Book II Chapter 1 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
THE RETURN
On a cool but sunny October afternoon, Quentin de Morlaix, newly arrived in London, walked down Bruton Street towards the academy that bore his name.
His return to England in Puisaye's company had been rendered possible without adventure by the secret Royalist lines of communication whose network was spread over the face of Brittany, and the perfection of which in the district he had traversed had moved Quentin to amazement, as well as to respect for, and confidence in, the man who had established and maintained them.
Travelling by night, and sleeping by day, they had made their first stage at a house to the north of Lamballe belonging to a Madame de Kerverso, in the loft of which a secret hiding-place received them; their second had been at Villegourio, where they were well received in a peasant homestead; and their third at Nantois, whence word was sent on to Puisaye's agent at St. Brieuc to hold his fishing-boat in readiness for the following night. This agent had met them in the outskirts of St. Brieuc, and had conducted them safe and unchallenged through the cordon of coast-guards and excisemen that barred the passage to the coast. Bribes, Puisaye explained, played a part in dulling the vigilance of those custodians of the shores.
From the water's edge a little boat had taken them a couple of miles out to sea to the waiting fishing-smack. In this they had crossed to Jersey, and thence, by the regular packet, to Dover. So smoothly had they fared from start to finish that it was scarcely conceivable that the journey could have been accomplished more easily in times of peace.
And now Quentin was going up his own steps, entering his own house again, and stalking unannounced into the long fencing-room.
At sight of him the grizzled Ramel, engaged at the moment with a pupil, uttered a cry that brought O'Kelly from the far window-bay, where he was idling.
"Glory be, now! Is it yourself, Quentin, or will it be the ghost of you?"
Before he could answer, O'Kelly was upon him, holding him by the arms and chuckling into his face, whilst Ramel, his pupil unceremoniously neglected, hovered exclamatorily about him, and old Barlow, who had suddenly appeared, quivered in dumb excitement in the background.
"And us thinking we'd never be seeing you again this side of Hell," cried O'Kelly, a hand on Quentin's shoulder, a glow of affection in his eyes.
"That was to be wanting in faith."
"It was not. It was from putting faith in a lie that was told us. Wasn't Mademoiselle de Chesnières here, nigh on a month since, to tell us you were murdered?"
"Her tale," said Ramel, "was that you'd been killed by Chouans, somewhere in Brittany."
"Mademoiselle de Chesnières told you that?"
"She did so. And with the tears in her sweet eyes that I'ld be glad to earn by dying. They had word of it, she said, from . . . What would his name be, Ramel?"
"From the steward of Chavaray, she said. I don't recall his name. The news had come in a letter from him to Monsieur de St. Gilles."
"I see," said Quentin. A bitter little smile broke on his lips. "It explains a lot. A rash anticipation on the part of that rascal."
Then the thought of the tears that O'Kelly had mentioned swept all else from his mind. He desired more particular information upon those tears. Yet he dared not ask for them. He would seek them at the hands of the lady who was alleged to have shed them.
"There's an error to be corrected without delay. I'll be paying a visit to Carlisle Street at once."
"Ye'll do nothing of the kind if it's Mademoiselle de Chesnières you'ld be seeking. They've moved to Percy Street, off the Tottenham Court Road. I've written down the exact address. There's been a change in their fortunes, I'm thinking."
After that Quentin did not tarry long. Supplied with the address of a glover in Percy Street, he went off in quest of it. Directed by the glover to the second floor, he climbed the creaking, gloomy, narrow staircase of that mean house, and rapped on the door that led to the rooms at the back.
When the door opened, to his surprise it was Mademoiselle de Chesnières, herself, who appeared, contrasting sharply in her shimmering grey gown and neatly coiffed head with the background of a frowsty living-room.
She stood before him with dilating eyes, the colour slowly draining from her cheeks. Then there was an inarticulate cry, followed at last by coherent speech. "Is it really you, Monsieur de Morlaix?" The question was almost whispered.
"I've startled you. Forgive me. If I could have suspected that you would, yourself, answer my knock . . ."
"That is nothing," she interrupted him. "We have believed you dead, Cousin Quentin, and . . . and . . ."
"I know. O'Kelly told me. You had word of it from Lafont."
"Lafont wrote that he was informed of it by the Public Accuser of Angers, and that as a result Chavaray has now been sequestrated."
"I understand." He smiled apologetically. "If I might come in."
But the suggestion awakened alarm in her. "Ah, no. No. I . . . I prefer that you do not. I am alone here. My aunt and Constant are out. And it is fortunate. It is perhaps better that they should not know of your return. I don't know. I must have time to think." She panted and trembled as she spoke.
"I would not for the world embarrass you."
"Then go, please. Go at once. I would not have Constant find you here. I dread what might happen. Living, he will never forgive you."
"He's to forgive me, is he? Pray for what?"
"For murdering our cousin, Boisgelin. We know, you see."
"So! That's the tale now!" Quentin laughed his scorn. "I killed him. But I shouldn't call it murder. The only murderer in the affair was Boisgelin, himself."
She was staring at him, with sorrowful, inquiring eyes, when a sound below revived her alarms. "Ah, mon Dieu! If it should be they! Go, Monsieur, please, please go."
"When there's so much to say," he sighed. He was thinking of the tears of which O'Kelly had told him.
"Go now, and you shall have the opportunity. I'll provide it. I will come to you."
She was gasping over the words, and Quentin understood that it was to get rid of him that she uttered them.
"When will you come?"
"When you will. To-day. This evening. Oh, please go."
"I shall have the honour to await you."
"Do so. Yes. Yes."
The door closed whilst he was bowing, and he departed wondering whether she would keep her word.
He went home to wait, and at six o'clock that evening Barlow ushered her cloaked and hooded into the panelled room above-stairs where she had come to him on the morning of his departure, less than three months ago.
When she had suffered him to take her cloak, he saw that sternness now replaced the earlier panic in which she had repulsed him.
"I keep my word," she said. "I was forced to give it because of my fears of what might happen."
"And for no other reason?" he gently asked.
"It . . . it seemed proper to give you an opportunity to explain."
He advanced a chair. "I'll make a plain tale of it," he said, "and leave the inferences to you."
She sat, whilst he, pacing the room under her grave eyes, made of it the plain tale he promised, beginning with his visit to Chavaray, and ending at Puisaye's intervention to save him.
"One understands the report of my death. Once the Chouans had carried me off no more will have been heard of me. One understands, too, some other things. One understands, too, that Boisgelin should address me as Marquis of Carabas remembering that it was Constant who first applied the name to me. You perceive the coincidence?"
"It is none so remarkable." Her manner, which had softened during his narrative, grew stiff again. "Nor do I perceive what inference you draw."
"Then I will draw none."
"If you imply some conspiracy between my cousins and Monsieur de Boisgelin, the thought is unworthy. Are you not too prone to suspicion, to drawing harsh conclusions? Was it not enough to justify Monsieur de Boisgelin's assumptions that he should have found you travelling with a safe-conduct from the sansculottes?"
"He did not. I was not searched until after his death." This startled her, he saw. "I hope, Mademoiselle, that you'll judge me leniently for the course I took to save my neck from the noose he offered me. It was the only way."
"That I can understand." She had softened again. "It is a wretched affair. You have made a determined enemy of Constant. He must not know of your return."
"I think he must. I do not mean to hide myself. Inevitably he will hear that I am back in London."
"It is possible that he may not, for we are about to return to France. In two or three days we shall be gone. St. Gilles is already in Holland with Sombreuil."
"You are returning to France? Now?" He was horror-stricken. "But the danger of it!"
There was a further softening of her glance as if she were touched by this fear on her account. She even smiled a little, and shook her golden head.
"We have no choice. You have seen how we are lodged. My aunt cannot endure it."
"Name of Heaven! It is still better than a French prison."
She paid no heed. "The confiscation of Chavaray has put an end to our means. They were all remitted to us by Lafont, who regarded St. Gilles as the next heir. My aunt cannot face this destitution. All her life she has been pampered in the luxury of her position. And now that the Terror is at an end, the risks are negligible. The decrees against the émigrés continue in force, but they are being disregarded. So we are assured."
"But where will you go?"
"That offers no difficulty." Her smile broadened. "You are not the only one who has thought of using the Citizen Besné as a nominee. By Lafont's contriving, and for a fat bribe, with moneys from the revenues of Chavaray, he purchased for us Grands Chesnes, when it was sold as national property two years ago, after our emigration. We are assured that if we return we shall be left undisturbed in possession of it in these days of tolerance."
"It is a risk," he said, and his eyes pondered her in almost sorrowful gravity.
She shrugged. "All life is that. What can I do? My aunt will face the risk rather than continue in this intolerable poverty. And so, we are making our packages, and in a couple of days we shall be gone. At least," she ended, "if for no other reason, I can be glad because it removes the chance of a clash between you and Constant."
"Do you fear so much for him?" he asked her.
"For him!" Her voice soared on the exclamation. "For him? It is for you that I fear. I know his remorseless, vindictive nature."
"For me! Oh, the happiness to hear you say that! To believe that you should know concern for me!"
He saw that he had startled her. "It . . . it is natural. Is it not?"
"I have hoped--how I have hoped!--that some day it might be." He came to stand near her. "Measure by it my concern for you. My dread of the thought of your going to France. If you go, it may be that I shall never see you again."
She looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. "It is what I said to you when I came here to warn you against going."
"But with a difference, I fear. Or could it have mattered to you if I had not returned?" Then he remembered the tears reported by O'Kelly, and let them wash away the last of his hesitation. "Do you conceive how it matters to me? Germaine!" He sank down on one knee beside her chair, and his arm went round her. She stiffened a little in the clasp of it, but made no shift to disengage herself. "You are not to go to France."
She looked at him suddenly in surprise. She laughed, but her eyes were very tender.
"Let Madame de Chesnières and her son go if they will into this danger."
"And I? How do I avoid going with them?"
With eyes gazing deep into hers he answered softly: "You have guessed, haven't you? You see, it becomes necessary to be brusque; there is no longer time for timid approaches. You may avoid it if you will marry me, although I remain no better than a fencing-master, and Marquis only of Carabas."
"If you were less than that, you would still be Quentin," was her soft answer, and, leaning forward, she kissed him.
"Dear heart," he cried, when he recovered breath. "It is settled, then."
"Ah, no. You forget, my dear, or, rather, you do not know my age. For another year I shall not be mistress of myself. Meanwhile, Madame de Chesnières is my legal guardian, and the law is on her side. It would be so easy," she ended on a sigh, "if it were otherwise."
"But if she consented . . ."
"It would be madness even to ask her. No, no, my Quentin. That happiness is not yet for us."
"And for me not even the happiness this hour has brought me, since it must be lost in dread for you."
She stroked his bronze-hued hair. "That dread is so easily exaggerated, my dear. Already the émigrés are beginning to return, and so long as they are prudent, we are assured that they are in no danger of being molested, particularly in the West, which the Government is anxious to pacify."
"And I am to be content with that assurance?"
"What other do you need? The assurance that I shall be waiting for you? That I give you, my dear, if you still require it."
"Waiting until when?" he asked her gloomily.
"Until fate shall so have shaped things that you may come for me, or else until having attained full age and become mistress of myself I may come to you. And that is less than a year ahead." Seeing him still sunk in gloom, she ran on: "Dear Quentin, it will not be long, and in the meantime there is the joy of knowing that we are travelling steadily towards each other, that every day is a step along that blessed road."
His arms were round her, and he held her close. "Let me draw from you some of your fine courage."
"Take freely," she urged him, smiling into his eyes. "That and my love. Know always that it is yours, Quentin."
And then the knell of their ecstasy sounded from the little ormolu timepiece on the overmantel. Its striking came to remind her of the need to depart, lest an account should be asked of her absence. Whatever the obstacles she would see him again before she left for France.
With that assurance, given in a farewell embrace, she swirled away, leaving him in a state approaching frenzy, between alternating exaltation and despondency.