Book II Chapter 4 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
IN POSSESSION
On a bright day of spring, Monsieur de Morlaix cantered up the long avenue of Lombardy poplars, about the roots of which the crocuses gleamed golden, to the gates of Chavaray. Three men who had the air of grooms rode with him; Chouans these, of that dozen of the bodyguard with which Tinténiac had provided him.
Monsieur de Morlaix had fared reasonably well, all things considered, at the hands of the Public Accuser of Angers. He had presented himself boldly three days ago at the office of that important public functionary, and had been paid the compliment of immediate recognition.
"Behold me, if I am not mistaken, the Citizen Morlaix returned at last. Name of a name! But where have you tarried this long while?"
"I have been to England."
"To England!" The Citizen Besné made a wry face. "That's no place for a true Frenchman. A land of perfidy. Our natural enemies, the English, from immemorial time. I thank God for it. I would not have them for our friends. In the name of reason what took you there?"
"A matter of twenty-four thousand livres in gold."
"That is some excuse." The lean, livid, pock-marked face was split by a grin. "A man might go even to England for that."
"The friends in France upon whom I counted could not help me, so I had no choice. I bring you a draft on a bank in Amsterdam for that amount."
A lively flicker in Besné's little eyes resolved itself into a cold stare. "For twenty-four thousand livres?"
"In gold. Was not that the sum agreed?"
Besné displayed indignation. "But that, my friend, was a solatium to me for offering no opposition to your inheriting. Since then the situation has changed. The sequestration has been effected and registered. Chavaray is now definitely national property, and for sale."
"It was already national property then: so you informed me. But you were prepared to rescind the sequestration. What was possible then should be possible now."
"Indeed, it is not. Since then you have placed yourself definitely outside the law, by emigrating again."
"To leave the country for the express purpose of obtaining the money necessary to satisfy legal requirements is not to emigrate."
Besné's full face was puckered into a grin. He made little humming noises. "You should have been a lawyer. You certainly know how a hair should be split. Nor can I say that your argument is really unsound. Indeed, considering it, I could hardly be held guilty of a grave dereliction of duty if I yielded to the temptation of serving you."
"I have it here."
"You have what?"
"The temptation." From a wallet of oiled silk, Quentin drew one of the bills of exchange on Amsterdam which had resulted from his visits to Mr. Thomas Coutts. He thought it well to add: "It is worthless until I endorse it to your order. But that is quickly done. As quickly as your signing the admission of my claim."
With the figure "1000 guineas" dancing before his eyes, the Public Accuser pursed his lips. "Vexatious!" he muttered. "Most vexatious. The sequestration, I repeat, is registered. Only by actual purchase can you now become possessor of the place. But that would have the advantage of making it doubly yours: by purchase and by inheritance." Amiably the Citizen Besné proffered his open snuff-box.
Quentin waved it impatiently away. "And the price?"
"Oh, but at a nominal price, of course. I might say, as before, five million livres. In that case you would be well served by the further depreciation of the national currency. In gold to-day that is not more than two thousand English guineas. A bagatelle. A farce of a price. I may come to be bitterly reproved for it. But there!" He shrugged his shoulders. "There are no buyers in these days, and the nation must take what it can. Look you, citizen: you shall have the estates for five million livres, or two thousand English guineas. I'll have the deed of sale ready for you by to-morrow. And, of course, there will be the little commission of a thousand guineas that we agreed."
So in exchange for his bills, two of them endorsed to the National Treasury, the other to the Citizen Besné, Quentin received his deed of ownership, and with it came once more to those tall iron gates from which on his former visit he had been ignominiously driven.
The clang of the bell was answered by the barking of a dog, and presently from that same low doorway in the left wing emerged as before the steward Lafont, this time with a growling liver-coloured mastiff at his heels.
He stared through the bars at Quentin, who sat his horse. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"The owner of Chavaray. Unbar the gate."
Recognition gleamed in the fellow's glance. "So it's you again!"
"Your memory is better than your manners. Unbar the gate, I say."
"Ah, bah! The nation is the present owner of Chavaray, and it's in my charge."
"That is at an end. I have this for you." He leaned from the saddle, and passed a paper through the bars.
Scowling over it, Lafont read it aloud. "The bearer of these, the Citizen Quentin Morlaix, having acquired by purchase the property of . . ." The steward broke off, and looked up with a malevolent sneer. "I see. A buyer of national property." He laughed with sour malice. "I hope you may enjoy it longer than is usual in these days."
"Meanwhile, the gate."
"To be sure. The gate." He turned the key in the lock, and opened one of the wings, driving the dog to heel with an oath.
In the forecourt Quentin left his Chouans to stable the horses, and with Lafont for reluctant and surly guide, went to acquaint himself with the house.
Whilst the architecture was that of the days of Louis XIII, the decoration of the spacious rooms was mainly in the baroque style of Louis XV. Exceptions were the wide hall with its elegant pilasters, the black and white chequers of its marble pavement and the vast fireplace, its cowl adorned by the shield of the Chesnières with its oak-tree device. At either end of the hall a wide marble staircase, carpeted in faded red, led to the gallery that surrounded it on three sides above. The dining-room, too, of dark oak wainscoting and massive furniture, was contemporary with the house. But all the rest was of the style of more frivolous days. Quentin passed through a succession of rooms on the ground floor, panelled in silks and tapestries within frames of ornately contorted escutcheon shapes: a green room, a pink room, a room known as the peacock room from designs on the satin panels, another known as the room of the monkeys, from the old tapestries of arboreal designs upon which monkeys sported. In some, the furniture and the lustres overhead were conserved in linen shrouds; in others their glories were bare to the dust that overlaid everything within that neglected mansion and matched the cracked mirrors, the broken picture frames and tattered tapestries, some of which disfigured almost every one of those splendid rooms.
It was to be Quentin's task in the days that followed to restore some order, and to this he set the peasant lads that Tinténiac had supplied him. They had been chosen from among those who, rendered homeless by the troubles, were willing and even glad to exchange the comforts of life under a roof for a roving, forest existence. They were under the direction of an elderly Chouan named Charlot, who had been a sort of seneschal-intendant at the Château de Plougast, burnt by the Blues in '93. He possessed a wife and a daughter, with whom employment at Chavaray permitted reunion, and because of this, Quentin received from the three of them devoted service.
Restoration of order in the château was followed by attention to the estates. It was necessary to make the acquaintance of the métayers and other tenants, and to seek the guidance of Lesdiguières for the appointment of a steward to succeed Lafont, whom he had instantly dismissed. Of no less urgency was it to pay a visit to Grands Chesnes, a matter reluctantly postponed from misgivings of the reception that might await him there. To continue the postponement, however, seemed to him a frustration of the real purpose of his coming to France. Resolved, therefore, for the sake of seeing Germaine de Chesnières, to face at once whatever hostility there might be, he ordered a horse to be saddled for him one fine April morning, and set out.
He rode alone, and his way ran through level lands dotted with coverts, which grew denser and more frequent as he approached the banks of the Mayenne. The meadows were green and lush with herbage left too abundant by the scarce cattle set to graze; of the tillage, some stood fallow and empty, other was so rank with weeds that it advertised its neglect even to such inexpert agrarian eyes as Quentin's. The few isolated rustics whom he met eyed him from under lowering brows, and it was rarely that any returned his greeting. An old man of whom he inquired if he were on the right way to the ford, jabbered for answer in a language Quentin did not understand, but the tone and manner of which did not lead him to suppose himself the object of civilities.
By following a path through a fringe of woodland, he came at last to the shrunken river, singing and sparkling in the sunshine as it rippled and frothed over a broad gravel shallow. He urged his horse to the water, through the tall rushes and golden king-cups that fringed the bank, and splashed his way across. Thence a well-defined pathway led him a straight two miles or so to a sober grey manor, flanked by a single tower with an extinguisher roof, which he rightly supposed to be Grands Chesnes.
To the elderly man in peasant dress, without pretence of livery, by whom he was received, he accounted it prudent to announce himself in the Republican style, as the Citizen Morlaix, and after a waiting pause in a gloomy hall, he was brought to a lofty room of a sombre dignity, where Constant de Chesnières stood cool and sardonic to receive him.
"I am honoured, Monsieur de Morlaix." It was thus that Constant now elected to address him. "I had heard of your arrival at Chavaray. Permit me to say that I admire your courage."
Quentin bowed. "I shall study always to deserve that admiration."
"Too gracious. In what may I serve you?"
"In nothing of which I am aware. Rather am I here to offer my services to you."
"Again, too gracious. We hear reports that you have purchased Chavaray from the nation."
"It appeared to be the simplest course, all things considered."
"Simple, perhaps. But fraught with risks. You'll recall the old warning maxim, Caveat emptor."
"It is scarcely applicable to me."
"By your leave, sir, it is applicable to any man who buys stolen goods."
"But not if they were stolen from himself."
"I see." Constant's eyes were insolently raised. "You take that view?"
"What view do you take, Monsieur?"
"That is of little consequence. What should be, is that purchasers of national property have fared none too happily of late. In your own case, too, the Chouans may recall that a Monsieur de Boisgelin, a cousin of ours, who was of some esteem amongst them, met his death at your hands. They are of a tenacious memory, these Chouans, and not without vindictiveness. I do not wish to alarm you," he added, with his sneering smile. "And, as I have said already, it is impossible not to admire your courage."
"And just as impossible to shake it," Quentin answered him amiably. "As for Boisgelin, it will be known that I killed him in a fair engagement."
"A fair engagement!" For a moment Constant's voice was charged with anger. It was instantly controlled. "I should deplore to intrude a harsh note upon so amiable an occasion by reminding you that you are a fencing-master."
"I am not on my defence. But I may remind you in my turn that Boisgelin was a practised duellist."
"You knew that of him. But he was not so well informed concerning yourself."
"That I can believe. His friends were oddly negligent, or else unduly confident."
"His friends?" Constant questioned, his glance sharpening.
But already Quentin was turning from him. He had heard the door open behind him, and he was brought face to face with Mademoiselle de Chesnières.
For a moment there was a breathless pause, then she sped impulsively forward.
"Quentin . . . Cousin Quentin!"
He bent over her hand, bearing it to his lips, whilst ahead, Madame de Chesnières advanced into the room with solemn dignity, and behind him, Constant remained sternly at gaze.
"Germaine!" Madame's utterance expressed disapproval and commanded restraint. Then, with a manner that might have been modelled upon her son's, and employing the same mode of address, "Monsieur de Morlaix, is it not?" she said.
"Your servant, Madame."
"I was told that you were here. I am wondering what may be the occasion."
It was discouraging. But he continued coolly urbane. "No more than the natural desire to express my duty."
Germaine stood beside him, apprehension in the watchful glance that moved from her aunt to her cousin. "You do us honour," she declared with an air that seemed to defy them both.
Constant laughed. "Why, so I was telling Monsieur de Morlaix. I must take an early occasion of returning the civility."
"We have not been in the house," said Madame, "since your Republican friends removed the late Marquis."
"My Republican friends! Oh, Madame!" He smiled his astonishment. "I was not aware that I had earned the Republic's friendship."
"But since it has placed you in possession of Chavaray . . ."
"No, no," Constant intervened. "You forget, Madame. Monsieur de Morlaix is there by right of purchase. I was explaining to him the dangers of purchasing national property when you came in."
"It is possible," said Germaine, "that Cousin Quentin's right to it is still better founded."
"Can there," wondered Quentin, to annoy them, "be a better right to anything than that conferred by a deed of sale?"
"Always provided," Constant reminded him, "that the vendor, himself, possesses a sound title. That is what renders Monsieur de Morlaix's position delicate."
"You repeat yourself, Constant," Germaine coldly reproved him.
"A cardinal truth cannot be too often repeated."
"Nor a cardinal lie, it seems."
"Germaine!" Her mother was scandalized. She directed upon Quentin her deliberately false smile. "You will excuse the child, Monsieur de Morlaix. The very young will always be dogmatic in matters they do not understand."
"But I assure you that I regard Mademoiselle's understanding of this matter as complete and perfect."
"A dangerous chivalry, sir."
He chose to be sententious. "Where there is no danger there can be no chivalry."
"Since you perceive both," said Constant, "we need say no more on that score."
There fell a pause, and it was impossible for Quentin longer to ignore that they kept him standing, even could he have ignored the hostile eyes in the smiling masks assumed by mother and son. If he did not regret that he had come, at least he perceived that it became impossible to protract the visit.
"I will remove the inconvenience of my presence."
They murmured protests in tones calculated to mark their insincerity, and anger flashed from Germaine's eyes.
"You may look for me soon at Chavaray," Constant assured him at parting, with a mockery that was but too apparent, and the echo of which rang in Quentin's ears until he was home again.