The Battle Of The Strong, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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As in her mental maze she sat panting her way to enlightenment, she saw
Guida's boat entering the little harbour. Now the truth must be told--but
how?
After her first exclamation of welcome to mother and child, Maitresse
Aimable struggled painfully for her voice. She tried to find words in
which to tell Guida the truth, but, stopping in despair, she suddenly
began rocking the child back and forth, saying only: "Prince Admiral
he--and now to come! O my good--O my good!" Guida's sharp intuition found
the truth.
"Philip d'Avranche!" she said to herself. Then aloud, in a shaking
voice--"Philip d'Avranche!"
She could not think clearly for a moment. It was as if her brain had
received a blow, and in her head was a singing numbness, obscuring
eyesight, hearing, speech.
When she had recovered a little she took the child from Maitresse
Aimable, and pressing him to her bosom placed him in the Sieur de
Mauprat's great arm-chair. This action, ordinary as it seemed, was
significant of what was in her mind. The child himself realised something
unusual, and he sat perfectly still, two small hands spread out on the
big arms.
"You always believed in me, 'tresse Aimable," Guida said at last in a low
voice.
"Oui-gia, what else?" was the instant reply. The quick responsiveness of
her own voice seemed to confound the Femme de Ballast, and her face
suffused.
Guida stooped quickly and kissed her on the cheek. "You'll never regret
that. And you will have to go on believing still, but you'll not be sorry
in the end, 'tresse Aimable," she said, and turned away to the fireplace.
An hour afterwards Mattresse Aimable was upon her way to St. Heliers, but
now she carried her weight more easily and panted less. Twice within the
last month Jean had given her ear a friendly pinch, and now Guida had
kissed her--surely she had reason to carry her weight more lightly.
That afternoon and evening Guida struggled with herself: the woman in her
shrinking from the ordeal at hand. But the mother in her pleaded,
commanded, ruled confused emotions to quiet. Finality of purpose once
determined, a kind of peace came over her sick spirit, for with finality
there is quiescence if not peace.
When she looked at the little Guilbert, refined and strong, curiously
observant, and sensitive in temperament like herself, her courage
suddenly leaped to a higher point than it had ever known. This innocent
had suffered enough. What belonged to him he had not had. He had been
wronged in much by his father, and maybe--and this was the cruel part of
it--had been unwittingly wronged, alas! how unwilling, by her! If she
gave her own life many times, it still could be no more than was the
child's due.
A sudden impulse seized her, and with a quick explosion of feeling she
dropped on her knees, and looking into his eyes, as though hungering for
the words she so often yearned to hear, she said:
"You love your mother, Guilbert? You love her, little son?"
With a pretty smile and eyes brimming with affectionate fun, but without
a word, the child put out a tiny hand and drew the fingers softly down
his mother's face.
"Speak, little son, tell your mother that you love her." The tiny hand
pressed itself over her eyes, and a gay little laugh came from the
sensitive lips, then both arms ran round her neck. The child drew her
head to him impulsively, and kissing her, a little upon the hair and a
little upon the forehead, so indefinite was the embrace, he said:
"Si, maman, I loves you best of all," then added: "Maman, can't I have
the sword now?"
"You shall have the sword too some day," she answered, her eyes flashing.
"But, maman, can't I touch it now?"
Without a word she took down the sheathed goldhandled sword and laid it
across the chair-arms.
"I can't take the sword out, can I, maman?" he asked.
She could not help smiling. "Not yet, my son, not yet."
"I has to be growed up so the blade doesn't hurt me, hasn't I, maman?"
She nodded and smiled again, and went about her work.
He nodded sagely. "Maman--" he said. She turned to him; the little figure
was erect with a sweet importance. "Maman, what am I now--with the
sword?" he asked, with wide-open, amazed eyes.
A strange look passed across her face. Stooping, she kissed his curly
hair.
"You are my prince," she said.
A little later the two were standing on that point of land called
Grosnez--the brow of the Jersey tiger. Not far from them was a
signal-staff which telegraphed to another signal-staff inland. Upon the
staff now was hoisted a red flag. Guida knew the signals well. The red
flag meant warships in sight. Then bags were hoisted that told of the
number of vessels: one, two, three, four, five, six, then one next the
upright, meaning seven. Last of all came the signal that a flag-ship was
among them.
This was a fleet in command of an admiral. There, not far out, between
Guernsey and Jersey, was the squadron itself. Guida watched it for a long
while, her heart hardening; but seeing that the men by the signal-staff
were watching her, she took the child and went to a spot where they were
shielded from any eyes. Here she watched the fleet draw nearer and
nearer.
The vessels passed almost within a stone's throw of her. She could see
the St. George's Cross flying at the fore of the largest ship. That was
the admiral's flag--that was the flag of Admiral Prince Philip
d'Avranche, Duc de Bercy.
She felt her heart stand still suddenly, and with a tremor, as of fear,
she gathered her child close to her. "What is all those ships, maman?"
asked the child. "They are ships to defend Jersey," she said, watching
the Imperturbable and its flotilla range on.
"Will they affend us, maman?"
"Perhaps-at the last," she said.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Off Grouville Bay lay the squadron of the Jersey station. The St.
George's Cross was flying at the fore of the Imperturbable, and on every
ship of the fleet the white ensign flapped in the morning wind. The
wooden-walled three-decked flag-ship, with her 32-pounders, and six
hundred men, was not less picturesque and was more important than the
Castle of Mont Orgueil near by, standing over two hundred feet above the
level of the sea: the home of Philip d'Avranche, Duc de Bercy, and the
Comtesse Chantavoine, now known to the world as the Duchesse de Bercy.
The Comtesse had arrived in the island almost simultaneously with Philip,
although he had urged her to remain at the ducal palace of Bercy. But the
duchy of Bercy was in hard case. When the imbecile Duke Leopold John died
and Philip succeeded, the neutrality of Bercy had been proclaimed, but
this neutrality had since been violated, and there was danger at once
from the incursions of the Austrians and the ravages of the French
troops. In Philip's absence the valiant governor-general of the duchy,
aided by the influence and courage of the Comtesse Chantavoine, had thus
far saved it from dismemberment, in spite of attempted betrayals by
Damour the Intendant, who still remained Philip's enemy.
But when the Marquis Grandjon-Larisse, the uncle of the Comtesse, died,
her cousin, General Grandjon-Larisse of the Republican army--whose word
with Dalbarade had secured Philip's release years before for her own
safety, first urged and then commanded her temporary absence from the
duchy. So far he had been able to protect it from the fury of the
Republicans and the secret treachery of the Jacobins. But a time of great
peril was now at hand. Under these anxieties and the lack of other
inspiration than duty, her health had failed, and at last she obeyed her
cousin, joining Philip at the Castle of Mont Orgueil.
More than a year had passed since she had seen him, but there was no
emotion, no ardour in their present greeting. From the first there had
been nothing to link them together. She had married, hoping that she
might love thereafter; he in choler and bitterness, and in the stress of
a desperate ambition. He had avoided the marriage so long as he might, in
hope of preventing it until the Duke should die, but with the irony of
fate the expected death had come two hours after the ceremony. Then,
shortly afterwards, came the death of the imbecile Leopold John; and
Philip found himself the Duc de Bercy, and within a year, by reason of a
splendid victory for the Imperturbable, an admiral.
Truth to tell, in this battle he had fought for victory for his ship and
a fall for himself: for the fruit he had plucked was turning to dust and
ashes. He was haunted by the memory of a wronged woman, as she herself
had foretold. Death, with the burial of private dishonour under the roses
of public victory--that had come to be his desire. But he had found that
Death is wilful and chooseth her own time; that she may be lured, but she
will not come with shouting. So he had stoically accepted his fate, and
could even smile with a bitter cynicism when ordered to proceed to the
coast of Jersey, where collision with a French squadron was deemed
certain.
Now, he was again brought face to face with his past; with the imminent
memory of Guida Landresse de Landresse. Where was Guida now? What had
happened to her? He dared not ask, and none told him. Whichever way he
turned--night or day--her face haunted him. Looking out from the windows
of Mont Orgueil Castle, or from the deck of the Imperturbable, he could
see--and he could scarce choose but see--the lonely Ecrehos. There, with
a wild eloquence, he had made a girl believe he loved her, and had taken
the first step in the path which should have led to true happiness and
honour. From this good path he had violently swerved--and now?
From all that could be seen, however, the world went very well with him.
He was the centre of authority. Almost any morning one might have seen a
boat shoot out from below the Castle wall, carrying a flag with the blue
ball of a Vice-Admiral of the White in the canton, and as the Admiral
himself stepped upon the deck of the Imperturbable between saluting
guards, across the water came a gay march played in his honour.
Jersey herself was elate, eager to welcome one of her own sons risen to
such high estate. When, the very day after his arrival, he passed through
the Vier Marchi on his way to visit the Lieutenant-Governor, the redrobed
jurats impulsively turned out to greet him. They were ready to prove that
memory is a matter of will and cultivation. There is no curtain so opaque
as that which drops between the mind of man and the thing it is
advantageous to forget. But how closely does the ear of self-service
listen for the footfall of a most distant memory, when to do so is to
share even a reflected glory!
A week had gone since Philip had landed on the island. Memories pursued
him. If he came by the shore of St. Clement's Bay, he saw the spot where
he had stood with her the evening he married her, and she said to him:
"Philip, I wonder what we will think of this day a year from now! . . .
To-day is everything to you, but to-morrow is very much to me." He
remembered Shoreham sitting upon the cromlech above singing the legend of
the gui-l'annee--and Shoreham was lying now a hundred fathoms deep.
As he walked through the Vier Marchi with his officers, there flashed
before his eyes the scene of sixteen years ago, when, through the grime
and havoc of battle, he had run to save Guida from the scimitar of the
garish Turk. Walking through the Place du Vier Prison, he recalled the
morning when he had rescued Ranulph from the hands of the mob. Where was
Ranulph now?
If he had but known it, that very morning as he passed Mattingley's house
Ranulph had looked down at him with infinite scorn and loathing--but with
triumph too, for the Chevalier had just shown him a certain page in a
certain parish-register long lost, left with him by Carterette
Mattingley. Philip knew naught of Ranulph save the story babbled by the
islanders. He cared to hear of no one but Guida, and who was now to
mention her name to him? It was long--so long since he had seen her face.
How many years ago was it? Only five, and yet it seemed twenty.
He was a boy then; now his hair was streaked with grey. He was
light-hearted then, and he was still buoyant with his fellows, still
alert and vigorous, quick of speech and keen of humour--but only before
the world. In his own home he was fitful of mood, impatient of the grave,
meditative look of his wife, of her resolute tenacity of thought and
purpose, of her unvarying evenness of mood, through which no warmth
played. It seemed to him that if she had defied him--given him petulance
for petulance, impatience for impatience, it would have been easier to
bear. If--if he could only read behind those passionless eyes, that
clear, unwrinkled forehead! But he knew her no better now than he did the
day he married her. Unwittingly she chilled him, and he felt he had no
right to complain, for he had done her the greatest wrong which can be
done a woman. Whatever chanced, Guida was still his wife; and there was
in him yet the strain of Calvinistic morality of the island race that
bred him. He had shrunk from coming here, but it had been far worse than
he had looked for.
One day, in a nervous, bitter moment, after an impatient hour with the
Comtesse, he had said: "Can you--can you not speak? Can you not tell me
what you think?" She had answered quietly:
"It would do no good. You would not understand. I know you in some ways
better than you know yourself. I cannot tell what it is, but there is
something wrong in your nature, something that poisons your life. And not
myself only has felt that. I never told you--but you remember the day the
old Duke died, the day we were married? You had gone from the room a
moment. The Duke beckoned me to him, and whispered 'Don't be
afraid--don't be afraid--' and then he died. That meant that he was
afraid, that death had cleared his sight as to you in some way. He was
afraid--of what? And I have been afraid--of what? I do not know. Things
have not gone well somehow. You are strong, you are brave, and I come of
a family that have been strong and brave. We ought to be near: yet, yet
we are lonely and far apart, and we shall never be nearer or less lonely.
That I know."
To this he had made no reply and this anger vanished. Something in her
words had ruled him to her own calmness, and at that moment he had the
first flash of understanding of her nature and its true relation to his
own.
Passing through the Rue d'Egypte this day he met Dormy Jamais. Forgetful
of everything save that this quaint foolish figure had interested him
when a boy, he called him by name; but Dormy Jamais swerved away, eyeing
him askance.
At that instant he saw Jean Touzel standing in the doorway of his house.
A wave of remorseful feeling rushed over him. He could wait no longer: he
would ask Jean Touzel and his wife about Guida. He instantly bethought
him of an excuse for the visit. His squadron needed another pilot; he
would approach Jean in the matter.
Bidding his flag-lieutenant go on to Elizabeth Castle whither they were
bound, and await him there, he crossed over to Jean. By the time he
reached the doorway, however, Jean had retreated to the veille by the
chimney behind Maitresse Aimable, who sat in a great stave-chair mending
a net.
Philip knocked and stepped inside. When Mattresse Aimable saw who it was
she was so startled that she dropped her work, and made vague clutches to
recover it. Stooping, however, was a great effort for her. Philip
instantly stepped forward and picked up the net. Politely handing it to
her, he said:
"Ah, Maitresse Aimable, it is as if you had never stirred all these
years!" Then turning to her husband "I have come looking for a good
pilot, Jean." Mattresse Aimable had at first flushed to a purple, had
afterwards gone pale, then recovered herself, and now returned Philip's
look with a downright steadiness. Like Jean, she knew well enough he had
not come for a pilot--that was not the business of a Prince Admiral.
She did not even rise. Philip might be whatever the world chose to call
him, but her house was her own, and he had come uninvited, and he was
unwelcome.
She kept her seat, but her fat head inclined once in greeting, and she
waited for him to speak again. She knew why he had come; and somehow the
steady look in these slow, brown eyes, and the blinking glance behind
Jean's brass-rimmed spectacles, disconcerted Philip. Here were people who
knew the truth about him, knew the sort of man he really was. These poor
folk who had had nothing of the world but what they earned, they would
never hang on any prince's favours.
He read the situation rightly. The penalties of his life were teaching
him a discernment which could never have come to him through good fortune
alone. Having at last discovered his real self a little, he was in the
way of knowing others.
"May I shut the door?" he asked quietly. Jean nodded. Closing it he
turned to them again. "Since my return I have heard naught concerning
Mademoiselle Landresse," he said. "I want to ask you about her now. Does
she still live in the Place du Vier Prison?"
Both Jean and Aimable shook their heads. They had spoken no word since
his entrance.
"She--she is not dead?" he asked. They shook their heads again.
"Her grandfather"--he paused--"is he living?" Once more they shook their
heads in negation. "Where is mademoiselle?" he asked, sick at heart.
Jean looked at his wife; neither moved nor answered. "Where does she
live?" urged Philip. Still there was no motion, no reply. "You might as
well tell me." His tone was half pleading, half angry--little like a
sovereign duke, very like a man in trouble. "You must know I shall find
out from some one else, then," he continued. "But it is better for you to
tell me. I mean her no harm, and I would rather know about her from her
friends."
He took off his hat now. Something in the dignity of these two honest
folk rebuked the pride of place and spirit in him. As plainly as though
heralds had proclaimed it, he understood that these two knew the
abatements on the shield of his honour-argent, a plain point tenne, due
to him "that tells lyes to his Prince or General," and argent, a gore
sinister tenne, due for flying from his colours.
Maitresse Aimable turned and looked towards Jean, but Jean turned away
his head. Then she did not hesitate. The voice so oft eluding her will
responded readily now. Anger--plain primitive rage-possessed her. She had
had no child, but as the years had passed all the love that might have
been given to her own was bestowed upon Guida, and in that mind she
spoke.
"O my grief, to think you have come here-you!" she burst forth. "You
steal the best heart in the world--there is none like her, nannin-gia.
You promise her, you break her life, you spoil her, and then you fly
away--ah coward you! Man pethe benin, was there ever such a man like you!
If my Jean there had done a thing as that I would sink him in the sea--he
would sink himself, je me crais! But you come back here, O my Mother of
God, you come back here with your sword, with your crown-ugh, it is like
a black cat in heaven--you!"
She got to her feet more nimbly than she had ever done in her life, and
the floor seemed to heave as she came towards Philip. "You speak to me
with soft words," she said harshly--"but you shall have the good hard
truth from me. You want to know now where she is--I ask where you have
been these five years? Your voice it tremble when you speak of her now.
Oh ho! it has been nice and quiet these five years. The grand pethe of
her drop dead in his chair when he know. The world turn against her, make
light of her, when they know. All alone--she is all alone, but for one
fat old fool like me. She bear all the shame, all the pain, for the crime
of you. All alone she take her child and go on to the rock of Plemont to
live these five years. But you, you go and get a crown and be Amiral and
marry a grande comtesse--marry, oh, je crais ben! This is no world for
such men like you. You come to my house, to the house of Jean Touzel, to
ask this and that--well, you have the truth of God, ba su! No good will
come to you in the end, nannin-gia! When you go to die, you will think
and think and think of that beautiful Guida Landresse; you will think and
think of the heart you kill, and you will call, and she will not come.
You will call till your throat rattle, but she will not come, and the
child of sorrow you give her will not come--no, bidemme! E'fin, the door
you shut you can open now, and you can go from the house of Jean Touzel.
It belong to the wife of an honest man--maint'nant!"
In the moment's silence that ensued, Jean took a step forward. "Ma femme,
ma bonne femme!" he said with a shaking voice. Then he pointed to the
door. Humiliated, overwhelmed by the words of the woman, Philip turned
mechanically towards the door without a word, and his fingers fumbled for
the latch, for a mist was before his eyes. With a great effort he
recovered himself, and passed slowly out into the Rue d'Egypte.
"A child--a child!" he said brokenly. "Guida's child--my God! And I--have
never--known. Plemont--Plemont, she is at Plemont!" He shuddered.
"Guida's child--and mine," he kept saying to himself, as in a painful
dream he passed on to the shore.
In the little fisherman's cottage he had left, a fat old woman sat
sobbing in the great chair made of barrel-staves, and a man, stooping,
kissed her twice on the cheek--the first time in fifteen years. And then
she both laughed and cried.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Guida sat by the fire sewing, Biribi the dog at her feet. A little
distance away, to the right of the chimney, lay Guilbert asleep. Twice
she lowered the work to her lap to look at the child, the reflected light
of the fire playing on his face. Stretching out her hand, she touched
him, and then she smiled. Hers was an all-devouring love; the child was
her whole life; her own present or future was as nothing; she was but
fuel for the fire of his existence.
A storm was raging outside. The sea roared in upon Plemont and Grosnez,
battering the rocks in futile agony. A hoarse nor'-easter ranged across
the tiger's head in helpless fury: a night of awe to inland folk, and of
danger to seafarers. To Guida, who was both of the sea and of the land,
fearless as to either, it was neither terrible nor desolate to be alone
with the storm. Storm was but power unshackled, and power she loved and
understood. She had lived so long in close commerce with storm and sea
that something of their keen force had entered into her, and she was kin
with them. Each wind to her was intimate as a friend, each rock and cave
familiar as her hearthstone; and the ungoverned ocean spoke in terms
intelligible. So heavy was the surf that now and then the spray of some
foiled wave broke on the roof, but she only nodded at that, as though the
sea were calling her to come forth, tapping on her rooftree in joyous
greeting.
But suddenly she started and bent her head. It seemed as if her whole
body were hearkening. Now she rose quickly to her feet, dropped her work
upon the table near by, and rested herself against it, still listening.
She was sure she heard a horse's hoofs. Turning swiftly, she drew the
curtain of the bed before her sleeping child, and then stood quiet
waiting--waiting. Her hand went to her heart once as though its fierce
throbbing hurt her. Plainly as though she could look through these stone
walls into clear sunlight, she saw some one dismount, and she heard a
voice.
The door of the but was unlocked and unbarred. If she feared, it was easy
to shoot the bolt and lock the door, to drop the bar across the little
window, and be safe and secure. But no bodily fear possessed her--only
that terror of the spirit when its great trial comes suddenly and it
shrinks back, though the mind be of faultless courage.
She waited. There came a knocking at the door. She did not move from
where she stood.
"Come in," she said. She was composed and resolute now.
The latch clicked, the door opened, and a cloaked figure entered, the
shriek of the storm behind. The door closed again. The intruder took a
step forward, his hat came off, the cloak was loosed and dropped upon the
floor. Guida's premonition had been right: It was Philip.
She did not speak. A stone could have been no colder as she stood in the
light of the fire, her face still and strong, the eyes darkling,
luminous. There was on her the dignity of the fearless, the pure in
heart.
"Guida!" Philip said, and took a step nearer, and paused.
He was haggard, he had the look of one who had come upon a desperate
errand. When she did not answer he said pleadingly:
"Guida, won't you speak to me?"
"The Duc de Bercy chooses a strange hour for his visit," she said
quietly.
"But see," he answered hurriedly; "what I have to say to you--" he
paused, as though to choose the thing he should say first.
"You can say nothing I need hear," she answered, looking him steadily in
the eyes.
"Ah, Guida," he cried, disconcerted by her cold composure, "for God's
sake listen to me! To-night we have to face our fate. To-night you have
to say--"