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

“Yes, I hope that the Blues do not know he was hit,” remarked Yves at last in a low voice. “It would encourage them too much.”

“You are sure that he will recover?” asked his nephew, glancing at the pillow.

“The saints,” said Yves solemnly, “did not send us a leader such as he to get knocked on the head as easily as that! . . . And yet he was not always like this. . . . Who should know, if not I, his foster-father? When he was a boy, it was pleasure that he thought of always. Then he grew up to be a man, and wherever he went he left a broken heart behind him.”

“One conceives that easily,” said Jean-Marie.

“N’est-ce pas? But he grew tired of that. . . . It was strange. . . . Listen, and I will tell thee something. One day, before the rebels had pulled down our King’s Bastille – which accursed deed thou hast doubtless heard of, Jean-Marie – before all these troubles, M. le Comte was at Versailles, where was a great palace of the King, and the most beautiful gardens in the world. He was there, M. Hervé, with many fine ladies, and young gallants like himself, who did nothing but amuse themselves and make love all day long, and he the most careless and the handsomest of them all. Well, as they were sitting talking and laughing in these gardens a fortune-teller came along, and nothing would satisfy these great ladies and gentlemen but to have their fortunes told. So she told them this and told them that, how this one would be fortunate in love and I know not what, but Mr. Hervé was too indifferent to have his fate told, because in those days nothing seemed worth any trouble. But a lady, I think it was, insisted upon it; so the fortune-teller looked into M. Hervé’s palm, and all she said was: ‘Beware how you lie at the Inn of the Sword!’ ”

“And what pray would that mean?” asked Jean-Marie, ceasing his polishing.

“Ah, thou mayst well ask,” returned Yves, shaking his long grey locks. “Nobody there could guess, least of all M. Hervé. But they all laughed, and most of all M. Hervé, for he said: ‘I am never likely to lie there, my good woman. Do you think my hand looks as though it loved the touch of steel?’ And indeed it did not, in those days.”

“But,” objected Jean-Marie, knitting his brows, “the woman spoke of an inn; she meant to warn M. le Comte not to – – ”

“Jean-Marie,” said his uncle, “thou art little better than an imbecile! As if M. Hervé had thy dull wits! Dost thou not know that fortune-tellers often speak in riddles? It was no inn she meant, but that some day M. Hervé should change his whole life – and that was the strange thing, that she should know it. Tell me, thou who hast fought with him these twelve months, does he not lie every night of his life at the Inn of the Sword?”

Some glimmering of his elder’s meaning broke on the slower mind of Jean-Marie, and he nodded silently, thinking of nights under the stars, in the broom and the heather.

“And why has M. le Comte changed?” he demanded after a long pause.

“God willed it,” responded Yves simply and with conviction. He turned his head and looked at his foster-son; rose and bent over him a moment, then, sitting down again, drew out his rosary and began to tell his beads absorbedly, while Jean-Marie resumed his interminable polishing.

IV

“Marie!”

“Monsieur le Comte?”

“Bring me my clothes, my child. I am going to get up and go out.”

What Yves had told his nephew about his foster-son was true enough. Hervé de Saint-Armel had been an élégant whose chief occupation in life had been doing nothing, and who had shown his individuality only in his graceful and distinguished manner of doing it. The Saint-Armel who had emigrated in 1791 had been a young man of great charm of manner, of rather frail health, polished, nonchalant and disillusioned. But this was not the Saint-Armel who for months had led in a lost cause the Chouans of Hennebont and others whom his brilliant courage and good fortune had attracted to him. The Saint-Armel whom his Bretons called l’Invincible was a very flame of war, an embodiment of its intensest spirit, a fighter whom no odds could turn aside, a leader as reckless of his own person as La Haye St-Hilaire, as fortunate as Aimé du Boisguy, with Cadoudal’s hold on his followers and all his power of making himself obeyed. He knew neither hesitation nor regret, and spared his Chouans as little as himself. In that characteristic, perhaps, lay his magnetism for these men of his own blood, capable as they were of an almost fanatical devotion. A word would send any one of them to certain death. And for this leader raised up to it the Royalist cause in the western Morbihan had to thank a woman loved and lost, herself the soul of passionate loyalty, who did not know what she had done, and whose motive hand no one saw. . . .

“Monsieur le Comte,” said Marie, appearing at the side of the bed, “you are not well enough to get up!” Her voice strove between timidity and remonstrance.

“Si!” said Saint-Armel, smiling. “It will do me good. Hasten now, child, so that I may take a walk before the sun is too hot.”

She went, and beneath the bandage l’Invincible’s brow was drawn into a frown. A conversation between Yves and his nephew which he had overheard an hour ago had told him of the peril in which they all lay. The Blues from Pontivy were out in force to search for the leader whose exploits were daily becoming more intolerable. It was said that imperative orders had come from Paris to take him, dead or alive, in the highly reasonable expectation that his personal removal would effect all that encounters with him had failed to bring about. Half-asleep, Hervé had heard this inspiriting news being imparted to Jean-Marie, who had subsequently been sent out on to the hill-side to keep watch. Madame le Guerric, too, had been despatched on an errand. The wounded man, who was supposed to be ignorant of the whole affair, knew very well why. If he were found under Yves’ roof the consequences for the whole family would be practically the same as for himself. But Yves would never let him leave it in his present condition; he would rather immolate his whole household, if immolation had to be. Therefore Saint-Armel, feigning ignorance, lay still and watched his opportunity; and at last it had come. Yves and his musket had departed a few minutes ago, on some errand. Hervé was no sentimentalist, but there was only one thing to do.

He dragged himself up in the bed, and clasped his swimming head. Under the force of his tenacious will the room steadied itself with surprising quickness. He dropped his hands swiftly as Marie came in and deposited some clothes on a bench.

“There was blood on your coat and your shirt, Monsieur le Comte,” she said. “I have got a shirt of my uncle’s and his best coat – they are not fit for Monsieur, but – – ”

Saint-Armel was by no means anxious to make his escape bearing the incriminating signs of conflict. “Excellent,” he said cheerfully. “If there was any money in my pockets, give it to me. And you might cut me some bread, Marie.”

“But Monsieur Hervé will not attempt to go far?” asked Marie anxiously.

“You are becoming a tyrant now that you are in sole charge,” was Saint-Armel’s light reply. “By the way, where are Jean-Marie and Yves – did I hear them say that they were going out? And your grandmother, too, is she out?”

The poor girl flushed and then turned pale. “They – my grandfather said – yes, they are out . . . my uncle and my grandfather are on the hill-side . . . in case of any danger. . . .” Unconsciously she looked at him as if imploring him not to press her any further, and it was perfectly clear to Hervé that she knew what was threatening and had been forbidden to tell him.