CHAPTER X.
THUS FAR.
“There are some occasions on which a man must sell half his secret in order to conceal the rest.”
“There is some one moving among the oleanders down by the river,” saidthe count, coming quickly into the room where Lory de Vasselot wassitting, one morning some days after his unexpected arrival at thechâteau.
The old man was cool enough, but he closed the window that led to thesmall terrace where he cultivated his carnations, with that haste whichindicates a recognition of undeniable danger, coupled with no feeling offear.
“I know every branch in the valley,” he said, “every twig, every leaf,every shadow. There is some one there.”
Lory rose, and laid aside the pen with which he was writing for anextended leave of absence. In four days these two had, as one of them hadpredicted, grown accustomed to each other. And the line between customand necessity is a fine drawn one.
“Show me,” he said, going towards the window.
“Ah!” murmured the count, jerking his head. “You will hardly perceive itunless you are a hunter--or the hunted.”
Lory glanced at his father. Assuredly the sleeping mind was beginning torouse itself.
“It is nothing but the stirring of a leaf here, the movement of a branchthere, which are unusual and unnatural.”
As he spoke, he opened the window with that slow caution which had becomehabitual to his every thought and action.
“There,” he said, pointing with a steady hand; “to the left of thatalmond tree which is still in bloom. Watch those willows which have comethere since the wall fell away, and the terrace slipped into the floodedriver twenty-one years this spring. You will see the branches move.There--there! You see. It is a man, and he comes too slowly to have anhonest purpose.”
“I see,” said Lory. “Is that land ours?”
The count gave an odd little laugh.
“You can see nothing from this window that is not ours,” he answered.“As much as any other man’s,” he added, after a pause. For the convictionstill holds good in some Corsican minds that the mountains are commonproperty.
“He is coming slowly, but not very cautiously,” said Lory. “Not like aman who thinks that he may be watched from here. He probably is taking noheed of these windows, for he thinks the place is deserted.”
“It is more probable,” replied the count, “that he is coming here toascertain that fact. What the abbé has heard, another may hear, though hewould not learn it from the abbé. If you want a secret kept, tell it to apriest, and of all priests, the Abbé Susini. Some one has heard that youare here in Corsica, and is creeping up to the castle to find out.”
“And I will go and find him out. Two can play at that game in thebushes,” said Lory, with a laugh.
“If you go, take a gun; one can never tell how a game may turn.”
“Yes; I will take a gun if you wish it.” And Lory went towards the door.“No,” he said, pausing in answer to a gesture made by his father, “notthat one. It is of too old a make.”
And he went out of the room, leaving his father holding in his hand thegun with which he had shot Andrei Perucca thirty years before. He stoodlooking at the closed door with dim, reflective eyes. Then he looked atthe gun, which he set slowly back in its corner.
“It seems,” he said to himself, “that I am of too old a make also.”
He went to the window, and, opening it cautiously, stood looking downinto the valley. There he perceived that, though two may play at the samegame, it is usually given to one to play it better than the other. For hewho was climbing up the hill might be followed by a careful eye, by thechance displacement of a twig, the bending of a bough; while Lory,creeping down into the valley, remained quite invisible, even to hisfather, upon whose memory every shadow was imprinted.
“Aha!” laughed the old man, under his breath. “One sees that the boy is aCorsican. And,” he added, after a pause, “one would almost say that theother is not.”
In which the count’s trained eye--trained as only is the vision of thehunted--was by no means deceived. For Lory, who was far down in thevalley, had already caught sight of a braided sleeve, and, a momentlater, recognized Colonel Gilbert. The colonel not only failed toperceive him, but was in nowise looking for him. He appeared to beentirely absorbed, first in the examination of the ground beneath hisfeet, and then in the contemplation of the rising land. In his hand heseemed to be carrying a note-book, and, so far as the watcher could see,consulted from time to time a compass.
“He is only engaged in his trade,” said Lory to himself, with a laugh;and, going out into the open, he sat down on a rock with the gun acrosshis knee and waited.
Thus it happened that Colonel Gilbert, working his way up through thebushes, note-book in hand, looked up and saw, within a few yards of him,the owner of the land upon which they stood, whom he had every reason tobelieve to be in Paris.
His ruddy face was of a deeper red as he slipped his note-book within histunic and came forward, holding out his hand. But his smile was as readyand good-natured as ever.
“Well met!” he said. “You find me, count, taking a professional andbusiness-like survey of the laud that you promised to sell me.”
“You are welcome to take the survey,” answered Lory, taking theoutstretched, cordial hand, “but I must ask you to let me keep the land.I did not take your offer seriously.”
“It was intended seriously, I assure you.”
“Then it was my mistake,” answered Lory, quite pleasantly.
He tapped himself vigorously on the chest, and made a gesture indicatingthat at a word from the colonel he was ready to lay violent hands uponhimself for having been so foolish. The colonel laughed, and shrugged hisshoulders as if the matter were but a small one. The pitilessMediterranean, almost African, sun poured down on them, and one of thoseshort spells of absolute calm, which are characteristic of theselatitudes, made it unbearably hot. The colonel took off his cap, and,sitting down in quite a friendly way near de Vasselot on a rock,proceeded to mop his high forehead, pressing back the thin smooth hairwhich was touched here and there with grey.
“You have come here at the wrong time,” he said. “The heats have begun.One longs for the cool breezes of Paris or of Normandy.”
And he paused, giving Lory an opportunity of explaining why he had comeat this time, which opportunity was promptly neglected.
“At all events, count,” said the colonel, replacing his cap and lightinga cigarette, “I did not deceive you as to the nature of the land which Iwished to buy. It is a desert, as you see. And yet I cannot help thinkingthat something might be made of this land.”
He sat and gazed lazily in front of him. Presently, leaving his cigaretteto smoulder, he began to buzz through his teeth, in the bucolic manner,an air of Offenbach. He was, in a word, entirely agricultural, andconsequently slow of speech.
“Yes, count,” he said, with conviction, after a long pause; “there isonly one drawback to Corsica.”
“Ah?”
“The Corsicans,” said the colonel, gravely. “You do not know them as Ido; for I suppose you have only been here a few days?”
De Vasselot’s quick eyes glanced for a moment at the colonel’s face, butno reply was made to the supposition. Then the colonel fell to hisguileless Offenbach again. There is nothing so innocent as the meditativerendering of a well-known tune. A popular air is that which echoes inempty heads.
Colonel Gilbert glanced sideways at his companion. He had not thoughtthat this was a silent man. Nature was singularly at fault in hermouldings if this slightly made, dark-eyed Frenchman was habituallytaciturn. And the colonel was vaguely uneasy.
“My horse,” he said, “is up at Olmeta. I took a walk round by the river.It is my business to answer innumerable questions from the Ministry ofthe Interior. Railway projects are still in the air, you understand. Imust know my Corsica. Besides, as I tell you, I thought I was on my ownland.”
??
?I am sorry that I cannot hold to my joke, for it was nothing else, asyou know.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” acquiesced the colonel. “And in the mean time, itis a great pleasure to see you here, as well as a surprise. I need hardlytell you that your presence here is quite unknown to your neighbours. Wehave little to talk about at this end of the island now that theAdministration is centred more than ever at Ajaccio; and were it known inthe district that you are at Vasselot, you may be sure I should haveheard of it at the café or at the hotel where I dine.”
“Yes. I came without drum or trumpet.”
“You are wise.”
The remark was made so significantly that Lory could not ignore it evenif such a course had recommended itself to one of his quick and impulsivenature.
“What do you mean, colonel?”
Gilbert made a little gesture of the hand that held the half-burntcigarette. He deprecated, it would appear, having been drawn to talk onso serious a topic.
“Well, I speak as one Frenchman to another, as one soldier to another. Ifthe emperor does not die, he will declare war against Germany. There isthe situation in a nutshell, is it not? And do you think the army canafford to lose one man at the present time, especially a man who has madegood use of such small opportunities of distinction as the fates haveoffered him? And, so far as I have been able to follow the intricacies ofthe parochial politics, your life is not worth two sous in this country,my dear count. There, I have spoken. A word to the wise, is it not?”
He rose, and threw away his cigarette with a nod and a smile.
“And now I must be returning. You will allow me to pass up that smallpathway that leads past the chateau. Some day I should, above all things,like to see the chateau. I am interested in old houses, I tell youfrankly.”
“I will walk part of the way with you,” answered Lory, with a stiffnesswhich was entirely due to a sense of self-reproach. For it was hisinstinct to be hospitable and open-handed and friendly. And Lory wouldhave liked to ask the colonel then and there to come to the chateau.
“By the way,” said the colonel, as they climbed the hill together, “I didnot, of course, mean to suggest that you should sell me the old housewhich bears your name--only a piece of land, a few hectares on thissouth-west slope, that I may amuse myself with agriculture, as I toldyou. Perhaps some day you may reconsider your decision?”
He waited for a reply to this suggestion, or an invitation in response tothe hint that he was interested in the old house. But neither came.
“I am much obliged to you for your warning as to the unpopularity of myname in this district,” said Lory, rather laboriously changing thesubject. “I had, of course, heard something of the same sort before; butI do not attach much importance to local tradition, do you?”
The colonel paused for a few minutes. He had the leisurely conversationalmanner of an old man.
“These people have undergone a change,” he said at length, “since theirfinal subjugation by ourselves--exactly a hundred years ago, by the way.They were a turbulent, fighting, obstinate people. Those qualities--goodenough in times of war--go bad in times of peace. They are a lawless,idle, dishonest people now. Their grand fighting qualities have run toseed in municipal disagreements and electioneering squabbles. And, worstof all, we have grafted on them our French thrift, which has run togreed. There is not a man in the district who would shoot you, count,from any idea of the vendetta, but there are a hundred who would do itfor a thousand-franc note, or in order to prevent you taking back theproperty which he has stolen from you. That is how it stands. And that iswhy Pietro Andrei came to grief at Olmeta.”
“And Mattei Perucca?” asked Lory, thereby causing the colonel to tripsuddenly over a stone.
“Oh, Perucca,” he answered, “that was different. He died a more or lessnatural death. He was a very stout man, and on receiving a letter, gaveway to such ungovernable rage that he fell in a fit. True, it was athreatening letter; but such are common enough in this country. It mayhave been a joke or may have had some comparatively harmless object. Nonecould have foreseen such a result.”
They were now near the chateau, and the colonel rather suddenly shookhands and went away.
“I am always to be found at Bastia, and am always at your service,” hesaid, waving a farewell with his whip.
Lory found the door of the chateau ajar, and Jean watching behind it. Hisfather, however, seemed to have forgotten upon what mission he had goneforth, and was sitting placidly in the little room, lighted by askylight, where they always lived. The sight of Lory reminded him,however.
“Who was it?” he asked, without showing a very keen interest.
“It was a man called Gilbert,” answered Lory, “whom I have met in Paris.An engineer. He is stationed at Bastia, and is connected with the railwayscheme. A man I should like to like, and yet--He ought to be a goodfellow. He has every qualification, and yet--”
Lory did not finish the sentence, but stood reflectively looking at hisfather.
“He has more than once offered to buy Vasselot,” he said, watching forthe effect.
“You must never sell Vasselot,” replied the old man. He did not seem toconceive it possible that there should be any temptation to do so.
“I do not quite understand Colonel Gilbert,” continued Lory. “He has alsooffered to buy Perucca; but there I think he has to deal with a cleverwoman.”