Chapter XLIX: Violets Once More

“. . . Cy j’en mourrai;
Un baiser de ta bouche
Me guérirait.”
—_Là-haut sur la montagne._

One fine May morning Mr Philip Harbenden, on a prolonged visit to London, was the recipient of the following missive from his betrothed:—

“ASHLEY COURT, _May_ 10, 1794.

“My dearest Philip,—I am aware that I wrote fully to you yesterday, and you are not to think that you will get so long a letter every day. There is a reason for my increase of zeal, for since my epistle of yesterday something has happened which—— No, though I am so excited that I can scarce hold the pen, I shall give myself the pleasure of telling you from the beginning.

“That is to say, I shall begin from dinner-time to-day, when Lucienne, hearing that the hyacinths were almost out in the copse, said, with that little bright air of hers which makes my heart ache, that she must go and pick a posy for papa’s study. I am sure that I have already told you how, since all hope was at last abandoned of poor Louis being still alive, Lucienne has displayed the most amazing fortitude and resignation. Certainly the waters of Bath have a wonderful effect upon the physical health; and my aunt let fall, too, that when there they met with an _émigré_ priest, and I fancy that they both profited by his ministrations. These Papists, mistaken as we must think them to be, seem at least to derive consolation from their religion, and, as Dr Jenkinson so well says, we should always remember that among the errors of the Romish Church lie hidden many grains of truth.

“After dinner my aunt—who seems to have become much older lately—went to her room to rest, and papa went to the library to read the newspaper (which means much the same thing); and as George, having to ride over to Bury, was not able to fall in with papa’s suggestion that he should accompany Lucienne to get the hyacinths, and I had some matters to supervise in the house, Lucienne departed alone to the copse . . . fortunately, as it appeared. (You know, Philip, that, _entre nous_, George has always been strangely indifferent to Lucienne, which of late I have thought a pity, because papa—— However, there’s an end to all that now!)

“So there they all were, out of the house or asleep, and I ran out into the garden to read your letter again under the lime tree. I do not know how long I was about it, but as I came back by the front of the house I saw a chaise and pair turning in at the gates. We were not expecting visitors, and, thinks I to myself, I will slip into the house before they get here. Then I saw that the chaise was coming along at a rate such as none but travellers would use, that the postilion was flogging his horses, and that the horses themselves were all of a lather. I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought . . . but half-way up the steps I stood and waited.

“Well, Phil, in a moment the chaise draws up, the door is flung open, and out of it steps a gentleman in a green redingote, tall, young, whom I did not know. I came a little to my senses, and beheld myself a gaping girl staring at my guests instead of the dignified mistress of the Court. I turned and went up a step or two, rather stately. Then lo! I was hailed by a French voice, in the French tongue: ‘De grâce, Mademoiselle, un instant!’

“I turned again. My gentleman was just helping another out of the chaise. I did not know the second either, but since they were presumably _émigrés_ and might have news, I went quickly down the steps again. The two gentlemen took off their hats.

“‘Mademoiselle Amélie, my cousin—don’t you remember me?’ says the second of the two in English.

“And, Philip, I didn’t! I only knew his voice. There was so little else left of the engaging boy of eighteen who used to make love to me (yes, Phil, he did, and I suspect to every other girl he met). And yet they were the same eyes.

“‘Louis!’ I gasped. ‘M. de Saint-Ermay!’

“‘I prefer the first title, if you please, cousin!’ says Louis, and he caught my hand and kissed it.

“I seized him by the arm. ‘But—but you are a ghost!’ I cried—and, indeed, he looked like one. ‘My God, am I dreaming? We all believe you dead!’

“‘But I wrote!’ exclaimed M. de Saint-Ermay, ‘as soon as I could—and M. des Graves wrote before that. Ciel! do not say she never got any of the letters?’

“And then I bethought me of the shock that Lucienne would have if she came back at that moment from the wood—of my aunt. My first impulse was to hide him somewhere.

“‘You must come in—I must prepare them,’ I said hastily. ‘This gentleman——’

“‘A thousand pardons,’ said the Vicomte. ‘Forgive my rudeness.’ He touched on the arm the other gentleman, who was discreetly gazing down the avenue. ‘My friend the Chevalier d’Aubeville, who has had the charity to accompany me here from Jersey.’

“‘Come in, both of you, at once,’ I cried, scarce waiting for M. d’Aubeville’s bow. ‘I will put you in the library till I can prepare them.’

“I ran up the steps again, but when I got to the top I had to wait, for the Vicomte, on M. d’Aubeville’s arm, was only half-way up. It gave me something of a shock. Louis—whom I remembered so lithe and active! I observed, too, when he was in the hall, how stiffly he held himself, and guessed, rightly as it appeared, that he was tightly bandaged. But I did not say anything, for you men, Philip, are so strange; when you have a finger-ache the whole house must give you sympathy, but if you are really disabled you are so proud as to be monstrously unpleasant sometimes if a well-meaning female takes note of it. Yet I must have shown by my looks how sorry I was, for Louis suddenly gave me the smile I remembered, and said in French: ‘Quite the return of the veteran, is it not, Mademoiselle? I only need a wooden leg and a patch over one eye to act the part to perfection.’ But I could not laugh.

“I had thought of putting them in the library, as a place not likely to be invaded, quite forgetting for the moment about papa. But when I looked in, there he was, with his handkerchief spread over his face, asleep in his big chair. I might have withdrawn again unnoticed had not Rover, scenting strangers, got up from papa’s feet and growled. Papa woke instantly, and dashed the handkerchief from his face. It is his theory that he does not go to sleep after dinner.

“Now I did not really want dear papa to be the first to hear the news, because, with all due respect, you know, Philip, what he is like, and I feared that in his pleasure and the goodness of his heart he would dash out of the room and go shouting the tidings all over the house. On the other hand, I could not leave my quarry in the hall, so, saying to them briskly, ‘Come in, gentlemen, and shut the door at once, if you please!’ I rushed to papa’s side before he could get out of his chair, and put one hand over his mouth and the other over his eyes.

“‘Dearest, dearest papa!’ I said. ‘You must not say a word above a whisper, though you will see something in a minute that will surprise you very much. Now promise, or you shall not see it!’

“Poor papa, how could he promise when I was gagging him? But he gave a muffled assent, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that the two gentlemen were safely in the room and that the door was shut.

“‘Now you may look!’ I said, and took my hands away. By this time Rover, as he always does when excited, was barking furiously, and, for all my cautions and his promise, papa, too, made a good deal of commotion.

“‘Good Gad!’ he exclaimed, bounding out of his chair, ‘it can’t be—it’s impossible!’

“‘I believe, sir, that it is true, however,’ says Louis, coming forward and holding out a thin hand.

“Papa took it and gazed at him as if he could not believe his eyes. ‘My poor lad! my poor lad!’ he says after a minute, feeling with his other hand for his pocket-handkerchief, which had slipped to the floor, though he did not know it. I knew by experience that he was going to blow his nose very hard, so I picked up the handkerchief and slipped it into his hand. And he did blow his nose. The noise made Rover worse, but when I took off my slipper he went at once under the table and was quite quiet.

“Papa, meanwhile, was ejaculating all sorts of things. ‘Sit down, sit down, in God’s name! Amelia, some wine! Louis, my dear boy, what happened to you?’

“‘I was left for dead at Savenay, and picked up next day by some peasants,’ says the Vicomte simply, and much as he might have said, I had a tooth out yesterday. And then he hastened to present the Chevalier d’Aubeville, a quiet and somewhat sad-looking man whose appearance pleased me. After that we got Louis into a chair, and I fetched some wine—not that it had much effect upon his appearance. He has a horrible air of delicacy. He looks as frail as a girl.

“It seems that at Savenay he was run through the body, and lay all the rest of the day and the whole night long on the battlefield—imagine, Philip, in December!—was found by some charitable peasants and nursed by them for six weeks. Then, as he was supposed to be dying, they made efforts to get a priest, and the priest, when he was procured, turned out to be M. des Graves, of whom you have often heard us talking, escaping from the prisons of Nantes. M. des Graves stayed with him for a long time (nearly two months, I believe), and undoubtedly, Louis says, saved his life. Then he brought him over to England, and gave him over into the care of M. d’Aubeville (an old friend of Louis’ whom they picked up at Jersey), and has himself gone to Rome to be a Cardinal.

“I did not hear some of this till afterwards, for, as you may imagine, I was concerned about the Marquise and Lucienne. If George had been at home I could have sent him down to the copse to break the news. On the whole, I thought that the risk of shock to the Marquise would be greater than to a girl, so I left the two in the library with papa and went upstairs.

“I really think, Philip, that I am more sorry for my aunt than for any of the others. Gilbert is dead, and to my mind he died gloriously. Lucienne, although, poor girl, she has suffered unspeakably, will have what we know now to have been her heart’s desire, and, with her, Louis will learn, one hopes, to forget all that he has been through.

“But the Marquise idolised her son. The only comfort is that she has truly gained a daughter in Lucienne, for since last Christmas there has been no trace of the little rubs which sometimes used to arise between them, and I am sure that she will sincerely rejoice in Lucienne’s happiness. As for Louis, it is long since I have heard her make those disparaging remarks about him which I used at the time to doubt if she really meant.

“I don’t know how I told her, but I contrived to do it somehow, putting my arms round her, and beseeching her to be calm. She turned very white, and I saw her look for a moment at the miniature of Gilbert as a boy, which stands on her escritoire, and I guessed what she was feeling.

“I ran down ahead of her to the library. Papa was coming out.

“‘I have put him next door in the dining-room, my dear,’ he said; ‘take your aunt in there.’ Then he saw the Marquise, who had just reached the foot of the stairs, and going up to her he said rather huskily, ‘Providence has sent you back another son, Felicity,’ and retired very quickly to the library, where I heard him blowing his nose again.

“My aunt went in to Louis, but of course I do not know what they said to each other in there. . . .”

Of a truth they said but little, for when Madame de Château-Foix saw the figure which rose slowly and with difficulty at her entrance, which turned towards her a face so startlingly transparent yet so ominously and brightly stained, she stopped and suddenly covered her eyes.

Louis put a hand to the table. “God knows that I would willingly have died,” he said in a wrung voice, “if he could have been here instead of me. . . . I knew I could only bring you pain. . . .”

The Marquise uncovered her face and stretched out her hands. “O Louis, my child . . . it is not that! Gilbert—Gilbert is with God. . . . It is you . . . my poor boy . . . I never realised. . . .” and she went swiftly to him and put her arms about him. “Kiss me, my son!”

Saint-Ermay stooped his head, and then, amazed, vanquished, slipped through her arms to one knee, and put a fold of her black dress to his lips. She bent quickly over him.

“Ah no, child! you must not kneel—or even stand! I know . . . Amelia has told me. . . . See, here is a chair—you will be better there, will you not . . . to please me?”

So, to please her, he sat down again in the chair from which he had risen, and she knelt beside him with his hands in hers.

“My boy, how dreadfully thin you are! . . . I suppose they had to cut your hair off . . . it seems such a pity. . . .” She put up her hand for a moment and gently touched a lock. “But it is beginning to grow again . . . of course you had fever for a long time, and not enough nourishment since—and a long journey . . . no wonder you look so tired and that your hands are so cold. But there . . . thank God that you are here at all! To-morrow we will have Dr Hicks in; he is very clever, but not as clever as the doctor at Bath . . . perhaps later on you could go there to recover. . . .” But to herself she was saying, “My God! suppose Lucienne were not to keep him, after all!”

Louis had thought so little about his own personal reception by her, and so much of what he supposed that the sight of him, unaccompanied, must cost her, that not so much her composure, but this preoccupation with himself appeared unnatural.

He kissed her again. “I am here, safe and well again, through a miracle and M. des Graves. And you will want me to tell you——”

“Not now,” she said, rising from her knees. “Afterwards you shall tell me everything about him. But now—now you must go to Lucienne, to my daughter. . . . I know it all, and she is yours, Louis, and I give her to you as freely as Gilbert gave her. She is down in the copse—you remember it?—if you can go so far. . . .”

Louis got to his feet. “That far and further; but I shall frighten her.”

“Joy does not kill,” said the Marquise. There was a little sadness in her tone, but no tears in her eyes.

Louis looked at her a moment, and then, putting a hand into his breast, drew out something wrapped in a piece of discoloured white silk. “I will give you this first,” he said gravely. “It has always been with me . . . and since I am come back again you have the better right to it. The silk was his too, from his scarf. It is scorched a little, because when the peasants cut my uniform off me and burnt it, for safety’s sake, it fell into the fire for a second . . . so they told me. But it was not hurt . . . and it is yours now. . . . Ma mère, he had a soldier’s death, and a hero’s.” He laid the little packet gently in her hand, and the singed wrapping, slipping open, showed a lock of thick black hair.

* * * * * *

Afterwards he passed through the open window into the garden—into May and the sun of May, and all the green things of May which he had never thought to see again. And he went rather uncertainly between the high box hedges, past the bowling-green and the stone nymph, the beehives, the apple trees in blossom, out of the garden and across the lane. At the gate of the copse he stopped, breathless and a little dizzy, but not from bodily weakness alone.

The thicket was green, enchantingly green, feathery green, golden green, and the path was strewn with the tassels of the birch. Had the trees been like this last May, when the grass was red? . . . Last May! And on the very threshold of his happiness he paused to breathe a prayer for his cousin’s soul. “Rest eternal . . . light everlasting. . . .” Then he opened the gate and went through.

And a little way off, white against the glory of green, she was standing like one in a vision who sees a vision. A misty pool of hyacinths lay at her feet, but her hands were full of violets.