Book II Chapter 10 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
THE THANKS
Not until the morrow, when they were back in the cantonments of La Noué, did Mademoiselle de Chesnières find an opportunity to express a confusion that had found its climax when she beheld Quentin in the rescue party.
The return of the Chouans to their fastness had been similar to their departure from it. Leaving the disarmed Republicans to care for their wounded and bury their dead, they had dispersed into small groups, and so melted away.
On a stretcher, hurriedly improvised from branches, Cadoudal had been conveyed by a party of his Morbihannais lads back to the farm at which they had that morning rested, there to be put to bed whilst one of their own surgeons was summoned to tend a wound that was fortunately not dangerous.
The journey to La Noué was one that taxed the endurance not only of Madame de Chesnières, but also of Constant, who was still in a state of convalescence. Pauses were necessary, and by the time they came in deadly weariness to the Chouan cantonments, all those who had been in the affair near Pontivy were already back there in their quarters.
The ladies found the charcoal burner's hut made ready to receive them. Under St. Regent's directions fresh rushes had been laid on the earthen floor, and fresh bracken had replaced the old under the cloaks to form their beds.
Constant, who reached La Noué in a state of exhaustion, was housed in one of the log cabins.
Of the three, Mademoiselle de Chesnières, whose lithe vigour had suffered least, was the first to be astir upon the morrow. Refreshed by some hours of sleep, she emerged from the hut, active in a trim riding-gown of bottle-green and a plain, three-cornered hat, her fair hair stiffly dressed in a fashion almost mannish.
She came forth to survey in daylight her odd surroundings, to acquaint herself with one of those Chouan encampments of which she had heard the fabulous accounts that were current. But she found little to be seen beyond the three log cabins, the great brass crucifix aloft on its oak, and a cluster of Chouans, wild-looking men, most of whom, at their ease, were now in shirt and breeches about a fire of logs over which a great cooking-pot was suspended from an iron tripod. The steam of it, borne to her nostrils on the morning breeze, was appetising.
The men scrambled respectfully to their feet at her approach. Not for them, savages though they might appear, to remain seated in the presence of a gentlewoman whatever new doctrines might govern conduct and manners in Republican France.
She returned their greetings with the gracious dignity that made most men her willing servants. For some moments she stood in talk with them upon their cookery and their general mode of life, following with difficulty the answers from those amongst them who prided themselves upon speaking French. Then, with an eye on the log huts on the edge of that two-acre clearing, she asked for Monsieur de Chavaray. He had gone walking, she was told, some time since in the forest, with his gun, perhaps looking for his breakfast. Ah, but there he came, returning, and, faith, it looked as if he would have to be content with the stew of kid in the cauldron, like the rest of them.
Fowling-piece on shoulder he came sauntering into the open, and she went eagerly to meet him.
"Do you know my greatest joy in this deliverance, Quentin? It is in the thought that I owe it to you."
"Oh, no. Not to me. The design to rescue you was Cadoudal's."
His almost too courteous tone troubled her glance. "You are angry with me. Perhaps you have cause to be. I was not generous with you at Chavaray."
"There is nothing in this to prove that your judgment was at fault."
"And in what you did at La Prevalaye? Do you imagine that we have not heard of it?"
"That was no great matter."
"No great matter? It was matter enough to cover me with shame for heeding lying tales and for having drawn unhappy conclusions."
"They were quite logical, given the appearances."
She stood in sweet humility before him. "There was your word, as you reminded me. That should have outweighed appearances. It should not have needed the proofs you have since given, and at such cost to yourself. You must have known that you would be proscribed and hunted, for what you did. You were setting out to do it, and yet you would not tell me. In your pride you left me in my unjust doubts of you."
He was melted by her frank, sweet penitence. "Not in my pride. No. In my prudence. I dared not announce the intention even to you."
"You did not trust me! Perhaps I have no right to complain of that. I earned it by my own mistrust. That is what shames me."
He smiled. "In forming our opinions, the evidence is all, unless . . . But there! That is another matter."
"Unless . . . Unless what?"
"Unless an intuitive faith--shall we call it?--should override the evidence, repelling inimical conclusions. You see, you had said that you loved me."
She hung her head. "Yes," she softly answered him. "You have the right to say that. My faith should have lent me a better vision." She raised her eyes again, and they were magnified by sudden tears. "Can I say more, Quentin?"
He was completely conquered. If he did not take her in his arms, standing as they did within sight of those men about the cauldron, yet his tone almost supplied the place of the embrace.
"I should not have driven you to say so much. But I desired you to realize for yourself the errors by which you made me suffer."
"Quentin!"
"That is no matter now. You have seen how mendacious evidence can be. Another time you will mistrust it. For all that I told you was true as truth itself: of the safe-conduct, of the death of Boisgelin, of my possession of Chavaray, of the fortuitous coming of Hoche. As for what I did at La Prevalaye, if I am to continue truthful, I acted rather from a sense of duty to the Comte de Puisaye than from any political feeling. I desire to be honest with you in this as I have been in all else."
She held out her hands. "Is our peace made?"
He took them, his eyes glowing. "For all time, I hope."
Then as if the very expression reminded him of the perils that might shorten time for them, he spoke of the need to conduct them to the coast, and to ship them back to England until strife should be at an end in France.
She shook her head; but without concern. "It would not be possible. Madame de Chesnières could never face the dangers and hardships of that journey. It requires all the resource and vigour of a man. Besides, our plans are made. When we were arrested we were already packing up to go to Coëtlegon. Madame de Bellanger must have been aware of the orders for our arrest. She sent us word of it, urging us to go to her, and assuring us that at Coëtlegon we should find a sanctuary, where we would be secure from violence. But for my aunt's hesitations, due to a personal hostility to the Vicomtesse, we should never have delayed departure."
Quentin thought he understood both Madame de Chesnières' hostility to the Vicomtesse and the inviolability of Coëtlegon. A common source supplied one and the other. For once he approved Madame de Chesnières. But not to the extent of scorning the ægis provided by General Hoche.
"The arrest," Germaine concluded, "has put an end to any lingering hesitations in my aunt. She is very human, after all."
"I confess I had not found her angelic."
Germaine smiled and sighed. They had begun to move side by side across the clearing. "There is little that is angelic about any Chesnières, nor do they attract angelic mates. A queer, turbulent, unhappy family it has always been, tortured by internal hatreds that more than once have led to fratricide."
"Then all that happens to me is explained. It is in the Chesnières tradition."
Constant came to interrupt them. He approached, leaning heavily upon a cane. Pallor lent a greenish cast to his swarthiness. He greeted them with his sardonic grin.
"Ah, Germaine. You seize opportunity to return thanks to your saviour. Very proper."
"Is he not your saviour, too, Constant?"
"Do not make me laugh, child. I am still too weak from the wound his friends dealt me. And that is the answer."
It was Quentin who laughed. "With what comic tenacity you cling to a cherished conceit."
"To be sure you've changed your company since then. That, I suppose, would be to suit your convenience. You may run with the hare and hunt with the hounds until the hounds discover it and tear you down. It usually ends like that."
"Have you enlightened St. Regent?"
"Oh, sir! It is not my way to return good for evil."
"Ah, no," Germaine told him. "Evil for good is your way. You're proving it now."
With his sneering smile, Constant looked at Quentin. "You've a stout champion, sir, in Mademoiselle de Chesnières. I felicitate you."
"I thank you. A woman is my sufficient champion in this instance."
"Ah? I am dull. Be so amiable as to explain that to me."
"It's plain enough," said Germaine. "It means that he despises you too much to quarrel with you. And with reason. You're contemptible."
Constant still smiled. "If beauty dwells in the eye of the beholder, why so must ugliness. You see me according to your vision. I must deplore the deception it practises upon you."
"He means," said Quentin, "that he's impervious to insult. A lofty state of mind."
"Oh, I hardly claim so much. It must depend upon whence the insult comes. A woman's tongue, now, does no dishonour; a man's only if he is honourable himself."
With an exclamation of disgust Germaine turned her shoulders upon him. Quentin, however, chose to enter into Constant's humour. "A nice point; a nice discrimination. I ask myself should you stay to practise it if a man were so hasty as to box your ears."
"A coarse suggestion," said disdainful Constant.
Germaine broke in with heat: "Oh, why do you trouble to answer his empty, offensive chatter, Quentin?"
"Oh, feminine inconsequence!" Constant mocked her. "If I am empty I cannot be offensive."
"Of course not," Quentin agreed indulgently.
"Ah?"
"Merely empty."
"You relieve me. But, of course, I had not supposed that it was possible to offend you."
"That is rarely a safe assumption, Monsieur de Chesnières."
"I had not paused to think of safety, Monsieur . . . Monsieur de Carabas."
Quentin stepped forward so quickly, and moved to such obvious sudden anger, that the leer perished on Constant's lips. He may well have asked himself had he not perhaps pushed insolence incautiously far. He may have been relieved to find Germaine slipping between them, to lash him with the controlled scorn of her quiet voice.
"What a poor, paltry, insolent coward you are, Constant! You lean on your cane, a sick, feeble man, spitting venom from the shelter of your sickness, abusing a patience that you suppose inexhaustible, and this against a man who rescued you only yesterday from the peril of death."
He interrupted her. "Ah, that no. All the rest, if you please. They are merely opinions; a girl's negligible opinions. But that Monsieur de Morlaix was moved by any thought of rescuing me is more, I think, than even he will pretend."
"A fair statement," Quentin agreed. "I should have been as unlikely to go to your assistance as you are to acknowledge it."
"I am obliged to you for your frankness, Monsieur," said Constant.
St. Regent, slight and agile in his hussar jacket, came to bid them to breakfast, and led the way to the hut with Monsieur de Chesnières.
Germaine, following at leisure with Quentin, set a hand on his arm.
"You possess a brave man's forbearance," she commended him.
"My dear," he answered her, "my wrath is not required. Monsieur Constant is a man who will dig himself a grave with his tongue before he is much older. To that fate I am content to leave him."