The Westcotes - Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch
As Raoul bowed and moved away, dragging his feet weakly in their list
slippers, Mr. Westcote turned to the Commandant, who during this
address had kept a discreet distance.
"With your leave, we will continue our stroll, and return for my
sister in a few minutes."
The Commandant jumped at the suggestion.
Dorothea heard their footsteps retreating, and knew that her brother's
thoughtfulness had found her this short respite. She had dropped into
the orderly's chair, and now bowed her head upon the prison doctor's
ledger, which lay open on the table before it.
"Oh, my love! How could you do it? How could you? How could you?"
CHAPTER XI
THE NEW DOROTHEA
Two hours later they set out on their homeward journey.
The Commandant, still voluble, escorted them to the gate. As Dorothea
climbed into the chaise and Endymion shook up the rugs and cushions, a
large brown-paper parcel rolled out upon the snow. She gave a little
cry of dismay:
"The drawings!"
"Eh?"
"We forgot to deliver them."
"Oh, confound the things!"
Endymion was for pitching them back into the chaise.
"But no!" she entreated. "Why, Narcissus believes it was to deliver
them that we came!"
So the Commandant amiably charged himself to hand the parcel to
M. Raoul, and waved his adieux with it as the chaise rolled away.
Of what had passed between Dorothea and Raoul at the surgery door
Endymion knew nothing; but he had guessed at once, and now was assured
by the tone in which she had spoken of the drawings, that the chapter
was closed, the danger past. Coming, brother and sister had scarcely
exchanged a word for miles together. Now they found themselves chatting
without effort about the landscape, the horses' pace, the Commandant
and his hospitality, the arrangements of the prison, and the prospects
of a cosy dinner at Moreton Hampstead. It was all the smallest of small
talk, and just what might be expected of two reputable middle-aged
persons returning in a post-chaise from a mild jaunt; yet beneath it
ran a current of feeling. In their different ways, each had been moved;
each had relied upon the other for a degree of help which could not be
asked in words, and had not been disappointed.
Now that Dorothea's infatuation had escaped all risk of public
laughter, Endymion could find leisure to admire her courage in
confessing, in persisting until the wrong was righted, and, now at the
last, in shutting the door upon the whole episode.
And, now at the last, having shut the door upon it, Dorothea could
reflect that her brother, too, had suffered. She knew his pride, his
sensitiveness, his mortal dread of ridicule. In the smart of his wound
he had turned and rent her cruelly, but had recovered himself and
defended her loyally from worse rendings. She remembered, too, that he
had distrusted Raoul from the first.
He had been right. But had she been wholly wrong?
In the dusk of the fifth evening after their departure the chaise
rolled briskly in through Bayfield great gates and up the snowy drive.
Almost noiselessly though it came, Mudge had the door thrown wide and
stood ready to welcome them, with Narcissus behind in the comfortable
glow of the hall.
Dorothea's limbs were stiff, and on alighting she steadied herself for
a moment by the chaise-door before stepping in to kiss her brother. In
that moment her eyes took one backward glance across the park and
rested on the lights of Axcester glimmering between the naked elms.
"Well," demanded Narcissus, after exchange of greetings, "and what did
he say about the drawings?"
Dorothea had not expected the question in this form, and parried it
with a laugh:
"You and your drawings! I declare"--she turned to Endymion--"he has
been thinking of them all the time, and affects no concern in our
adventures!"
"Which, nevertheless, have been romantic to the last degree," he added,
playing up to her.
"My dear Dorothea--" Narcissus expostulated.
"But you are not going to evade me by any such tricks," she
interrupted, sternly; "for that is what it comes to. I left you with
the strictest orders to take care of yourself, and you ought to know
that I shall answer nothing until you have been catechised. What have
you been eating?"
"My _dear_ Dorothea!"
Narcissus gazed helplessly at Mudge; but Mudge had been seized with a
flurry of his own, and misinterpreted the look as well as the stern
question.
"I--I reckon 'tis _me_, Miss," he confessed. "Being partial to onions,
and taking that liberty in Mr. Endymion's absence, knowing his dislike
of the effluvium--"
Such are the pitfalls of a guilty conscience on the one hand, and, on
the other, of being unexpectedly clever.
An hour later, at dinner, Narcissus was informed that the drawings had
been conveyed to M. Raoul, who, doubtless, would return them with
hints for correction.
"But had he nothing to say at the time?"
"For my part," said Endymion, sipping his wine, "I addressed but one
sentence to him; and Dorothea, I daresay, exchanged but half a dozen.
Considering the shortness of the interview, and that our mission--at
least, our ostensible mission"--Endymion glanced at Dorothea, with a
smile at his own _finesse_--"was to carry him news of his release,
you will admit--"
"Oh--ah!--to be sure; I had forgotten the release," muttered
Narcissus, and was resigned.
"By the way," Dorothea asked, after a short pause, "what is happening
at 'The Dogs' tonight? All the windows are lit up in the Orange Room.
I saw it as I stepped out of the chaise."
"Yes; I have to tell you"--Narcissus turned towards his brother--
"that during your absence another of the prisoners has found his
discharge--the old Admiral."
"Dead?"
"He died this morning: but you knew, of course, it was only a question
of days. Rochambeau was with him at the last. He has shown great
devotion."
"You have made all arrangements, of course?" For Narcissus was Acting
Commissary in his brother's absence.
"I rode in at once on hearing the news, which Zeally brought before
daylight; and found the Lodge"--this was a Masonic Lodge formed among
the prisoners, and named by them _La Paix Desiree_--"anxious to pay
him something more than the full rites. With my leave they have hired
the Orange Room, and turned it into a _chapelle ardente_; and there, I
believe, he is reposing now, poor old fellow."
"He has no kith nor kin, I understand."
"None. He was never married, and his relatives went in the Terror--
the most of them (so Rochambeau tells me) in a single week."
Dorothea had heard the same story from the General and from Raoul. To
this old warrior his Emperor had been friends, kindred, wife, and
children--nay, almost God. He had enjoyed Napoleon's favour, and
followed his star from the days of the Directory: in that favour and
the future of France beneath that star his hopes had begun and ended.
His private ambitions he had resigned without a word on the day when
he put to sea out of Brest, under order from Paris, to perform a feat
he knew to be impossible, with ships ill-found, under-manned, and half-
victualled by cheating contractors: and he sailed cheerfully, believing
himself sacrificed to some high purpose of his master's. When, the
sacrifice made, he learned that the contractors slandered him to cover
their own villainy, and that Napoleon either believed them or was
indifferent, his heart broke. Too proud at first, he had ended by
drawing up a statement and forwarding it from his captivity, with a
demand for an enquiry. The answer to this was--the letter which never
came.
Dorothea thought of the room where she had danced and been happy: the
many lights, the pagan figures merrymaking on the panels, the goddess
on the ceiling with her cupids and scattered roses, and, in the centre
of it all, that dead face, incongruous and calm.
How small had been her tribulation beside his! And it was all over for
him now--wages taken, account sealed up for judgment, _parole_ ended,
and no heir to trouble over him or his good name.
Next morning she rode into Axcester, as well to do some light shopping
as because it seemed an age since her last visit, which, to be sure,
was absurd, and she knew it. Happening to meet General Rochambeau, she
drew rein and very gently offered her condolence on the loss of his
old friend.
The General pressed her hand gratefully.
"Ah, never pity him, Mademoiselle. He carries a good pass for the
Elysian Fields."
"And that is--?"
"The Emperor's _tabatiere_: and, my faith! Miss Dorothea, there will be
sneezings in certain quarters when he opens it there.
"Il a du bon tabac
Dans sa tabatiere
"has the Admiral. He had for you (if I may say it) a quite extraordinary
respect and affection. The saints rest his brave soul!"
The General lifted his tricorne. He never understood the tide of red
which surged over Dorothea's face; but she conquered it, and went on
to surprise him further:
"I heard of this only last night. We have been visiting Dartmoor, my
brother and I, with a release for--for that M. Raoul."
"So I understood." He noted that her confusion had gone as suddenly as
it came.
"But since I am back in time, and it appears I was so fortunate as to
win his regard, I would ask to see him--if it be permitted, and I may
have your escort."
"Certainly, Mademoiselle. You will, perhaps, wish to consult your
brother though?"
"I see no necessity," she answered.
* * * * * * * * *
The General was not the only one to discover a new and firmer note in
Dorothea's voice. Life at Bayfield slipped back into its old
comfortable groove, but the brothers fell--and one of them
consciously--into a habit of including her in their conversations and
even of asking her advice. One day there arrived a bulky parcel for
Narcissus; so bulky indeed and so suspiciously heavy, that it bore
signs of several agitated official inspections, and nothing short of
official deference to Endymion (under cover of whom it was addressed)
could account for its having come through at all. For it came from
France. It contained a set of the Bayfield drawings exquisitely cut in
stone; and within the cover was wrapped a lighter parcel addressed to
Miss Dorothea Westcote--a rose-tree, with a packet of seeds tied
about its root.
No letter accompanied the gift, at the sentimentality of which she
found herself able to smile. But she soaked the root carefully in warm
water, and smiled again at herself, as she planted it at the foot of
the glacis beneath her boudoir window--the very spot where Raoul had
fallen. Against expectation--for the journey had sorely withered it--
the plant throve. She lived to see it grown into a fine Provence rose,
draping the whole south-east corner of Bayfield with its yellow bloom.
"After all," she said one afternoon, stepping back in the act of
pruning it, "provided one sees things in their right light and is
not a fool--"
But this was long after the time of which we are telling.
Folks no longer smile at sentiment. They laugh it down: by which,
perhaps, no great harm would be done if their laughter came through the
mind; but it comes through the passions, and at the best chastises one
excess by another--a weakness by a rage, which is weakness at its
worst. I fear Dorothea may be injured in the opinion of many by the
truth--which, nevertheless, has to be told--that her recovery was
helped not a little by sentiment. What? Is a poor lady's heart to be
in combustion for a while and then--pf!--the flame expelled at a
blast, with all that fed it? That is the heroic cure, no doubt: but
either it kills or leaves a room swept and garnished, inviting devils.
In short it is the way of tragedy, and for tragedy Dorothea had no
aptitude at all. She did what she could--tidied up.
For an instance.--She owned a small book which had once belonged to a
namesake of hers--a Dorothea Westcote who had lived at the close of
the seventeenth and opening of the eighteenth centuries, a grand-
daughter of the first Westcote of Bayfield, married (so said the family
history) in 1704 to a squire from across the Devonshire border. The
book was a slender one, bound in calf, gilt-edged, and stamped with a
gold wreath in the centre of each cover. Dorothea called it an album;
but the original owner had simply written in, "Dorothea Westcote, her
book," on the first page, with the date 1687 below, and filled four-and-
twenty of its blank pages with poetry (presumably her favourite pieces),
copied in a highly ornate hand. Presumably also she had wearied of the
work, let the book lie, and coming to it later, turned it upside down
and started with a more useful purpose: for three pages at the end
contained several household recipes in the same writing grown severer,
including "Garland Wine (Mrs. Massiter's Way)" and "A good Cottage Pie
for a Pore Person."
Now the family history left no doubt that in 1687 this Dorothy had been
a bare fifteen years old; and although some of the entries must have
been made later (for at least two of them had not been composed at the
time), the bulk of the poems proved her a sprightly young lady whenever
she transcribed them. Indeed, some were so very free in calling a spade
a spade, that our Dorothea, having annexed the book, years ago, on the
strength of her name, and dipped within, had closed it in sudden virgin
terror and thrust it away at the back of her wardrobe.
There it had lain until disinterred in the hurried search for linen for
Mr. Raoul's wound. Next morning Dorothea was on the point of hiding it
again, when, as she opened the covers idly, her eyes fell on these lines
"But at my back I alwaies hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before me lie
Desarts of vast Eternitie . . ."
She read on. The poem, after all, turned out to be but a lover's appeal
to his mistress to give over coyness and use time while she might; but
Dorothea wondered why its solemn language should have hit her
namesake's fancy, and, turning a few more pages, discovered that this
merry dead girl had chosen and copied out other verses which were more
than solemn. How had she dug these gloomy gems out of Donne, Ford,
Webster, and set them here among loose songs and loose epigrams from
_Wit's Remembrancer_ and the like? for gems they were, though Dorothea
did not know it nor whence they came. Dorothea had small sense of
poetry: it was the personal interest which led her on. To be sure the
little animal (she had already begun to construct a picture of her)
might have secreted these things for no more reason than their beauty,
as a squirrel will pick up a ruby ring and hide it among his nuts.
But why were they, all so darkly terrible? Had she, being young, been
afraid to die? Rather it seemed as if now and then, in the midst of
her mirth, she had paused and been afraid to live.
And in the end she had married a Devonshire squire, which on the face
of it is no darkly romantic thing to do. But it was over the maiden
that our Dorothea pondered, until by and by the small shade took
features and a place in her leisure time: a very companionable shade,
though tantalising; and innocent, though given to mischievously
sportive hints. Dorothea sometimes wondered what her own fate would
have been, with this naughtiness in her young blood--and this
seriousness.
It was sentiment, of course; but it is also a fact that this ghost of
a kinswoman brought help to her. For such a hurt as hers the specific
is to get away from self and look into such human thought as is kindly
yet judicial. Some find this help in philosophy, many more in wise
Dorothea had no philosophy, and no human being to consult; for
admirably as Endymion had behaved, he remained a person with obvious
limits. The General held aloof: she had no reason to fear that he
suspected her secret. And so _Natura inventrix_, casting about for a
cure, found and brought her this companion of her own sex from
between the covers of a book.
I set down the fact merely and its share in Dorothea's recovery.
CHAPTER XII
GENERAL ROCHAMBEAU TELLS A STORY;
AND THE TING-TANG RINGS FOR THE LAST TIME
More than a year had passed when, one February morning, as he left the
breakfast table, Endymion handed Dorothea a slip of paper.
"Do you think we can entertain at dinner next Wednesday? If you can
manage it, I wish these invitations written out and despatched before
noon."
"Next Wednesday?" Dorothea's eyebrows went up. Invitations to dine at
Bayfield had always, as we know, been issued just three weeks ahead.
"If it will not inconvenience you," he answered; and his manner added,
as plainly as words, "I beg that you will not press for my reasons."
He was booted already for his ride into Axcester.
Dorothea ran her eye down the list: The Vicomte de Tocqueville, General
Rochambeau. . . . All the prisoners of distinction were included as
well as the chief notables of the neighbourhood, which made it a long
one, even without a full balance of ladies.
She went off to her room at once and penned the letters--twenty-five
in all.
Naturally, this break in the Bayfield custom set speculation going
among the invited; but it is doubtful if Narcissus, any more than
Dorothea, knew the reason of it. And on Wednesday, when the guests
assembled, the only one who might be suspected of sharing Endymion's
secret was (oddly enough) General Rochambeau. The old fellow seemed
ten years younger, and wore an air of sportiveness, almost of raillery,
as he caught his host's eye. The compliments he paid Lady Bateson
across the table were prodigious, and gave that good soul a hazy
sensation of being wafted back to the court of Louis XV, and behaving
brilliantly under the circumstances.
"Really, my dear Mr. Westcote," she protested at length, being a
chartered utterer of indiscretions which (as she delighted to prove)
Endymion would not tolerate in others, but took from her and allowed,
with a magisterial smile, to pass,--"really, I trust you have not
taken off the General's parole, or to-morrow I shall have to lock my
gates for fear of a chaise-and-pair."
"Ah, to-morrow!" the General echoed, turning to Endymion, with a twinkle
of malice in his eye. "But when Mr. Westcote releases us, it will be en
masse; and then, believe me, I shall come with an army, since I
underrate neither the strength of the fortress nor the feeling of the
country."
"That reminds me," put in a Mr. Saxby, of Yeovil, or near by, "we have
heard of no escape or attempts at escape from Axcester this winter. I
congratulate you, Westcote--if the General will not think it
offensive."
"Reassure yourself, my dear sir." General Rochambeau bowed. "No," he
continued, lifting his eyes for a moment towards Dorothea, "in one way
or another we are rid of our fence-breakers, and the rest must share
the credit with our Commissary."
"And yet the temptation--," began Lady Bateson.
"Is great, Madame, for some temperaments. But the Vicomte, here, and I
have tried to teach our poor compatriots that in resisting it they
fight for France as surely as if they stormed a breach. And, by the
way, I heard a story this morning--if the company would care to hear--"
They begged him to tell it.
"But not if the ladies leave us to our wine." He turned to Dorothea.
"If Miss Westcote will rally and stay her forces, good; for, though it
came to me casually in a letter, it is a tale of the sort which used
to be fashionable in my youth--ah! long before M. le Tocqueville
remembers--and for the telling it demanded an audience of ladies,
which must help me, who am rusty, to recapture the style, if I can."
He pushed back his chair and, crossing his legs, leaned forward and
pushed his fingers across the polished mahogany till they touched the
base of a wine-glass beside his plate. One or two of the guests smiled
at this formal opening. The Vicomte's eyes showed something of
amusement behind their apathy. But all listened.
"My tale, Miss Dorothea, is of a certain M. Benest, who until a few
weeks ago was a prisoner on parole in one of your towns on the south
coast. He had been _chef de hune_ (which, as you know, is chief petty
officer) of the _Embuscade_ frigate, captured by Sir John Warren. In
the action which lost her M. Benest lost a leg, and was placed in an
English hospital, where they gave him a wooden one.
"Now how it came about that on his discharge he was allowed to live in
a town--call it a village, rather--a haven, at any rate--where for
a couple of napoleons he might have found a boat any night of the week
to smuggle him over to Roscoff, is more than I can tell you. It may be
that he had once borne another name than Benest, one to command
privileges: since many of my countrymen, as you know, have found it
prudent in recent years to change their names and take up with
callings below their real rank. There, at any rate, he was; and on the
day after his arrival, he and the Rector of the parish--who was also
a magistrate--took a walk and marked out the bounds together: two
miles along the coast to the east, two miles along the coast to the
west, and two miles up the valley behind the town. At the end of these
two miles the valley itself branched into two and climbed inland, the
road branching likewise; and M. Benest's mark was the signpost at the
angle.
"Well, at first he walked little, because of his wooden leg. He had
lodgings with a widow in a white-washed cottage overlooking the
harbour-side, and seemed happy enough there, tending a monster
geranium which grew against the house-wall, or pottering about the
quay and making friends with the children. For the children soon picked
up an affection for him, seeing that he was never too busy to drop his
gardening and come and be umpire at their games of 'tig' or 'prisoners'
bars.' Also he had stories for them, and halfpennies or sweetmeats in
mysterious pockets, and songs which he taught them: _Girofle, girofla_,
and _Compagnons de la Marjolaine_, and _Les Petits Bateaux_--do you
know it?--
"'Papa, les p'tits bateaux
Qui vont sur I'eau,
Ont-ils des jambes?
--Mais oui, petit beta,
S'ils n'en avaient pas, ils n' march'raient pas!'
"In short, M. Benest, with his loose blue coat and three-cornered
naval cap, endeared himself to the children, and through the children
to everyone.
"It was some time before he began to take walks; and I believe he had
been living in the town for six months, when one day, having stumped
up the valley road for a change, and just as he was facing about for
the return journey, he heard a voice in his own language singing to
the air of _Vive Henri Quatre_.
"The voice was shaky and, I dare say, uncertain in its upper notes;
but it fetched M. Benest right-about-face again. He perceived that it
came from the garden of a solitary cottage up the road, a gunshot and
more beyond his signpost. But a tall hedge interrupted his view, and,
though he stared long and earnestly, all he could see that day was a
pea-stick nodding above it.
"He came again, however,--not the next day, but the day after,--and
was rewarded by a glimpse of a white cap with bows which seemed at
that distance of a purplish colour. Its wearer was standing in the
gateway and exchanging a word with the Rector, who had reined up his
horse in the road.
"M. Benest walked home and made inquiries; but his landlady could only
tell him that the cottage was rented by two ladies, sisters,--she had
heard that they came from the West Indies,--who saw nobody, but
wished only to be let alone. One of them, who suffered from an
incurable complaint, was never seen; the other could be seen on fine
days in her garden, where she worked vigorously; and what the pair
lived on was a mystery, for they bought nothing in the town or of
their neighbours.
"On learning this, M. Benest became very cunning indeed. He bought a
fishing rod.
"For I ought to have told you that a stream ran down the valley beside
the road, and it contained trout--perhaps as many as a dozen.
M. Benest had no desire to catch them; but, you see, he was forced to
acquire some show of expertness in order to deceive the wayfarers who
paused and watched him; and in time (I am told) the fish, after being
unhooked once or twice and restored apologetically to the water, came
to enjoy disconcerting him. You must understand that he had no foolish
illusions concerning the white cap and purplish ribbons--the
Mademoiselle Henriette, as he discovered she was called. He only knew
that here were two women, his compatriots, poor certainly, often hungry
perhaps, shipwrecked so close to him upon this corner of (pardon me,
Miss Dorothea) an unfriendly land, yet divided from any comfort he
could bring by fifty yards of road and his word of honour. She must be
of the true blood of France who quavered out _Vive Henri Quatre_ so
resolutely over her digging and hoeing: but the sound of a French voice
might hearten her as hers had heartened him. Therefore he sang lustily
while he angled--which is not good for sport; and when he caught a
fish, broke into paeans addressed less to the captive--with which,
between you and me, he was secretly annoyed--than to an ear unseen,
perhaps a quarter of a mile away.