Book I Chapter 9 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
THE HOME-COMING
On the morrow, having ascertained that Lesdiguières, whose guidance became more and more necessary to him, was still absent, Quentin hired a chaise and was driven to his ancestral domain by a post-boy who claimed to know the country as well as he knew his own pocket.
They left Angers, and headed north along a level road through a well-wooded country that followed the course of the River Mayenne. Some five miles out the boy informed him that they had now entered the Chavaray lands, and when yet another five miles were behind them the chaise swung to the right into a lane that ascended gently between fields of stubble from which the harvest had been gathered, until at last on an eminence above the river the Château de Chavaray stood revealed in the August sunshine, an imposing mansion of grey stone of the time of Louis XIII, with projecting pavilions under extinguisher roofs at either end.
The chaise rolled between the massive stone piers of a wide gate, and went rocking and swaying down a long avenue in need of repair, set between two rows of tall Lombardy poplars. On either hand the comparatively open undulating parkland, where the grass stood tall and rank, fell away to woods of oak and beech that gradually increased in density.
The post-boy wound his horn as the chaise swept to a standstill before tall iron gates set in the grey wall which, with the flanking pavilions, enclosed the grass-grown forecourt.
Quentin alighted, and standing before the gates, looked through with interest at this home of his fathers, chilled by the air of desolation that overhung its stateliness. With its shuttered windows and the faded blistered paint on the great doors at the head of the perron it looked like a house that was dead.
The post-boy, seeing that the flourish of his horn had aroused no response, tore at the handle of a chain that hung beside one of the piers, and a bell clanged mournfully upon the silence.
Presently a low door in the pavilion on the left was opened. A man's ill-kempt head appeared, and a pair of bovine eyes dully regarded these intruders. Then slowly there shambled out a fellow in short and baggy breeches with naked legs that ended in a pair of wooden shoes. He clanked slowly over the grass-grown cobbles, and came to observe them at closer quarters, always with that dull, animal stare.
"What do you want?" he asked at last, in a deep, guttural voice.
Quentin's instinct was to announce himself for the Marquis de Chavaray, and demand the instant opening of the gate. But remembering that there were no longer any marquises in France, he preferred to ask for the Citizen Lafont.
"What do you want with him?"
"That I shall tell him when you fetch him. Open me this gate."
Whilst the fellow stood without making shift to obey, a second man emerged from the pavilion. Like the first he was stockily built, and wore the same pattern of enormous peasant breeches. His legs, however, were gaitered, and he boasted a short jacket of green velvet and a broad black hat. His face was tanned and strongly featured and his eyes were light and clear as those of a hawk.
"What is it, Jacquot?"
"Strangers asking for you, master."
The newcomer reached the gate, and surveyed them sternly. "Who are you? What do you want?" he asked, as curtly and rudely as his man before him.
"You will be Lafont, I think. My name is Morlaix de Chesnières. Open the gate."
The man eyed him suspiciously. "If your name were Chesnières I must know you. But I don't."
Nevertheless he drew the bolt. The gate swung open, and Quentin stepped into the forecourt.
"A nice, friendly welcome home," he said. There was an asperity in his smile. "But, of course, you were not to know me."
The steward, on wide-planted feet, considered this rather military figure, sparely elegant in long dark riding-coat, buckskin breeches, and boots reversed at the top.
"Who do you say you are?"
"The present master of Chavaray."
The pale eyes flashed contempt. "A purchaser of national property, are you? I hadn't heard of the sequestration of Chavaray; though, of course, it was to be expected. But didn't you say that your name is Chesnières?"
"That is what I said. It should tell you that I am master of Chavaray by inheritance; not by purchase."
The rugged countenance became forbidding. "Will this be a trick or a jest? The inheritor of Chavaray is Monsieur Armand de Chesnières."
"The present inheritor, yes. But I am the owner, Quentin Morlaix de Chesnières, the late Marquis's brother."
"His brother? What tale is that? The late Marquis had no brother. You're not even a good impostor, my lad, or you'd have informed yourself that the late Marquis was old enough to be your grandfather."
Quentin began to lose patience. "Look you, my man. I haven't come to argue with you. I . . ."
"I know very well what you're here for." Lafont's voice was harshly raised of a sudden. "And I've had enough of you. Out of this!"
"A moment!" Quentin was peremptory. "I do not ask you to take my word for my identity. I bring papers to establish it. Conduct me indoors, if you please."
He was met by a grin of malicious understanding. "Indoors, eh? Oh, very likely. Now be off before I make you sorry that you came."
As he spoke, a young man in hunting-dress, booted to the middle of his thighs, came briskly out of the pavilion. He was followed by three knaves in goat-skin jackets, baggy breeches of white linen and wooden shoes, their weathered faces shaded by broad-brimmed hats worn over knitted caps, each carrying a fowling-piece.
"What is it, Lafont?" The young man's air and accent proclaimed the gentleman.
"A joker who has the impudence to tell me that he is the Marquis of Chavaray."
As if taken aback, the gentleman checked in his stride, and there was a sudden quickening of his glance. Then slowly he resumed his advance. He was bareheaded and his fair hair hung in a thick mane about a thin-featured countenance that was arrogant and masterful.
"The imposture is too gross," he said contemptuously, and he addressed himself to Quentin. "Better be off, of your own accord, my lad."
"It does not happen that I am your lad," said Quentin. "Nor do I know your right here. As to mine, I have the means to satisfy you if you will step indoors."
"Indoors, Monsieur de Boisgelin!" said Lafont significantly, with a grin and a wink.
"Enough!" The gentleman's peremptoriness increased. "Will you go, or shall my men throw you out? It's yours to choose."
Still Quentin suppressed his anger. From the breast of his riding-coat he pulled a sheaf of papers. "Look at these."
"What are they?"
"My papers. They will prove my identity."
"That needs no proving. Do you think I don't know a Republican spy when I see one? Be off!"
He made a sign to Lafont, who at once began a truculent advance, whilst the other three moved forward to support him.
Quentin's eyes hardened in a face that anger had made white. "Very well," he said. "I'll go. But I shall remember your name, Monsieur de Boisgelin, whilst awaiting the opportunity to call you to account for a violence offered to me upon my own doorstep."
"By God, you mouchard, if you linger another moment I'll have my men drive a charge of lead through your carrion."
Quentin stepped out of the forecourt, and Lafont slammed the iron gate so closely upon him that one of his heels was bruised by it.
The post-boy, already mounted, watched his approach with scared eyes. He was barely in the chaise when it was whirled away at a speed that argued panic. Not until they had rattled down the avenue between the poplars and regained the open road did the pace slacken. Then Quentin put his head out, and ordered the boy to stop.
"You boast your knowledge of the country, my lad. Do you happen to know who is this Monsieur de Boisgelin who appears to be in possession of Chavaray?"
"Do I know Boisgelin de Chesnières? Ah, name of a name! A bad subject. He doesn't shrink from murder, that one. I was mightily afraid for you, citizen, when you stayed to brave him."
And then Quentin remembered where he had heard the name of Boisgelin before, and much in the same terms. The Duc de Lionne it was who had spoken of him as the first blade in France, a duellist of fame, and cousin to the brothers Chesnières.
Meanwhile the post-boy ran on: "Those rascals with him are Chouans. He's a Chouan, himself, and not a doubt there'll be more of those wolves behind the shutters of the château. Sacred name! When I saw you obstinate, there was a moment when I wouldn't have given ten sous for your life. They're murderous brigands."
"Chouans, eh? And what do you suppose Chouans may be doing at Chavaray?"
"Just lurking. You never know where they'll appear. Likely they'll be there in strength. And that rascal Lafont has always passed for a good sansculotte, which is how the two-faced scoundrel comes to have been left in peace at Chavaray. Next time you go there, citizen, you should take a regiment of the Blues with you, and burn out that nest of brigands. God of God!" he ended. "But it's lucky we weren't murdered."
He cracked his whip, and baffled and angry the Marquis de Chavaray was rattled back to Angers.
There, however, a message awaited him that went some way to raise his spirits from their dejection. Lesdiguières had returned from Nantes, and had left word at Quentin's inn that he awaited him at home.
Quentin did not keep him waiting.
In a dingy, dusty room, severely furnished as an office, he was received by an untidy man of fifty of an incipient portliness, whose shrewd, kindly countenance, however, was prepossessing. His garments were rusty, his wig ill-kempt, and there was an ounce of snuff on his soiled neck-cloth. He thrust a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles up on to his forehead, and rose with alacrity to receive his visitor.
"You are Maître Lesdiguières?" Quentin inquired.
The shrewd, kindly eyes smiled as they subjected him to a searching consideration. "And you are Margot's child! Faith, you have her eyes and the same proud look, and you'll have papers to prove you, no doubt." Lesdiguières advanced upon him, and embraced him. "For her sake I am glad to see you, nephew. For years I have wondered whether she and you were alive or dead. It was a little hard to be so utterly without news of her. Tell me: Is she still living?"
"Alas! She died a year ago."
"Ah!" He sighed, and his round face was troubled. "I hope her days in England were happy, peaceful."
"Peaceful they certainly were, and I believe them to have been happy."
Lesdiguières nodded gravely. He sighed again. "Here we have been through evil times, so evil that often it needed all a man's wit and prudence merely to keep a head upon his shoulders. But that is now happily overpast, though prudence is still advisable. Great prudence." Quentin was thrust into a chair. "And so, Étienne de Chavaray being dead, you've come to claim your heritage. God knows it has been hard-earned, and it's a miracle that it should have escaped confiscation."
Quentin proffered his papers.
"What are these?" Lesdiguières asked. "Let them lie for the present." He dropped them on to his table, resumed his seat, and tapped his snuff-box. "Now render me your accounts. You'll not have been idle since you came."
Quentin was commendably succinct, and his uncle listened without comment beyond a grim smile over the interview with Besné and a deepening frown over that day's indignities at Chavaray.
"Boisgelin, eh?" said Lesdiguières when the tale was done. "A cousin of yours. A Chouan leader, as ardently sought by the authorities as his other cousin, Boishardi, also a Chouan leader, but a man of very different stamp. Boisgelin is a graceless scamp. An evil devil, a duellist. There was a young man I knew in Rennes, a lawyer, a good lad, whom this bully swordsman insulted and killed on the eve of his wedding-day. And he's sheltered by Lafont at Chavaray, eh? Between them they gave you a pleasant welcome home. Anyway, it was a wasted journey. Lafont I know to be a rogue, probably a thief, and entirely in the interest of Armand and Constant de Chesnières. It's certain that he has been supplying them with funds from the revenues of the estate. He'll have helped himself, too, not a doubt. No wonder he wouldn't look at your papers. He'll want no master at Chavaray. Perhaps not even Armand. Though, as things are, he is capable of coming to terms with Armand so as to ensure his succession." His eyes widened on the thought that assailed him. "Thousand devils! Perhaps it was lucky for you that he did not believe you to-day, or Boisgelin's Chouans might have done your business for you." He wagged his head with solemnity. "You may have more than the Republic to contend with before you enter upon your heritage. Meanwhile, there's this money to be found for Besné."
"Must we indeed submit to this extortion?"
"With a smile." Lesdiguières was emphatic. "That robber may be less dangerous than he was a month ago, now that terror is no longer the order of the day. But he is still dangerous enough, for he is still in control of the legal machinery which the terrorists perfected and which no one has yet ventured to destroy. Besné goes more carefully in his abuses. That is all. A couple of months ago he would have demanded ten times as much for his rascally services. There is nothing to do but pay his bribe if the estates are not to become national property."
"But where am I to find a thousand louis? Actually I dispose of less than two hundred. I was depending upon Lafont for what might be necessary."
Lesdiguières laughed outright. "Beware of optimism, nephew." Then he made a wry face. "If I possessed the money I'ld never begrudge you the loan of it. I'ld gladly spend my last sou to bring success to the plans my father formed when he married poor Margot to the old Marquis." He sighed as if the memory saddened him. "But perhaps we can contrive."
His manner of contriving depended upon a wealthy Marquise du Grégo, who with her daughter, the Vicomtesse de Bellanger, was deeply in the debt of Étienne de Chavaray. They had been arrested under the law of suspects, and at a moment when imprisonment made their own wealth inaccessible to them, Étienne had advanced great sums--some three or four thousand louis--as bribes for their deliverance. As a result of his own arrest occurring almost at the moment of their release, the debt had remained undischarged. The present should be their opportunity. It happened that business of the Republic was compelling Lesdiguières to visit Port Malo at once. He would go by way of Coëtlegon taking Quentin with him so as to present him to the Marquise. As it was Lesdiguières, himself, who had acted for the Marquise du Grégo in the matter of the money supplied by Étienne de Chesnières, Quentin need have no doubt of their reception.