Book II Chapter 2 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
THE TRUST
For four months thereafter Quentin, who had resumed the conduct of his academy, exasperated O'Kelly by the grim face and absent mind with which he performed his daily tasks. Yet from all that Quentin could glean from the French nobles who frequented his school, the dangers to returning émigrés were as negligible in these days of pacification as Germaine had represented them, and if so many of them still abode in England it was because they waited to form the regiments that under the British ægis should presently be landed in the West of France for the purpose of making an end of the Republic.
From the lofty heights of his scorn for all the world, the Vicomte de Bellanger derided one day the notion that Constant de Chesnières would have taken chances in the matter of his return to France.
"We may be very sure that Constant's native caution would never permit him to set foot there until his advisers assured him that he might do so without fear of being called to account for his emigration. Faith, I would go back myself, and await in France the coming of the Royalist army, if I did not find life so pleasant here in London." It was notorious by then that he had not gone because Madame de Laitonges would not permit him to leave her side until the last moment.
Further, Quentin was reassured by letters--some three or four--which Germaine had contrived to send him, but to which he was denied the satisfaction of replying.
Nevertheless, dejection sat heavily upon him. Paradoxically it was increased, perhaps, by what had passed at his last meeting with Germaine; for he was left in the position of one who has won something which fate denies him the ability to grasp.
He was in a particularly black mood when, on a morning of February, Monsieur de Puisaye surprised him by swaggering into his academy. He had not seen the Count since that morning when they had reached London together four months ago, a circumstance explained to him by the gossip of the émigrés who frequented Bruton Street. According to this, Puisaye had returned almost at once to France in the pursuit of the will-o'-the-wisp by which he was to restore the monarchy.
"Behold me returned, my dear Quentin," was his airy announcement, "to the chagrin, no doubt, of your friends our compatriots. No friends of mine, these fribbles. Sometimes I think they would rather continue to starve here than be restored to their possessions by anything that I may accomplish. I am not pure enough for the high stomachs of these gentlemen."
His tone was carelessly loud considering that several of those to whom he so scornfully alluded were present in the fencing-room. Count d'Hervilly, who had become of considerable authority among his fellow-exiles, was of these. He had just been at practice, and he was in the act of readjusting his cravat before a mirror on the wall. A tall, rather long-bodied man, stern-faced, with hard blue eyes and a domineering manner, he turned.
"Not pure enough for what?" he asked, as he sauntered towards them.
"To lead you to victory over the infernal Republic."
"We recall that you served it once."
"Then you are pleased to recall a lie. I led an army of Girondins, in the hope of smashing the Terrorists."
"You distinguish between them! That is too subtle for the minds of monarchists or honest men."
His manner was superciliously insolent, and his tone was drawing others about them into the window embrasure. Puisaye was unabashed by their general air of hostility. He laughed at d'Hervilly.
"You should not assume that all monarchists and honest men are half-wits. The percipient ones will see that to lead one half of a faction against the other, is to destroy the whole."
"If successfully led, it might be so. But I have not heard that you were successful."
Puisaye shrugged. "Because I led a pack of cowards, who fled at the first discharge. Besides, your quarrel, I think, is with the act, itself; not with the result."
"By what else do you judge an act?"
Quentin was finding d'Hervilly's insolence distasteful. He ventured to interpose. "Sometimes, surely, by its intention."
"I thank you, sir," said Puisaye, with a flourish, and turned again to d'Hervilly. "So it has been judged by your betters."
D'Hervilly threw up his head. "My betters!"
"You'll suffer me so to describe the Princes, I suppose. In statecraft you might even suffer me so to describe Mr. Pitt."
The old Duke d'Harcourt interjected: "Do you say, sir, that they honour you with their confidence?"
Puisaye raised his brows. "God save us! Your grace has been asleep in these last months, I must suppose. It is their confidence, Monsieur le Duc, that enables me to bear with equanimity the lack of it in lesser folk. Though you may question my purity, it is freely accepted by the purest of the pure, by my dear friend, M. d'Artois."
That brought a gasp from some of them. The old Duke angrily stabbed the ground with his cane.
"Unsurpassable effrontery! My God, I choke! To call His Royal Highness your dear friend!"
Puisaye's suave insolence was untroubled. "The term is His Highness's own." He brought a letter from his bosom. "See for yourself, Duke, how His Highness addresses me. 'My dear friend,' is it not? Read on, if you will. You will find that he commends my labours, speaks of his impatience to co-operate with me and to take command of the army I have raised."
Before his magnificent amused contempt there was a general, shocked, resentful silence in that courtly group.
"I hope Monseigneur's trust will not prove misplaced," was the Duke's sour comment.
"You may hope it confidently," Puisaye assured him. "In fact you may believe it, like Mr. Pitt."
"Mr. Pitt's beliefs will hardly help us," sneered one.
"I think they will when translated into material assistance: ships and men, besides equipment and munitions for the army that awaits me in Brittany."
"You have persuaded Mr. Pitt that an army awaits you! Pardieu! I felicitate you on your persuasiveness."
"I thank you. I deserve no less. That army will rally to my standard when I raise it." He looked at them, almost seeming to flaunt his splendid height, his magnificent head thrown back. "Ah, Messieurs, I could make myself Duke of Brittany if I would," he boasted.
"I suppose," cackled d'Harcourt, "that Mr. Pitt believes that, too. An ingenuous gentleman, this Mr. Pitt." He turned contemptuously away, and it was as a signal for the others to depart.
"You will believe it when you are invited to enrol," Puisaye flung after them. "A chance for you all, Messieurs, to bleed instead of merely talking."
Disgruntled they melted away, and very soon there was not a Frenchman remaining in the academy.
Barlow came with his decanters, and in the window-bay overlooking a garden now sodden with the February rains Quentin made shift to entertain his guest.
"I wonder you think it worth while to bait them with your boasts."
"Boasts? Did I boast?" Puisaye settled himself in a chair. "If I did, I boasted only of what I can perform. And it amuses me to see those numskulls squirm, and squirt their futile venom. There's not a man amongst them but would rather not see the monarchy restored than that I should be the leader of that restoration. Don't begrudge me the amusement of crowing in their silly faces now that at last I've brought the British Government to support my enterprise."
"Is that really assured?"
"Pardieu! Will you, too, be offensive? Ships, men, arms, clothes, provisions and the rest. I have Pitt's definite promise. And in Brittany my army is ready. It awaits my signal."
Quentin stood facing him, suddenly inspired. "When do we sail?"
"We? What have you to do with it?"
"You'll not suppose I would not wish to be of the expedition. I have something to fight for, I believe."
Puisaye looked doubtful. "There's not the need. Remain here until the business is finished. Trust me then to see you settled in your marquisate. It will set a crown to my work."
Quentin stared at him. "You want to laugh," he said.
"How so?"
"A little more, and you'll imply that the British ships and your Breton army are to be applied to the restoration of the Marquis of Carabas."
"Of Chavaray," Puisaye gravely corrected. Then increased Quentin's amazement by adding with a careless laugh: "Faith! it may be nearer the truth than you suspect."
"It could not be further from it. Let us be serious. When you go, I go. And it cannot be too soon for me."
"You'll have some reason for this. What is it?"
"My own."
"Devil take you. Keep your confidences, then. But if it's the thought of Chavaray that's troubling you, I can tell you that Chavaray is safe. I took care to inform myself on my last journey. It has been sequestered, and is for sale. It could be bought for next to nothing. But lack of faith in the present order of things makes a sale impossible. There are no fools to buy lands from which they may be expelled to-morrow by a restoration. It was, in fact, to assure you of this that I came here to-day."
"I am more grateful than I can say." Indeed, Puisaye's interest in him was a source of ever-increasing wonder to Quentin. "But my anxiety to return to France is on quite other grounds."
"Of which you have told me that you do not wish to speak. Well, well. We shall see." Puisaye drained his glass, and stood up to take his leave. "You shall hear from me when I'm ready to sail."
Bruton Street did not see him again for a full month. But Quentin heard of him, and what he heard was little to the Count's credit; for the émigrés were the reporters.
At first they were seeking to discover the link between Quentin and one whom they never scrupled to describe as an upstart adventurer.
"He is my friend," Quentin had coldly discouraged more than one of them. "In France he saved my life. That is a sufficient debt, I think."
At first, and at least in part, it curbed their slanderous tendencies. Soon, however, news spreading to confirm Puisaye's boast that he had won the support of Pitt and the confidence of the Princes, the festering bitterness could no longer be repressed. It was remembered and repeated that he had been elected to the States-General in '89 as a representative of the nobles, and had treacherously voted with the Third Estate. He was a Republican at heart, and because even revolutionaries had rejected him he now made war upon the Republic. He had won the confidence of the Princes by a trick. By a trick he had imposed himself upon the Chouans, seizing the chance afforded by the death of La Rouêrie, who had organized them.
This and much more Quentin heard and scorned, assigning it rightly to a mean jealousy of the man's extraordinary ascendancy. He even made some enemies by defending Puisaye's name; and a few émigrés there were, such as Bellanger and d'Hervilly, who ceased to frequent the academy on that account.
O'Kelly took these defections to heart, and was acid on the score of Puisaye and Quentin's growing regard for him. Quentin, however, had other matters on his mind. His hunger to return to France so that he might be near Germaine had been at once sharpened and its satisfaction revealed as possible by Puisaye's account of the growing spirit of toleration and the difficulty of selling national property that was the fruit of confiscation.
The seed thus sown had germinated to such purpose in Quentin's mind that, taking advantage of the fact that Sir Francis Burdett, who had lately married the youngest daughter of Mr. Coutts, often came to fence in Bruton Street, he procured from him a letter of introduction to his father-in-law. Armed with this, he went off to the city, to seek that famous banker's guidance and assistance. To such purpose were they accorded him that presently it was reported in the academy that Monsieur de Morlaix was preparing to pay a second visit to France.
Hard upon the spreading of that report, on a wild night towards the end of March, Puisaye descended upon him to annoy him by a reproach of the intention.
"You have me spied upon, it seems," Quentin complained.
"That's an ugly description of my interest in you, child."
"Faith! You're cursedly paternal sometimes."
Puisaye's mouth fell open in astonishment. Then he laughed, and slapped Quentin's shoulder with his vigorous hand. "To the devil with your impudence! Have I not the right to be? Can't I boast that you owe your life to me? What more can a father boast?"
"I am not likely to forget it."
"Tush! It may be a meanness to remind you of it. But you drive me to it by your resentment of my concern. And that's a meanness, too. What is this haste to return to France?"
"To regain possession of Chavaray, of course. My arrangements are made. It's for sale. I propose to purchase it."
"A silly waste of money. Our guns will buy it back for you, as I've told you. But if you're too cursedly impatient--peste!--I'll not argue with you."
"You would lose your time."
"Curse your inflexibility." Puisaye laughed. Then his manner changed. He became serious. "To dissuade you now, might actually be against my own interests. For if you're set on going, there's a service you can render me."
Suddenly conscious that an indefinable resentment had been rendering him churlish, Quentin leapt impulsively at the chance of repaying something of his heavy debt towards this man. "You have but to ask."
"That's good of you. My need is of a certain urgency, and peculiar. It's this. I have a message for Cormatin, but I must have a messenger who is personally known to Cormatin, as well as to Tinténiac, who is now with him. The matter is one that I dare not commit to writing. I cannot risk at this stage that a letter should fall into Republican hands. Will you bear this message for me?"
"But very gladly. Where do I find Cormatin?"
Instead of answering, Puisaye asked him: "How do you propose to enter France?"
"I have my safe-conduct still."
"Too dangerous. It may be considered out of date. There have been changes again. You will go to Jersey. Thence one of my agents, whose name I will give you, will put you ashore in the neighbourhood of St. Brieuc. From there you will travel along my lines of communication from one to another of the houses of confidence I'll indicate. Now, please attend carefully."
Followed the substance of the message he was to bear. Puisaye's arrangements with Mr. Pitt were now complete and final. A fleet under Sir John Warren was already being equipped for the expedition. It should be ready to sail by early June, and the determined landing-place in France was the Bay of Quiberon. After this came details of arms, munitions and equipment for the Chouan army which the British ships would carry. Of these he supplied a written note, so couched as to be unintelligible to any who did not possess the key, and another, similarly framed, detailing the forces that would be landed to supplement the Chouans. There would be some four thousand British troops besides the regiments made up of the émigrés in England amounting to some three thousand men. There would be a further contingent of some two thousand émigrés now in Holland with Sombreuil, and yet to be brought over. In addition there would be an enrolment from among the French prisoners of war now in England of such as would be willing to earn deliverance by service in the royalist army. Their number was estimated at a thousand.
Acting upon this information, Cormatin was at once to make such disposition as would ensure that the three hundred thousand Chouans upon whom they counted would be held in readiness to rise in June as soon as the British ships reached Quiberon.
"It is all so important," Puisaye ended, "that I would go, myself, if my presence here were less urgently needed. There is not a single one of these pestilential émigrés I could trust to be my deputy in England. I have the less scruple to ask this service of you because of your determination to go in any case. And I reflect that if I ask you to serve me, I can repay you by helping you on your way. Along my lines of communication you can be certain of travelling in safety, and of obtaining assistance and protection at every stage."
"Thus," said Quentin graciously, "we shall be quits."
"Not until I see you safe at Chavaray in a land restored to monarchical rule. Believe me, my dear lad, the one is as important to me as the other."