Book II Chapter 7 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
INFERENCES
Hoche took himself off betimes on the following morning, with his staff, his Vicomtesse and his escort, after leave-takings that were patterns of courtesy and cordiality, "Symbolical," the Vicomtesse laughed, "of the embrace of the old order and the new."
When he had handed her into her travelling-carriage, Hoche still lingered.
"You should take measures for your protection," he recommended Quentin, and his eyes were gravely friendly.
"They are taken. Give yourself no concern, my General. I am disposing so as to leave Chavaray for the present."
"That is prudent. Once the pacification is proclaimed another spirit will come to reign over the land, and you will have no more to fear. Forgive the disturbance we have caused you, and fare you well."
He mounted and rode away in the wake of the carriage, his staff about him. At the gateway he turned in the saddle to wave his hat with its tricolour plumes.
From the steps of the perron Quentin watched them ride down the avenue between the files of dragoons, which closed up to follow. Then he went to give Charlot his last instructions before, himself, departing to make his way to the Chouan cantonments in the forest of La Noué.
He was still at this when a clatter of hooves in the courtyard announced another visitor, and to his joyous surprise he beheld Germaine in the act of tossing her reins to one of his lads.
Her appearance checked his gladness. She was not only pale, but coldly stern.
"You are disturbed," he said, when he had kissed her hand.
"Deeply. I have come to talk to you. In here?" She pointed with her whip to the dining-room, from which he had just emerged.
"If you will forgive the confusion in which you find it."
"Ah! The legacy of your Republican guests."
Her tone prompted him to reply: "And my very timely saviours."
He closed the door, whilst she went forward to the table from which all traces of his guests' breakfast had not yet been cleared. There was a significance in the glance this perfervid, ultra-Royalist lady bestowed upon it. Then she was steadily regarding him.
"You must be on singularly intimate terms with the sansculottes to be able to summon a troop of dragoons to your assistance. It lends colour to what has been said of you, to the very beliefs that led to last night's affair."
"You mean, to what Constant has said of me. He shall unsay it presently when he follows you hither, as no doubt he will again."
She shook her head. "Constant will not follow to-day. He has been dangerously wounded. He was cut over the head by one of your dragoons."
"God's Heart! I supposed that he inspired the raid. But I should never have supposed that he actually led it. That is not in his usual methods."
"What Constant may have done matters less to me than what you did. You have not answered my question: Will you tell me the truth of your relations with this canaille that at one time you travel under its safe-conduct, and at another you can summon its troops to protect you?"
Upon his amazement followed laughter. "Is that how it looks? But I summoned no troops. Hoche happened to halt here, demanding quarters for the night, on his way to Rennes."
"Why should Hoche seek quarters at Chavaray?"
"Faith, it's the way of these gentlemen, to requisition what they lack. For the rest, he did not even know that Chavaray was the château to which he came."
"And so, it was all just chance--miraculously timely chance?"
He met her incredulous, faintly scornful smile with a smile of patient gentleness. "As you say."
"And I am to believe it?"
His manner stiffened a little. "Since I tell you so."
At a loss, she toyed a moment with her whip, her eyes on the ground. Then she raised them again to meet his patient gaze. "Listen, Quentin. It is true, is it not, that last night when the peasants came, you went out and spoke to them?"
"And was twice fired upon by Constant's friend, Lafont. That is a detail worth adding."
This she ignored. "And is it true, as several have reported, that you warned them that help was on its way to you?"
He considered for a moment. "It is almost true. What I actually said was that, expecting the attack, I had already sent out an appeal for help."
"To whom, if not to General Hoche?"
"To the Chevalier de Tinténiac. My messenger left for La Noué yesterday morning, immediately after I received your warning."
"But La Noué is a hundred miles away. How could you say yesterday evening that help was on its way to you?"
He shrugged. "Isn't it plain that I must say something to intimidate them into abandoning the attack?"
"And then the help arrived. A really fortunate coincidence."
"Most fortunate. Unless you would prefer that I had been massacred. Is it your grievance, Germaine, that I have survived?"
The half-humorous question turned her hostility to distress.
"It is because you are not being frank with me; because of things that seem to confirm what is being said of you: that you are at heart a sansculotte. I am ever being reminded, first that you came to France on a safe-conduct from the sansculottes; then that by favour of the same you were permitted to enter into possession of Chavaray; and now, when you are attacked here because of just these things, Republican soldiers hasten to protect you."
"It seems to hang together," he admitted. "But for each of those counts, you have my explanation. Although, even without that, I do not see that I should deserve your censure."
"Should you not? You claim to be Marquis of Chavaray. Where is your place, if it is not beside the throne?"
"Agreed, so long as there is a throne to stand by. But where is the throne of France?"
"In the dust, I know. But it will be raised again, as surely as will the altars which have been defiled and overthrown."
He sighed, remembering what he had learnt from Hoche. "I would I could share your faith. But at least I can deny this calumny of Republican sympathies."
"What are denials when set against the deeds, themselves?"
"Deeds! Well, well. You shall have some. I am leaving now to perform them. Let me hope that they will not be misrepresented."
"What do you mean? You are leaving?" She was peremptory. "Where are you going?"
He possessed an answer to crush all her suspicions. On the point of delivering it he checked. He saw her, in her turn, confounding Constant with the tale of it, and he conceived that Constant in his murderous hostility, might not hesitate to use against him the knowledge thus obtained even at the price of contributing to the threatened ruin of the Royalist cause. A word of warning from Constant to Cormatin, and the odds were that Quentin would be destroyed by the betrayers of Puisaye before he could make the proposed attempt to thwart them.
Whatever the cost, then, he must conceal his intentions until he had contrived to reach Tinténiac.
"Where I am going is no matter. You would not expect me to wait at Chavaray for a renewal of last night's attack."
"But you spoke of deeds."
"Naturally. I shall not be idle. I must labour to the end that I may enjoy quiet possession of what is mine. They are labours that may come to improve your opinion of me."
"If you hesitate to tell me what they are, there is no more to be said until they are done." She gathered up her whip and gloves.
"Unless you should wish to felicitate me upon my preservation last night."
"There are things that do not need to be spoken, Quentin," she was grave, almost sorrowful. "I shall look to hear from you again . . . soon." She extended her hand.
Abruptly, impulsively, he brushed it aside, and took her in his arms.
"A little faith, Germaine," he begged. "A little faith! What is love without it?"
Within the grip of his embrace she looked up at him with her solemn eyes. "Nothing, Quentin, I know. You must inspire it."
"Very well." He let her go. He sighed, his brow clouded again. "I shall hope to supply an antidote to this poison."
On that, as she was moving to the door, he went to hold it for her. He was helping her to mount before she spoke again, and then it was only to repeat herself. "I shall hope--I shall pray--to hear from you soon."
He stood gloomily watching her until the poplars of the avenue hid her from his sight.