The Battle Of The Strong, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28
She came to him slowly where he stood, his great frame trembling with his
passion and the hurt she had given him, and laying her hand upon his arm,
she said:
"Your faith was a blind one, Ro. I was either a girl who--who deserved
nothing of the world, or I was a wife. I had no husband, had I? Then I
must have been a girl who deserved nothing of the world, or of you. Your
faith was blind, Ranulph, you see it was blind."
"What I know is this," he repeated with dogged persistence--"what I know
is this: that whatever was wrong, there was no wrong in you. My life a
hundred times on that!"
She smiled at him, the brightest smile that had been on her face these
years past, and she answered softly: "'I did not think there was so great
faith--no, not in Israel!'" Then the happiness passed from her lips to
her eyes. "Your faith has made me happy, Ro--I am selfish, you see. Your
love in itself could not make me happy, for I have no right to listen,
because--"
She paused. It seemed too hard to say: the door of her heart enclosing
her secret opened so slowly, so slowly. A struggle was going on in her.
Every feeling, every force of her nature was alive. Once, twice, thrice
she tried to speak and could not. At last with bursting heart and eyes
swimming with tears she said solemnly:
"I can never marry you, Ranulph, and I have no right to listen to your
words of love, because--because I am a wife."
Then she gave a great sigh of relief; like some penitent who has for a
lifetime hidden a sin or a sorrow and suddenly finds the joy of a
confessional which relieves the sick heart, takes away the hand of
loneliness that clamps it, and gives it freedom again; lifting the poor
slave from the rack of secrecy, the cruelest inquisition of life and
time. She repeated the words once more, a little louder, a little
clearer. She had vindicated herself to God, now she vindicated herself to
man--though to but one.
"I can never marry you; because I am a wife," she said again. There was a
slight pause, and then the final word was said: "I am the wife of Philip
d'Avranche."
Ranulph did not speak. He stood still and rigid, looking with eyes that
scarcely saw.
"I had not intended telling any one until the time should come"--once
more her hand reached out and tremblingly stroked the head of the
child--"but your faith has forced it from me. I couldn't let you go from
me now, ignorant of the truth, you whose trust is beyond telling.
Ranulph, I want you to know that I am at least no worse than you thought
me."
The look in his face was one of triumph, mingled with despair, hatred,
and purpose--hatred of Philip d'Avranche, and purpose concerning him. He
gloried now in knowing that Guida might take her place among the honest
women of this world,--as the world terms honesty,--but he had received
the death-blow to his every hope. He had lost her altogether, he who had
watched and waited; who had served and followed, in season and out of
season; who had been the faithful friend, keeping his eye fixed only upon
her happiness; who had given all; who had poured out his heart like
water, and his life like wine before her.
At first he only grasped the fact that Philip d'Avranche was the husband
of the woman he loved, and that she had been abandoned. Then sudden
remembrance stunned him: Philip d'Avranche, Duc de Bercy, had another
wife. He remembered--it had been burned into his brain the day he saw it
first in the Gazette de Jersey--that he had married the Comtesse
Chantavoine, niece of the Marquis Grandjon-Larisse, upon the very day,
and but an hour before, the old Duc de Bercy suddenly died. It flashed
across his mind now what he had felt then. He had always believed that
Philip had wronged Guida; and long ago he would have gone in search of
him--gone to try the strength of his arm against this cowardly marauder,
as he held him--but his father's ill-health had kept him where he was,
and Philip was at sea upon the nation's business. So the years had gone
on until now.
His brain soon cleared. All that he had ever thought upon the matter now
crystallised itself into the very truth of the affair. Philip had married
Guida secretly; but his new future had opened up to him all at once, and
he had married again--a crime, but a crime which in high places sometimes
goes unpunished. How monstrous it was that such vile wickedness should be
delivered against this woman before him, in whom beauty, goodness, power
were commingled! She was the real Princess Philip d'Avranche, and this
child of hers--now he understood why she allowed Guilbert to speak no
patois.
They scarcely knew how long they stood silent, she with her hand stroking
the child's golden hair, he white and dazed, looking, looking at her and
the child, as the thing resolved itself to him. At last, in a voice which
neither he nor she could quite recognise as his own, he said:
"Of course you live now only for Guilbert."
How she thanked him in her heart for the things he had left unsaid, those
things which clear-eyed and great-minded folk, high or humble, always
understand. There was no selfish lamenting, no reproaches, none of the
futile banalities of the lover who fails to see that it is no crime for a
woman not to love him. The thing he had said was the thing she most cared
to hear.
"Only for that, Ranulph," she answered.
"When will you claim the child's rights?"
She shook her head sadly. "I do not know," she answered with hesitation.
"I will tell you all about it."
Then she told him of the lost register of St. Michael's, and about the
Reverend Lorenzo Dow, but she said nothing as to why she had kept
silence. She felt that, man though he was, he might divine something of
the truth. In any case he knew that Philip had deserted her.
After a moment he said: "I'll find Mr. Dow if he is alive, and the
register too. Then the boy shall have his rights."
"No, Ranulph," she answered firmly, "it shall be in my own time. I must
keep the child with me. I know not when I shall speak; I am biding my
day. Once I thought I never should speak, but then I did not see all, did
not wholly see my duty towards Guilbert. It is so hard to find what is
wise and just."
"When the proofs are found your child shall have his rights," he said
with grim insistence.
"I would never let him go from me," she answered, and, leaning over, she
impulsively clasped the little Guilbert in her arms.
"There'll be no need for Guilbert to go from you," he rejoined, "for when
your rights come to you, Philip d'Avranche will not be living."
"Will not be living!" she said in amazement. She did not understand.
"I mean to kill him," he answered sternly.
She started, and the light of anger leaped into her eyes. "You mean to
kill Philip d'Avranche--you, Maitre Ranulph Delagarde!" she exclaimed.
"Whom has he wronged? Myself and my child only--his wife and his child.
Men have been killed for lesser wrongs, but the right to kill does not
belong to you. You speak of killing Philip d'Avranche, and yet you dare
to say you are my friend!"
In that moment Ranulph learned more than he had ever guessed of life's
subtle distinctions and the workings of a woman's mind; and he knew that
she was right. Her father, her grandfather, might have killed Philip
d'Avranche--any one but himself, he the man who had but now declared his
love for her. Clearly his selfishness had blinded him. Right was on his
side, but not the formal codes by which men live. He could not avenge
Guida's wrongs upon her husband, for all men knew that he himself had
loved her for years.
"Forgive me," he said in a low tone. Then a new thought came to him. "Do
you think your not speaking all these years was best for the child?" he
asked.
Her lips trembled. "Oh, that thought," she said, "that thought has made
me unhappy so often! It comes to me at night as I lie sleepless, and I
wonder if my child will grow up and turn against me one day. Yet I did
what I thought was right, Ranulph, I did the only thing I could do. I
would rather have died than--"
She stopped short. No, not even to this man who knew all could she speak
her whole mind; but sometimes the thought came to her with horrifying
acuteness: was it possible that she ought to have sunk her own
disillusions, misery, and contempt of Philip d'Avranche, for the child's
sake? She shuddered even now as the reflection of that possibility came
to her--to live with Philip d'Avranche!
Of late she had felt that a crisis was near. She had had premonitions
that her fate, good or bad, was closing in upon her; that these days in
this lonely spot with her child, with her love for it and its love for
her, were numbered; that dreams must soon give way for action, and this
devoted peace would be broken, she knew not how.
Stooping, she kissed the little fellow upon the forehead and the eyes,
and his two hands came up and clasped both her cheeks.
"Tu m'aimes, maman?" the child asked. She had taught him the pretty
question.
"Comme la vie, comme la vie!" she answered with a half sob, and caught up
the little one to her bosom. Now she looked towards the window. Ranulph
followed her look, and saw that the shades of night were falling.
"I have far to walk," he said; "I must be going." As he held out his hand
to Guida the child leaned over and touched him on the shoulder. "What is
your name, man?" he asked.
He smiled, and, taking the warm little hand in his own, he said: "My name
is Ranulph, little gentleman. Ranulph's my name, but you shall call me
Ro."
"Good-night, Ro, man," the child answered with a mischievous smile.
The scene brought up another such scene in Guida's life so many years
ago. Instinctively she drew back with the child, a look of pain crossing
her face. But Ranulph did not see; he was going. At the doorway he turned
and said:
"You know you can trust me. Good-bye."
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Being tired you can sleep, and in sleep you can forget
Cling to beliefs long after conviction has been shattered
Futility of goodness, the futility of all
Her voice had the steadiness of despair
Joy of a confessional which relieves the sick heart
Often, we would rather be hurt than hurt
Queer that things which hurt most can't be punished by law
Rack of secrecy, the cruelest inquisition of life
Sardonic pleasure in the miseries of the world
Sympathy, with curiousness in their eyes and as much inhumanity
Thanked him in her heart for the things he had left unsaid
There is something humiliating in even an undeserved injury
There was never a grey wind but there's a greyer
Uses up your misery and makes you tired (Work)
We care so little for real justice
THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG
[A ROMANCE OF TWO KINGDOMS]
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 5.
CHAPTER XXXI
When Ranulph returned to his little house at St. Aubin's Bay night had
fallen. Approaching he saw there was no light in the windows. The blinds
were not drawn, and no glimmer of fire came from the chimney. He
hesitated at the door, for he instinctively felt that something must have
happened to his father. He was just about to enter, however, when some
one came hurriedly round the corner of the house.
"Whist, boy," said a voice; "I've news for you." Ranulph recognised the
voice as that of Dormy Jamais. Dormy plucked at his sleeve. "Come with
me, boy," said he.
"Come inside if you want to tell me something," answered Ranulph.
"Ah bah, not for me! Stone walls have ears. I'll tell only you and the
wind that hears and runs away."
"I must speak to my father first," answered Ranulph.
"Come with me, I've got him safe," Dormy chuckled to himself.
Ranulph's heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. "What's that you're
saying--my father with you! What's the matter?"
As though oblivious of Ranulph's hand Dormy went on chuckling.
"Whoever burns me for a fool 'll lose their ashes. Des monz a fous--I
have a head! Come with me." Ranulph saw that he must humour the shrewd
natural, so he said:
"Et ben, put your four shirts in five bundles and come along." He was a
true Jerseyman at heart, and speaking to such as Dormy Jamais he used the
homely patois phrases. He knew there was no use hurrying the little man,
he would take his own time.
"There's been the devil to pay," said Dormy as he ran towards the shore,
his sabots going clac--clac, clac--clac. "There's been the devil to pay
in St. Heliers, boy." He spoke scarcely above a whisper.
"Tcheche--what's that?" said Ranulph. But Dormy was not to uncover his
pot of roses till his own time. "That connetable's got no more wit than a
square bladed knife," he rattled on. "But gache-a-penn, I'm hungry!" And
as he ran he began munching a lump of bread he took from his pocket.
For the next five minutes they went on in silence. It was quite dark, and
as they passed up Market Hill--called Ghost Lane because of the Good
Little People who made it their highway--Dormy caught hold of Ranulph's
coat and trotted along beside him. As they went, tokens of the life
within came out to them through doorway and window. Now it was the voice
of a laughing young mother:
"Si tu as faim
Manges ta main
Et gardes l'autre pour demain;
Et ta tete
Pour le jour de fete;
Et ton gros ortee
Pour le Jour Saint Norbe"
And again:
"Let us pluck the bill of the lark,
The lark from head to tail--"
He knew the voice. It was that of a young wife of the parish of St.
Saviour: married happily, living simply, given a frugal board, after the
manner of her kind, and a comradeship for life. For the moment he felt
little but sorrow for himself. The world seemed to be conspiring against
him: the chorus of Fate was singing behind the scenes, singing of the
happiness of others in sardonic comment on his own final unhappiness. Yet
despite the pain of finality there was on him something of the apathy of
despair.
From another doorway came fragments of a song sung at a veille. The door
was open, and he could see within the happy gathering of lads and lassies
in the light of the crasset. There was the spacious kitchen, its beams
and rafters dark with age, adorned with flitches of bacon, huge loaves
resting in the racllyi beneath the centre beam, the broad open hearth,
the flaming fire of logs, and the great brass pan shining like
fresh-coined gold, on its iron tripod over the logs. Lassies in their
short woollen petticoats, and bedgones of blue and lilac, with boisterous
lads, were stirring the contents of the vast bashin--many cabots of
apples, together with sugar, lemon-peel, and cider; the old ladies in
mob-caps tied under the chin, measuring out the nutmeg and cinnamon to
complete the making of the black butter: a jocund recreation for all, and
at all times.
In one corner was a fiddler, and on the veille, flourished for the
occasion with satinettes and fern, sat two centeniers and the prevot,
singing an old song in the patois of three parishes.
Ranulph looked at the scene lingeringly. Here he was, with mystery and
peril to hasten his steps, loitering at the spot where the light of home
streamed out upon the roadway. But though he lingered, somehow he seemed
withdrawn from all these things; they were to him now as pictures of a
distant past.
Dormy plucked at his coat. "Come, come, lift your feet, lift your feet,"
said he; "it's no time to walk in slippers. The old man will be getting
scared, oui-gia!" Ranulph roused himself. Yes, yes, he must hurry on. He
had not forgotten his father, but something held him here; as though Fate
were whispering in his ear. What does it matter now? While yet you may,
feed on the sight of happiness. So the prisoner going to execution seizes
one of the few moments left to him for prayer, to look lingeringly upon
what he leaves, as though to carry into the dark a clear remembrance of
it all.
Moving on quietly in a kind of dream, Ranulph was roused again by Dormy's
voice: "On Sunday I saw three magpies, and there was a wedding that day.
Tuesday I saw two--that's for joy--and fifty Jersey prisoners of the
French comes back on Jersey that day. This morning one I saw. One magpie
is for trouble, and trouble's here. One doesn't have eyes for naught--no,
bidemme!"
Ranulph's patience was exhausted.
"Bachouar," he exclaimed roughly, "you make elephants out of fleas!
You've got no more news than a conch-shell has music. A minute and you'll
have a back-hander that'll put you to sleep, Maitre Dormy."
If he had been asked his news politely Dormy would have been still more
cunningly reticent. To abuse him in his own argot was to make him loose
his bag of mice in a flash.
"Bachouar yourself, Maitre Ranulph! You'll find out soon. No news--no
trouble--eh! Par made, Mattingley's gone to the Vier Prison--he! The
baker's come back, and the Connetable's after Olivier Delagarde. No
trouble, pardingue, if no trouble, Dormy Jamais's a batd'lagoule and no
need for father of you to hide in a place that only Dormy knows--my
good!"
So at last the blow had fallen; after all these years of silence,
sacrifice, and misery. The futility of all that he had done and suffered
for his father's sake came home to Ranulph. Yet his brain was instantly
alive. He questioned Dormy rapidly and adroitly, and got the story from
him in patches.
The baker Carcaud, who, with Olivier Delagarde, betrayed the country into
the hands of Rullecour years ago, had, with a French confederate of
Mattingley's, been captured in attempting to steal Jean Touzel's boat,
the Hardi Biaou. At the capture the confederate had been shot. Before
dying he implicated Mattingley in several robberies, and a notorious case
of piracy of three months before, committed within gunshot of the
men-of-war lying in the tide-way. Carcaud, seriously wounded, to save his
life turned King's evidence, and disclosed to the Royal Court in private
his own guilt and Olivier Delagarde's treason.
Hidden behind the great chair of the Bailly himself, Dormy Jamais had
heard the whole business. This had brought him hot-foot to St. Aubin's
Bay, whence he had hurried Olivier Delagarde to a hiding-place in the
hills above the bay of St. Brelade. The fool had travelled more swiftly
than Jersey justice, whose feet are heavy. Elie Mattingley was now in the
Vier Prison. There was the whole story.
The mask had fallen, the game was up. Well, at least there would be no
more lying, no more brutalising inward shame. All at once it appeared to
Ranulph madness that he had not taken his father away from Jersey long
ago. Yet too he knew that as things had been with Guida he could never
have stayed away.
Nothing was left but action. He must get his father clear of the island
and that soon. But how? and where should they go? He had a boat in St.
Aubin's Bay: getting there under cover of darkness he might embark with
his father and set sail--whither? To Sark--there was no safety there. To
Guernsey--that was no better. To France--yes, that was it, to the war of
the Vendee, to join Detricand. No need to find the scrap of paper once
given him in the Vier Marchi. Wherever Detricand might be, his fame was
the highway to him. All France knew of the companion of de la
Rochejaquelein, the fearless Comte de Tournay. Ranulph made his decision.
Shamed and dishonoured in Jersey, in that holy war of the Vendee he would
find something to kill memory, to take him out of life without disgrace.
His father must go with him to France, and bide his fate there also.
By the time his mind was thus made up, they had reached the lonely
headland dividing Portelet Bay from St. Brelade's. Dark things were said
of this spot, and the country folk of the island were wont to avoid it.
Beneath the cliffs in the sea was a rocky islet called Janvrin's Tomb.
One Janvrin, ill of a fell disease, and with his fellows forbidden by the
Royal Court to land, had taken refuge here, and died wholly neglected and
without burial. Afterwards his body lay exposed till the ravens and
vultures devoured it, and at last a great storm swept his bones off into
the sea. Strange lights were to be seen about this rock, and though wise
men guessed them mortal glimmerings, easily explained, they sufficed to
give the headland immunity from invasion.
To a cave at this point Dormy Jamais had brought the trembling Olivier
Delagarde, unrepenting and peevish, but with a craven fear of the Royal
Court and a furious populace quickening his footsteps. This hiding-place
was entered at low tide by a passage from a larger cave. It was like a
little vaulted chapel floored with sand and shingle. A crevice through
rock and earth to the world above let in the light and out the smoke.
Here Olivier Delagarde sat crouched over a tiny fire, with some bread and
a jar of water at his hand, gesticulating and talking to himself. The
long white hair and beard, with the benevolent forehead, gave him the
look of some latter-day St. Helier, grieving for the sins and praying for
the sorrows of mankind; but from the hateful mouth came profanity fit
only for the dreadful communion of a Witches' Sabbath.
Hearing the footsteps of Ranulph and Dormy, he crouched and shivered in
terror, but Ranulph, who knew too well his revolting cowardice, called to
him reassuringly. On their approach he stretched out his talon-like
fingers in a gesture of entreaty.
"You'll not let them hang me, Ranulph--you'll save me," he whimpered.
"Don't be afraid, they shall not hang you," Ranulph replied quietly, and
began warming his hands at the fire. "You'll swear it, Ranulph--on the
Bible?"
"I've told you they shall not hang you. You ought to know by now whether
I mean what I say," his son answered more sharply.
Assuredly Ranulph meant that his father should not be hanged. Whatever
the law was, whatever wrong the old man had done, it had been atoned for;
the price had been paid by both. He himself had drunk the cup of shame to
the dregs, but now he would not swallow the dregs. An iron determination
entered into him. He had endured all that he would endure from man. He
had set out to defend Olivier Delagarde from the worst that might happen,
and he was ready to do so to the bitter end. His scheme of justice might
not be that of the Royal Court, but he would defend it with his life. He
had suddenly grown hard--and dangerous.
CHAPTER XXXII
The Royal Court was sitting late. Candles had been brought to light the
long desk or dais where sat the Bailly in his great chair, and the twelve
scarlet-robed jurats. The Attorney-General stood at his desk,
mechanically scanning the indictment read against prisoners charged with
capital crimes. His work was over, and according to his lights he had
done it well. Not even the Undertaker's Apprentice could have been less
sensitive to the struggles of humanity under the heel of fate and death.
A plaintive complacency, a little righteous austerity, and an agreeable
expression of hunger made the Attorney-General a figure in godly contrast
to the prisoner awaiting his doom in the iron cage opposite.
There was a singular stillness in this sombre Royal Court, where only a
tallow candle or two and a dim lanthorn near the door filled the room
with flickering shadows-great heads upon the wall drawing close together,
and vast lips murmuring awful secrets. Low whisperings came through the
dusk like mournful nightwinds carrying tales of awe through a heavy
forest. Once in the long silence a figure rose up silently, and stealing
across the room to a door near the jury box, tapped upon it with a
pencil. A moment's pause, the door opened slightly, and another shadowy
figure appeared, whispered, and vanished. Then the first figure closed
the door again silently, and came and spoke softly up to the Bailly, who
yawned in his hand, sat back in his chair, and drummed his fingers upon
the arm. Thereupon the other--the greffier of the court--settled down at
his desk beneath the jurats, and peered into an open book before him, his
eyes close to the page, reading silently by the meagre light of a candle
from the great desk behind him.
Now a fat and ponderous avocat rose up and was about to speak, but the
Bailly, with a peevish gesture, waved him down, and he settled heavily
into place again.
At last the door at which the greffier had tapped opened, and a gaunt
figure in a red robe came out. Standing in the middle of the room he
motioned towards the great pew opposite the Attorney-General. Slowly the
twenty-four men of the grand jury following him filed into place and sat
themselves down in the shadows. Then the gaunt figure--the Vicomte or
high sheriff--bowing to the Bailly and the jurats, went over and took his
seat beside the Attorney-General. Whereupon the Bailly leaned forward and
droned a question to the Grand Enquete in the shadow. One rose up from
among the twenty-four, and out of the dusk there came in reply to the
Judge a squeaking voice:
"We find the Prisoner at the Bar more Guilty than Innocent."