CHAPTER III
THE RETURN OF "THE LAST HOPE"
Not only France, but all Europe, had at this time to reckon with one who,if, as his enemies said, was no Bonaparte, was a very plausible imitationof one.
In 1849 France, indeed, was kind enough to give the world a breathingspace. She had herself just come through one of those seething years fromwhich she alone seems to have the power of complete recovery. Paris hadbeen in a state of siege for four months; not threatened by a foreignfoe, but torn to pieces by internal dissension. Sixteen thousand had beenkilled and wounded in the streets. A ministry had fallen. A ministryalways does fall in France. Bad weather may bring about such a descent atany moment. A monarchy had been thrown down--a king had fled. Anotherking; and one who should have known better than to put his trust in apeople.
Half a dozen generals had attempted to restore order in Paris andconfidence in France. Then, at the very end of 1848, the fickle peopleelected this Napoleon, who was no Bonaparte, President of the newRepublic, and Europe was accorded a breathing space. At the beginning of1849 arrangements were made for it--military arrangements--and the yearwas almost quiet.
It was in the summer of the next year, 1850, that the Marquis de Gemosacjourneyed to England. It was not his first visit to the country. Sixtyyears earlier he had been hurried thither by a frenzied mother, a littlepale-faced boy, not bright or clever, but destined to pass through daysof trial and years of sorrow which the bright and clever would scarcelyhave survived. For brightness must always mean friction, while clevernesswill continue to butt its head against human limitations so long as menshall walk this earth.
He had been induced to make this journey thus, in the evening of hisdays, by the Hope, hitherto vain enough, which many Frenchmen had pursuedfor half a century. For he was one of those who refused to believe thatLouis XVII had died in the prison of the Temple.
Not once, but many times, Dormer Colville laughingly denied anyresponsibility in the matter.
"I will not even tell the story as it was told to me," he said to theMarquis de Gemosac, to the Abbe Touvent and to the Comtesse deChantonnay, whom he met frequently enough at the house of his cousin,Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, in that which is now the Province of theCharente Inferieure. "I will not even tell you the story as it was toldto me, until one of you has seen the man. And then, if you ask me, I willtell you. It is nothing to me, you understand. I am no dreamer, but avery material person, who lives in France because he loves the sunshine,and the cuisine, and the good, kind hearts, which no government or wantof government can deteriorate."
And Madame de Chantonnay, who liked Dormer Colville--with whom sheadmitted she always felt herself in sympathy--smiled graciously inresponse to his gallant bow. For she, too, was a materialist who lovedthe sunshine and the cuisine; more especially the cuisine.
Moreover, Colville never persuaded the Marquis de Gemosac to cometo England. He went so far as to represent, in a realistic light,the discomforts of the journey, and only at the earnest desire ofmany persons concerned did he at length enter into the matter andgood-naturedly undertake to accompany the aged traveller.
So far as his story was concerned, he kept his word, entertaining theMarquis on the journey and during their two days' sojourn at the humbleinn at Farlingford with that flow of sympathetic and easy conversationwhich always made Madame de Chantonnay protest that he was no Englishmanat all, but all that there was of the most French. Has it not been seenthat Colville refused to translate the dark sayings of River Andrew bythe side of the grass-grown grave, which seemed to have been brought tothe notice of the travellers by the merest accident?
"I promised you that I should tell you nothing until you had seen him,"he repeated, as the Marquis followed with his eyes the movements of thegroup of which the man they called Loo Barebone formed the centre.
No one took much notice of the two strangers. It is not considered goodmanners in a seafaring community to appear to notice a new-comer. CaptainClubbe was naturally the object of universal attention. Was he notbringing foreign money into Farlingford, where the local purses neededreplenishing now that trade had fallen away and agriculture was so sorelyhampered by the lack of roads across the marsh?
Clubbe pushed his way through the crowd to shake hands with the Rev.Septimus Marvin, who seemed to emerge from a visionary world of his ownin order to perform that ceremony and to return thither on itscompletion.
Then the majority of the onlookers straggled homeward, leaving a fewwives and sweethearts waiting by the steps, with patient eyes fixed onthe spidery figures in the rigging of "The Last Hope." Dormer Colvilleand the Marquis de Gemosac were left alone, while the rector stood a fewyards away, glaring abstractedly at them through his gold-rimmedspectacles as if they had been some strange flotsam cast up by the hightide.
"I remember," said Colville to his companion, "that I have anintroduction to the pastor of the village, who, if I am not mistaken, iseven now contemplating opening a conversation. It was given to me by mybanker in Paris, who is a Suffolk man. You remember, Marquis, JohnTurner, of the Rue Lafayette?"
"Yes--yes," answered the Marquis, absently. He was still watching theretreating villagers, with eyes old and veiled by the trouble that theyhad seen.
"I will take this opportunity of presenting myself," said Colville, whowas watching the little group from the rectory without appearing to doso. He rose as he spoke and went toward the clergyman, who was probablymuch younger than he looked. For he was ill-dressed and ill-shorn, withstraggling grey hair hanging to his collar. He had a musty look, such asa book may have that is laid on a shelf in a deserted room and neveropened or read. Septimus Marvin, the world would say, had been laid upona shelf when he was inducted to the spiritual cure of Farlingford. But noman is ever laid on a shelf by Fate. He climbs up there of his own will,and lies down beneath the dust of forgetfulness because he lacks theheart to arise and face the business of life.
Seeing that Dormer Colville was approaching him, he came forward with acertain scholarly ease of manner as if he had once mixed with the best onan intellectual equality.
Colville's manners were considered perfect, especially by those who wereunable to detect a fine line said to exist between ease and too muchease. Mr. Marvin recollected John Turner well. Ten years earlier he had,indeed, corresponded at some length with the Paris banker respecting avaluable engraving. Was Mr. Colville interested in engravings? Colvilleconfessed to a deep and abiding pleasure in this branch of art, tempered,he admitted with a laugh, by a colossal ignorance. He then proceeded togive the lie to his own modesty by talking easily and well of mezzotintsand etchings.
"But," he said, interrupting himself with evident reluctance, "I amforgetting my obligations. Let me present to you my companion, an oldfriend, the Marquis de Gemosac."
The two gentlemen bowed, and Mr. Marvin, knowing no French, proceeded toaddress the stranger in good British Latin, after the manner of thecourtly divines of his day. Which Latin, from its mode of pronunciation,was entirely unintelligible to its hearer.
In return, the rector introduced the two strangers to his niece, MiriamListon.
"The mainstay of my quiet house," he added, with his vague and dreamysmile.
"I have already heard of you," said Dormer Colville at once, with hismodest deference, "from my cousin, Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence."
He seemed, as sailors say, never to be at a loose end; but to go throughlife with a facile readiness, having, as it were, his hands full ofthreads among which to select, with a careless affability, one that mustdraw him nearer to high and low, men and women, alike.
They talked together for some minutes, and, soon after the discovery thatMariam Liston was as good a French scholar as himself, and therefore ableto converse with the Marquis de Gemosac, Colville regretted that it wastime for them to return to their simple evening meal at "The BlackSailor."
"Well," said Colville to Monsieur de Gemosac, as they walked slowlyacross the green toward the inn, embowered in its simple
cottage-garden,all ablaze now with hollyhocks and poppies--"well, after your glimpse atthis man, Marquis, are you desirous to see more of him?"
"My friend," answered the Frenchman, with a quick gesture, descriptive ofa sudden emotion not yet stilled, "he took my breath away. I can think ofnothing else. My poor brain is buzzing still, and I know not what answersI made to that pretty English girl. Ah! You smile at my enthusiasm; youdo not know what it is to have a great hope dangling before the eyes allone's life. And that face--that face!"
In which judgment the Marquis was no doubt right. For Dormer Colville wastoo universal a man to be capable of concentrated zeal upon any oneobject. He laughed at the accusation.
"After dinner," he answered, "I will tell you the little story as it wastold to me. We can sit on this seat, outside the inn, in the scent of theflowers and smoke our cigarette."
To which proposal Monsieur de Gemosac assented readily enough. For he wasan old man, and to such the importance of small things, such as dinner ora passing personal comfort, are apt to be paramount. Moreover, he was aremnant of that class to which France owed her downfall among thenations; a class represented faithfully enough by its King, Louis XVI,who procrastinated even on the steps of the guillotine.
The wind went down with the sun, as had been foretold by River Andrew,and the quiet of twilight lay on the level landscape like sleep when thetwo travellers returned to the seat at the inn door. A distant curlew waswhistling cautiously to its benighted mate, but all other sounds werestill. The day was over.
"You remember," said Colville to his companion, "that six months afterthe execution of the King, a report ran through Paris and all France thatthe Dillons had succeeded in rescuing the Dauphin from the Temple."
"That was in July, 1793--just fifty-seven years ago--the news reached mein Austria," answered the Marquis.
Colville glanced sideways at his companion, whose face was set with astubbornness almost worthy of the tenacious Bourbons themselves.
"The Queen was alive then," went on the Englishman, half diffidently, asif prepared for amendment or correction. "She had nearly three months tolive. The separation from her children had only just been carried out.She was not broken by it yet. She was in full possession of her healthand energy. She was one of the cleverest women of that time. She wassurrounded by men, some of whom were frankly half-witted, others who weredrunk with excess of a sudden power for which they had had nopreparation. Others, again, were timorous or cunning. All were ignorant,and many had received no education at all. For there are many ignorantpeople who have been highly educated, Marquis."
He gave a short laugh and lighted a cigarette. "Mind," he continued,after a pause devoted to reflection which appeared to be neither deep norpainful, for he smiled as he gazed across the hazy marshes, "mind, I amno enthusiast, as you yourself have observed. I plead no cause. She wasnot my Queen, Marquis, and France is not my country. I endeavour to lookat the matter with the eye of common-sense and wisdom. And I cannotforget that Marie Antoinette was at bay: all her senses, all her witalert. She can only have thought of her children. Human nature woulddictate such thoughts. One cannot forget that she had devoted friends,and that these friends possessed unlimited money. Do you think, Marquis,that any one man of that rabble was above the reach--of money?"
And Mr. Dormer Colville's reflective smile, as he gazed at the distantsea, would seem to indicate that, after a considerable experience of menand women, he had reluctantly arrived at a certain conclusion respectingthem.
"No man born of woman, Marquis, is proof against bribery or flattery--orboth."
"One can believe anything that is bad of such dregs of human-kind, myfriend," said Monsieur de Gemosac, contemptuously.
"I speak to one," continued Colville, "who has given the attention of alifetime to the subject. If I am wrong, correct me. What I have been toldis that a man was found who was ready, in return for a certain sum paiddown, to substitute his own son for the little Dauphin--to allow his sonto take the chance of coming alive out of that predicament. One canimagine that such a man could be found in France at that period."
Monsieur de Gemosac turned, and looked at his companion with a sort ofsurprise.
"You speak as if in doubt, Monsieur Colville," he said, with a suddenassumption of that grand manner with which his father had faced thepeople on the Place de la Revolution--had taken a pinch of snuff in theshadow of the guillotine one sunny July day. "You speak as if in doubt.Such a man was found. I have spoken with him: I, who speak to you."