The Chouans Part 11

"The Chouans have younger ones," said the youth, laughing.

"For whom did you take my son?" asked Madame du Gua.

"For the Gars, the leader sent to the Chouans and the Vendeans by the British cabinet; his real name is Marquis de Montauran."

The commandant watched the faces of the suspected pair, who looked at each other with a puzzled expression that seemed to say: "Do you know that name?" "No, do you?" "What is he talking about?" "He's dreaming."

The sudden change in the manner of Marie de Verneuil, and her torpor as she heard the name of the royalist general was observed by no one but Francine, the only person to whom the least shade on that young face was visible. Completely routed, the commandant picked up the bits of his broken sword, looked at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose ardent beauty was beginning to find its way to his heart, and said: "As for you, mademoiselle, I take nothing back, and to-morrow these fragments of my sword will reach Bonaparte, unless-"

"Pooh! what do I care for Bonaparte, or your republic, or the king, or the Gars?" she cried, scarcely repressing an explosion of ill-bred temper.

A mysterious emotion, the pa.s.sion of which gave to her face a dazzling color, showed that the whole world was nothing to the girl the moment that one individual was all in all to her. But she suddenly subdued herself into forced calmness, observing, like a trained actor, that the spectators were watching her. The commandant rose hastily and went out. Anxious and agitated, Mademoiselle de Verneuil followed him, stopped him in the corridor, and said, in an almost solemn tone: "Have you any good reason to suspect that young man of being the Gars?"

"G.o.d's thunder! mademoiselle, that fellow who rode here with you came back to warn me that the travellers in the mail-coach had all been murdered by the Chouans; I knew that, but what I didn't know was the name of the murdered persons,-it was Gua de Saint-Cyr!"

"Oh! if Corentin is at the bottom of all this, nothing surprises me," she cried, with a gesture of disgust.

The commandant went his way without daring to look at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose dangerous beauty began to affect him.

"If I had stayed two minutes longer I should have committed the folly of taking back my sword and escorting her," he was saying to himself as he went down the stairs.

As Madame du Gua watched the young man, whose eyes were fixed on the door through which Mademoiselle de Verneuil had pa.s.sed, she said to him in a low voice: "You are incorrigible. You will perish through a woman. A doll can make you forget everything. Why did you allow her to breakfast with us? Who is a Demoiselle de Verneuil escorted by the Blues, who accepts a breakfast from strangers and disarms an officer with a piece of paper hidden in the bosom of her gown like a love-letter? She is one of those contemptible creatures by whose aid Fouche expects to lay hold of you, and the paper she showed the commandant ordered the Blues to a.s.sist her against you."

"Eh! madame," he replied in a sharp tone which went to the lady's heart and turned her pale; "her generous action disproves your supposition. Pray remember that the welfare of the king is the sole bond between us. You, who have had Charette at your feet must find the world without him empty; are you not living to avenge him?"

The lady stood still and pensive, like one who sees from the sh.o.r.e the wreck of all her treasures, and only the more eagerly longs for the vanished property.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil re-entered the room; the young man exchanged a smile with her and gave her a glance full of gentle meaning. However uncertain the future might seem, however ephemeral their union, the promises of their sudden love were only the more endearing to them. Rapid as the glance was, it did not escape the sagacious eye of Madame du Gua, who instantly understood it; her brow clouded, and she was unable to wholly conceal her jealous anger. Francine was observing her; she saw the eyes glitter, the cheeks flush; she thought she perceived a diabolical spirit in the face, stirred by some sudden and terrible revulsion. But lightning is not more rapid, nor death more prompt than this brief exhibition of inward emotion. Madame du Gua recovered her lively manner with such immediate self-possession that Francine fancied herself mistaken. Nevertheless, having once perceived in this woman a violence of feeling that was fully equal to that of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, she trembled as she foresaw the clash with which such natures might come together, and the girl shuddered when she saw Mademoiselle de Verneuil go up to the young man with a pa.s.sionate look and, taking him by the hand, draw him close beside her and into the light, with a coquettish glance that was full of witchery.

"Now," she said, trying to read his eyes, "own to me that you are not the citizen du Gua Saint-Cyr."

"Yes, I am, mademoiselle."

"But he and his mother were killed yesterday."

"I am very sorry for that," he replied, laughing. "However that may be, I am none the less under a great obligation to you, for which I shall always feel the deepest grat.i.tude and only wish I could prove it to you."

"I thought I was saving an emigre, but I love you better as a Republican."

The words escaped her lips as it were impulsively; she became confused; even her eyes blushed, and her face bore no other expression than one of exquisite simplicity of feeling; she softly released the young man's hand, not from shame at having pressed it, but because of a thought too weighty, it seemed, for her heart to bear, leaving him drunk with hope. Suddenly she appeared to regret this freedom, permissible as it might be under the pa.s.sing circ.u.mstances of a journey. She recovered her conventional manner, bowed to the lady and her son, and taking Francine with her, left the room. When they reached their own chamber Francine wrung her hands and tossed her arms, as she looked at her mistress, saying: "Ah, Marie, what a crowd of things in a moment of time! who but you would have such adventures?"

Mademoiselle de Verneuil sprang forward and clasped Francine round the neck.

"Ah! this is life indeed-I am in heaven!"

"Or h.e.l.l," retorted Francine.

"Yes, h.e.l.l if you like!" cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil. "Here, give me your hand; feel my heart, how it beats. There's fever in my veins; the whole world is now a mere nothing to me! How many times have I not seen that man in my dreams! Oh! how beautiful his head is-how his eyes sparkle!"

"Will he love you?" said the simple peasant-woman, in a quivering voice, her face full of sad foreboding.

"How can you ask me that!" cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil. "But, Francine, tell me," she added throwing herself into a pose that was half serious, half comic, "will it be very hard to love me?"

"No, but will he love you always?" replied Francine, smiling.

They looked at each other for a moment speechless,-Francine at revealing so much knowledge of life, and Marie at the perception, which now came to her for the first time, of a future of happiness in her pa.s.sion. She seemed to herself hanging over a gulf of which she had wanted to know the depth, and listening to the fall of the stone she had flung, at first heedlessly, into it.

"Well, it is my own affair," she said, with the gesture of a gambler. "I should never pity a betrayed woman; she has no one but herself to blame if she is abandoned. I shall know how to keep, either living or dead, the man whose heart has once been mine. But," she added, with some surprise and after a moment's silence, "where did you get your knowledge of love, Francine?"

"Mademoiselle," said the peasant-woman, hastily, "hush, I hear steps in the pa.s.sage."

"Ah! not his steps!" said Marie, listening. "But you are evading an answer; well, well, I'll wait for it, or guess it."

Francine was right, however. Three taps on the door interrupted the conversation. Captain Merle appeared, after receiving Mademoiselle de Verneuil's permission to enter.

With a military salute to the lady, whose beauty dazzled him, the soldier ventured on giving her a glance, but he found nothing better to say than: "Mademoiselle, I am at your orders."

"Then you are to be my protector, in place of the commander, who retires; is that so?"

"No, my superior is the adjutant-major Gerard, who has sent me here."

"Your commandant must be very much afraid of me," she said.

"Beg pardon, mademoiselle, Hulot is afraid of nothing. But women, you see, are not in his line; it ruffled him to have a general in a mob-cap."

"And yet," continued Mademoiselle de Verneuil, "it was his duty to obey his superiors. I like subordination, and I warn you that I shall allow no one to disobey me."

"That would be difficult," replied Merle, gallantly.

"Let us consult," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil. "You can get fresh troops here and accompany me to Mayenne, which I must reach this evening. Shall we find other soldiers there, so that I might go on at once, without stopping at Mayenne? The Chouans are quite ignorant of our little expedition. If we travel at night, we can avoid meeting any number of them, and so escape an attack. Do you think this feasible?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"What sort of road is it between Mayenne and Fougeres?"

"Rough; all up and down, a regular squirrel-wheel."

"Well, let us start at once. As we have nothing to fear near Alencon, you can go before me; we'll join you soon."

"One would think she had seen ten years' service," thought Merle, as he departed. "Hulot is mistaken; that young girl is not earning her living out of a feather-bed. Ten thousand carriages! if I want to be adjutant-major I mustn't be such a fool as to mistake Saint-Michael for the devil."

During Mademoiselle de Verneuil's conference with the captain, Francine had slipped out for the purpose of examining, through a window of the corridor, the spot in the courtyard which had excited her curiosity on arriving at the inn. She watched the stable and the heaps of straw with the absorption of one who was saying her prayers to the Virgin, and she presently saw Madame du Gua approaching Marche-a-Terre with the precaution of a cat that dislikes to wet its feet. When the Chouan caught sight of the lady, he rose and stood before her in an att.i.tude of deep respect. This singular circ.u.mstance aroused Francine's curiosity; she slipped into the courtyard and along the walls, avoiding Madame du Gua's notice, and trying to hide herself behind the stable door. She walked on tiptoe, scarcely daring to breathe, and succeeded in posting herself close to Marche-a-Terre, without exciting his attention.

"If, after all this information," the lady was saying to the Chouan, "it proves not to be her real name, you are to fire upon her without pity, as you would on a mad dog."

"Agreed!" said Marche-a-Terre.

The lady left him. The Chouan replaced his red woollen cap upon his head, remained standing, and was scratching his ear as if puzzled when Francine suddenly appeared before him, apparently by magic.