Book III Chapter 3 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
DALLIANCE
Lest from the heights of Ste. Barbe the activity of craft transporting the brigades from Quiberon should be observed by Republican telescopes and its purpose surmised, d'Hervilly insisted that the operation should be carried out at night.
Puisaye was scornful of the precaution. "Will you still be interfering? And have you vision for one object only at a time? What shall it profit them if they see our luggers? What can they conclude but that the Chouans continue to desert us?"
Yet, although he accounted it a source of unnecessary delays he yielded the point.
The council's final decision had been that the Chouans be put ashore in the creeks of Rhuis; that they assemble at Muzillac, and thence move in a wide circle, by Questembert, Elven and the moors of Lanvaux, round Vannes, to come down upon Plouharnel.
With the limited number of luggers and sloops available, three nights were consumed in conveying the Chouan divisions from Quiberon. So that the embarkations, commenced on the night of the 10th July, were not completed until that of the 12th.
Cadoudal went in command of the first contingent, Guillemot of the second, and St. Regent of the third. In addition to the Chouans, the expedition included a company of the Loyal Émigrant. This was a political measure upon which Puisaye had insisted. He had been equally insistent that this company be under the command of Tinténiac, and d'Hervilly had yielded only with the condition that the Vicomte de Bellanger, who had proved his loyalty to him, should go as second in command. He had also designated the remainder of the officers. To Quentin the departure of the Chouans and of Tinténiac represented a danger of being parted from the only friends he counted in Brittany, and of being left at Quiberon with no associates but the supercilious émigrés on whom he wasted no affection. He was therefore urged to seek Puisaye's permission to go with Cadoudal.
At first the Count frowned upon the request. "You would be better here with me. You will be saved the hardships of an arduous march."
Quentin accounted the objection frivolous, and said so. Puisaye reflected, and his brow cleared.
"Why, if you're set on it, I'll not deny you. Indeed, perhaps I ought to be glad to have you go when I remember La Prevalaye. You proved a stout representative then; and with these fribbles about him, Tinténiac may be in need of your support. Take care of yourself. But then Georges shall have my orders as to that."
So it was with Cadoudal on the night of the 10th that Quentin departed from Quiberon.
The entire force was to be in Hoche's rear by dawn of the 16th, ready to fall upon it as soon as the guns were heard announcing the opening of the frontal attack. The last of the Chouans should be ashore at Rhuis by dawn of the 13th, and the entire army would then be ready to move upon its circuitous march of forty miles. Two days at need would suffice those hardy lads for this. But because of the émigrés and so as to provide for eventualities, Puisaye had rightly insisted upon a margin of twenty-four hours. Eventualities there were almost from the outset.
In order to avoid congesting the little town of Muzillac, and so as to cover at once the first stage of the march, Cadoudal brought his men on the 11th, by Festumbert to Elven, thus disposing at once of almost half the distance to their destination. There on the morrow he was joined by Tinténiac and the detachment of the Loyal Émigrant. Tinténiac reported that he had left Guillemot at Festumbert, and that they would come forward that night, whilst word had been left at Muzillac for the last division under St. Regent, so that he might follow as soon as his men were landed.
Tinténiac would have pushed on at once. Elven was too near to Vannes, where Tallien and Bled, the representatives with the Army of Cherbourg, had taken up their quarters, and word of the presence of this Chouan army must inevitably reach them. Cadoudal attached no importance to it.
"It will have reached them already, anyway. But so far it will have told them little. They'll suppose us deserters. It is only when we leave Elven that our destination may be suspected from the direction we take. So here we'll stay until the last moment."
The men were quartered partly upon the townsfolk, who made them welcome, partly in farmsteads about the foot of the uplands of Lanvaux. The officers had joined Cadoudal at the Inn of the Grand Breton, which was one of the houses of confidence upon which the Royalists relied.
There Quentin was at breakfast with Tinténiac and Cadoudal on the morning of the 13th, when Bellanger came into the room with a letter in his hand, and on his face the glowing smile of the bearer of good tidings.
"Chevalier, this has just reached me from my wife, who is at Coëtlegon. She writes that Charette, with between five and six thousand Vendeans, is expected there to-day, and that he will be eager to reinforce us if we resolve to pass that way. She adds that they will be proud at Coëtlegon to welcome the officers of the Royal and Catholic Army. In her confidence that we will accept her invitation, she is assembling there some of the loveliest ladies of Brittany, as eager as herself to honour the gallant gentlemen whose swords are to bring back the King."
Hand on hip, the rather too-handsome head thrown back, he seemed to wait for the applause. Instead three pairs of eyes surveyed him coldly, and then Quentin expressed what was probably in the minds of all.
"How comes Madame la Vicomtesse to send you a letter? How does she know where to find you, and the rest?"
Bellanger exhibited impatience of the stupidity that could prompt such a question. She did not know where to find him. But news of the landings begun two nights ago had already gone out through Brittany, and it was none so far to Coëtlegon. Her courier was passing through Elven on his way to Muzillac, but, seeing the army, he had naturally inquired if by any chance the Vicomte de Bellanger happened to be with it.
"Plausible," said Quentin. "Almost too plausible to be convincing."
Bellanger became haughty. "What the devil do you mean, sir? Do you suppose I don't know my wife's hand?"
"You may know her hand. It's not her hand that's in question."
"What, then, if you please?"
"Her knowledge, of course," said Cadoudal. "You've answered only half. How did the Vicomtesse know that you were to be with this army that has landed in Rhuis?"
"She assumed it, of course."
"From what?"
Bellanger's hauteur soared magnificently. "From her knowledge that I am ever to be found at the post of honour."
"That, naturally," said Quentin gently. "But suppose that for one of the many reasons that might arise, you had not landed on Rhuis, what would have become of this very important military news?"
"That is impertinent."
"No. No." Tinténiac spoke at last. "Pertinent. Most pertinent."
Bellanger curled his full lip, and flung the letter on the table. "Look at the superscription, Chevalier."
Tinténiac read it aloud: "To the Vicomte de Bellanger or the officer commanding the detachment of the Royal and Catholic Army at Muzillac." He returned the letter, smiling. "That, of course, makes everything clear."
"Saving that Muzillac was to have been our place of assembly. Actually, it is not," Quentin objected.
The Chevalier swept that aside. "It would be easily presumed by anyone who knew that we were landing at Rhuis."
"And how would that be known? If the news went forth when Georges landed his men, what grounds would there be for assuming that others were to follow and that a point of assembly was settled?"
"Faith," growled Cadoudal, "I think that wants answering."
"The answer is that, as you see, it was assumed."
"Does that satisfy you?" wondered Quentin.
"It would be well to be plain, Monsieur de Morlaix," said Bellanger. "So tell us what you are supposing."
"I suppose nothing. I ask; and I do not find an answer."
"I think I have supplied one. My wife appears to have assumed that which you conclude was not to be assumed. It's merely your conclusion that's at fault." As if that were the last word on the subject, he turned again to Tinténiac. "The important matter is that of Charette and his Vendeans. You can hardly neglect so valuable a reinforcement."
"I don't intend to." He looked from Cadoudal to Quentin. "It's a piece of unexpected luck. It makes doubly sure the defeat of Hoche. As soon as St. Regent arrives we march to Coëtlegon."
Cadoudal was dubious. He thrust out a heavy lip. "What need for that? It's eight or nine leagues to Coëtlegon. Let the Vendeans join us here."
Bellanger's face was clouded with haughty displeasure. "That is boorish. It is hardly the gracious return this invitation deserves."
"We are at war," was Cadoudal's brusque retort. "War is serious. Boorish, if you like. It doesn't leave room for empty courtesies."
The Vicomte was all disdainful tolerance. "I fear, sir, that we look at this from different angles. The view you express has never been that of gentlemen."
"Which may be why the sansculottes have nearly made an end of them."
"Come, come," laughed Tinténiac. "No need to dispute it. We have time to spare. Coëtlegon doesn't take us far out of our way. We are not due at Plouharnel until Friday."
"And you've to consider," said Bellanger, "that five thousand Vendeans marching by themselves, might easily be beset and routed, and so lost to us, whereas when incorporated with us, we shall make up an army that need fear no force the Blues could send against us."
"That is unanswerable," Tinténiac agreed. "And, of course," the pleasure-loving rascal added lightly, "it would be detestable to disappoint the ladies. It is settled, then, that we go."
Again he looked from Cadoudal to Quentin, as if inviting their agreement. But it was not forthcoming. Cadoudal ill-humouredly held that they had a definite objective, and should not be led aside by any lure. Quentin, even more hostile, accounted that too much remained unexplained to render these proposals acceptable. As a result, Tinténiac, wavering between his ever-ready gallantry and his sense of strict duty, decided to summon a council of all the officers to determine the matter.
But when Bellanger had left them, the Chevalier reproached his companions. "You make difficulties where none need be made."
"Whilst you," retorted the downright Cadoudal, "think too much of disappointing the women."
Tinténiac took the reproof in good part, with a laugh. "Of disappointing Madame de Bellanger," he amended. "Consider that she has not seen her husband for two years. And you should remember that, too, when you criticize the Vicomte."
Quentin's lip curled in a smile. "You suppose them in a fever to see each other, do you? At the back of all my mistrust is the knowledge that she is more deeply attached to Lazare Hoche than the Vicomte de Bellanger's wife has a right to be."
Tinténiac took it flippantly. "Hoche! Ha! An Apollo, they tell me. Your long residence in England has made you puritanical, Quentin."
"Hoche commands the Army of Cherbourg."
"Ah, bah! Love laughs at politics."
Thus airily he dismissed the matter, and left it for the council to settle their course. At the meeting, Quentin's was the only voice raised against marching by way of Coëtlegon. He urged that being in sufficient strength without the Vendean reinforcements, nothing could justify their turning aside from their very definite goal. Cadoudal, whilst warmly agreeing with him, would not press the point since they had plenty of time in hand. The remainder, and there were eight of them in all, found the Vicomtesse de Bellanger's invitation irresistible. One of them even went so far as to argue that acceptance was strategically sound, since if they were under observation by Republican scouts, this turning aside would be entirely misleading.
So in full strength they marched out of Elven on the morning of the 13th, and by evening they came to Coëtlegon. The Chouans arrived there weary, dust-laden and disgruntled. The stout boots received from England had rendered footsore these hardy men who never knew fatigue when barefoot or shod with clogs of their own making. Nor did they show a proper pride in the gaiters and red coats that had replaced their fustians and goatskins.
At the disposal of their chiefs Coëtlegon placed the outbuildings, whilst the men themselves were left to bivouac in the vast park. Beasts had been assembled for their nourishment, and some pipes of wine. But they were left the task of slaughtering and preparing their own meat.
The hospitality of the château itself was reserved for the officers of the Loyal Émigrant, and it was lavish.
Madame de Bellanger, a white radiance, with a string of pearls entwined in her ebony tresses and more than a touch of the new, revealing, merveilleuse fashion in her dress, came out upon the terrace to receive them, leading a train of damsels attendant upon her queenliness. They came with chatter and laughter in a gay excitement to greet these knightly gentlemen of the old France, and there were even some resumptions of acquaintance.
Quentin's glumness was dispelled by the unexpected sight of Germaine de Chesnières in that fluttering flock, a Germaine whose amazed eyes had no glances for any but himself. He broke away from the group in which he had ascended the terrace steps, and went straight to her. With a smile on trembling lips, she held out both hands to him.
"Quentin! I had not dreamt that you would be of the company."
"Nor I that you would still be at Coëtlegon. I might have been less honest had I known."
"Less honest?"
"The eagerness to behold you would have stifled the misgivings in which I came."
"Misgivings?"
He was given no leisure to explain. The Vicomtesse had concluded the reception of a husband she had not seen for two years. It had been marked by a self-possessed absence of all transports. That duty briefly and decorously performed, she fluttered diaphanous upon them, to say in other words what Germaine had said already.
"My dear Marquis! That you should honour Coëtlegon again! An enchanting surprise." Her smile was wide with delight, but he thought her eyes were wary.
"I have to thank the fortune of war. Whatever else it brings, surprises are never absent."
"If all were as agreeable, we should not complain of war. Should we, Germaine?"
"Alas!" Germaine answered gravely. "War is no matter for light-heartedness when those dear to us are engaged in it."
"How solemn, child! And yet how fitting to be solemn." She assumed solemnity herself. "I think I laugh to keep myself from weeping. Oh, and because it is a duty that we owe to these brave ones, who offer their lives to the great cause. We must be gay, so as to make gay for them the few hours they spend with us. What else," she added wistfully, "can women do?"
On that they were dragged away to be merged into the glittering throng that was slowly trailing across the terrace towards the house, and thus robbed of the communion for which they hungered.
Tossed hither and thither when the hall was reached, Quentin found himself presently shoulder to shoulder with Tinténiac, who was deep in a battle of pleasantries with the lovely Madame de Varnil and her lovelier sister, Mademoiselle de Breton-Caslin.
With scant ceremony he took the Chevalier by the arm and drew him aside.
"Mordieu! What's this? Is the house afire?" demanded Tinténiac.
"I've a notion that it ought to be. Was there--or did I dream it--some talk of Charette and a force of Vendeans? If so, where do they hide five thousand men?"
"Oh, that! They are to arrive to-morrow."
"The report was that they would be here to-day."
"They are longer on the road than was expected. Not surprising."
"And if they should not arrive to-morrow?"
"Eh? To the devil with your doubts. Of course they'll arrive. Meanwhile, the company is charming, and the charm of it will become more marked as the evening advances. We are to dance after supper. My dear Quentin, why so glum amid delights?"
"Delights were not in our programme when we left Quiberon."
"There was nothing against refreshing ourselves upon the way. Good God, Quentin, I may be dead to-morrow, or the day after. Let us live whilst we live. Dum vivemus vivamus."
The banquet when they came to it, an affair of fifty covers, seemed to revive those spacious days before the guillotine was invented. The free flow of the wine warmed heads and hearts that nature had not fashioned cool.
Afterwards to the stimulus of an orchestra that the lavishly provident Vicomtesse had assembled, came the dancing that Tinténiac had so joyously foretold.
Outside in the park, the Chouans about their bivouac fires could see the windows ablaze with golden light, could hear the tinkling strains of dance music wafted to them on the tepid air. It set them wondering whether their days and nights of bandit warfare and their forest life had not been all a dream.
Cadoudal smoked his pipe on a bench by the lake, with St. Regent, Guillemot and some other chiefs. Annoyed by the absence of Monsieur de Charette's Vendeans, he was deploring his weakness in not having more strongly supported the Marquis de Chavaray's opposition to this excursion. He had been unduly swayed by Tinténiac. The bravest of the brave, Tinténiac. But of notorious weaknesses, and too prone to dalliance.
He was exercising it now. Amid the shadows on the terrace etched by the silver radiance of a half-moon, Madame de Bellanger's high, gaily wanton laugh tinkled intermittently to announce the amusement she found in the Chevalier's gallantry. For to-night she had made him her own. She had been at need to remind Bellanger that this was proper in a hostess towards her principal guest, when he had sentimentally complained of being neglected by a wife to whom he returned after two years of exile.
In that same mood of sentimental dudgeon, yet with unfaltering dignity, the Vicomte had carried his lament to his old friends, Madame de Chesnières and her son.
Constant, now fully restored to health and vigour, was eager to take the place that belonged to him in the Loyal Émigrant. He had hailed the arrival of the regiment at the very moment when he had been on the point of setting out for Quiberon so as to rejoin it. He soothed Bellanger with arguments which had failed when urged by the Vicomtesse. He stressed Tinténiac's high consequence and the need to do him honour, which was to be regarded as honour done the Royal and Catholic Army.
"But then," said the Vicomte, "I, too, am of some consequence. I am the second in command."
"And there is no lack of honour waiting for you, too. Mademoiselle de Breton-Caslin, for instance, has eyes for no one else."
It was one way of being rid of him. He took the bait, and soon they beheld him bowing from his stately height over that frail piece of loveliness.
Constant was loftily amused. Madame de Chesnières, with other preoccupations, did not share his amusement. Through her lorgnettes she scanned the dancing throng.
"I do not see Germaine. Where is she?"
"I do not see the Marquis of Carabas. Either it is a coincidence, or it is the answer."
She bridled. "You take it calmly."
He made a gesture of indifference. "War settles many things, and not only for causes and nations. This pestilent fencing-master, to do him justice, is not easily handled. Time enough to think of it when these hostilities are over. He may not survive them."
"That is your way, is it not? You let others fight your battles. Why, then, did you enrol in the Loyal Émigrant? Are you perhaps immune from the very dangers upon which you found hopes for this fellow?"
"There is the name. You must see that, Madame. If the Royalist cause should prevail, as we hope, how would a man of the house of Chesnières look who, being at hand and in health, had held aloof? I may possess the wisdom to avoid unnecessary risks, but I do not lack the courage to face necessary ones. Now that the regiment is here I have claimed my place. I am to join Tinténiac's staff."
She sighed ponderously. "I suppose you are right." She became lachrymose. "But you will not expect a mother to show enthusiasm. Armand's case gives me anxiety enough." She looked up into the heavy, swarthy face. "If I should lose you both there will be none to dispute possessions of Chavaray to this bastard of Margot's."
"Is that what troubles you?"
"Constant!" It was an exclamation of fierce denial.
"Be easy. Armand is safe with Sombreuil's division, since from what they tell me, all should be over before it arrives in France. He will be in time to reap the laurels which others will have cut."
"If I could be sure of that!" Inconsequently she added: "I wish Germaine would not continue absent. A headstrong, wilful girl. Instead of being a help and comfort to me in these dreadful times, she merely adds to my distraction. I am a very unhappy woman, Constant."
He stayed to soothe her when she would have had him rescuing Germaine from her fencing-master, and thereby increased her irritation.
Meanwhile Germaine and her fencing-master were one of the few couples that paced the terrace, where the golden glow from the windows was merged with the silver radiance of the moon.
She intoxicated him with a sweet, gentle frankness that made amends for the pangs of earlier misunderstandings. "I should be happy, Quentin, if I could forget to-morrow and what you go to do."
"Yet if I were not going you would contemn my lack of a proper Royalist fervour."
"Don't make a jest of it, even to punish me for my past unfaith. That was a school through which I went. I have come out wiser. I know my heart. And it is time I did. For in three months now, Quentin, my tutelage will be ended. I shall be free to dispose of myself, mistress of my fate."
"And mistress then of mine."
She stood still, to face him. "Is that a promise, Quentin?" She was singularly solemn.
"Much more. It is an assertion."
She may have accounted his tone too light. "But I want you to promise it--whatever happens?"
"I could promise nothing more gladly. Whatever happens. But what is to happen?"
She drew a sigh of relief, and they moved on again.
"Who can say what will happen? Who can look more than a little way into the future? Let there, for us, be at least this one sure thing towards which we travel."
"You give me pride and joy, Germaine."
"Your first words to me to-day were of misgivings. What troubles you?"
He told her, and went on to speak of Puisaye's sufferings, of his strife with difficulties, and of the thwarting of his well-laid plans. "The adventure in which we are concerned represents a last chance to undo the harm that's been done, to save his great conception from ruin. If we should fail him it will break his heart; yes, and more hearts than his. The royal cause will be sunk."
"Monsieur de Puisaye is enviable to inspire such deep concern. For your concern is for him rather than the cause. I am a little jealous, perhaps, yet grateful to him for having made so stout a Royalist of you. I would that I had achieved it."
"But, Germaine," he protested, "more than anyone alive are you responsible for my politics. Until the King comes to his own, I shall not now come to Chavaray, and I shall have no kingdom to offer you."
"Must we talk of that again? Have I not convinced you how little is the store I set by that?"
"That may be. But there's the store I set by offering it. It makes me fearful of everything that may jeopardize Puisaye's success. The light-heartedness of these gentlemen fills me with impatience. Even Tinténiac, hero though he is, all fire and valour, has a streak of frivolity that dismays me in our commander."
Yet when at last they quitted the terrace to rejoin the throng of dancers, he had not told her of the weightiest factor in the misgivings that were heavy upon him.
With Tinténiac and two of his lieutenants, Monsieur de la Houssaye and the Chevalier de la Marche, Quentin camped that night in one of the fine rooms of the château. It was late when they retired, too late for men before whom there was an arduous march on the morrow.
That morrow dawned still without sign of Monsieur de Charette and his Vendeans.
"It would be well," said Quentin impatiently, "to discover if they exist at all."
He made one of a group consisting only of Tinténiac and his staff, which now included Constant de Chesnières, and Cadoudal who had come to join them on the terrace, where they conferred in the morning sunshine. Bellanger was quick to take up the challenge of that question.
"Is that an innuendo, Monsieur?"
"No. A plain suggestion. Is someone fooling us? Whence was Monsieur de Charette last reported? It is time that we knew."
They looked at one another, and their eyes were uneasy. Then the Vicomte answered him. The Vicomtesse will know. I will ask her."
"No, no." Quentin stayed him. "It is perhaps no great matter after all. What is important is that we march without waiting any longer."
Bellanger's laugh of scorn and wonder was joined by La Marche's in a minor key. "With forty-eight hours before us, and the distance a mere matter of six or seven leagues! Why, if we left here no earlier than to-morrow night, we should still be in time."
"In time for what? For fighting? Are men to be taken into action at the end of a six-leagues' march?"
"Anyway," said Tinténiac, "we can afford to wait another day. Better, indeed, that we do not set out until to-morrow morning."
"Better for whom? For what?" demanded Cadoudal.
"Better, because our direction will not be known so soon. There will be less chance of warning Hoche."
Cadoudal lost his temper. "And more leisure for guzzling and dancing and apish gallantry here at Coëtlegon. Aye, Messieurs, you may find me coarsely frank. You may stare at me. But, by God, you'll not stare me down. I'm no Court fop to mince my words. I say what I think."
"But, I wonder," lisped Bellanger, "do you think what you say."
Cadoudal gave him a glance that was like a blow, and continued to address Tinténiac. "What is more, I give you the mind of my lads. They're not happy here. They are beginning to ask more questions than I can answer. Many of them left their fields to come to Quiberon. They are reminding me that it is harvesting time, and that if there's nothing better for them to do than to bivouac here under the stars, as a guard of honour for merry-making popinjays, they'd better be getting back to their labours. This morning we found that five hundred of them had gone. By to-morrow we may have lost another thousand. Their tempers are on edge from the treatment they had at Quiberon, and they haven't much patience left. That's what I have to say. Perhaps, Monsieur le Vicomte, you'll believe that I think what I say."
Tinténiac was gravely conciliatory. "You may be sure that it weighs with us, Georges. Yet, I ask you: would it be reasonable to depart before the arrival of these Vendeans, who are expected hourly?"
"Surely," said Houssaye, "it must not be that we have come so far out of our way for nothing."
"Devil take me if we should ever have come," swore Cadoudal. "We do not need these reinforcements. We have enough without them."
"Georges is right," Quentin agreed, his tone hard and definite. "Better sound the assembly, and take the road."
A general display of heat was his answer from these men who did not love him.
"Do you give orders here?" Bellanger demanded. "Since when?"
"I do not order, sir. I advise."
"Your advice is not sought," snapped La Marche.
"But it seems needed."
Houssaye, who was the eldest and the gravest, eyed him sternly. "Do you presume to advise experienced soldiers on matters that are purely military? You are a civilian, I understand."
"But not on that account an idiot. The issue is a simple one. A child might pronounce upon it."
"But we are not children," drawled Bellanger.
"Then don't let us behave as if we were."
"I dislike your tone, sir. I find you insufferably impertinent."
Tinténiac thought it time to intervene. "No need for heat, sirs. The issue, as the Marquis says, is a simple one." He turned to Cadoudal. "Will it satisfy your lads, Georges, if we set out to-night?"
"I'ld prefer to go this morning. But I'll not argue it if you promise that we start at dusk."
La Marche objected. That would mean that they would be at Plouharnel by morning, with twenty-four hours to wait for the attack and for Hoche to be warned of their presence there.
"Absurd!" Constant agreed with him. "It is the way to lose all the advantage of surprise."
"Sirs, sirs!" Quentin admonished them. "Is it, then, necessary to make one march of it? We march five hours; we rest for twelve; then march another five or six, reaching Plouharnel at night to-morrow, and resting there again for eight or ten hours. Thus we go into battle on Friday fresh and unexpected."
"You assume, of course, that Hoche has neither spies nor friends to inform him?" sneered Bellanger.
"Oh, no." There was a bitter smile on Quentin's lips. "I wish I were as sure of the existence of these Vendeans as I am that Hoche lacks neither friends nor spies." It was plain to all that he left something unexpressed.
"I have observed in Monsieur de Morlaix," said Constant, "a disposition to see what does not exist, and to overlook what does."
"What's in your mind, Quentin?" Tinténiac asked him.
He evaded the question. "That the sooner we march, the sooner shall we repair the error of having come here."
They were crying shame upon his ingratitude of the bounteous hospitality of Madame de Bellanger, when the Vicomtesse herself descended upon them, drawn by the sounds of their altercation.
"Fie, sirs! Oh, fie! You'll wake the ladies. An ungallant return for their entertainment of you last night." Over her shoulder she glanced up at the curtained windows. She came fresh and delectable in shimmering pink, a very emblem of the morning; in the courtly words of Tinténiac, a rose upon which the dew still lingered.
Bellanger, not to be outdone in gallantry, offered excuses for the altercation, blaming those who were so little sensible to the joys assembled for them at Coëtlegon as to be urging immediate departure.
She played archly at displeasure. "Who are these heartless, insensible ones?"
"Monsieur de Morlaix is the chief offender." Like Constant, Bellanger avoided allusion to him by his title. "Newly admitted to military rank, he displays the impatient ardour of the neophyte."
"On the score of his ardour we may forgive him. But what military necessity can exist for the impatience?"
"Why, none, Madame," said Tinténiac.
"Indeed, no," added Bellanger. "Because at dawn on Friday, we are to be on Hoche's rear, for action in concert with . . ."
"Morbleu, man!" Quentin interrupted violently. "Will you publish it to the winds of heaven?"
Forth pealed the silvery laugh of the Vicomtesse. "Behold me the four winds of heaven, who am more gentle than the gentlest zephyr."
Tinténiac, whose brow had darkened at Bellanger's monstrous indiscretion, and so remained, now interjected gravely. "These Vendeans that were to have met us here, Madame? Whence were they reported to you?"
"From Rédon, four days ago. Monsieur de Charette sent a rider ahead with a letter begging the hospitality of Coëtlegon for them. They would arrive, he said, on Tuesday, which was yesterday. They have been delayed. But that they will arrive is certain. They should be here at any moment."
"Did Charette say whither they were bound?" asked Quentin.
"Why, for the coast. To embark for Quiberon, so as to reinforce the army there."
"An odd way to the coast from Rédon by Coëtlegon. That is rather to march away from it."
"Is it?" She raised her brows. "You must tell that to Monsieur de Charette when he arrives. He will probably answer that Coëtlegon offers a convenient encampment for his men, whilst he sends forward to make sure of the craft they'll need."
"He could encamp at Muzillac, in sight of the sea. And from Rédon, Muzillac is only half as far as Coëtlegon."
"How well you know the country! You must tell Monsieur de Charette this." She was of an airy, smiling, playful impertinence. "I do not pretend to fathom the reasonings of military men."
"Nor should Monsieur de Morlaix," opined her husband.
Tinténiac put an end to the discussion on a tone of authority. "We will wait until nightfall. Then we march; with the Vendeans or without them."
She was all dismay. "You will leave us all disconsolate," she complained.
Houssaye sighed. "Alas! We bow to cruel necessity, Madame."
They began to drift away towards the house, with the exception of Quentin, who lingered with Cadoudal. He watched the little knot of men displaying themselves so gaily about that winsome lady, and he fetched a sigh of weariness.
"What do you think of it all, Georges?"
There was a heavy scowl on Cadoudal's big, blond face. "That your questions hit the weaknesses of the story."
"And that puts me further out of favour with these gallants. No matter, so that we march to-night."
He went in to breakfast and to be, in the course of it, the butt of some jests on the score of his military perspicacity. These he contemptuously ignored.
They were still at table when a rattle of galloping hooves receding from the château made him attentive. They went, he observed, not northwards, by the avenue through the park, but by the road that ran southwards from the stables. It made him thoughtful, but he gave no expression to those thoughts even to Germaine when he came to walk with her later in the neglected garden.
For awhile in her company he forgot his preoccupations. It was only upon returning to the house towards noon that he was startlingly recalled to them.
He found in the hall a gathering of officers and ladies, about a dusty fellow, booted and spurred, whom Tinténiac was questioning.
He approached to listen, and in a moment had grasped the situation. This rider was from Josselin, with word that Charette was beset there by a Republican army corps under the Marquis de Grouchy, some eight thousand strong, which was on its way from Paris to reinforce Hoche. The Vendeans were entrenched in the town, but could not hold it for long. Unless relieved, they were doomed.
There was a silence of dismay when the last question had been asked and answered. Tinténiac stood with bowed head, stroking his chin in thought until suddenly the Vicomtesse spoke.
"How providential that you should be here!"
Tinténiac raised gloomy eyes. "I do not perceive the act of providence, Madame."
"But, Chevalier, that you should be within reach of them. To Josselin it is less than twenty miles."
Quentin, who had been thoughtfully considering the messenger, here interposed: "And twenty miles farther from the goal which your husband has made known to you."
"Did he?" In wide-eyed surprise she turned to the Vicomte. "Did you? If you did I have forgotten it. But this . . . Ah, you cannot leave Charette and his brave fellows to be massacred. No Frenchman could do that."
"If they are massacred it will be by Frenchmen," Quentin reminded her.
Tinténiac looked round with troubled eyes. Vexation had turned him pale. "We cannot discuss it here. Quentin, be so good as to summon Cadoudal. Bring him to us in the library, if Madame will permit."