been to the village that day. But there was no doubt about its truth.

At last the two turned homewards, and in that walk the priest learned a new chapter of the book which he thought he knew so well; saw a glimpse of the feelings which Louis kept so carefully covered up; heard and reasoned with his bitter accusations of himself as a soldier who had deserted his post in face of the enemy. In the end, to console him, he hinted at the possibility of future opportunities for action in Vendée itself. The Vicomte listened gloomily, and evidently did not believe him.

Yet two or three days afterwards, as though to acclaim the Cure’s prophetic gift, came the news that the peasants had risen in Deux-Sèvres, under Baudry d’Asson and other gentlemen, and at seven o’clock that very morning had entered Châtillon without meeting any resistance, drums and fifes at their head. But when a deputation from the village came to ask the priest’s advice, he counselled them to return home, for the time was not yet. He was proved only too right. For two days the insurgents besieged Bressuire, while in all the country round the tocsin sounded, and from Fontenay to Nantes and Saumur the National Guards and troops of the line mustered to the help of the beleaguered town. The third day Baudry d’Asson tried to carry the place by assault; his failure threw his undisciplined and badly-armed followers into a panic. The combat became a butchery, and National Guards returned home in triumph with severed ears and noses decorating their bayonets. Two of the leaders who had given themselves up as hostages were summarily shot, and Baudry d’Asson found an asylum for the next six months in the subterranean passages of his own château of Brachain.

Thus miserably ended the abortive rising of August 1792. The village of Chantemerle, on the edge only of the insurgent district, and, through the wisdom of the Curé, not involved in hostilities, was spared reprisals, and remained untouched by the terror which reigned long afterwards in the neighbourhood.

But over the occupants of the château there lay a gradually lengthening shadow. It was nearly a month since they had last received news of Gilbert. They had not the least idea in what part of Brittany he might now be, and his long silence, his absence when he must know how much he was needed at home, ended by convincing the Curé that some mishap had befallen him. And when September broke without the letter which he hourly expected, his anxiety, fed by a thousand surmises, became very acute indeed.

It gained on Louis too. “Couldn’t I go to Nantes and see if I can trace him?” he asked one evening.

“I think that your place is here, Louis,” said M. des Graves, shaking his head.

“Here! What atom of good am I doing here?” exclaimed the Vicomte fractiously.

“You are giving an old man very charming companionship, for one thing,” replied the priest, smiling at him. “Then there are other reasons.” His tone changed. “Chantemerle must not be without its _seigneur_ in case—in case he is wanted. And . . . you are Gilbert’s heir.”

“Oh, don’t!” cried Louis in a smothered voice of horror, and he put his hand before his eyes. “You don’t really think that?”

“I try not to,” answered the priest.

At the sound of his voice, with the tiny but perceptible shake in it, Louis looked up, and, seeing how pale the speaker had become, threw himself impetuously on his knees beside him and seized his hand. “For God’s sake, don’t! . . . Think rather of the difficulties and delays he may have encountered on his way back. Why, he may easily have written and the letter have miscarried. He might walk in unannounced at any minute!”

It was true, and yet Gilbert did not come. And soon a fresh anxiety mingled with their fears for him. On the very day of the relief of Bressuire the National Assembly had confirmed, with aggravations, the proposed decree of May 27th sentencing all non-juring priests to deportation. By the second week in September there were a hundred and fifty awaiting embarkation at Les Sables. It seemed inconceivable that Chantemerle should continue longer to be unswept by the devastation. So indeed thought M. des Graves, and in the quietude of his retreat—for it was now impossible for him to stir outside the gardens—he made ready for exile. But Louis showed an incurable optimism, mingled with what the priest rather feared was a disposition to appeal to force.

“They shall not take you out of this house while I am alive, and here to prevent it,” he announced one morning, when they had been discussing the situation.

The Curé shook his head, smiling a little sadly. “If they come for me, I must go; if they even suspect that I am here, I must go. Otherwise they will take you as well. You know that they have put several gentlemen under surveillance for concealing priests.”

“I know of one,” returned Louis, unmoved; “Guerry de la Vergne. But that was at Challans, a much more patriotic place.”

“Dear lad,” said the priest, “we must look facts in the face. Look around you at all these parishes—Cezais, La Jaudonnière, Chantonnay itself. Look where you will, their priests are gone. I will stay here till the last moment, for it is my duty, but when the hour comes, I must rise up and go wherever God pleases to send me. And if they come for me, I charge you, Louis, to give me up at once.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” answered the young man resolutely. “There are nooks in this old place where no National Guard, however prying, would ever think of looking. I don’t suppose any one but Gilbert and myself knows of them; we found them when we were boys. And, parbleu,” he added, with a sudden smile, “since we are becoming so vastly prudent, why do you not go and get your passport at once? You know what you are risking by not doing so—either Guiana or ten years of prison.”

“Because it is God’s will that I stay by my people as long as it is humanly possible,” said M. des Graves steadily.

“Very well,” returned the Vicomte; “and it is equally in the designs of the Almighty that I do my utmost to prevent your being removed therefrom. But, mind you, no more excursions to the village! If you want to send your benediction to your parishioners I’ll take it to them; if they want ghostly counsel they must come to you here. . . .”

M. des Graves saw very little of Louis that day, but about seven o’clock he strolled into the library.

“Haven’t you got a fire?” he asked, as he flung himself into a chair; “the evenings are getting chilly. Well, everything is beautifully arranged. I have been to every single house in the village—I think I have interviewed every individual man, woman, and child. I am perfectly hoarse with talking, but I think they all understand now.”

“Understand what?” asked the Curé, rather puzzled.

“That you are gone to La Rochelle, with the intention of emigrating to England, instead of waiting for deportation elsewhere. That is what they will all say if any Blues or municipal authorities come to investigate your whereabouts. Then I have settled how many of your flock may attend Mass every morning—very few; they must take it in turns. Personally, I don’t think a single one ought to come, for nothing in the world will put the authorities sooner on the scent than hearing that the faithful are trooping up here early in the morning. But I knew that if I forbade it altogether I should have a conflict with you. Then nobody is to come to see you unless it is absolutely necessary; that, I think, is also clear.”

“My dear Louis—” began the priest, not knowing whether he were more touched or amused by this unwonted activity.

“Now, don’t protest, Father. I am the lord of this domain; you are non-existent. You went to La Rochelle weeks ago (I vow I shall end by believing it myself). I am having a very special hiding-place made habitable for you in case of need; one in which I once shut up Gilbert for four hours, and whence nobody heard his yells. . . . I told my aunt that he had run away to sea—so likely! . . . I have also let it be known that I shall myself immediately shoot any informer.”

“Surely you did not say that to my parishioners!”

“Well, not in so many words; it did not seem necessary. But I read them a tremendous lecture on indiscretion. . . . Satan reproving sin, eh? Yet they listened to me as if I had been an archangel!”