D. Broster - A Fire of Driftwood - A Collection of Short Stories (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

L’Invincible knelt down beside her once again. “And why not! why not!” There was flame in his voice and in his eyes.

“Oh, I am proud . . . proud!” she whispered. He put her hand to his lips as he knelt there. Suddenly she leant forward.

“Kiss me!” she said like a queen, and l’Invincible, as pale as the dead, kissed her on the mouth.

VIII

Half an hour later they were still sitting before the fire. The Regent’s commission was in Hervé’s breast, and now they had reverted to earlier themes, and talked, with a dreamy and contented abandonment, of days before she had married, and he had changed. The air of long-forgotten gardens in the sunshine, of nights of palace floors and violins closed round the couple who had once known nothing else, and now drew a breath so different. To meet thus, to talk thus, had about it some impalpable suggestion of a reunion in the shades, so dim and faded were all those memories, and yet holding something of an unregretted sweetness. Armande de Bellegarde’s voice – one of those rare voices whose lightest utterances are happiness to hear – fell silent at last on a remembrance. Instead she looked at Hervé’s fine and resolute profile where he sat at her feet, with gaze half-stern, half-smiling, bent on the fire. How he had changed! Had hers been indeed the hand that forged, unknowing, this blade of keenest temper?

“Do you remember,” she asked suddenly, “that afternoon at Versailles, and the old fortune-teller who warned you to beware of – what was it – of lying at the Inn of the Sword?”

L’Invincible brought back to her face a gaze almost dreamy.

“Very well,” he said. “It was you who caused the prophecy. But the sign has never come my way.”

“Nor would you care much, I imagine – – ” she began, smiling . . . and stopped abruptly.

“What is it?” asked Hervé, astonished.

“Look!” she said, and pointed to the hearth, where on the old-fashioned hooded chimney a many-quartered coat-of-arms, half defaced, showed as crest a mailed hand brandishing a sword.

Hervé’s eyes followed her finger. “The device of the Kermelven,” he said coolly. “Armande, you are not superstitious?”

She had turned very pale. “No . . . yes . . . I am frightened.”

“You!” exclaimed Saint-Armel, and there was real amazement in his tone. She shivered. “You were not going to spend the night here, Hervé?”

“Where am I to go to then?” he asked, laughing.

“Anywhere, so long as you do not sleep under that sign!” she said earnestly. “Sleep under the stars, but not under the sword. I do not care if you think me foolish. Hervé, I implore it of you!”

He got to his feet, quite grave, and stood looking down at her, his eagle glance a little softened. He said nothing, but her eyes answered his, and in another moment she lay on his breast, against the white scarf and the Sacred Heart, forgetful of the past and future, and even of the trick of fate which had shown her soul to him.

IX

The candles on the supper-table were not needed, for it was still light. But, as Madame de Rocquigny said when she ordered them to be placed there, they gave a more festive air to a very modest feast. The little company was gay enough; as gay as though the shadow of past misfortunes and of still more tragic possibilities were not over each of them. Madame de Rocquigny played hostess at the head of the scantily spread table, much too large for the four who sat around it. One of Saint-Armel’s lieutenants, M. de Lage, a gentleman of the Morbihan who had not emigrated, made up the party; his fellow-subordinate was on duty outside.

The Bretons who had served the meal had been dismissed, and Hervé, yielding to Madame de Rocquigny’s request, was relating by what means he had regained the proscribed soil of France. Madame de Bellegarde, abandoned to an absorbed interest, listened with her to the tale of the perilous landing from a Jersey lugger almost under the rifles of the patrol at St. Brieuc.

“I assure you that there was nothing remarkable about it, as far as I was concerned,” asseverated Saint-Armel as he finished. “Those men of the Prince de Bouillon’s – the agents of the correspondence, Chateaubriand, Prigent, Daguin, Péronne and the rest, are the heroes, not the émigrés whom they land.”

“Well, that is as it may be,” returned the Marquise. “At any rate, we will prepare to drink your health, Monsieur l’Invincible. The late owner left some very excellent wine in his cellar. Do you know that one of your Chouans found this in a half-empty bin?”

“Yes, and brought out a dozen bottles on the sly to the bivouac,” finished M. de Lage.

Madame de Rocquigny lifted her hands in mock horror. “Lucky men! But I suppose that there will be a certain number of incapables in your force to-night, for – without offence – I understand that drunkenness is a vice to which Bretons are something prone.”

“Not my Bretons, Madame,” said Hervé quietly. “Those bottles are back in the bin; and their unauthorised abstraction has been paid for.”

A light seemed to break on his subordinate. “Ah, was it for that you ordered – – ” he began, but so swift and meaning a frown appeared on his leader’s brow that he left his sentence unfinished.

“And where are you going to sleep to-night, Monsieur de Saint-Armel?” asked Madame de Rocquigny, slipping into the just momentary pause with the ease of a woman of the world for whom indiscreet questions have lost their savour. “May we offer you a room in the west wing, which is said to be haunted, but where the roof is entire, or – – ”

Armande de Bellegarde interposed on the instant. “M. de Saint-Armel will not trust our hospitality,” she said quickly. “He is ungallant enough to prefer the society of his Chouans à la belle étoile. Am I not right, Monsieur?”

L’Invincible bent his head, a half-amused, half-tender smile showing at the corner of his mouth. “If you will not think me churlish, ladies. – May I give you some more wine, Marquise?”

Armande’s eyes, full of a mute gratitude, had not met his, nor indeed had his fingers closed on the decanter, before a sharp discharge of musketry made the cracked windows rattle. M. de Lage sprang to his feet, Madame de Rocquigny pushed back her chair, but Hervé, unmoved, filled her empty glass.

“Yes, go, de Lage,” he said, looking up and nodding. “I will follow you. That was our fire, Mesdames, not the Blues’. There is no force within twenty miles sufficiently strong to account for us; though it is possible that they have driven in my outposts. You will pardon if I go and see?”

He rose, caught up his sheathed sword where it leant against the panelling, made them a smiling little salute with it, and was gone. A thundering fusillade burst out from the direction of the wood as, flinging away his scabbard, he ran bare-headed down the steps.

“My dear,” said Madame de Rocquigny, “I think you may be proud of each other.”

X

Twenty minutes later it was all over, and Hervé came up the avenue in the midst of his men, giving a word of praise to one, of enquiry to another, and with so much of unusual and but half-contained exultation in his manner, that the words rippled from mouth to mouth: “L’Invincible is pleased with us!” That would have been reward enough for the bloodiest combat; it was more than enough for a momentary brush with an enemy whom they had so easily beaten off.

When they reached the house Saint-Armel made his way to the front, and, running up the steps, lifted his hand. In the other he still carried the remains of his sword, which a Republican bullet had shivered.

“My children, you have done very well. But remember that the night is not yet over. Monsieur le Charron, send the wounded up to the château. Mes gars, I am pleased with you. – Dismiss!”