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diff --git a/10548-0.txt b/10548-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec2ccec --- /dev/null +++ b/10548-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4427 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10548 *** + +Transcriber's Notes: + + 1. Words which may seem to be transcriber's typos, or otherwise + suspect, but which are reproduced faithfully (archaic spellings, + printer's typos--sometimes I couldn't tell): + + Ch. I: befel, undigged + Ch. III: chaperon + Ch. IV: babby, mun, valtz + Ch. V: zounded, dimpsey, after'n, ax'n, ax + Ch. VI: picquet, damitol + Ch. XI: alwaies, Desarts, Eternitie + + 2. Diphthongs, given as single characters in the printed copy, are + transcribed as two separate characters. + + + + + + +THE WESTCOTES + +by + +ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH + + + + + + + +DEDICATION + + + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES, + +A spinster, having borrowed a man's hat to decorate her front hall, +excused herself on the ground that the house 'wanted a something.' +By inscribing your name above this little story I please myself at +the risk of helping the reader to discover not only that it wants a +something, but precisely what that something is. It wants--to confess +and have done with it--all the penetrating subtleties of insight, all +the delicacies of interpretation, you would have brought to Dorothea's +aid, if for a moment I may suppose her worth your championing. So I +invoke your name to stand before my endeavour like a figure outside +the brackets in an algebraical sum, to make all the difference by +multiplying the meaning contained. + +But your consent gives me another opportunity even more warmly desired. +And I think that you, too, will take less pleasure in discovering how +excellent your genius appears to one who nevertheless finds it a +mystery in operation, than in learning that he has not missed to +admire, at least, and with a sense almost of personal loyalty, the +sustained and sustaining pride in good workmanship by which you have +set a common example to all who practise, however diversely, the art +in which we acknowledge you a master. + +A. T. QUILLER-COUCH + +October 25th, 1901 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I THE WESTCOTES OF BAYFIELD + +CHAPTER II THE ORANGE ROOM + +CHAPTER III A BALL, A SNOWSTORM, AND A SNOWBALL + +CHAPTER IV ENCOUNTER BETWEEN A HIGH HORSE AND A HOBBY + +CHAPTER V BEGINS WITH ANCIENT HISTORY AND ENDS WITH AN OLD STORY + +CHAPTER VI FATE IN A LAURELLED POST-CHAISE + +CHAPTER VII LOVE AND AN OLD MAID + +CHAPTER VIII CORPORAL ZEALLY INTERVENES + +CHAPTER IX DOROTHEA CONFESSES + +CHAPTER X DARTMOOR + +CHAPTER XI THE NEW DOROTHEA + +CHAPTER XII GENERAL ROCHAMBEAU TELLS A STORY; AND THE TING-TANG RINGS + FOR THE LAST TIME + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE WESTCOTES OF BAYFIELD + + +A mural tablet in Axcester Parish Church describes Endymion Westcote as +"a conspicuous example of that noblest work of God, the English Country +Gentleman." Certainly he was a typical one. + +In almost every district of England you will find a family which, +without distinguishing itself in any particular way, has held fast to +the comforts of life and the respect of its neighbours for generation +after generation. Its men have never shone in court, camp, or senate; +they prefer tenacity to enterprise, look askance upon wit (as a +dangerous gift), and are even a little suspicious of eminence. On the +other hand they make excellent magistrates, maintain a code of manners +most salutary for the poor in whose midst they live and are looked up +to; are as a rule satisfied, like the old Athenian, if they leave to +their heirs not less but a little more than they themselves inherited, +and deserve, as they claim, to be called the backbone of Great Britain. +Many of the women have beauty, still more have an elegance which may +pass for it, and almost all are pure in thought, truthful, assiduous in +deeds of charity, and marry for love of those manly qualities which +they have already esteemed in their brothers. + +Such a family were the Westcotes of Bayfield, or Bagvil, in 1810. Their +"founder" had settled in Axcester towards the middle of the seventeenth +century, and prospered--mainly, it was said, by usury. A little before +his death, which befel in 1668, he purchased Bayfield House from a +decayed Royalist who had lost his only son in the Civil Wars; and to +Bayfield and the ancestral business (exalted now into Banking) his +descendants continued faithful. One or both of the two brothers who, +with their half-sister, represented the family in 1810, rode in on +every week-day to their Bank-office in Axcester High Street,--a +Georgian house of brick, adorned with a porch of plaster fluted to the +shape of a sea-shell, out of which a. Cupid smiled down upon a brass +plate and the inscription "WESTCOTE AND WESTCOTE," and on the first +floor, with windows as tall as the rooms, so that from the street you +could see through one the shapely legs of Mr. Endymion Westcote at his +knee-hole table, and through another the legs of Mr. Narcissus. The +third and midmost window was a dummy, having been bricked up to avoid +the window-tax imposed by Mr. Pitt--in whose statesmanship, however, +the brothers had firmly believed. Their somewhat fantastic names were +traditional in the Westcote pedigree and dated from, the seventeenth +century. + +Endymion, the elder, (who took the lead of Narcissus in all, things), +was the fine flower of the Westcote stocks, and, out of question, the +most influential man in Axcester and for many a mile round justice of +the Peace for the county of Somerset and Major of its Yeomanry, he +served "our town," (so he called it) as Overseer of the Poor, Governor +of the Grammar School, Chairman of Feoffees, Churchwarden, everything +in short but Mayor--an office which he left to the tradesmen, while +taking care to speak of it always with respect, and indeed to see it +properly filled. The part of County Magistrate--to which he had been +born--he played to perfection, and with a full sense of its dignified +amenity. (It was whispered that the Lord Lieutenant himself stood in +some awe of him.) His favourite character, however, was that of plain +citizen of his native town. "I'm an Axcester man," he would declare in +his public speeches, and in his own way he loved and served the little +borough. For its good he held its Parliamentary representation in the +hollow of his hand; and, as Overseer of the Poor, had dared public +displeasure by revising the Voters' List and defying a mandamus of the +Court of King's Bench rather than allow Axcester to fail in its duty +of returning two members to support Mr. Percevall's Ministry. In 1800, +when the price of wheat rose to 184s a quarter, a poor woman dropped +dead in the market place of starvation. At once a mob collected, +hoisted a quartern-loaf on a pole with the label--"We will have Bread +or Blood," and started to pillage the shop's in High Street. It was +Endymion Westcote who rode up single-handed, (they, were carrying the +only constable on their shoulders) and faced and dispersed the rioters. +It was he who headed the subscription list, prevailed on the purchase a +wagon-load of potatoes and persuaded the people to plant them--for +even the seed potatoes had been eaten, and the gardens lay undigged. +It was he who met the immediate famine by importing large quantities of +rice. Finally, it was he, through his influence with the county, who +brought back prosperity by getting the French prisoners sent to Axcester. + +We shall talk of these French prisoners by and by. To conclude this +portrait of Endymion Westcote. He was a handsome, fresh-complexioned +man, over six feet in height, and past his forty-fifth year; a bachelor +and a Protestant. In his youth he had been noted for gallantry, and +preserved some traces of it in his address. His grandfather had +married a French lady, and although this union had not sensibly diluted +the Westcote blood, Endymion would refer to it to palliate a youthful +taste for playing the fiddle. He spoke French fluently, with a British +accent which, when appointed Commissary, he took pains to improve by +conversation with the prisoners, and was fond of discussing heredity +with the two most distinguished of them--the Vicomte de Tocqueville +and General Rochambeau. + +Narcissus, the younger brother, had neither the height nor the good +looks nor the masterful carriage of Endymion, and made no pretence to +rival him as a man of affairs. He professed to be known as the student +of the family, dabbled in archaeology, and managed two or three local +societies and field clubs, which met ostensibly to listen to his +papers, but really to picnic. An accident had decided this bent of his +--the discovery, during some repairs, of a fine Roman pavement beneath +the floor of Bayfield House, At the age of eighteen, during a Cambridge +vacation, Narcissus had written and privately printed a description of +this pavement, proving not only that its tessellae represented scenes +in the mythological story of Bacchus, but that the name "Bayfield," in +some old deeds and documents written "Bagvil" or "Baggevil," was +neither more nor less than a corruption of _Bacchi Villa_. Axcester and +its neighbourhood are rich in Roman remains--the town stands, indeed, +on the old Fosse Way--and, tempted by early success, Narcissus rode +his hobby further and further afield. Now, at the age of forty-two, he +could claim to be an authority on the Roman occupation of Britain, and +especially on the conquests of Vespasian. The circle of--the +Westcotes' acquaintance gathered in the fine hall of Bayfield--or, as +Narcissus preferred to call it, the atrium--drank tea, admired the +pavement, listened to the alleged exploits of Vespasian, and wondered +when the brothers would marry. Time went on, repeating these +assemblies; and the question became, Will they ever marry? Apparently +they had no thought of it, no idea that it was expected of them; and +since they had both passed forty, the question might be taken as +answered. But that so personable a man as Endymion Westcote would let +the family perish was monstrous to suppose. He kept his good looks and +his fresh complexion; even now some maiden would easily be found to +answer his Olympian nod; and a vein of recklessness sometimes cropped +up through his habitual caution, and kept his friends alert for +surprises. In the hunting-field, for instance,--and he rode to hounds +twice a week,--he made a rule of avoiding fences; but the world quite +rightly set this down to a proper care for his person rather than to +timidity, since on one famous occasion, riding up to find the whole +field hesitating before a "rasper" (they were hunting a strange country +that day), he put his horse at it and sailed over with a nonchalance +relieved only by his ringing laugh on the farther side. It was odds he +would clear the fence of matrimony, some day, with the same casual +heartiness; and, in any case, he was masterful enough to insist on +Narcissus marrying, should it occur to him to wish it. + +Oddly enough, the gossips who still arranged marriages for the brothers +had given over speculating upon their hostess, Miss Dorothea. She could +not, of course, perpetuate the name; but this by no means accounted for +all the difference in their concern. Dorothea Westcote was now thirty- +seven, or five years younger than Narcissus, whose mother had died soon +after his birth. The widower had created one of the few scandals in the +Westcote history by espousing, some four years later, a young woman of +quite inferior class, the daughter of a wholesale glover in Axcester. +The new wife had good looks, but they did not procure her pardon; and +she made the amplest and speediest amends by dying within twelve +months, and leaving a daughter who in no way resembled her. The husband +survived her just a dozen years. + +Dorothea, the daughter, was a plain girl; her brothers, though kind and +fond of her after a fashion, did not teach her to forget it. She loved +them, but her love partook of awe: they were so much cleverer, as well +as handsomer, than she. Having no mother or friend of her own sex to +imitate, she grow into an awkward woman, sensitive to charm in others +and responding to it without jealousy, but ignorant of what it meant or +how it could be acquired. She picked up some French from her brother +Endymion, and masters were hired who taught her to dance, to paint in +water colours, and to play with moderate skill upon the harp. But few +partners had ever sought her in the ballroom; her only drawings which +anyone ever asked to see were half-a-dozen of the Bayfield pavement, +executed for Narcissus' monograph; and her harp she played in her own +room. Now and then Endymion would enquire how she progressed with her +music, would listen to her report and observe: "Ah, I used to do a +little fiddling myself." But he never put her proficiency to the test. + +Somehow, and long before the world came to the same conclusion, she had +resolved that marriage was not for her. She adored babies, though they +usually screamed at the sight of her, and she thought it would be +delightful to have one of her own who would not scream; but apart from +this vague sentiment, she accepted her fate without sensible regret. +By watching and copying the mistresses of the few houses she visited +she learned to play the hostess at Bayfield, and, as time brought +confidence, played it with credit. She knew that people laughed at her, +and that yet they liked her; their liking and their laughter puzzled +her about equally. For the rest, she was proud of Bayfield and content, +though one day much resembled another, to live all her life there, +devoted to God and her garden. Visitors always praised her garden. + +Axcester lies on the western side and mostly at the foot of a low hill +set accurately in the centre of a ring of hills slightly higher-the +raised bottom of a saucer would be no bad simile. The old Roman road +cuts straight across this rise, descends between the shops of the High +Street, passes the church, crosses the Axe by a narrow bridge, and +climbing again passes the iron gates of Bayfield House, a mile above +the river. So straight is it that Dorothea could keep her brothers in +view from the gates until they dismounted before their office door, +losing sight of them for a minute or two only among the elms by the +bridge. Her boudoir window commanded the same prospect; and every day +as the London coach topped the hill, her maid Polly would run with +news of it. The two would be watching, often before the guard's horn +awoke the street and fetched the ostlers out in a hurry from the "Dogs +Inn" stables with their relay of four horses. Miss Dorothea possessed +a telescope, too; and if the coach were dressed with laurels and flags +announcing a victory, mistress and maid would run to the gates and wave +their handkerchiefs as it passed. + +Sometimes, too, Polly would announce a post-chaise, and the telescope +decide whether the postboys wore the blue or the buff. Nor were these +their only causes of excitement; for the great Bayfield elm, a rood +below the gates and in full view of them, marked the westward boundary +of the French prisoners on parole. Some of these were quite regular in +their walks for instance, Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin and General +Rochambeau, who came at three o'clock or thereabouts on Wednesdays and +Saturdays, summer and winter. At six paces on the far side of the elm-- +such was their punctilio--they halted, took snuff, linked arms again +and turned back. (Dorothea had entertained them both at Bayfield, and +met them at dinner in one or two neighbouring houses.) On the same +days, and on Mondays as well, old Jean Pierre Pichou, ex-boatswain of +the _Didon_ frigate, would come along arm-in-arm with Julien Carales, +alias Frap d'Abord, ex-_marechal des logis_--Pichou, with his wooden +leg, and Frap d'Abord twisting a grey moustache and uttering a steady +torrent of imprecation--or so it sounded. These could be counted on; +but scores of others stopped and turned at the Bayfield elm, and Polly +had names for them all. Moreover, on one memorable day Dorothea had +watched one who did not halt precisely at the elm. A few paces beyond +it, and on the side of the road facing the grounds, straggled an old +orchard, out of which her brother Endymion had been missing, of late, +a quantity of his favourite pippins--by name (but it may have been a +local one) Somerset Warriors. The month was October, the time about +half-past four, the light dusky. Yet Miss Dorothea, lingering by the +gate, saw a young man pass the Bayfield elm and climb the hedge; and +saw and heard him nail against an apple-tree overhanging the road, a +board with white letters on a black ground. When it was fixed, the +artist descended to the road and gazed up admiringly at his work. In +the act of departing he turned, and suddenly stood still again. His +face was toward the Bayfield gate. Dorothea could not tell if he saw +her, but he remained thus, motionless, for almost a minute. Then he +seemed to recollect himself and marched off briskly down the road. +Early next morning she descended and read the inscription, which ran: +"Restaurant pour les Aspirants." + +She said nothing about it, and soon after breakfast the board was +removed. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ORANGE ROOM + + +Some weeks later, on a bright and frosty morning in December, Dorothea +rode into Axcester with her brothers. She was a good horsewoman and +showed to advantage on horseback, when her slight figure took a grace +of movement which made amends for her face. To-day the brisk air and a +canter across the bridge at the foot of the hill had brought roses to +her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. General Rochambeau happened +to pass down the street as the three drew rein before the Town House +(so the Westcotes always called the Bank-office), and, pausing to help +her dismount, paid her a very handsome compliment. + +Dorothea knew, of course, that Frenchmen were lavish of compliments, +and had heard General Rochambeau pay them where she felt sure they were +not deserved. Nevertheless she found this one pleasant--she had +received so few--and laughed happily. It may have come from the +freshness of the morning, but to-day her spirit sat light within her and +expectant she could not say of what, yet it seemed that something good +was going to happen. + +"I have a guess," said the old General, "that Miss Westcote and I are +bound on the same errand. Her's cannot be to inspect dull bonds and +ledgers, bills of exchange or rates of interest." + +He jerked his head towards the house, and Dorothea shook hers. + +"I am going to 'The Dogs,' General." + +"Eh?" He scented the jest and chuckled. "As you say, 'to the dogs' +hein? Messieurs, I beg you to observe and take warning that your sister +and I are going to the dogs together." + +He offered his arm to Dorothea. Her brothers had dismounted and handed +their horses over to the ostler who waited by the porch daily to lead +them to the inn stables. + +"I will stable Mercury myself," said she, addressing Endymion. She +submitted her smallest plans to him for approval. + +"Do so," he answered. "After running through my letters, I will step +down to the Orange Room and join you. I entrust her to you, General-- +the more confidently because you cannot take her far." + +He laughed and followed Narcissus through the porch. Dorothea saw the +old General wince. She slipped an arm through Mercury's bridle-rein +and picked up her skirt; the other arm she laid in her companion's. + +"You have not seen the Orange Room, Miss Dorothea?" + +"Not since the decorations began." She paused and uttered the thought +uppermost in her mind. "You must forgive my brother; I am sorry he +spoke as he did just now." + +"Then he is more than forgiven." + +"He did not consider." + +"Dear Mademoiselle, your brother is an excellent fellow, and not a bit +more popular than he deserves to be. Of his kindness to us prisoners-- +I speak not of us privileged ones, but of our poorer brothers--I +could name a thousand acts; and acts say more than words." + +Dorothea pursed her lips. "I am not sure. I think a woman would ask for +words too." + +"Yes, that is so," he caught her up. "But don't you see that we +prisoners are--forgive me--just like women? I mean, we have learned +that we are weak. For a man that is no easy lesson, Mademoiselle. I +myself learned it hardly. And seeing your brother admired by all, so +strong and prosperous and confident, can I ask that he should feel as +we who have forfeited these things?" + +Before she could find a reply he had harked back to the Orange Room. + +"You have not seen it since the decorations began? Then I have a mind +to run and ask your brother to forbid your coming--to command you to +wait until Wednesday. We are in a horrible mess, I warn you, and smell +of turpentine most potently. But we shall be ready for the ball, and +then--! It will be prodigious. You do not know that we have a genius +at work on the painting?" + +"My brother tells me the designs are extraordinarily clever." + +"They are more than clever, you will allow. The artist I discovered +myself--a young man named Charles Raoul. He comes from the South, a +little below Avignon, and of good family--in some respects." The +General paused and took snuff. "He enlisted at eighteen and has seen +service; he tells me he was wounded at Austerlitz. Unhappily he was +shipped, about two years ago, on board the _Thétis_ frigate, with a +detachment and stores for Martinique. The _Thétis_ had scarcely left +L'Orient before she fell in with one of your frigates, whose name +escapes me; and here he is in Axcester. He has rich relatives, but for +some reason or other they decline to support him; and yet he seems a +gentleman. He picks up a few shillings by painting portraits; but you +English are shy of sitting--I wonder why? And we--well, I suppose we +prefer to wait till our faces grow happier." + +Dorothea had it on the tip of her tongue to ask how the General had +discovered this genius; but the ring in his voice gave her pause. +Twice in the course of their short walk he had shown feeling; and she +wondered at it, having hitherto regarded him as a cynical old fellow +with a wit which cracked himself and the world like two dry nuts for +the jest of their shrivelled kernels. She did not, know that a kind +word of hers had unlocked his heart; and before she could recall her +question they had reached the stable-yard of "The Dogs." And after +stabling Mercury it was but a step across to the inn. + +The "Dogs Inn" took its name from two stone greyhounds beside its porch-- +supporters of the arms of that old family from which the Westcotes had +purchased Bayfield; and the Orange Room from a tradition that William +of Orange had spent a night there on his march from Torbay. There may +have been truth in the tradition; the room at any rate preserved in it +window-hangings of orange-yellow, and a deep fringe of the same hue +festooning the musicians' gallery. While serving Axcester for ball, +rout, and general assembly-room, it had been admittedly dismal--its +slate-coloured walls scarred and patched with new plaster, and relieved +only by a gigantic painting of the Royal Arms on panel in a blackened +frame; its ceiling garnished with four pendants in plaster, like bride- +cake ornaments inverted. + +To-day, as she stepped across the threshold, Dorothea hesitated between +stopping her ears and rubbing her eyes. The place was a Babel. +Frenchmen in white paper caps and stained linen blouses were laughing, +plying their brushes, mixing paints, shifting ladders, and jabbering +all the while at the pitch of their voices. For a moment the din +bewildered her; the ferment had no more meaning, no more method, than +a schoolboy's game. But her eyes, passing over the chaos of paint-pots, +brushes, and step-ladders, told her the place had been transformed. +The ceiling between the four pendants had become a blue heaven with +filmy clouds, and Cupids scattering roses before a train of doves and +a recumbent goddess, whom a little Italian, perched on a scaffolding +and whistling shrilly, was varnishing for dear life. Around the walls-- +sky-blue also--trellises of vines and pink roses clambered around the +old panels. The energy of the workmen had passed into their paintings, +or perhaps Dorothea's head swam; at any rate, the cupids and doves +seemed to be whirling across the ceiling, the vines, and roses mounting +towards it, and pushing out shoots and tendrils while they climbed. + +But the panels themselves! They were nine in all: three down the long +black wall, two narrower ones at the far end, four between the orange- +curtained windows looking on the street. (The fourth wall had no panel, +being covered, by the musicians' gallery and the pillars supporting +it.) In each, framed by the vines and roses, glowed a scene of +classical or pseudo-classical splendour; golden sunsets, pale yellow +skies, landscapes cleverly imitated from recollections of Claude +Lorraine, dotted with temples and small figures in flowing drapery, +with here and there a glimpse of naked limbs. Here were Bacchus and +Ariadne, with a company of dancing revellers; Apollo and Marsyas; the +Rape of Helen; Dido welcoming Aeneas. . . . Dorothea (albeit she had +often glanced into the copy of M. Lempriere's Classical Dictionary in +her brother's library, and, besides, had picked up something of Greek +and Roman mythology in helping Narcissus) did not at once discriminate +the subjects of these panels, but her eyes rested on them with a +pleasant sense of recognition, and were still resting on them when she +heard General Rochambeau say: + +"Ah, there is my genius! You must let me present him, Mademoiselle. +He will amuse you. Hi, there! Raoul!" + +A young man, standing amid a group of workmen and criticising one of +the panels between the curtains, turned sharply. Almost before Dorothea +was aware, he had doffed his paper cap and the General was introducing +him. + +She recognised him at once. He was the young prisoner who had nailed +the board against her brother's apple-tree. + +He bowed and began at once to apologise for the state of the room. He +had expected no visitors before Wednesday. The General had played a +surprise upon him. And Miss Westcote, alas! was a critic, especially +of classical subjects. + +He had heard of her drawings for her brother's book. + +Dorothea blushed. + +"Indeed I am no artist. Please do not talk of those drawings. If you +only knew how much I am ashamed of them. And besides, they were meant +as diagrams to help the reader, not as illustrations. But these are +beautiful." + +He turned with a pleasant laugh. She had already taken note of his +voice, but his laugh was even more musical. + +"Daphne pursued by Apollo," he commenced, waving his hand towards the +panel in face of her. "Be pleased to observe the lady sinking into the +bush; an effect which the ingenious painter has stolen from no less a +masterpiece than the Buisson Ardent' of Nicholas Froment." + +The General fumbled for the ribbon of his gold eye-glass. M. Raoul +moved towards the next panel, and Dorothea followed him. + +"Perseus entering the Garden of the Hesperides." + +The painting, though slapdash, was astonishingly clever; and in this, +as in other panels, no trace of the artist's hurry appeared in the +reposeful design. Coiled about the foot of the tree, the dragon Ladon +blinked an eye lazily at three maidens pacing hand in hand in the +dance, over-hung with dark boughs and golden fruit. Behind them +Perseus, with naked sword, halted in admiration, half issuing from a +thicket over which stretched a distant bright line of sea and white +cliff. + +"You like it?" he asked. "But it is not quite finished yet, and +Mademoiselle, if she is frank, will say that it wants something." + +His voice held a challenge. + +"I am sure, sir, I could not guess, even if I possessed--" + +"A board, for example?" + +"A board?" + +She was completely puzzled. + +He glanced at her sideways, turned to the panel, and with his +forefingers traced the outline of a square upon it, against the tree. + +"Restaurant pour les Aspirants," he announced. + +He said it quietly, over his shoulder. The sudden challenge, her sudden +discovery that he knew, made Dorothea gasp. She had not the smallest +notion how to answer him, or even what kind of answer he expected, and +stood dumb, gazing at his back. A workman, passing, apologised for +having brushed her skirt with the step-ladder he carried. She stammered +some words of pardon. And just then, to her relief, her brother +Endymion's voice rang out from the doorway: + +"Ah, there you are. Well, I declare!" He looked around him. "A +Paradise, a perfect Paradise! Indeed, General, your nation has its +revenge of us in the arts. You build a temple for us, and on Wednesday +I hear you are to provide the music. Tum-tum, ta-ta-ta . . ." He hummed +a few bars of Gluck's "Paride ed Elenna," and paused, with the gesture +of one holding a fiddle, on the verge of a reminiscence. "There was a +time--but I no longer compete. And to whom, General, are we indebted +for this--ah--treat?" + +General Rochambeau indicated young Raoul, who stepped forward from the +wall and answered, with a respectful inclination: + +"Well, M. le Commissaire, in the first place to Captain Seymour." + +The General bit his moustache; Endymion frowned. The answer merely +puzzled Dorothea, who did not know that Seymour was the name of the +British officer to whom the _Thétis_ had struck her colours. + +"Moreover," the young man went on imperturbably, "we but repay our +debt to M. le Commissaire--for the entertainment he affords us." + +Dorothea looked up sharply now, even anxiously; but her brother took +the shot, if shot it were, for a compliment. He put the awkward idiom +aside with a gracious wave of the hand. His brow cleared. + +"But we must do something for these poor fellows," he announced,-- +sweeping all the work-men in a gaze; "in mere gratitude we must. A +stall, now, at the end of the room under the gallery, with one or two +salesmen whom you must recommend to me, General. We might dispose of +quite a number of their small carvings and _articles de Paris_, with +which the market among the townspeople is decidedly overstocked. The +company on Wednesday will be less familiar with them: they will serve +as mementoes, and the prices, I daresay, will not be too closely +considered." + +"Sir, I beg of you--" General Rochambeau expostulated. + +"Eh?" + +"They have given their labour--such as it is--in pure gratitude for +the kindness shown to them by all in Axcester. That has been the whole +meaning of our small enterprise," the old gentleman persisted. + +"Still, I don't suppose they'll object if it brings a little beef to +their _ragoûts_. Say no more, say no more. What have we here? Eh? +'Bacchus and Ariadne'? I am rusty in my classics, but Bacchus, +Dorothea! This will please Narcissus. We have in our house, sir,"-- +here he addressed Raoul,--"a Roman pavement entirely--ah--concerned +with that personage. It is, I believe, unique. One of these days I must +give you a permit to visit Bayfield and inspect it, with my brother for +_cicerone_. It will repay you--" + +"It will more than repay me," the young man interposed, with his gaze +demurely bent on the wall. + +"I should have said, it will repay your inspection. You must jog my +memory." + +It was clear Raoul had a reply on his tongue. But he glanced at +Dorothea, read her expression, and, turning to her brother, bowed +again. Her first feeling was of gratitude. A moment later she blamed +herself for having asked his forbearance by a look, and him for his +confidence in seeking that look. His eyes, during the moment they +encountered hers, had said, "We under-stand one another." He had no +right to assume so much, and yet she had not denied it. + +Endymion Westcote meanwhile had picked up a small book which lay face +downward on one of the step-ladders. + +"So here is the source of your inspiration? said he. An _Ovid_? How it +brings up old school-days At Winchester--old swishings, too, General, +hey?" He held the book open and studied the Ariadne on the wall. + +"The source of my inspiration indeed, M. le Commissaire! But you will +not find Ariadne in that text, which contains only the _Tristia_." + +"Ah, but, I told you my classics were a bit rusty," replied the +Commissary. He made the round of the walls and commended, in his breezy +way, each separate panel. "You must take my criticisms for what they +are worth, M. Raoul. But my grandmother was a Frenchwoman, and that +gives me a kind of--sympathy, shall we say? Moreover, I know what I +like." + +Dorothea, accustomed to regard her brother as a demigod, caught herself +blushing for him. She was angry with herself. She caught M. Raoul's +murmur, "Heaven distributes to us our talents, Monsieur," and was angry +with him, understanding and deprecating the raillery beneath his +perfectly correct attitude. He kept this attitude to the end. When the +time came for parting, he bent over her hand and whispered again: + +"But it was kind of Mademoiselle not to report me." + +She heard. It set up a secret understanding between them, which she +resented. There was nothing to say, again; yet she had found no way +of rebuking him, she was angry with herself all the way home. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A BALL, A SNOWSTORM, AND A SNOWBALL + + +Axcester's December Ball was a social event of importance in South +Somerset. At once formal and familiar--familiar, since nine-tenths of +the company dwelt close enough together to be on visiting terms--it +nicely preluded the domestic festivities of Christmas, and the more +public ones which began with the New Year and culminated in the great +County Balls at Taunton and Bath. Nor were the families around Axcester +jaded with dancing, as those in the neighbourhood of Bath, for example; +but discussed dresses and the prospects of the Ball for some weeks +beforehand, and, when the day came, ordered out the chariot or barouche +in defiance of any ordinary weather. + +The weather since Dorothea's visit to the Orange Room had included a +frost, a fall of snow with a partial thaw, and a second and much +severer frost; and by Wednesday afternoon the hill below Bayfield wore +a hard and slippery glaze. Endymion, however, had seen to the roughing +of the horses. Thin powdery snow began to fall as the Bayfield barouche +rolled past the gates into the high road; and Narcissus, who considered +himself a weather-prophet, foretold a thaw before morning. Unless the +weather grew worse, the party would drive back to Bayfield; but the old +caretaker in the Town House had orders to light fires there and prepare +the bedrooms, and on the chance of being detained. Dorothea had brought +her maid Polly. + +In spite of her previous visit, the Orange Room gave her a shock of +delight and wonder. The litter had vanished, the hangings were in +place; fresh orange-coloured curtains divided the dancing-floor from +the recess beneath the gallery, and this had been furnished as a +withdrawing-room, with rugs, settees, groups of green foliage plants, +and candles, the light of which shone through shades of yellow paper. +The prisoners, too, had adorned with varicoloured paperwork the +candelabra, girandoles and mirrors which drew twinkles from the long +waxed floor, and softened whatever might have been garish in the +decorations. Certainly the panels took a new beauty, a luminous +delicacy, in their artificial rays; and Dorothea, when, after much +greeting and hand-shaking, she joined one of the groups inspecting +them, felt a sort of proprietary pleasure in the praises she heard. + +Had she known it, she too was looking her best tonight--in an old- +maidish fashion, be it understood. She wore a gown of ashen-grey +muslin, edged with swansdown, and tied with sash and shoulder-knots +of a flame-hued ribbon which had taken her fancy at Bath in the autumn. +Her sandal-shoes, stockings, gloves, cap--she had worn caps for six +or seven years now,--even her fan, were of the same ash-coloured grey. + +Dorothea knew how to dress. She also knew how to dance. The music made +her heart beat faster, and she never entered a ball-room without a +sense of happy expectancy. Poor lady! she never left but she carried +home heart-sickness, weariness, and a discontent of which she purged +her soul, on her knees, before lying down to sleep. She had a contrite +spirit; she knew that her lot was a fortunate one; but she envied her +maid Polly her good looks at times. With Polly's face, she might have +dancing to her heart's content. Usually she dropped some tears on her +pillow after a night's gaiety. + +At Bath, at Taunton, at Axcester, it had always been the same, and with +time she had learnt to set her hopes low and steel her heart early to +their inevitable disappointment. So tonight she took her seat against +the wall and watched while the first three _contre-danses_ went by +without bringing her a partner. For the fourth--the "Soldier's joy"-- +she was claimed by an awkward schoolboy, home for the holidays; whether +out of duty or obeying the law of Nature by which shy youths are +attracted to middle-aged partners, she could not tell, nor did she ask +herself, but danced the dance and enjoyed it more than her cavalier +was ever likely to guess. Such a chance had, before now, been looked +back upon as the one bright spot in a long evening's experience. +Dorothea loved all schoolboys for the kindness shown to her by these +few. + +She went back to her seat, hard by a group to which Endymion was +discoursing at large. Endymion's was a mellow voice, of rich compass, +and he had a knack of compelling the attention of all persons within +range. He preferred this to addressing anyone in particular, and his +eye sought and found, and gathered by instinct, the last loiterer +without the charmed circle. + +"Yes," he was saying, "it is tasteful, and something more. It +illustrates, as you well say, the better side of our excitable +neighbours across the Channel. Setting patriotism apart and regarding +the question merely in its--ah--philosophical aspect, it has often +occurred to me to wonder how a nation so expert in the arts of life, +so--how shall I put it?--" + +"Natty," suggested one of his hearers; but he waved the word aside. + +"--of such lightness of touch, as I might describe it,--I say, it has +often occurred to me to wonder how such a nation could so far mistake +its destiny and the designs of Providence (inscrutable though they be) +as to embark on a career of foreign conquest which can only--ah-- +have one end." + +"Come to grief," put in Lady Bateson, a dowager in a crimson cap with +military feathers. She was supposed to cherish a hopeless passion for +Endymion. Also, she was supposed to be acting as Dorothea's chaperon +tonight; but having with little exertion found partners for a niece of +her own, a sprightly young lady on a visit from Bath, felt that she +deserved to relax her mind in a little intellectual talk. Endymion +accepted her remark with magnificent tolerance. + +"Precisely." He inclined towards her. "You have hit it precisely." + +Dorothea stole a glance at her brother. Military and hunt uniforms were +_de rigueur_ at these Axcester balls, and a Major of Yeomanry more +splendid than Endymion Westcote it would have been hard to find in +England. He stood with a hand negligently resting on his left hip-- +the word hip,--his right foot advanced, the toe of his polished boot +tapping the floor. His smile, indulgent as it hovered over Lady +Bateson, descended to this protruded leg and became complacent, as it +had a right to be. + +"Well, I've always said so from the start," Lady Bateson announced, +"and now I'm sure of it. I don't mind Frenchmen as Frenchmen; but what +I say is, let them stick to their fal-de-rals." + +"That is the side of them which, in my somewhat responsible position, +I endeavour to humour. You see the result." He swept his hand towards +the painted panels. "One thing I must say, in justice to my charges, +I find them docile." + +Dorothea had confidence in her brother's tact and his unerring eye for +his audience. Yet she looked about her nervously, to make sure that of +the few prisoners selected for invitation to the ball, none was within +earshot. The Vicomte de Tocqueville, a stoical young patrician, had +chosen a partner for the next dance, and was leading her out with that +air of vacuity with which he revenged himself upon the passing hour of +misfortune. "Go on," it seemed to say, "but permit me to remind you +that, so far as I am concerned, you do not exist." Old General +Rochambeau and old Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin, in worn but +carefully-brushed regimentals, patrolled the far end of the room +arm-in-arm. The Admiral seemed in an ill humour; and this was nothing +new, he grumbled at everything. But the General's demeanour, as he +trotted up and down beside his friend (doubtless doing his best to +pacify him), betrayed an unwonted agitation. It occurred to Dorothea +that he had not yet greeted her and paid his usual compliment. + +"Miss Westcote is not dancing tonight?" + +The voice was at her elbow, and she looked up with a start--to meet +the gaze of M. Raoul. + +"Excuse me"--she wished to explain why she had been startled--"I did +not expect--" + +"To see me here! It appears that they have given the scene-painter a +free ticket, and I assume that it carries permission to dance, provided +he does not display in an unseemly manner the patch in the rear of his +best tunic." + +He turned his head in a serio-comic effort to stare down his back. +Dorothea admitted to herself that he made a decidedly handsome fellow +in his blue uniform with red facings and corded epaulettes; nor does a +uniform look any the worse for having seen a moderate amount of service. + +"But Mademoiselle was in a--what do you call it?--a brown study, which +I interrupted." + +"I was wondering why General Rochambeau had, not yet come to speak with +me." + +"I can account for it, perhaps; but first you must answer my question, +Mademoiselle. Are you not dancing tonight?" + +"That will depend, sir, on whether I am asked or no." + +She said it almost archly, on the moment's impulse; and, the words out, +felt that they were over-bold. But she did not regret them when her +eyes met his. He was offering his arm, and she found herself joining in +his laugh--a happy, confidential little laugh. Dorothea cast a nervous +glance towards her brother, but Endymion's back was turned. She saw +that her partner noted the look, and half-defiantly she nodded towards +the gallery as the French musicians struck into a jolly jigging quick- +step with a crash at every third bar. + +"_Mais cela me rend folle_," she murmured. + +"Do you know the air? It's the 'Bridge of Lodi,' and we are to dance +'Britannia's Triumph' to it. Come, Mademoiselle, since the 'Triumph' +is nicely mixed, let your captive lead you." + +Those were days of reels, poussettes, ladies' chains, and figure +dancing; honest heel-and-toe, hopping and twisting, hands across and +down the middle--an art contemned now, worse than neglected, insulted +by the vulgar caricature of "kitchen lancers"; but then seriously +practised, delighting the eye, bringing blood to the dancers' cheeks. +For five minutes and more Dorothea was entirely happy. M. Raoul-- +himself no mean performer--tasted, after his first surprise, something +of the joy of discovery. Who could have guessed that this quiet +spinster, who, as a rule, held herself and walked so awkwardly, would +prove the best partner in the room? He had not the least doubt of it. +Others danced with more abandonment, with more exuberant vigour-- +"romped" was his criticism--but none with such _élan_ perfectly +restrained, covering precision with grace. Hands across, cast off and +wheel; as their fingers met again he felt the tense nerves, the throb +of the pulse beneath the glove. Her lips were parted, her eyes and +whole face animated. She was not thinking of him, or of anyone; only +of the swing and beat of the music, the sway of life and colour, her +own body swaying to it, enslaved to the moment and answering no other +call. + +"I understand why they call it the Triumph," he murmured, as he led +her back to her seat. She turned her eyes on him as one coming out of +a dream. + +"I have never enjoyed a dance so much in my life," she said seriously. + +He laughed. + +"It must have been an inspiration--" he began, and checked himself, +with a glance over his shoulder at the painted panel behind them. + +"You were saying--" She looked up after a moment. + +"Nothing. Listen to the Ting-tang!" + +He drew aside one of the orange curtains, and Dorothea heard the note +of a bell clanging in a distant street. "Time for all good prisoners +to be in bed, and Heaven temper the wind to the thin blanket! It is +snowing--snowing furiously." + +"Do they suffer much in these winters?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"They die sometimes, though your brother does his best to prevent it. +It promises to be a hard season for them." + +"I wish I could help; but Endymion--my brother does not approve of +ladies mixing themselves up in these affairs." + +"Yet he has carried off half-a-dozen to the supper-room, where at a +side table three of my compatriots are vending knick-knacks, to add +a little beef to their _ragoûts_." + +"Is it that which has annoyed General Rochambeau?" + +She had recognised the phrase, but let it pass. + +"It is." + +She understood. For some reason her brain was unusually clear tonight. +At any other time she would have defended, or at least excused, her +brother. She knew it, and found time to wonder at her new practicality +as she answered: + +"I must think of some way to help." + +She saw his brow clear--saw that had risen in his esteem--and was +glad. + +"To you, Mademoiselle, we shall find it easy to be grateful." + +"By helping them," she explained, "I may also be helping my brother. +You do not understand him as I do, and you sharpen your wit upon him," + +"Be assured it does not hurt him, Mademoiselle." + +"No, but it hurts _me_." + +He bowed gravely. + +"It shall not hurt you, again. Whom you love, you shall protect." + +"Ah! M. Raoul!" Endymion Westcote hailed him from the doorway and +crossed the room with Narcissus in tow. "My brother is interested in +your panel of Bacchus and Ariadne; he will be glad to discuss it with +you. Br-r-r-!"--he shivered--"I have been down to the door, and it +is snowing viciously. Some of our friends will hardly find their homes +tonight. I hope, by the way, you have brought a great-coat?" + +Raoul ignored the question. + +"I fear, sir, your learning will discover half-a-dozen mistakes," said +he, addressing Narcissus and leading the way towards the panel. + +"But whilst I think of it," Endymion persisted, "I saw half-a-dozen old +baize chair-covers behind the cloak-room door. Don't hesitate to take +one; you can return it to-morrow or next day." Dorothea being his only +audience, he beamed a look on her which said: "They come to us in a +hurry, these prisoners--no time to collect a wardrobe; but I think of +these little things." + +"Rest assured, sir, I will turn up my coat-collar," said Raoul; and +Dorothea could see him, a moment later, shaking his head good- +naturedly, though the Commissary still protested. + +Dorothea, left to herself, watched them examining and discussing the +panel of Bacchus and Ariadne. The orchestra started another _contre- +danse_, but no partner approached to claim her. The dance began. It +was the "Dashing White Sergeant," and one exuberant couple threatened +to tread upon her toes. She stood up and, for lack of anything better +to do, began to study the panel behind her. + +A moment later her hand went up to her throat. + +It was the panel on which M. Raoul had sketched an imaginary board +with his thumb-nail--the Garden of the Hesperides. But the Perseus +was different; he wore the face of M. Raoul himself. And beneath the +throat of the nymph on the right, half concealed in the folds about +her bosom, hung a locket--a small enamelled heart, edged with +brilliants. Just such a trinket--a brooch--had pinned the collar of +her close habit three days before, when she and M. Raoul had stood +together discussing the panel. It was a legacy from her mother. + +Hastily she put out a hand and drew the edge of the orange curtain +over nymph and locket. + +Soon after supper Endymion Westcote informed his sister that it was +hopeless to think of returning to Bayfield. The barouche would convey +her back to the Town House; but already the snow lay a foot and a half +deep, and was still falling. He himself, after packing her off with +Narcissus, would remain and attend to the comfort of the guests, many +of whom must bivouac at "The Dogs" for the night as best they could. + +At midnight, or a little later, the barouche was announced. It drew up +close to the porch, axle-deep in snow. Upstairs the orchestra was +sawing out the strains of "Major Malley's Reel," as Endymion lifted +his sister in and slammed the door upon her and Narcissus. The noise +prevented his hearing a sash-window lifted, immediately above the porch. + +"Right away!" + +The inn-servant who had accompanied the Westcotes turned back to trim a +candle flaring in the draughty passage. But it so happened that, in +starting, the coachman entangled his off-rein in the trace-buckle. +Endymion, in his polished hessians, ran round to unhitch it. + +On the window-sill above, two deft hands quickly scooped up and moulded +a snowball. + +"He should turn up his coat-collar, the pig! _V'Ian pour le +Commissaire!_" + +Endymion Westcote did not hear the voice; but as the vehicle rolled +heavily forward, out of the darkness a snowball struck him accurately +on the nape of the neck. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ENCOUNTER BETWEEN A HIGH HORSE AND A HOBBY + + +"Your chocolate will be getting cold, Miss." + +Dorothea, refreshed with sleep but still pleasantly tired, lay in bed +watching Polly as she relaid and lit the fire in the massive Georgian +grate. These occasions found the service in the Town House short- +handed, and the girl (a cheerful body, with no airs) turned to and +took her share in the extra work. + +"Have they sent for Mudge?" (Mudge was the Bayfield butler.) + +"Lord, no, Miss! Small chance of getting to Mudge, or of Mudge getting +to us. Why, the snow is half-way up the front door!" + +Bed was deliciously warm, and the air in the room nipping, as Dorothea +found when she stretched out her hand for the cup. + +"I always like waking in this room. It gives one a sort of betwixt and +between feeling--between being at home and on a visit. To be snowed-up +makes it quite an adventure." + +"Pretty adventure for the gentry at 'The Dogs'! Tom Ryder, the dairyman +there, managed to struggle across just now with the milk, and he says +that a score of them couldn't get beds in the town for love or money. +The rest kept it up till four in the morning, and now they're sleeping +in their fine dresses round the fire in the Orange Room." + +Dorothea laughed. "They were caught like this just eighteen years ago-- +let me see--yes, just eighteen. I remember, because it was my second +ball. But then there were no prisoners filling up the lodgings, so +everyone found a room." + +"Some of the French gentlemen gave up their lodgings last night, and +are down at 'The Dogs' now keeping themselves warm. There's that old +Admiral, for one. I'm sure he never ought to be out of bed, with his +rheumatics. It's enough to give him his death. Sam Zeally says that +General Rochambeau is looking after him, as tender as a mother with a +babby." + +Polly mimicked Sam's pronunciation, and laughed. She was Somerset-born +herself, but had seen service in Bath. + +"Where is Mr. Endymion?" + +"I heard him let himself in just as I was going upstairs after +undressing you. That would be about one, or a quarter past. But he was +up again at six, called for Mrs. Morrish to heat his shaving water, +and had a cup of coffee in his room. He and Mr. Narcissus have gone out +to see the roll called, and get the volunteers and prisoners to clear +the streets. Leastways, that's what Mr. Narcissus is doing. I heard +Mr. Endymion say something about riding off to see what the roads are +like." + +By this time the fire was lit and crackling. Polly loitered awhile, +arranging the cinders. She had given up asking with whom her mistress +had danced; but Dorothea usually described the more striking gowns, +and how this or that lady had worn her hair. + +"Tired, Miss?" + +"Well, yes, Polly; a little, but not uncomfortably. I danced several +times last night." + +Polly pursed her mouth into an O; but her face was turned to the fire, +and Dorothea did not see it. + +"I hope, Miss, you'll tell me about it later on. But Mrs. Morrish is +downstairs declaring that no hen will lay an egg in this weather, to +have it snowed up the next moment. 'Not that I blame mun,' she says, +'for I wouldn't do it myself,'"--here Polly giggled. "What to find +for breakfast she don't know, and never will until I go and help her." + +Polly departed, leaving her mistress cosy in bed and strangely +reluctant to rise and part company with her waking thoughts. + +Yes; Dorothea had danced twice again with M. Raoul since her discovery +of his boldness. He had seen her draw the orange curtain over his +offence, had sought her again and apologised for, it. He had done it +(he had pleaded) on a sudden impulse--to be a reminder of one kind +glance which had brightened his exile. 'No one but she was in the +least likely to recognise the trinket; in any case he would paint it +out at the first opportunity. And Dorothea had forgiven him. She +herself had a great capacity for gratitude, and understood the feeling +far too thoroughly to believe for an instant that M. Raoul could be +mightily grateful for anything she had said or done. No; whatever the +feeling which impels a young gentleman to secrete some little private +reminder of its object, it is not gratitude; and Dorothea rejoiced +inwardly that it was not. But what then was it? Some attraction of +sympathy, no doubt. To find herself attractive in any way was a new +experience and delightful. She had forgiven him on the spot. And +afterwards they had danced twice together, and he had praised her +dancing. Also, he had said something about a pretty foot--but +Frenchmen must always be complimenting. + +A noise in the street interrupted her thoughts, and reminded her that +she must not be dawdling longer in bed. She shut her teeth, made a +leap for it, and, running to the window, peered over the blind. Some +score of the prisoners in a gang were clearing the pavement with +shovels and brushes, laughing and chattering all the while, and +breaking off to pelt each other with snowballs. She had discussed +these poor fellows with M. Raoul last night. Could she not in some way +add to their comfort, or their pleasure? He had dwelt most upon their +mental weariness, especially on Sundays. Of material discomfort they +never complained, but they dreaded Sundays worse than they dreaded +cold weather. Any small distraction now--. + +The train of her recollections came to a sudden halt, before a tall +cheval-glass standing at an obtuse angle to the fireplace and on the +edge of its broad hearthrug. She had been moving aimlessly from the +window to the wardrobe in which Polly had folded and laid away her +last night's finery, and from the wardrobe back to a long sofa at the +bed's foot. And now she found herself standing before the glass and +holding her nightgown high enough to display a foot and ankle on which +she had slipped an ash-coloured stocking and shoe. A tide of red +flooded her neck and face. + +* * * * * * * * * + +Mrs. Morrish had laid the meal in the ground-floor room, once a +library, but now used as a bank-parlour--yet still preserving the d +ignified aspect of a private room: for banking (as the Westcote clients +were reminded by several sporting prints and a bust of the Medicean +Venus) was in those days of scarce money a branch of philanthropy +rather than of trade. The good caretaker was in tears over the +breakfast. "And I'm sure, Miss, I don't know what's to be done unless +you can eat bacon." + +"Which I can," Dorothea assured her. + +"Well, Miss, I am sure I envy you; for ever since that poor French +Captain Fioupi hanged himself from Mary Odling's bacon-rack, two years +ago the first of this very next month, I haven't been able to look at +a bit." + +"Poor gentleman! Why did he do it?" + +"The Lord knows, Miss. But they said it was home-sickness." + +From the street came the voices of Captain Fioupi's compatriots, merry +at their work. Dorothea had scarcely begun breakfast before her +brothers entered, and she had to pour out tea for them. Narcissus took +his seat at once. Endymion stood stamping his feet and warming his +hands by the fire. He bent and with his finger flicked out a crust of +snow from between his breeches and the tops of his riding-boots. It +fell on the hearthstone and sputtered. + +"The roads," he announced, are not very bad beyond the bridge. That is +the worst spot, and I have sent down a gang to clear it. Our guests +ought to be able to depart before noon, though I won't answer for the +road Yeovil Way. One carrier--Allworthy--has come through to the +bridge, but says he passed Solomon's van in a drift about four miles +back, this side of the Cheriton oak. He reports Bayfield Hill safe +enough; but that I discovered for myself." + +"It seems quite a treat for them," Dorothea remarked. + +His eyebrows went up. + +"The guests, do you mean?" + +He turned to the fire and picked up the tongs. + +She laughed. + +"No, I mean the prisoners; I was listening to their voices. Just now +they were throwing snowballs." + +Endymion dropped the tongs with a clatter; picked them up, set them in +place, and faced the room again with a flush which might have come +from stooping over the fire. + +"Come to breakfast, dear," said Dorothea, busy with the tea-urn. "I +have a small plan I want your permission for, and your help. It is +about the prisoners. General Rochambeau and M. Raoul--" + +"Are doubtless prepared to teach me my business," snapped Endymion, +who seemed in bad humour this morning. + +"No--but listen, dear! They praise you warmly. For whom but my brother +would these poor men have worked as they did upon the Orange Room-- +and all to show their gratitude? But it appears the worst part of +captivity is its tedium and the way it depresses the mind; one sees +that it must be. They dread Sundays most of all. And I said I would +speak to you, and if any way could be found--" + +"My dear Dorothea," Endymion slipped his hands beneath his coat-tails +and stood astraddle, "I have not often to request you, to mind your +own affairs; but really when it comes to making a promise in my name--" + +"Not a promise." + +"May I ask you if you seriously propose to familiarise Axcester with +all the orgies of a Continental Sabbath? Already the prisoners spend +Sunday in playing chess, draughts, cards, dominoes; practices which I +connive at, only insisting that they are kept out of sight, but from +which I endeavour to wean them--those at least who have a taste for +music--by encouraging them to, take part in our Church services." + +"But I have heard you regret, dear, that only the least respectable +fall in with this. The rest, being strict Roman Catholics, think it +wrong." + +"Are you quite sure last night did, not over-tire you? You are +certainly disposed to be argumentative this morning." + +"I think," suggested Narcissus, buttering his toast carefully, "you +might at least hear what Dorothea has to say." + +"Oh, certainly! Indeed, if she has been committing me to her projects, +I have a right to know the worst." + +"I haven't committed you--I only said I would ask your advice," poor +Dorothea stammered. "And I have no project." She caught Narcissus' eye, +and went on a little more firmly: "Only I thought, perhaps, that if +you extended their walks a little on Sundays--they are scrupulous in +keeping their _parole_. And, once in a way, we might entertain them at +Bayfield--late in the afternoon, when you have finished your Sunday +nap. Narcissus might show them the pavement and tell them about +Vespasian--not a regular lecture, it being Sunday, but an informal +talk, with tea afterwards. And in the evening, perhaps, they might +meet in the Orange Room for some sacred music--it need not be called +a 'concert'--" Dorothea stopped short, amazed at her own inventiveness. + +"H'm. I envy your simplicity, my dear soul, in believing that the-- +ah--alleged _ennui_ of these men can he cured by a talk about +Vespasian. But when you go on to talk of sacred music, I must be +permitted to remind you that a concert is none the less a concert for +being called by another name. We Britons do not usually allow names to +disguise facts. A concert--call it even a 'sacred' concert--in the +Orange Room, amid those distinctly--ah--pagan adornments! I can +scarcely even term it the thin end of the wedge, so clearly can I see +it paving the way for other questionable indulgences. I don't doubt +your good intentions, Dorothea, but you cannot, as a woman, be expected +to understand how easily the best intentions may convert Axcester, with +its French community, into a veritable hot-bed of vice. And, by-the-by, +you might tell Morrish I shall want the horse again in half-an-hour's +time." + +Dorothea left the room on her errand. As she closed the door Narcissus +looked up from his toast. + +"Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!" said he. + +"I--ah--beg your pardon?" + +Endymion, in the act of seating himself at table, paused to stare. + +"Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!" repeated Narcissus. "You needn't have +snapped Dorothea's head off. I thought her suggestions extremely +sensible." + +"The concert, for instance?" + +"Yes! you don't make sacred music irreverent by calling it a concert. +Moreover, I really don't see why, as intelligent men, they should not +find Vespasian interesting. His career in many respects resembled the +Corsican's." + +Endymion smiled at his plate. + +"Well, well, we will talk about it later on," said he. + +He never quarrelled with Narcissus, whose foibles amused him, but for +whose slow judgment he had a more than brotherly respect. + +* * * * * * * * * + +The Westcotes, though (at due intervals and with due notice given) they +entertained as handsomely as the Lord Lieutenant himself, were not a +household to be bounced (so to speak) into promiscuous or extemporised +hospitality. For an ordinary dinner-party, Dorothea would pen the +invitations three weeks ahead, Endymion devote an hour to selecting his +guests, and Narcissus spend a morning in the Bayfield cellar, which he +supervised and in which he took a just pride. And so well was this +inelasticity recognised, so clearly was it understood that by no +circumstances could Endymion Westcote permit himself to be upset, that +none of the snowed-up company at "The Dogs" thought a bit the worse of +him for having gone home and left them to shift as best they could. + +Dorothea, when at about half-past ten she put on her bonnet and cloak +and stepped down to visit them--the prisoners having by that time +cleared the pavement--found herself surrounded by a crew humorously +apologetic for their toilettes, profoundly envious of her better luck, +but on excellent terms with one another and the younger ones, at any +rate, who had borne the worst of the discomfort--enjoying the +adventure thoroughly. + +"But the life and soul of it all was that M. Raoul," confessed Lady +Bateson's niece. + +"By George!" echoed the schoolboy who had danced the "Soldier's Joy" +with Dorothea, "I wouldn't have believed it of a Frenchy." + +For some reason Dorothea was not too well pleased. + +"But I do not see M. Raoul." + +"Oh, he's down by the bridge, helping the relief party. One would guess +him worn out. He ran from lodging to lodging, turning the occupants out +of their beds and routing about for fresh linen. They say he even +carried old Mrs. Kekewich pick-a-back through the snow." + +"And tucked her in bed," added the schoolboy. "And then he came back, +wet almost to the waist, and danced." + +He looked roguishly at Lady Bateson's niece, and the pair exploded in +laughter. + +They ran off as General Rochambeau, jaded and unshaven, approached and +saluted Dorothea. + +"Until Miss Westcote appeared, we held our own against the face of day. +Now, alas, the conspiracy can no longer be kept up." + +"You had no compliment for me last night, General." + +"Forgive me, Mademoiselle." He lowered his voice and spoke earnestly. +"I have a genuine one for you to-day--I compliment your heart. M. Raoul +has told me of your interest in our poor compatriots, and what you +intend--" + +"I fear I can do little," Dorothea interrupted, mindful of her late +encounter and (as she believed) defeat. "By all accounts, M. Raoul +appears to have made himself agreeable to all," she added. + +The old gentleman chuckled and took snuff. + +"He loves an audience. At about four in the morning, when all the +elders were in bed--(pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I claim to reckon +myself among _les jeunes_; my poor back tells me at what cost)--at +about four in the morning the young lady who has just left you spoke +of a new dance she had seen performed this season at Bath. Well, it +appears that M. Raoul had also seen it a--valtz they called it, or +some such name. Whereupon nothing would do but they must dance it +together. Such a dance, Mademoiselle! Roll, roll--round and round-- +roll, roll--but _perpendicularly_, you understand. By-and-by the +others began to copy them, and someone asked M. Raoul where he had +found this accomplishment. 'Oh, in my travels,' says he, and points +to one of the panels; and there, if you will believe me, the fellow +had actually painted himself as Perseus in the Garden of the +Hesperides." + +Poor Dorothea glanced towards the panel. + +"Ah, you remember it! But he must have painted in the face after +showing it to us the other day, or I should have recognised it at the +time. You must come and see it; really an excellent portrait!" + +He led her towards it. The orange curtain no longer hid the third +nymph. But the blood which had left Dorothea's face rushed back as +she saw that the trinket had been roughly erased. + +"It was quite a _coup_, but M. Raoul loves an audience." + +Shortly before noon the road by the bridge was reported to be clear. +Carriages were announced, and the guests shook hands and were rolled +away--the elder glum, their juniors in boisterous spirits. As each +carriage passed the bridge, where M. Raoul stood among the workmen, +handkerchiefs fluttered out, and he lifted his hat gaily in response. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +BEGINS WITH ANCIENT HISTORY AND ENDS WITH AN OLD STORY + + +"_Ubicunque vicit Romanus habitat_,--Where the Roman conquered he +settled--and it is from his settlements that to-day we deduce his +conquests. Of Vespasian and his second legion the jejune page of +Suetonius records neither where they landed nor at what limit their +victorious eagles were stayed. Yet will the patient investigator trace +their footprints across many a familiar landscape of rural England, +led by the blurred imperishable impress he has learned to recognise. +The invading host sweeps forward, and is gone; but behind it the +homestead arises and smiles upon the devastated fields, arms yield to +the implements and habiliments of peace, and the colonist, who +supersedes the legionary, in time furnishes the sole evidence of his +feverish and ensanguined transit . . ." + +Narcissus was enjoying himself amazingly. His audience endured him +because the experience was new, and their ears caught the rattle of +tea-cups in the adjoining library. + +Dorothea sat counting her guests, and assuring herself that the number +of teacups would suffice. She had heard the lecture many times before, +and with repetition its sonorous periods had lost hold upon her, +although her brother had been at pains to model them upon Gibbon. + +But the scene impressed her sharply, and she carried away a very +lively picture of it. The old Roman villa had been built about a +hollow square open to the sky, and this square now formed the great +hall of Bayfield. Deep galleries of two stories surrounded it, in +place of the old colonnaded walk. Out of these opened the principal +rooms of the house, and above them, upon a circular lantern of clear +glass, was arched a painted dome. Sheathed on the outside with green +weather-tinted copper, and surmounted by a gilt ball, this dome (which +could be seen from the Axcester High Street when winter stripped the +Bayfield elms) gave the building something of the appearance of an +observatory. + +On the north side of the hall a broad staircase descended from the +gallery to the tiled floor, in the midst of which a fountain played +beneath a cupola supported by slender columns. On the west the recess +beneath the gallery had been deepened to admit a truly ample fireplace, +with a flat hearthstone and andirons. Here were screens and rich Turkey +rugs, and here the Bayfield household ordinarily had the lamps set +after dinner and gathered before the fire, talking little, enjoying the +long pauses filled with the hiss of logs and the monotonous drip and +trickle of water in the penumbra. + +To-day the prisoners--two hundred in all--crowded the floor, the +stairs, even the deep gallery above; but on the south side, facing the +staircase, two heavy curtains had been looped back from the atrium, +and there a ray of wintry sunshine fell through the glass roof upon +the famous Bayfield pavement and the figure of Narcissus gravely +expounding it. + +He had reached his peroration, and Dorothea, who knew every word of it +by heart, was on the alert. At its close the audience held their breath +for a second or two and then--satisfied, as their hostess rose, that +he had really come to an end--tendered their applause, and, breaking +into promiscuous chatter, trooped towards the tea-room. Narcissus +lingered, with bent head, oblivious, silently repeating the last well- +worn sentences while he conned his beloved tessellae. + +A voice aroused him from his brown study; he looked up, to find the +hall deserted and M. Raoul standing at his elbow. + +"Will you remember your promise, Monsieur, and allow me to examine a +little more closely? Ah, but it is wonderful! That Pentheus! And the +Maenad there, carrying the torn limb! Also the border of vine-leaves +and crossed thyrsi; though that, to be sure, is usual enough. And this +next? Ah, I remember--_'Tu cum parentis regna per arduum'_; but what a +devil of a design! And, above all, what mellowness! You will, I know, +pardon the enthusiasm of one who comes from the Provence, a few miles +out of Arles, and whose mother's family boasts itself to be descended +from Roman colonists." + +Narcissus beamed. + +"To you then, M. Raoul, after your Forum and famous Amphitheatre, our +pavement must seem a poor trifle--though it by no means exhausts our +list of interesting remains. The praefurnium, for instance; I must +show you our praefurnium." + +"The house would be remarkable anywhere--even in my own Provence--so +closely has it kept the original lines. In half-an-hour one could +reconstruct--" + +"Ay!" chimed in the delighted Narcissus. "You shall try, M. Raoul, +you shall try! I promise to catch you tripping." + +"Yonder runs the Fosse Way, west by south. The villa stands about two +hundred yards back from it, facing the south-east--" + +"A little east of south. The outer walls did not run exactly true with +the enclosed quadrangle." + +"You say that the front measured two hundred feet, perhaps a little +over. Clearly, then, it was a domain of much importance, and the +granaries, mills, stables, slaves' dwellings would occupy much space +about it--an acre and a half, at least." + +"Portions of a brick foundation were unearthed no less than three +hundred yards away. A hypocaust lay embedded among them, much broken +but recognisable." + +"What puzzles me," mused M. Raoul, is how these southern settlers +managed to endure the climate." + +"But that is explicable." Narcissus was off now, in full cry. "The +trees, my dear sir, the trees! I have not the slightest doubt that our +Bayfield elms are the ragged survivors of an immense forest--a forest +which covered the whole primaeval face of Somerset on this side of the +fens, and through which Vespasian's road-makers literally hewed their +way. Given these forests--which, by the way, extended over the greater +part of England--we must infer a climate totally unlike ours of this +present day, damper perhaps, but milder. Within his belt of trees the +colonist, secure from the prevailing winds, would plant a garden to +rival your gardens of the South--_'primus vere rosam atque autumno +carpere Poma.'_" + +"Yes," added M. Raoul, taking fire; "and, perhaps, a plant of +helichryse or a rose-cutting from Paestum, to twine about the house- +pillars and comfort his exile." + +"M. Raoul?" Dorothea's voice interrupted them. She stood by the looped +curtain, and reproached Narcissus with a look. "He has had no tea yet; +it was cruel of you to detain him. My brother, sir," she turned to +Raoul, "has no conscience when once set going on his hobby; for, of +course, you were discussing the pavement?" + +"We were talking, Mademoiselle, at that moment of the things which +brighten and comfort exile." + +She lowered her eyes, conscious of a blush, and half angry that it +would not be restrained. + +"And I was talking of tea, if that happens to be one of them," she +replied, forcing a laugh. + +"Well, well," said Narcissus, "take M. Raoul away and give him his tea; +but he must come with me afterwards, while there is light, and we will +go over the site together. I must fetch my map." + +He hurried across the hall. + +"Come, M. Raoul," said Dorothea, stepping past her guest and leading +the way, "by a small detour we can reach that end of the library which +is least crowded." + +He followed without lifting his eyes, apparently lost in thought. The +atrium on this side opened on a corridor which crossed the front door, +and was closed by a door at either end--the one admitting to the +service rooms, the other to the library. Flat columns relieved the +blank wall of this passage, with monstrous copies of Raphael's cartoons +filling the interspaces; on the other hand four tall windows, two on +either side of the door, looked out upon the _porte cochère_, the avenue, +and the rolling hills beyond Axcester. By one of these windows M. Raoul +halted--and Dorothea halted too, slightly puzzled. + +"Ah, Mademoiselle, but there is one thing your brother forgets! What +became of his happy colonists in the end? He told us that early in the +fifth century the Emperor Honorius--was it not?--withdrew his +legions, and wrote that Britain must henceforth look after itself. I +listened for the end of the story, but your brother did not supply it. +Yet sooner or later one and the same dreadful fate must have overtaken +all these pleasant scattered homes--sack and fire and slaughter-- +slaughter for all the men, for the women slavery and worse. Does one +hear of any surviving? Out of this warm life into silence--" He paused +and shivered. "Very likely they did not guess for a long while. Look, +Mademoiselle, at the Fosse Way, stretching yonder across the hills: +figure yourself a daughter of the old Roman homestead standing here and +watching the little cloud of dust that meant the retreating column, the +last of your protection. You would not guess what it meant--you, to +whom each day has brought its restful round; who have lived only to be +good and reflect the sunshine upon all near you. And I--your slave, +suppose me, standing beside you--might guess as little." + +He took a step and touched her hand. His face was still turned to the +window. + +"Time! time!" he went on in a low voice, charged with passion. "It +eats us all! Brr--how I hate it! How I hate the grave! There lies the +sting, Mademoiselle--the torture to be a captive: to feel one's best +days slipping away, and fate still denying to us poor devils the chance +which even the luckiest--God knows--find little enough." He laughed, +and to Dorothea the laugh sounded passing bitter. "You will not +understand how a man feels; how even so unimportant a creature as I +must bear a sort of personal grudge against his fate." + +"I am trying to understand," said Dorothea, gently. + +"But this you can understand, how a prisoner loves the sunshine: not +because, through his grating, it warms him; but because it is the +sunshine, and he sees it. Mademoiselle, I am not grateful; I see +merely, and adore. Some day you shall pause by this window and see a +cloud of dust on the Fosse Way--the last of us prisoners as they march +us from Axcester to the place of our release; and, seeing it, you shall +close the book upon a chapter, but not without remembering"--he +touched her hand again, but now his fingers closed on it, and he raised +it to his lips,--"not without remembering how and when one Frenchman +said, 'God bless you, Mademoiselle Dorothea!'" + +Dorothea's eyes were wet when, a moment later, Narcissus came bustling +through the atrium with a roll of papers in his hand. + +"Ah, this is luck!" he cried. "I was starting to search for you." + +He either assumed that they had visited the tea-room or forgot all +about it; and M. Raoul's look implored Dorothea not to explain. + +"Suppose we take the _triclinium_ first, on the north side of the +house. That, sir, will tell you whether I am right or wrong about the +climate of those days. A summer parlour facing north, and with no +trace of heating-flues! . . ." + +He led off his captive, and Dorothea heard his expository tones gather +volume as the pair crossed the great hall beneath the dome. Then she +turned the handle of the library door, and was instantly deafened by +the babel within. + +The guests took their departure a little before sunset. M. Raoul was +not among the long train which shook hands with her and filed down the +avenue at the heels of M. de Tocqueville and General Rochambeau. +Twenty minutes later, while the servants were setting the hall in +order, she heard her brother's voice beneath the window of her boudoir, +explaining the system on which the Romans warmed their houses. + +She had picked up a religious book, but found herself unable to fix her +attention upon it or even to sit still. Her hand still burned where +M. Raoul's lips had touched it. She recalled Endymion's prophecy that +these entertainments would throw the domestic mechanism--always more +delicately poised on Sundays than on weekdays--completely oft its +pivot. She had pledged herself to prevent this, and had made a private +appeal to the maidservants with whose Sunday-out they interfered. They +had responded loyally. + +Still, this was the first experiment; she would go down to the hall +again and make sure that the couches were in position, the cushions +shaken up, the pot-plants placed around the fountain so accurately that +Endymion's nice eye for small comforts could detect no excuse for +saying, "I told you so." + +As she passed along the gallery her eyes sought the pillar beside which +M. Raoul had stood during the lecture. By the foot of it a book lay +face downwards--a book cheaply bound between boards of mottled paper. +She picked it up and read the title; it was a volume of Rousseau's +Confessions--a book of which she remembered to have heard. On the +flyleaf was written the owner's name in full--"Charles Marie Fabien +de Raoul." + +Dorothea hurried downstairs with it and past the servants tidying the +hall. + +She looked to find M. Raoul still buttonholed and held captive by +Narcissus at the eastern angle of the house. But before she reached the +front door she happened--though perhaps it was not quite accidental-- +to throw a glance through the window by which he had stood and talked +with her, and saw him striding away down the avenue in the dusk. + +She returned to her room and summoned Polly. + +"You know M. Raoul? He has left, forgetting this book, which belongs to +him. Run down to the small gate, that's a good girl--you will overtake +him easily, since he is walking round by the avenue--and return it, +with my compliments." + +Polly picked up her skirts and ran. A narrow path slanted down across +the slope of the park to the nurseries--a sheltered corner in which +the Bayfield gardener grew his more delicate evergreens--and here a +small wicket-gate opened on the high road. + +The gate stood many feet above the road, which descended the hill +between steep hedges. She heard M. Raoul's footstep as she reached it, +and, peering over, saw him before he caught sight of her; indeed, he +had almost passed with-out when she hailed him. + +"Holloa!" He swung almost rightabout and smiled up pleasantly. "Is it +highway robbery? If so, I surrender." + +Polly laughed, showing a fine set of teeth. + +"I'm 'most out of breath," she answered. "You've left your book behind, +and my mistress sent it after you with her compliments." She held it +above the gate. + +He sprang up the bank towards her. "And a pretty book, too, to be +found in your hands! You haven't been reading it, I hope." + +"La, no! Is it wicked?" + +"Much depends on where you happen to open it. Now if your sweetheart--" + +"Who told you I had one?" + +"Tut-tut-tut! What's his name?" + +"Well, if you must know, I'm walking out with Corporal Zeally. But what +are you doing to the book?" For M. Raoul had taken out a penknife and +was slicing out page after page--in some places whole blocks of pages +together. + +"When I've finished, I'm going to ask you to take it back to your +mistress; and then no doubt you'll be reading it on the sly. Here, I +must sit down: suppose you let me perch myself on the top bar of the +gate. Also, it would be kind of you to put up an arm and prevent my +overbalancing." + +"I shouldn't think of it." + +"Oh, very well!" He climbed up, laid the book on his knee and went on +slicing. "I particularly want her to read M. Rousseau's reflections on +the Pont du Gard; but I don't seem to have a book marker, unless you +lend me a lock of your hair." + +"Were you the gentleman she danced with, at 'The Dogs,' the night of +the snowstorm?" + +"The Pont du Gard, my dear, is a Roman antiquity, and has nothing to +do with dancing. If, as I suppose, you refer to the 'Pont de Lodi,' +that is a totally different work of art." + +"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." + +"And I don't intend that you shall." + +He cut a small strip of braid from his coat, inserted it for a +bookmarker, and began to fold away the excised pages. "That's why I am +keeping these back for my own perusal, and perhaps Corporal Zeally's." + +"Do you know him?" She reached up to take the book he was holding out +in his left hand, and the next instant his right arm was round her neck +and he had kissed her full on the lips. "Oh, you wretch!" she cried, +breaking free; and laughed, next moment, as he nearly toppled off the +gate. + +"Know him? Why of course I do." M. Raoul was reseating himself on his +perch, when he happened to throw a look down into the road, and at +once broke into immoderate laughter. "Talk of the wolf--" + +Polly screamed and ran. Below, at a bend of the road, stood a stoutish +figure in the uniform of the Axcester Volunteers--scarlet, with white +facings. It was Corporal Zeally, very slowly taking in the scene. + +M. Raoul skipped off the gate and stepped briskly past him. "Good- +evening, Corporal! We're both of us a little behind time, this +evening!" said he as he went by. + +The Corporal pivoted on his heels and stared after him. + +"Dang my living buttons!" he said, reflectively. "Couldn't even wait +till my back was turned, but must kiss the maid under my nose!" He +paused and rubbed his chin. "Her looked like Polly and her zounded +like Polly . . . Dang this dimpsey old light, I've got a good mind to +run after'n and ax'n who 'twas!" He took a step down the hill, but +thought better, of it. "No, I won't," he said; "I'll go and ax Polly." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +FATE IN A LAURELLED POST-CHAISE + + +All the tongues of Rumour agreed that the Bayfield entertainment had +been a success, and Endymion Westcote received many congratulations +upon it at the next meeting of magistrates. + +"Nonsense, nonsense!" he protested lightly. "One must do something to +make life more tolerable to the poor devils, and 'pon my word 'twas +worth it to see their gratitude. They behaved admirably. You see, two- +thirds of them are gentlemen, after a fashion; not, perhaps, quite in +the sense in which we understand the word, but then the--ah--modicum +of French blood in my veins counteracts, I dare say, some little +insular prejudices." + +"My dear fellow, about such men as de Tocqueville and Rochambeau there +can be no possible question." + +"Ah! I'm extremely glad to hear you say so. I feared, perhaps, the way +they managed their table-napkins--" + +"Not at all. I was thinking rather of your bold attitude towards +Sunday observance. What does Milliton say?" + +Endymion's eyebrows went up. Mr. Milliton was the vicar of Axcester +and the living lay in the Westcotes' gift. I am not--ah--aware that +I consulted Milliton. On such questions I recognise no responsibility +save to my own conscience. He has not been complaining, I trust?" + +"Not to my knowledge." + +"Ah!" Endymion looked as if Mr. Milliton had better not. "I take, you +must know, a somewhat broad view on such matters--may I, without +offence, term it a liberal one? As a matter of fact I intend going yet +farther in the direction and granting permission for a small reunion on +Sunday evenings at 'The Dogs,' when selections of purely sacred music +will be performed. I shall, of course, deprecate the name 'concert '; +and even 'performance' may seem to carry with it some--ah-- +suggestions of a theatrical nature. But, as Shakespeare says, 'What's +in a name?' Perhaps you can suggest a more suitable one?" + +"A broad-minded fellow," was the general verdict; and some admirers +added that ideas which in weaker men might seem to lean towards free +thought, and even towards Jacobinism, became Mr. Westcote handsomely +enough. He knew how to carry them off, to wear them lightly as +flourishes and ornaments of his robust common sense, and might be +trusted not to go too far. Endymion, who had an exquisite flair for the +approval of his own class, soon learned to take an honest pride in his +liberalism and to enjoy its discreet display. 'The entertainment at +Bayfield' was nothing--a private experiment only; the unfamiliar must +be handled gently; a good rule to try it on your own household before +tackling the world. As a matter of fact, old Narcissus had enjoyed it. +But if the neighbouring families were really curious, and would promise +not to be shocked, they must come to "The Dogs" some Sunday evening: +No, not next Sunday, but in a week or two's time when the prisoners, +as intelligent fellows, would have grasped his notions.' + +Sure enough, on the third Sunday he brought a round dozen of guests; +and the entrance of the Bayfield party (punctually five minutes late), +and their solemn taking of seats in the two front rows, thereafter +became a feature of these entertainments. On the first occasion the +musicians stopped, out of respect, in the middle of a motet of +Scarlatti's; but Endymion gave orders that in future this was not +to be. + +"I have been something of an amateur myself," he explained, "and know +what is due to Art." + +It vexed Dorothea to note that after the first two or three +performances some of her best friends among the prisoners absented +themselves, General Rochambeau for one. Indeed, the General had taken +to declining all invitations, and rarely appeared abroad. One March +morning, meeting him in the High Street, she made bold to tax him with +the change and ask his reasons. + +The hour was eleven in the forenoon, the busiest of the day. In twenty +minutes the London coach would be due with the mails, and this always +brought the prisoners out into the street. The largest crowd gathered +in front of "The Dogs," waiting to see the horses changed and the bags +unloaded. But a second hung around the Post Office, where the +Commissary received and distributed the prisoners' letters, while +lesser groups shifted and moved about at the tail of the butchers' +carts, and others laden with milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables from the +country; for Axcester had now a daily market, and in the few minutes +before the mail's arrival the salesmen drove their best trade. + +General Rochambeau tapped his snuffbox meditatively, like a man in two +minds. But he kept a sidelong eye upon Dorothea, as she turned to +acknowledge a bow from the Vicomte de Tocqueville. The Vicomte, with +an air of amused contempt, was choosing a steak for his dinner, using +his gold-ferruled walking-stick to direct the butcher how to cut it +out, while his servant stood ready with a plate. + +"To tell you the truth, Mademoiselle, I find a hand at picquet with +the Admiral less fatiguing for two old gentlemen than these public +gaieties." + +"In other words, you are nursing him. They tell me he has never been +well since that night of the snowstorm." + +"Your informants may now add that he is better; these few Spring days +have done wonders for his rheumatism, and, indeed, he is dressed and +abroad this morning." + +"Which explains why you are willing to stop and chat with me, instead +of hurrying off to the Post Office to ask for his letter--that letter +which never comes." + +"So M. Raoul has been telling you all about us?" + +Dorothea blushed. + +"He happened to speak of it, at one of my working parties--" + +"He has a fine gift for the pathetic, that young man; oh, yes, and a +pretty humour too! I can fancy what he makes of us--poor old Damon +and Pythias--while he holds the skeins; with a smile for poor old +Pythias' pigtail, and a tremor of the voice for the Emperor's +_tabatière_, and a tear, no doubt, for the letter which never comes. +M. Raoul is great with an audience." + +"You do him injustice, General. An audience of half-a-dozen old women!" + +General Rochambeau had an answer to this on his tongue, but repressed +it. + +"Ah, here comes the Admiral!" he cried, as the gaunt old man came +shuffling down the street towards them, with his stoop, his cross- +grained features drawn awry with twinges of rheumatism, his hands +crossed above his tall cane. All Axcester laughed at his long blue +surtout, his pigtail and little round hat. But Dorothea always found +him formidable, and wanted to run away. "Admiral, I was just about to +tell Miss Westcote that the time is come to congratulate her. Here is +winter past--except that of two years ago, the hardest known in +Axcester; and, thanks to her subscription lists and working parties, +our countrymen have never gone so well fed and warmly clad." + +"Which," growled the Admiral, "does not explain why no less than eight +of them have broken their parole. An incredible, a shameful number!" + +"As time goes on, Admiral, they grow less patient. Hope deferred--" + +_Ta-ra, tara-ra! Ta-ra, tara-ra-ra!_ The notes of the guard's horn +broke in upon Dorothea's excuse. Groups scattered, market carts were +hastily backed alongside the pavement, and down the mid-thoroughfare +came the mail at a gallop, with crack of whip and rushing chime of +bits and swingle-bars. + +Dorothea watched the crowd closing round it as it drew up by "The +Dogs," and turned to note that the Admiral's face was pale and his +eyes sought those of his old friend. + +"Better leave it to me to-day, if Miss Westcote will excuse me." + +General Rochambeau lifted his hat and hurried after the crowd. + +Then Dorothea understood. The old man beside her had lost courage to +pick up his old habit; at the last moment his friend must go for the +letter which never came. She cast about to say something; her last +words had been of hope deferred--it would not do to take up her +speech there . . . + +The Admiral seemed to meet her eyes with an effort. He put out a hand. + +"It is not good, Mademoiselle, that a man should pity himself. Beware +how you teach that; beware how you listen to him then." + +He turned from her abruptly and tottered away. Glancing aside, she met +the Vicomte de Tocqueville's tired smile; he was using his cane to +prod the butcher and recall his attention to the half-cut steak. But +the butcher continued to stare down the street. + +"Eh? But, dear me, it sounds like an _émeute_," said the Vicomte, +negligently; at the same time stepping to Dorothea's side. + +The murmur of the crowd in front of "The Dogs" had been swelling, and +now broke into sharp, angry cries for a moment; then settled into a +dull roar, and rose in a hoarse _crescendo_. The mail coach was +evidently not the centre of disturbance, though Dorothea could see its +driver waving his arm and gesticulating from the box. The noise came +ahead of it, some twenty yards lower down the hill, where the street +had suddenly grown black with people pressing and swaying. + +"There seems no danger here, whatever it is," said the Vicomte, +glancing up at the house-front above. + +"Please go and see what is the matter. I am safe enough," Dorothea +assured him. "The folks in the house will give me shelter, if +necessary." + +The Vicomte lifted his hat. "I will return and report promptly, if the +affair be serious." + +But it was not serious. The tumult died down, and Dorothea with her +riding-switch was guarding the half-cut steak from a predatory dog +when the Vicomte and the butcher returned together. + +"Reassure yourself, Miss Westcote," said M. de Tocqueville. "There has +been no bloodshed, though bloodshed was challenged. It appears that +almost as the coach drew up there arrived from the westward a post- +chaise conveying a young naval officer from Plymouth, with despatches +and (I regret to tell it) a flag. His Britannic Majesty has captured +another of our frigates; and the high spirited young gentleman was +making the most of it in all innocence, and without an idea that his +triumph could offend anyone in Axcester. Unfortunately, on his way up +the street, he waved the captured tricolor under the nose of your +brother's _protégé_, M. Raoul--" + +"M. Raoul!" Dorothea caught her breath on the name. + +"And M. Raoul leapt into the chaise, then and there wrested the flag +from him--the more easily no doubt because he expected nothing so +little and holding it aloft, challenged him to mortal combat. +Theatrically, and apart from the taste of it (I report only from +hearsay), the coup must have been immensely successful. When I +arrived, your brother was restoring peace, the young Briton holding +out his hand--swearing he was sorry, begad! but how the deuce was he +to have known ?--and M. Raoul saving the situation, and still +demanding blood with a face as long as an Alexandrine: + +"_'Ce drapeau glorieux auquel, en sanglotant, +Se prosternent affaises vos membres, veterans!'_ + +"'Vary sorry, damitol, shake hands, beg your pardon.'" + +The Vicomte forgot his languor, and burlesqued the scene with real +talent. + +Dorothea, however, was not amused. + +"You say my brother is at 'The Dogs,' Monsieur? I think I will go +to him." + +"You must allow me, then, to escort you." + +"Oh, the street is quite safe. Your countrymen will not suspect me of +exulting over their misfortunes." + +"Nevertheless--" he insisted, and walked beside her. + + A mixed crowd of French and English still surrounded the chaise, to +which a couple of postboys were attaching the relay: the French no +longer furious, now that an apology had been offered and the flag +hidden, but silent and sulky yet; the English inclined to think the +young lieutenant hardly served, not to say churlishly. Frenchmen might +be thin-skinned; but war was war, and surely Britons had a right to +raise three cheers for a victory. Besides he had begged pardon at once, +and offered to shake hands like a gentleman--that is, as soon as he +discovered whose feelings were hurt; for naturally the fisticuffs had +come first, and in these Master Raoul had taken as good as he brought. +As the Vicomte cleared a path for her to the porch, where Endymion +stood shaking hands and bidding adieu, Dorothea caught her first and +last glimpse of this traveller, who--without knowing it, without +seeing her face to remember it, or even learning her name--was to +deflect the slow current of her life, and send it whirling down a +strange channel, giddy, precipitous, to an end unguessed. + +She saw a fresh-complexioned lad, somewhat flushed and red in the face, +but of frank and pleasant features; dressed in a three-cornered cocked- +hat, blue coat piped with white and gilt-buttoned, white breeches and +waistcoat, and broad black sword-belt; a youngster of the sort that +loves a scrimmage or a jest, but is better in a scrimmage than in a +jest when the laugh goes against him. He was eying the chaise just now, +and obviously cursing the hour in which he had decorated it with laurel. + +Yet on the whole in a trying situation he bore himself well. + +"Ah, much obliged to you, Vicomte!" Endymion hailed the pair. "There +has been a small misunderstanding, my dear Dorothea; not the slightest +cause for alarm! Still, you had better pass through to the coffee-room +and wait for me." + +Dorothea dismissed M. de Tocqueville with a bow, passed into the dark +passage and pushed open the coffee-room door. + +Within sat a young man, his elbows on the table, and his face bowed +upon his arms. His fingers convulsively twisted a torn scrap of +bunting; his shoulders heaved. It was M. Raoul. + +Dorothea paused in the doorway and spoke his name. He did not look up. + +She stepped towards him. + +"M. Raoul!" + +A sob shook him. She laid a hand gently on his bowed head, on the dark +wave of hair above his strong, shapely neck. She was full of pity, +longing to comfort . . . + +"M. Raoul!" + +He started, gazed up at her, and seized her hand. His eyes swam with +tears, but behind the tears blazed a light which frightened her. Yet-- +oh, surely!--she could not mistake it. + +"Dorothea!" + +He held both her hands now. He was drawing her towards him. She could +not speak. The room swam; outside the window she heard the noise of +starting hoofs, of wheels, of the English crowd hurrahing as the chaise +rolled away. Her head almost touched M. Raoul's breast. Then she broke +loose, as her brother's step sounded in the passage. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +LOVE AND AN OLD MAID + + +I pray you be gentle with Dorothea. Find, if you can, something +admirable in this plain spinster keeping, at the age of thirty-seven, +a room in her breast adorned and ready for first love; find it pitiful, +if you must, that the blind boy should mistake his lodging; only do +not laugh, or your laughter may accuse you in the sequel. + +She had a most simple heart. Wonder filled it as she rode home to +Bayfield, and by the bridge she reined up Mercury as if to take her +bearings in an unfamiliar country. At her feet rushed the Axe, swollen +by spring freshets; a bullfinch, wet from his bath, bobbed on the sand- +stone parapet, shook himself, and piped a note or two; away up the +stream, among the alders, birds were chasing and courting; from above +the Bayfield elms, out of spaces of blue, the larks' song fell like a +din of innumerable silver hammers. Either new sense had been given her, +or the rains had washed the landscape and restored obliterated lines, +colours, meanings. The very leaves by the roadside were fragrant as +flowers. + +For the moment it sufficed to know that she was loved, and that she +loved. She was no fool. At the back of all her wonder lay the certainty +that in the world's eyes such love as hers was absurd; that it must end +where it began; that Raoul could never be hers, nor she escape from a +captivity as real as his. But, perhaps because she knew all this so +certainly, she could put it aside. This thing had come to her: this +happiness to which, alone, in darkness, depressed by every look into +the mirror, by every casual proof that her brothers and intimates +accepted the verdict as final, her soul had been loyal--a forgotten +servant of a neglectful lord. In the silence of her own room, in her +garden, in the quiet stir of household duties, and again during the +long evenings while she sat knitting by the fire and her brothers +talked, she had pondered much upon love and puzzled herself with many +questions. She had watched girls and their lovers, wives and their +husbands. Can love (she had asked) draw near and pass and go its way +unrecognised? She had conned the signs. Now the hour had come, and she +had needed none of her learning--eyes, hands, and voice, she had +known the authentic god. + +And she knew that it was not absurd; she knew herself worthy of love's +belated condescension--not Raoul's; for the moment she scarcely +thought of Raoul; for the moment Raoul's image grew faint and +indefinite in the glory of being loved. Instinct, too, thrust it into +the background; for as Raoul grew definite so must his youth, his +circumstances, the world's laughter, the barriers never to be overcome. +But merely to be loved, and to rest in that knowledge awhile--here +were no barriers. The thing had happened: it was: nothing could forbid +or efface it. + +Yet when she reached home, after forcing the astonished Mercury to +canter up the entire length of Bayfield hill, she must walk straight +to her room, and study her face in the glass. + +"It has happened to you--to you! Why has it not transfigured you?-- +but then people would guess. Your teeth stand out--well, not so very +prominently--but they stand out, and that is why foreigners laugh at +Englishwomen. Yes, it has happened to you; but why? how?" +It so happened that she must meet him the next day. Narcissus had +engaged him to make drawings of the Bayfield pavement, a new series to +supersede hers in an enlarged edition of the treatise. Every one of +the _tessellae_ was to be drawn to scale, and she must meet him +to-morrow in the library with her brother and receive instructions, for +she had promised to help in taking measurements. + +When the time came, and she entered the library, she did not indeed +dare to lift her eyes. But Narcissus, already immersed in calculations, +scarcely looked up from his paper. "Ah, there you are! Have you brought +the India-ink?" he asked, and after a minute she marvelled at her own +self-possession. Even when he left them to work out the measurements +together (and it flashed upon her that henceforth they would often be +left together, her immunity being taken for granted), she kept her head +bowed over the papers and managed to control her voice to put one or +two ordinary questions--until the pencil dropped from her fingers and +she felt her hand imprisoned. + +"Dorothea!" + +"Oh, please, no!" she entreated hoarsely. "M. Raoul--!" + +"Charles--" She attempted to draw her hand away; but, failing, lifted +her eyes for mercy. They were sick and troubled. "Charles," he insisted. + +"Charles, then." She relented and he kissed her gaily. It was as if she +drank in the kiss and, the next moment, recoiled from it. He released +her hand and waited, watching her. She stood upright by the table, her +shoulder turned to him, her eyes gazing through the long window upon +the green stretch of lawn. She was trembling slightly. + +"It--it hurts like a wound," she murmured, and her hand went up to her +breast. "But you must listen, please. You know--better than I--that +this is the end. Oh, yes"--as he would have interrupted--"it is +beautiful--for me. But I am old and you are a boy, and it is all quite +silly. Please listen: even apart from this, it would be quite silly and +could end nowhere." + +He caught at her hand again, and she let it lie in his. + +"Nowhere," she repeated, and, lifting her head, nodded twice. Her eyes +were brimming. + +"But if you love me?" he began. + +She waited a moment, but he did not finish. "Ah! there it is, you see: +you cannot finish. I was afraid to meet you to-day; but now I am glad, +because we can talk about it once and for all. Charles"--she hesitated +over the name--"dear, I have been thinking. Since we see this so +clearly, it can be no treachery to my brothers to let our love stand +where it does. At my age"--and Dorothea laughed nervously--"one is +more easily contented than at yours." + +"I cannot bear your talking in this way." + +"Oh yes, you can," she assured him with a practical little nod. "I +don't like it myself, but it has to be done. Now in the first place, +when we meet like this there must be no kissing." She blushed, while +her voice wavered again over the word; then, as again his hand closed +upon hers, she laughed. "Well--yes, you may kiss my hand. But I must +not have it on my conscience that I am hiding from Endymion and +Narcissus what they have a right to know. Of course they would be angry +if they knew that I--that I was fond of you at all; but they would +have no right, for they could not have forbidden or prevented it. Now +if our prospects were what folks would call happier, why then in +earnest of them you might kiss me, but then you would be bound to go to +my brothers and tell them. But since it can all come to nothing--" +A ghost of a smile finished the sentence. + +"This war cannot last for ever." + +"It seems to have lasted ever since I can remember. But what difference +could its ending make? Ah, yes, then I should lose you!" she cried in +dismay, but added with as sudden remorse: "Forgive my selfishness!" + +"You are adorable," said he, and they laughed and picked up their +pencils. + +Dorothea's casuistry might prove her ignorant of love and its perils, +as a child is of fire; but having, as she deemed, discovered the limits +of her duty and set up her terms with Raoul upon them, she soon +developed a wonderful cunning in the art of being loved. Her plainness +and the difference in their ages she took for granted, and subtly +persuaded Raoul to take for granted; she had no affectations, no +_minauderies_; by instinct she avoided setting up any illusion which he +could not share; unconsciously and naturally she rested her strength on +the maternal, protective side of love. Raoul came to her with his woes, +his difficulties, his quarrel against fate; and she talked them over +with him, and advised him almost as might a wise elder sister. She had +read the _Confessions_; and, in spite of the missing pages, with less +of fascination than disgust; yet had absorbed more than she knew. In +Raoul she recognised certain points of likeness to his great +countryman--points which had puzzled, her in the book. Now the book +helped her to treat them, though she was unaware of its help. Still +less aware was she of any likeness between her and Madame de Warens, +of whom (again in spite of the missing pages) she had a poor opinion. + +The business of the drawings brought Raoul to Bayfield almost daily, +and, as she had foreseen, they were much alone. + +After all, since it could end in nothing, the situation had its +advantages; no one in the household gave it a thought, apparently. +Dorothea was not altogether sure about Polly; once or twice she had +caught Polly eying her with an odd expression--once especially, when +she had looked up as the girl was plaiting her hair, and their eyes +met in the glass. And once again Dorothea had sent her to the library +with a note of instructions left that morning by Narcissus, and, +following a few minutes later, had found her standing and talking with +M. Raoul in an attitude which, without being familiar, was not quite +respectful. + +"What was she saying?" her mistress asked, a moment or two later. + +"Oh, nothing," he answered negligently. "I suppose that class of +person cannot be troubled to show respect to prisoners." + +That evening Dorothea rated the girl soundly for her pertness. "And I +shall speak to Zeally," she threatened, "if anything of the kind +happens again. If Mr. Endymion is to let you two have a house when you +marry, and take in the Frenchmen as lodgers, he will want to know that +you treat them respectfully." + +Polly wept, and was forgiven. + +April, May, June, went by, and still Dorothea lived in her dream, +troubled only by dread of the day which must bring her lover's task to +an end, and, with it, his almost daily visits. Bit by bit she learned +his story. He told her of Arles, his birthplace, with its Roman masonry +and amphitheatre; of a turreted terraced chateau and a family of +aristocrats lording it among the vineyards; conspiring a little later +with other noble families, entertaining them at secret meetings of the +_Chiffonne_, where oaths were taken; later again, defending itself +behind barricades of paving-stones; last of all, marched or carried in +batches to the guillotine or the fusillade. He told of Avignon and its +Papal Castle overhanging the Rhone, the city where he had spent his +school days, and at the age of nine had seen Patriot L'Escuyer stabbed +to death in the Cordeliers' Church with women's scissors; had seen +Jourdan, the avenger, otherwise Coupe-tête, march flaming by at the +head of his brave _brigands d'Avignon_. He told of the sequel, the +hundred and thirty men, women and babes slaughtered in the dungeon of +the _Glacière_; of Choisi's Dragoons and Grenadiers at the gates, and +how, with roses scattered before them, they marched through the streets +to the Castle, entered the gateway and paused, brought to a stand by +the stench of putrefying flesh. He and his school mates had taken a +holiday--their master being in hiding--to see the bodies lifted out. +Also he had seen the search party ride out through the gates and return +again, bringing Jourdan, with feet strapped beneath his horse's belly. +He told of his journey to, Paris--his purpose to learn to paint (at +such a time!); of the great David, fat and wheezy, back at his easel, +panting from civil blood-shed; of the call to arms, his enlistment, +his first campaign of 1805; of the foggy morning of Austerlitz, his +wound, and he long hours he lay in the rear of a battery on the height +of Pratzen, writhing, watching the artillerymen at work and so on, +with stories of marching and fighting, nights slept out by him at full +length on the sodden turf beside his arms. + +She had no history to tell him in exchange; she asked only to listen +and to comfort. Yet so cleverly he addressed his story that the longest +monologue became, by aid of a look or pressure of the hand, a +conversation in which she, his guardian angel, bore her part. Did he +talk of Avignon, for instance? It was the land of Laura and Petrarch, +and she, seated with half-closed eyes beneath the Bayfield elms, saw +the pair beside the waters of Vaucluse, saw the roses and orange-trees +and arid plains of Provence, and wondered at the trouble in their +spiritual love. She was not troubled; love as "a dureless content and +a trustless joy" lay outside of her knowledge, and she had no desire +to prove it. In this only she forgot the difference between Raoul's +age and hers. + +The day came when his work was ended. They spent a great part of that +afternoon in the garden, now in the height of its midsummer glory. +Raoul was very silent. + +"But this must not end. It cannot end so!" he groaned once or twice. + +He never forgot for long his old spite against Time. + +"It will never end for me," she murmured. + +"Of what are you made, then, that you look forward to living on +shadows?--one would say, almost cheerfully! I believe you could be +happy if you never saw me again!" + +"Even if that had to be," she answered gravely, "while I knew you +loved me I should never be quite unhappy. But you must find a way, +while you can, to come sometimes; yes, you must come." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CORPORAL ZEALLY INTERVENES + + +Dorothea sat in the great hall of Bayfield, between the lamplight and +the moonlight, listening to the drip of the fountain beneath its tiny +cupola. A midsummer moon-ray fell through the uncurtained lantern +beneath the dome and spread in a small pool of silver at her feet. +Beneath one of the two shaded lamps Endymion lounged in his armchair +and read the Sherborne Mercury. Narcissus had carried off the other to +a table across the hall by the long bookcase, and above the pot-plants +banked about the fountain she saw it shining on his shapely grey head +as he bent over a copy of the Antonine Itinerary and patiently worked +out a new theory of its distances. Her own face rested in deep shadow, +and she felt grateful for it as she leaned back thinking her own +thoughts. It was a whole week now since Charles had visited Bayfield, +but she had encountered him that morning in Axcester High Street as +she passed up it on horseback with her brothers. Narcissus had reined +up to put some question or other about the drawings, but Endymion (who +did not share his brother's liking for M. Raoul) had ridden on, and +she had ridden on too, though reluctantly. She recalled his salute, +his glance at her, and down-dropped eyes; she wondered what point +Narcissus and he had discussed, and blamed herself for not having +found courage to ask. . . . + +The stable clock struck ten. She arose and kissed her brothers good- +night. By Narcissus she paused. + +"Be careful of your eyes, dear. And if you are going to be busy with +that great book these next few evenings I will have the table brought +across to the other side where you will be cosier." + +Narcissus came out of his calculations and looked up at her gently. +"Please do not disarrange the furniture for me; a change always fidgets +me, even before I take in precisely what has happened." He smiled. +"In that I resemble my old friend Vespasian, who would have no +alterations made when he visited his home--_manente villa qualis +fuerat olim, ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret_. +A pleasant trait, I have always thought." + +He lit her candle and kissed her, and Dorothea went up the broad +staircase to her own room. Half-way along the corridor she stayed a +moment to look down upon the hall. Endymion had dropped his newspaper +and was yawning; a sure sign that Narcissus, already reabsorbed in the +Itinerary, would in a few moments be hurried from it to bed. + +She reached the door of her room and opened it, then checked an +exclamation of annoyance. For some mysterious reason Polly had +forgotten to light her candle. This was her rule, never broken before. + +She stepped to the bellpull. Her hand was on it, when she heard the +girl's voice muttering in the next room--the boudoir. At least, it +sounded like Polly's voice, though its tone was strangely subdued and +level. "Talking to herself," Dorothea decided, and smiled, in spite of +her annoyance, as everyone smiles who catches another in this trick. +She dropped the bellpull and opened the boudoir door. + +Polly was not talking to herself. She was leaning far out of the open +window, and at the sound of the door started back into the room with a +gasp and a short cry. + +"To whom were you talking?" + +Dorothea had set the candle down in the bedroom. Outside the window +the park lay spread to the soft moonshine, but the moon did not look +directly into the boudoir. In the half-light mistress and maid sought +each other's eyes. + +"To whom were you talking?" Dorothea demanded, sternly. + +Polly was silent for a second or two, then her chin went up defiantly. + +"To Mr. Raoul," she muttered. + +"To M. Raoul!--to M. Raoul? I don't understand. Is M. Raoul--Oh, for +goodness sake speak, girl! What is that? I see a piece of paper in +your hand." + +Polly twisted it in her fingers, and made a movement to hide it in her +pocket; but with the movement she seemed to reflect. + +"He gave it to me; I don't understand anything about it. I was +shutting the window, when he whistled to me; he gave me this. I--I +think he meant it for you." + +Polly's tone suddenly became saucy, but her voice shook. + +Dorothea was shaking too, as her fingers closed on the note. She +vainly sought to read the girl's eyes. Her own cheeks were burning; +she felt the blood rushing into them and singing in her ears. Yet in +her abasement she kept her dignity, and, motioning Polly to follow, +stepped into the bedroom, unfolded the letter slowly, and read it by +the candle there. + + _"My Angel, + + "I have hungered now for a week. Be at your window this evening + and let me, at least, be fed with a word. See what I risk for you. + + "Yours devotedly and for ever."_ + +There was no signature, but well enough Dorothea knew the handwriting. +A wave of anger swelled in her heart--the first she had ever felt +towards him. He had behaved selfishly. "See what I risk for you!"-- +but to what risk was he exposing her! He was breaking their covenant +too; demanding that which he must know her conscience abhorred. She +had not believed he could understand her so poorly, held her so cheap. +Cheap indeed, since he had risked her secret in Polly's hand! + +She turned the paper over, noting its creases. Suddenly--"You have +opened and read this!" she said. + +Polly admitted it with downcast eyes. The girl, after the first +surprise, had demeaned herself admirably, and now stood in the attitude +proper to a confidential servant; solicitous, respectful, prepared to +blink the peccadillo, even to sympathise discreetly at a hint given. + +"I'm sorry, Miss, that I opened it; I ought to have told you, but you +took me by surprise. You know, Miss, that you gave me leave to run down +to my aunt's this evening; and on my way back--just as I was letting +myself in by the nursery gate, Mr. Raoul comes tearing up the hill +after me and slips this into my hand. To tell you the truth, it rather +frightened me being run after like that. And he said something and ran +back--for nine was just striking, and in a moment the Ting-tang would +be ringing and he must be back to answer his name. So in my fluster I +didn't catch what he meant. When I got home and opened it, I saw my +mistake. But you were downstairs at dinner--I couldn't get to speak +with you alone--I waited to tell you; and just now, when I was +drawing the blinds, I heard a whistle--" + +"M. Raoul had no right to send me such a message, Polly. I cannot +think what he means by it. Nothing that I have ever said to him--" + +"No, Miss," Polly assented readily. After a pause she added: "I suppose +you'd like me to go now? You won't be wanting your hair done to-night?" + +"Certainly I wish you to stay. Is he--is M. Raoul outside?" + +"I think so, Miss. Oh, yes--for certain he is." + +"Then I must insist on your staying with me while I dismiss him." + +"Very good, Miss. Would you wish me to stay here, or to come with you?" + +Dorothea felt herself blushing, and her temper rose again. "For the +moment, stay here. I will leave the door open and call you when you +are wanted." + +She passed into the boudoir and bent to the open window. At this corner +the foundations of the house stood some feet lower than the slope out +of which they had been levelled, and she looked down upon a glacis of +smooth turf, capped by a glimmering parapet of Bath stone. Beyond +stretched the moonlit park. + +"M. Raoul!" she called, but scarcely above a whisper. + +A figure crept out from the dark angle below and climbed to the parapet. + +"Dorothea! Forgive me! Another night and no word with you--I could not +bear it." + +"You are mad. You are breaking your parole and risking shame for me. +Nay, you have shamed me already. Polly is here." + +"Polly is a good girl; she understands. A word, then, if you must drive +me away." + +"Your _parole!_" + +"I can pass the sentries. No fear of the patrol hereabouts. Your hand-- +let down your hand to me. I can reach it from the parapet here--with +my fingers only, not with my lips, though even that you never forbade!" + +Weakly, she lowered her arm over the sill. He reached to touch it, and +she leaned her face towards his--hers in shadow, his pale in the +moonlight. + +Before their fingers met, a yellow flame leapt from the angle to the +left; a loud report banged in her ears and echoed across the park; and +Raoul, after swaying a second, pitched forward with a sharp cry and +rolled to the foot of the glacis. + +Dorothea forced herself back in the room, and stood there upright and +shook, with Polly beside her holding her two hands. + +"They have shot him!" + +The two women listened for a moment. All was still now. Polly stepped +to the window and, closed it softly. + +"But why? What are you doing?" Dorothea asked, in a hoarse whisper. + +"They will find quite enough without that," said the practical girl, +but her voice quavered. + +"Yet if they had seen--Ah, how selfish to think of that now! Hush-- +that was a groan! He is alive still." + +She moved towards the window, but Polly dragged her back by main force. + +"Listen, Miss!" + +Below they heard the sudden unbarring of doors, and Endymion's voice +calling for Mudge, the butler. A bell pealed in the servants' hall, +stopped, and began ringing again in short and violent jerks. + +"Let me go," commanded Dorothea. "They will never find him, under the +slope there. He may be bleeding to death. I must tell--" + +But Polly clung to her. "They'll find him safe enough, Miss Dorothea. +There's Sam, now--hark!--at the backdoor bell: he'll tell them." + +"Sam!" + +"Sam Zeally, Miss." + +"But I don't understand," Dorothea stammered; with a sharp suspicion +of treachery, she pushed the girl from her. "Was Zeally mounting guard +tonight? If I thought--don't tell me it was a trap! Oh, you wicked +girl!" + +"No; it wasn't," answered Polly, sulkily. "I don't know nothing of +Sam's movements. But he might be hanging about the house; and if he +saw a man talking to me, he's just as jealous as fire." + +She broke off at the sound of voices below the window. The ray of a +lantern, as the search-party jolted it, flashed and danced on wall and +ceiling of the dim boudoir. A sharp exclamation announced that Raoul +was discovered. A confused muttering followed; and then Dorothea heard +Endymion's voice calling up to Mudge from the bottom of the trench. + +"Run to Miss Westcote's room and tell her we shall require lint and +bandages. There is no cause for alarm, assure her; say there has been +an accident--a Frenchman overtaken out of bounds and wounded--I +think, not seriously. If she be gone to bed, get the medicine chest +and the key and bring them into the kitchen." + +Dorothea had charge of the Bayfield medicine chest, and kept it in a +cupboard of the boudoir. She groped for it, pulled open drawer after +drawer, rifled them for lint and linen, and by the time Mudge tapped +on the door, stood ready with the chest under one arm and a heap of +bandages in the other. + +"In the kitchen, Mr. Endymion said. I am coming at once; take the +chest, run, and have as many candles lit as possible." + +Mudge ran; Dorothea followed--with Polly behind her, trembling like +a leaf. + +The two women reached the kitchen as the party entered with Raoul, +and supported him to a chair beside the dying fire. His face was +colourless, and he lay back and closed his eyes weakly as Endymion +stooped to examine the wounded leg, with Narcissus in close attendance, +and the others standing respectfully apart--Mudge, the two footmen +(in their shirt sleeves), an under-gardener named Best, one of the +housemaids, and Corporal Zeally by the door in regimentals, with his +japanned shako askew and his Brown Bess still in his hand. Behind his +shoulder, three or four of the women servants hung about the doorway +and peered in, between curiosity and terror. + +It was a part of Endymion's fastidiousness that the sight of blood-- +that is, of human blood--turned his stomach. In her distress Dorothea +could not help admiring how he conquered this aversion; how he knelt +in his spick-and-span evening dress, and, after turning back his +ruffles, unlaced the prisoner's soaked shoe and rolled down the +stocking. + +He looked up gratefully as she entered. In such emergencies Narcissus +was worse than useless; but Dorothea had the nursing instinct, and her +brothers recognised it. The sight of a wound or a hurt steadied her +wits, and she became practical and helpful at once. + +"A flesh wound only, I think; just above the ankle--the tendon cut, +but the bone apparently not broken." + +"It may be splintered, though," said Dorothea. "Has anyone thought of +sending for Doctor Ibbetson? He must be fetched at once. A towel, +please--three or four--from the dresser there." A footman brought +the towels. She knelt, folded two on her lap, and, resting Raoul's foot +there, drew the stocking gently from the wound. "A basin and warm +water, not too hot. Polly, you will find a small sponge in the, second +drawer . . ." She nodded towards the medicine chest. "One of you, make +up a better fire and set on a fresh kettle . . ." + +She gave her orders in a low firm voice, and continued to direct +everyone thus, while she sponged the wound and drew off the stocking. +Neither towards them nor towards Raoul did she lift her eyes. The bare +foot of her beloved rested in her lap. She heard him groan twice, but +with no pain inflicted by her fingers; if their slightest pressure had +hurt him she would have known. She went on bathing the wound--she, +who could have bathed it with her tears. As time passed, and still the +doctor did not come, she began to bandage it. She called on Polly for +the bandages; then, still without looking up, she divined that Polly +was useless--was engaged in trying to catch Zeally's eye, and warn +him or get a word with him. + +"He's pale as a ghost yet," said Endymion. "Another dose of brandy +might set him up. I gave him some from my flask before bringing him in." + +"He is not going to faint," she answered. + +"Well, I won't bother him with questions until he comes round a bit. +You, Zeally, had better step into my room though, and give me your +version of the affair." + +But as the Corporal saluted and took a step forward, the prisoner +opened his eyes. + +"Before you examine Zeally, sir, let me save you what trouble I can." +He spoke faintly, but with deliberation. "I wish to deny nothing. I was +escaping, and he tracked me. He came on me as I cut across the park, +and challenged. I did not answer, but ran around a corner of the house +and jumped the parapet, thinking to double along the trench there and +put him off the scent--at least to dodge the bullet, if he fired. But +as I jumped for it, he winged me. A very pretty shot, too. With your +leave, sir, I 'd like to shake hands with him on it. Shake hands, +Corporal!" Raoul stretched out a hand, sideways. "You're a smart +fellow, and no malice between soldiers." + +Dorothea heard Polly's gasp: it seemed to her that all the room must +hear it. Her own hand trembled on the bandage. She had forgotten her +danger--the all but inevitable scandal--until Raoul brought it back +to her, and in the same breath saved her by his heroic lie. She could +not profit by it, though. Her lips parted to refute it, and for the +first time she gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with sudden love, +gratitude, pride, even while they entreated against the sacrifice. He +was smiling down with an air of faint amusement; yet beneath the lashes +she read a command which mastered her will, imposed silence. He had +taken on a new manliness, and for the first time in the story of their +loves she felt herself dominated by something stronger than passion. He +had swept her off her feet, before now, by boyish ardour: her humility, +the marvel of being loved, had aided him; but hitherto in her heart she +had always felt her own character to be the stronger. Now he challenged +her on woman's own ground--that of self-abnegation; he commanded her +to his own hurt, he towered above her. She had never dreamed of a love +like this. Beaten, despairing for him, yet proud as she had never been +in her life, she held her breath. + +Corporal Zeally was merely bewildered. His was a deliberate mind and +had hatched out the night's catastrophe after incubating it for weeks. +Unconvinced by Polly's explanation of her meeting with M. Raoul at the +Nursery gate, he had nursed a dull jealousy and set himself to watch, +and had dogged his man down at length with the slow cunning of a yokel +bred of a line of poachers. Raoul's tribute to his smartness perplexed +him and almost he scented a trap. + +"Beg your pardon, Squire," he began heavily, forgetting military forms +of address, "but the gentleman don't put it right." + +"Oh, hang your British modesty!" put in Raoul with a wry laugh. "If it +pleases you to represent that the whole thing was accidental and you +don't deserve to be promoted sergeant for tonight's work, at least you +might respect my vanity." + +Polly saw her opportunity. She crossed boldly and made as if to lay +over the Corporal's mouth the hand that would fain have boxed his ears. +"Reckon this is my affair," she announced, with an effrontery at which +one of the footmen guffawed openly. "Be modest as you please, my lad, +when I've married 'ee; but I won't put up with modesty from anyone +under a sergeant, and that I warn 'ee!" + +The Corporal eyed his sweetheart without forgiveness. His mouth was +open, but upon the word "sergeant," he shut it again and began to +digest the idea. + +"You know, of course, sir," Endymion Westcote addressed the prisoner +coldly, "to what such a confession commits you? I do not see what other +construction the facts admit, but it is so serious in itself and in its +consequences that I warn you--" + +"I have broken my _parole_, sir," said Raoul, simply. "Of the +temptations you cannot judge. Of the shame I am as profoundly sensible +as you can be. The consequences I am ready to suffer." + +He sank back in his chair as Dr. Ibbetson entered. + + +An hour later Dorothea said goodnight to her brother in the great hall. +He had lit his candle and was mixing himself a glass of brandy and +water. + +"The sight of blood--" he excused himself. "I am sorry for the fellow, +though I never liked him. I suppose, now, there was nothing between him +and that girl Polly? For a moment--from Zeally's manner--" He gulped +down the drink. "His confession was honest enough, anyhow. Poor fool! +he's safe in hospital for a week, and his friends, if he has any, and +they know what it means, will pray for that week to be prolonged." + +"What does it mean?" Dorothea managed to ask. + +"It means Dartmoor." + +Dorothea's candlestick shook in her hand, and the extinguisher fell on +the floor. Her brother picked it up and restored it. + +"Naturally," he murmured with brotherly concern, "your nerves! It has +been a trying night, but you comported yourself admirably, Dorothea. +Ibbetson assures me he could not have tied the bandage better himself. +I felt proud of my sister." He kissed her gallantly and pulled out his +watch. "Past twelve o'clock!--time they were round with the barouche. +The sooner we get Master Raoul down to the Infirmary and pack him in +bed, the better." + +As Dorothea went up the stairs she heard the sound of wheels on the +gravel. + +She could not accept his sacrifice. No; a way must be found to save +him, and in her prayers that night she began to seek it. But while +she prayed, her heart was bowed over a great joy. She had a hero for +a lover! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DOROTHEA CONFESSES + + +She saw no more of him, and heard very little, before the Court Martial +met. No one acquainted with the code of that age--so strait-laced in +its proprieties, so full-blooded in its vices--will need to be told +that she never dreamed of asking her brother's permission to visit the +Prisoners' Infirmary. He reported--once a day, perhaps, and casually-- +that the patient was doing well. Dorothea ventured once to sound +General Rochambeau, but the old aristocrat answered stiffly that he +took no interest in _déclassés_, and plainly hinted that, in his +judgment, M. Raoul had sinned past pardon; which but added to her +remorse. From time to time she obtained some hearsay news through +Polly; but Polly's chief interest now lay in her approaching marriage. + +For the Commissary, while accepting Raoul's version of his capture, had +an intuitive gift which saved him from wholly believing in it. Indeed, +his conduct of the affair, if we consider the extent of his knowledge, +was nothing less than masterly. Corporal Zeally found himself a +sergeant within forty-eight hours, and within an hour of the +announcement he and Polly were given an audience in the Bayfield +library, with the result that Parson Milliton cried their banns in +Axcester Church on the following Sunday, and the bride-elect received +a month's wages and three weeks' notice of dismissal, with a hint that +the reason for her short retention--to instruct her successor in Miss +Dorothea's ways--was ostensible rather than real. With Raoul's fate he +declined to meddle. "Here," he said in effect, "is my report, including +the prisoner's confession. I do my simple duty in presenting it. But +the young man was captured in my grounds; he was known to be a _protégé_ +of my brother's. Finding him wounded and faint with loss of blood, we +naturally did our best for him, and this again renders me perhaps too +sympathetic. The law is the law, however, and must take its course." +No attitude could have been more proper or have shown better feeling. + +So Raoul, who made a rapid recovery--barring the limp which he carried +to the end of his days--was tried, condemned, and sentenced in the +space of two hours. He stuck to his story, and the court had no +alternative. Dartmoor or Stapleton inevitably awaited the prisoner who +broke parole and was retaken. The night after his sentence Raoul was +marched past the Bayfield gates under escort for Dartmoor. And Dorothea +had not intervened. + +This, of course, proves that she was of no heroical fibre. She knew it. +Night after night she had lain awake, vainly contriving plans for his +deliverance; and either she lacked inventiveness or was too honest, for +no method could she discover which avoided confession of the simple +truth. As the days passed without catastrophe and without news save +that her lover was bettering in hospital, she staved off the truth, +trusting that the next night would bring inspiration. Almost she +hoped--being quite unwise in such matters--that his sufferings would +be accepted as cancelling his offence. So she played the coward. The +blow fell on the evening when Endymion announced, in casual tones, +that the Court Martial was fixed for the day after next. + +That night, indeed, brought something like an inspiration; and on the +morrow she rode into Axcester and called upon Polly, now a bride of +six days' standing and domiciled in one of the Westcote cottages in +Church Street, a little beyond the bridge. For a call of state this +was somewhat premature, but it might pass. + +Polly appeared to think it premature. Her furniture was topsy-turvy, +and her hair in curl-papers; she obviously did not expect visitors, +and resented this curtailment of the honeymoon. She showed it even +when Dorothea, after apologies, came straight to the point: + +"Polly, I am very unhappy." + +"Indeed, Miss?" + +"You know that I must be, since M. Raoul is going to that horrible +war-prison rather than let the truth be known." + +"But since you didn't encourage him, Miss--" + +"Of course I didn't encourage him to come," said Dorothea, quickly. + +"Why then it was his own fault, and he broke his word by breaking +bounds." + +"Yes, strictly his parole was broken; but the meaning of parole is, +that a prisoner promises to make no attempt to escape. M. Raoul never +dreamed of escaping, yet that is the ground of his punishment." + +"Well," said Polly, "if he chooses to say he was escaping, I don't see +how we--I mean, how you--can help." + +"Why, by telling the truth; and that's what we ought to do, though it +was wrong of him to expose us to it." + +"To be sure it was," Polly assented. + +"But," urged Dorothea, "couldn't we tell the truth of what happened +without anyone's wanting to know more? He gave you a note, which you +took without guessing what it contained. He wished to have speech with +me. Before you could give me the note and I could refuse to see him-- +as I should certainly have done--he had arrived. His folly deserves +punishment, but no such punishment as being sent to Dartmoor." + +Polly eyed her ex-mistress shrewdly. + +"Have you burnt the note?" she asked. + +Dorothea, blushing to the roots of her hair, stammered: + +"No; I kept it--it was evidence for him, you see. I wish, now--" + +She broke off as Polly nodded her head. + +"I guessed you'd have kept it. And now you'll never make up your mind +to burn it. You're too honest." + +"But, surely the note itself would not be called for?" + +"I don't know. Folks ask curious questions in courts of law, I've +always heard. Beggin' your pardon, Miss, but your face tells too many +tales, and anyone but a fool would ask for that note before he'd been +dealing with you three minutes. If he didn't, he'd ask you what was in +it. And then you'd be forced to tell lies--which you couldn't, to +save your soul!" + +Dorothea knew this to be true. She reflected a moment. "I should +decline to show it, or to answer." + +Mrs. Zeally thought it about time to assert herself. "Very good, Miss. +And now, how about me? They'd ask me questions, too; and I'd have you +consider, Miss Dorothea, that though not shaken down to it yet--not, +as you might say, in a state to expect callers or make them properly +welcome--I'm a respectable married woman. I don't mind confessing to +you, Zeally isn't a comfortable man. He's pleased enough to be +sergeant, though he don't quite know how it came about; and he's that +sullen with brooding over it, that for sixpence he'd give me the strap +to ease his feelings. I ain't complaining. Mr. Endymion chose to take +me on the hop and hurry up the banns, and I'm going to accommodate +myself to the man. He's three-parts of a fool, and you needn't fear +but I'll manage him. But I ain't for taking no risks, and that I tell +you fair." + +Dorothea was stunned. "You don't mean to say that Zeally suspects you?" + +"Why, of course he does!" said Polly. Prudence urged her to repeat +that Zeally was three-parts of a fool; but, being nettled, she spoke +the words uppermost: "Who d'ee think he'd suspect?" + +Dorothea, however, was too desperately dejected to feel the prick of +this shaft. "You will not help me, then?" was all her reply to it. + +"Why, no, Miss! if you put it in that point-blank way. A married +woman's got to think of her reputation first of all." + +Polly's attitude might be selfish, unfeeling; but the fundamental +incapacity for gratitude in girls of Polly's class will probably +surprise and pain their mistresses until the end of the world. After +all, Polly was right. An attempt to clear Raoul by telling the +superficial truth must involve terrible risks, and might at any turn +enforce a choice between full confession and falsehood. + +Dorothea could not bring herself to lie, even heroically; and there +would be no heroism in lying to save herself. On the other hand, the +thought of a forced confession--it might he before a tribunal--was +too hideous. No, the suggestion had been a mad one, and Polly had +rightly thrown cold water on it. Also, it had demanded too much of +Polly, who could not be expected to jeopardise her matrimonial +prospects to right a wrong for which she was not in truth responsible. + +Dorothea loved a hero, but knew she was no heroine. She called herself +a pitiful coward--unjustly, because, nurtured as she had been on the +proprieties, surrounded all her days by men and women of a class most +sensitive to public opinion, who feared the breath of scandal worse +than a plague, confession for her must mean a shame unspeakable. What! +Admit that she, Dorothea Westcote, had loved a French prisoner almost +young enough to be her son! that she had given him audience at night! +that he had been shot and captured beneath her window! + +Unjustly, too, she accused herself, because it is the decision, not +the terror felt in deciding, which distinguishes the brave from the +cowardly. If you doubt the event with Dorothea, the fault, must be +mine. She was timid, but she came of a race which will endure anything +rather than the conscious anguish of doing wrong. + +Nor, had her conscience needed them, did it lack reminders. Narcissus +had been persuaded to send the drawings to London to be treated by +lithography, a process of which he knew nothing, but to which M. Raoul, +during his studies in Paris, had given much attention, and apparently +not without making some discoveries--unimportant perhaps, and such as +might easily reward an experimenter in an art not well past its +infancy. At any rate, he had drawn up elaborate instructions for the +London firm of printers, and when the proofs arrived with about a third +of these instructions neglected and another third misunderstood, +Narcissus was at his wits' end, aghast at the poorness of the +impressions, yet not knowing in the least how to correct them. + +He gave Dorothea no peace with them. Evening after evening she was +invited to pore upon the drawings over which she and her lover had bent +together; to criticise here and offer a suggestion there; while every +line revived a memory, inflicted a pang. What suggestion could she find +save the one which must not be spoken?--to send, fetch the artist back +from Dartmoor, and remedy all this, with so much beside! + +"But," urged Narcissus, "you and he spent hours together. I quite +understood that he had explained the process to you, and on the +strength of this I gave it too little attention. Of course, if one +could have foreseen--" He broke off, and added with some testiness: +"I'd give fifty pounds to have the fellow back, if only for ten +minutes' talk." + +"But why couldn't we?" Dorothea asked suddenly, breathlessly. + +They were alone by the table under the bookcase. On the far side of +the hall, before the fire, Endymion dozed after a long day with the +partridges. Narcissus's words awoke a wild hope. + +"But why couldn't we?" she repeated, her voice scarcely louder than a +whisper. + +"Well, that's an idea!" he chuckled. "Confound the fellow, he imposed +on all of us! If we had only guessed what he intended, we might have +signed a petition telling him how necessary he had made himself, and +imploring him, for our sakes, to behave like a gentleman." + +"But supposing--supposing he was innocent--that he had never meant--" +She put out a hand to lay it on her brother's. "Hush!" she could have +cried; but it was too late. + +"Endymion!" Narcissus called across the room, jocosely. + +"Eh! What is it?" Endymion came out of his doze. + +"We're in a mess with these drawings, a complete mess; and we want +Master Raoul fetched out of Dartmoor to set us right. Come now--as +Commissary, what'll you take to work it for us? Fifty pounds has +already been offered." + +Dorothea turned from the table with a sigh for her lost chance. + +"He'd like it," answered Endymion, grimly. "But, my dear fellow,"-- +he slewed himself in his chair for a look around the hall,--"pray +moderate your tones. I particularly deprecate levity on such matters +within possible hearing of the servants; that class of person never +understands a joke." + +Narcissus rubbed the top of his head--a trick of his in perplexity. + +"But, seriously: it has only this moment occurred to me. Couldn't the +drawings be conveyed to him, in due form, through the Commandant of the +Prison? The poor fellow owes us no grudge. I believe he would be eager +to do us this small service. And, really, they have made such a mess +of the stones--" + +"Impossible! Out of the question! And I may say now, and once for all, +that the mention of that unhappy youth is repugnant to me. By good +fortune, we escaped being compromised by him; and I have refrained +from reminding you that your patronage of him was, to say the least, +indiscreet." + +"God bless me! You don't suggest, I hope, that I encouraged him to +escape!" + +"I suggest nothing. But I am honestly glad to be quit of him, and take +some satisfaction in remembering that I detested the fellow from the +first. He had too much cleverness with his bad style, or, if you prefer +it, was sufficiently like a gentleman to be dangerous. Pah! For his +particular offence, I would have had the old hulks maintained in the +Hamoaze, with all their severities; as it is, the posturer may find +Dartmoor pretty stiff, but will yet have the consolation of herding +with his betters." + +Strangely enough this speech did more to fix Dorothea's resolve than +all she had read or heard of the rigours of the war-prison. Gently +reared though she was, physical suffering seemed to her less +intolerable than to be unjustly held in this extreme of scorn.. +This was the deeper wrong; and putting herself in her lover's place, +feeling with his feelings, she knew it to be by far the deeper. In +Dartmoor he shared the sufferings of men unfortunate but not +despicable, punished for fighting in their country's cause. But here +was a moral punishment, deserved by none but the vilest; and she had +helped to bring it--was allowing it to rest--upon a hero! + +In the long watches of that night it never occurred to her that the +brutality of her brother's contempt was over-done. And Endymion, not +given to self-questioning at any time, was probably unconscious of a +dull wrath revenging itself for many pin-pricks of Master Raoul's +clever tongue. Endymion Westcote, like many pompous men, usually hurt +somebody when he indulged in a joke, and for this cause, perhaps, had +a nervous dislike of wit in others. Dull in taking a jest, but almost +preternaturally clever in suspecting one, he had disliked Raoul's +sallies in proportion as they puzzled him. The remembrance of them +rankled, and this had been his bull-roar of revenge. + +He spent the next morning in his office; and returning at three in the +afternoon, retired to the library to draw up the usual monthly report +required of him as Commissary. He had been writing tor an hour or more, +when Dorothea tapped at the door and entered. + +Endymion did not observe her pallor; indeed, he scarcely looked up. + +"Ah! You have come for a book? Make as little noise, then, as possible, +that's a good soul. You interrupted me in a column of figures." + +He began to add them up afresh, tapping the table with the fingers of +his left hand, as his custom was when counting. Dorothea waited. The +addition made, he entered it, resting three shapely finger-tips on the +table's edge for the number to be carried over. + +"I wish to speak with you particularly." + +He laid down his pen resignedly. Her voice was urgent, and he knew +well enough that the occasion must be urgent when Dorothea interrupted +his work. + +"Anything wrong?" + +"It--it's about M. Raoul." + +His eyebrows went up, but only to contract again upon a magisterial +frown. + +"Really, after the request I was obliged to make to Narcissus last +night--you were present, I believe? Is it possible that I failed to +make plain my distaste?" + +"Ah, but listen! It is no question of distaste, but of a great wrong. +He was not trying to escape; he told you an untruth, to--to save--" + +Endymion had picked up a paper-knife, and leaned back, tapping his +teeth with it. + +"Do you know?" he said, "I suspected something of this kind from the +first, though I had no idea you shared the knowledge. Zeally's +cleverness struck me as a trifle too--ah--phenomenal for belief. +I scented some low intrigue; and Polly's dismissal may indicate my +pretty shrewd guess at the culprit." + +"But it was not Polly!" + +"Eh?" + +Endymion sat bolt upright. + +"You must not blame Polly. It was I whom M. Raoul came to see that +night." + +He stared at her, incredulous. + +"My dear Dorothea, are you quite insane?" + +"He wished to see me--to speak with me; he gave the girl a note for +me. I knew nothing about it until I went upstairs that night, and found +her at the boudoir window. M. Raoul was outside. He had arrived before +she could deliver the message." + +"Quite so!" with a nasally derisive laugh. "And you really need me to +point out how prettily those turtles were befooling you?" + +"Indeed, no; it was not that." + +He struck the table impatiently with the paper-knife. + +"My dear woman, do exert some common sense! What in the name of wonder +could the fellow have to discuss with you at that hour? Your pardon if, +finding no apparent limits to your innocence, I assume it to be +illimitable, and point out that he would scarcely break bounds and play +Romeo beneath the window of a middle-aged lady for the purpose of +discussing water-colours with her, or the exploits of Vespasian." + +The taunt brought red to Dorothea's cheeks, and stung her into courage. + +"He came to see me," she persisted. Her voice dropped a little. "I had +come to feel a regard for M. Raoul; and he--" She could not go on. Her +eyes met her brother's for a moment, then fell before them. + +What she expected she could not tell. Certainly she did not expect what +happened, and his sudden laughter smote her like a whip. It broke in a +shout of high, incontrollable mirth, and he leaned back and shook in +his chair until the tears streamed down his cheeks. + +"You!" he gasped. "You! Oh, oh, oh!" + +She stood beneath the scourge, silent. She felt it curl across and bite +the very flesh, and thought it was killing her, Her bosom heaved. + +It ceased. He sat upright again, wiping his eyes. + +"But it's incredible!" he protested; "the scoundrel has fooled you all +along. Yes, of course," he pondered; "that explains the success of the +trick, which otherwise was clumsy beyond belief; in fact, its +clumsiness puzzled me. But how was I to guess?" He pulled himself up on +the edge of another guffaw. "Look here, Dorothea, be sensible. It's +clear as daylight the fellow was after Polly, and made you his cats- +paw. Face it, my dear; face it, and conquer your illusions. I +understand it must cost you some suffering, but, after all, you must +find some blame in yourself--in your heart, I mean, not in your +conduct. Doubtless your conduct showed weakness, or he would never have +dared--but, there, I can trust my sister. Face it; the thing's absurd! +You, a woman of thirty-eight (or is it thirty-nine?), and he, if I may +judge from appearances, young enough to be your son! Polly was his +game--the deceitful little slut! You must see it for yourself. And +after all, it's more natural. Immoral, I've no doubt--" + +He paused in the middle of his harangue. A parliamentary candidate +(unsuccessful) for Axcester had once dared to poke fun at Endymion +Westcote for having asserted, in a public speech, that indecency was +worse than immorality. For the life of him Endymion could never see +where the joke came in; but the fellow had illustrated it with such a +wealth of humorous instances, and had kept his ignorant audience for +twenty minutes in such fits of laughter, that he never afterwards +approached the antithesis but he skirted it with a red face. + +And Dorothea? + +The scourge might cut into her heart; it could not reach the image of +Raoul she shielded there. She knew her lover too well, and that he was +incapable of this baseness. But the injurious charge, diverted from +him, fell upon her own defences, and, breaking them, let in the cruel +light at length on her passion, her folly. This was how the world +would see it. . . . Yes! Raoul was right--there is no enemy +comparable with Time. Looks, fortune, birth, breed, unequal hearts and +minds--all these Love may confound and play with; but Time which +divides the dead from the living, sets easily between youth and age a +gulf which not only forbids love but derides: + + Age, I do abhor thee; + Youth, I do adore thee; + O, my Love, my Love is young! + +She could give counsel, sympathy, care; could delight in his delights, +hope in his hopes, melt with his woes, and, having wept a little, find +comfort for them. She could thrill at his footsteps, blush at his +salutation, sit happily beside him and talk or be silent, reading his +moods. He might fill her waking day, haunt her dreams, in the end pass +into prison for her sake, having crowned love with martyrdom. And the +world would laugh as Endymion had laughed! Her hands went up to shut +out the roar of it. A coarse amour with Polly--that could be +understood. Polly was young. Polly . . . + +"What will you do?" she heard herself asking, and could scarcely +believe the voice belonged to her. + +"Do? Why, if my theory be right--and I hope I've convinced you--I see +no use in meddling. The girl is respectably married. It will cause her +quite unnecessary trouble if we rip this affair open again. Her husband +will have just ground for complaint, and it might--I need not point +out--be a little awkward, eh?" + +For the first time in her life Dorothea regarded her brother with +something like contempt. But the flash gave way to a look of weary +resolve. + +"Then I must tell the truth--to others," she said. + +It confounded him for a moment. But although here was a new Dorothea, +belying all experience, his instinct for handling men and women told +him at once what had happened. He had driven her too far. He was even +clever enough to foresee that winning her back to obedience would be +a ticklish, almost desperate, business; and even sensitive enough to +redden at his blunder. + +"You do not agree with my view?" he asked, tapping the table slowly. + +"I disbelieve it. I have no right to believe it, even if I had the +power. He is in prison. You must help me to set him free. If not--" + +"He cannot, possibly return to Axcester." + +"Oh, what is that to me?" she cried with sudden impatience. Then her +tone fell back to its dull level. "I have not been pleading for myself." + +"No, no: I understand." His brow cleared, as a man's who faces a bad +business and resolves to go through with it. "Well, there is only one +way to spare you and everyone. We must get him a cartel." + +"A cartel?" + +"Yes--get him exchanged, and sent home to his friends. The War Office +owes me something, and will no doubt oblige me in a small affair like +this without asking questions. Oh, certainly it can be managed. I will +write at once." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +DARTMOOR + + +Dorothea had the profoundest faith in her brother's ability. That he +hit at once on this simple solution which had eluded her through many +wakeful nights did not surprise her in the least. Nor did she doubt +for a moment that he would manage it as he promised. + +But she could not thank him. He had beaten her spirit sorely--so +sorely, that for days her whole body ached with the bruise. She did not +accuse him: her one flash of contempt had lasted for an instant only, +and the old habit of reverence quickly effaced it. But he had exposed +her weakness; had forced her to see it, naked and pitiful, with no +chivalry--either manly or brotherly--covering it; and seeing it with +nothing to depend upon, she learned for the first time in her life the +high, stern lesson of independence. + +She learned it unconsciously, but she never forgot it. And it is to +Endymion's credit that he recognised the great alteration and allowed +for it. He had driven her too far. She would never again be the same +Dorothea. And never again by word or look did he remind her of that +hour of abasement. + +An exchange of prisoners was not to be managed in a day, and would take +weeks, perhaps six weeks or a couple of months. He discussed this with +her, quietly, as a matter of business entrusted to him, explained what +steps he had taken, what letters he had written; when he expected +definite news from the War Office. She met him on the same ground. +"Yes, he could not have done better." She trusted him absolutely. + +And in fact he had been better than his word. Ultimate success, to be +sure, was certain. It were strange if Mr. Westcote, who had opened his +purse to support a troop of Yeomanry, who held two parliamentary seats +at the Government's service and two members at call to bully the War +Office whenever he desired, who might at any time have had a baronetcy +for the asking--it were strange indeed if Mr. Westcote could not +obtain so trivial a favour as the exchange of a prisoner. He could do +this, but he could not appreciably hurry the correspondence by which +Pall Mall bargained a Frenchman in the forest of Dartmoor against an +Englishman in the fortress of Briançon in the Hautes Alpes. Foreseeing +delays, he had written privately to the Commandant at Dartmoor--a +Major Sotheby, with whom he had some slight acquaintance--advising him +of his efforts and requesting him to show the prisoner meanwhile all +possible indulgence. The letter contained a draft, for ten pounds, to +be spent upon small comforts at the Commandant's discretion; but +M. Raoul was not to be informed of the donor, or of his approaching +liberty. + +In theory--such was the routine--Raoul remained one of the Axcester +contingent of prisoners, and all reports concerning him must pass +through the Commissary's hands. In the last week of October, when +brother and sister daily expected the cartel, arrived a report that +the prisoner was in hospital with a sharp attack of pleurisy. Major +Sotheby added a private note:- + +_"I feared yesterday that the exchange would come too late for him; +but to-day the Medical Officer, who has just left me, speaks hopefully. +I have no doubt, however, that a winter in this climate would be fatal. +The fellow's lungs are breaking down, and even if they could stand the +fogs, the cold must finish him."_ + +Dorothea stood by a window in the library when Endymion read this out +to her; the very window through which she had been gazing that spring +morning when Raoul first kissed her. To-day the first of the winter's +snow fell gently, persistently, out of a leaden and windless sky. + +She turned. "I must go to him," she said. + +"But to what purpose--" + +"Oh, you may trust me!" + +"My dear girl, that was not in my mind." He spoke gently. "But until +the warrant arrives--" + +"We will give it until to-morrow; by every account it should reach us +to-morrow. You shall take it with me. I must see him once more; only +once--in your presence, if you wish." + +Next morning they rode into the town together, an hour before the +mail's arrival. Endymion alighted at the Town House to write a business +letter or two before strolling down to the post office. Dorothea +cantered on to the top of the hill, and then walked Mercury to and fro, +while she watched the taller rise beyond. The snow had ceased falling; +but a crisp north wind skimmed the drifts and powdered her dark habit. + +Twice she pulled out her watch; but the coach was up to time in spite +of the heavy roads; and as it topped the rise she reined Mercury to the +right-about and cantered back to await it. Already the street had begun +to fill as usual; and, as usual, there was General Rochambeau picking +his way along the pavement to present himself for the Admiral's +letter--the letter which never arrived. + +Would _her_ letter never arrive? + +He halted on the kerb by her stirrup. She asked after the Admiral's +health. + +"Ah, Mademoiselle, if ever he leaves his bed again, it will be a +miracle." + +She was not listening. Age, age again!--it makes all the difference. +Here came the coach--did it hold a letter for Raoul? Raoul was young. + +The coach rolled by with less noise than usual, on the carpet of snow +churned brown with traffic. As it passed, the guard lifted his horn and +blew cheerily. She followed, telling herself it was a good omen. During +the long wait outside the post office she rebuked herself more than +once for building a hope upon it. Name after name was called, and at +each call a prisoner pushed forward to the doorway for his letter. She +caught sight of the General on the outskirts of the crowd. Her brother +would not come out until every letter had been distributed. + +But when he appeared in the doorway she read the good news in his face. +He made his way briskly towards her, the prisoners falling back to +give passage. + +"Right; it has come," he said. "Trot away home and have the valises +packed, while I run into 'The Dogs' and order the chaise." + +Once clear of the town, she galloped. There was little need to hurry, +for her own valise had been packed overnight. + +Having sent Mudge to attend to her brother's, she ran to Narcissus' +room--his scriptorium, as he called it. + +Narcissus was at home to-day, busy with the cellar accounts. He took +stock twice a year and composed a report in language worthy of a +survey of the Roman Empire. Before he could look up, Dorothea had +kissed him on the crown of his venerable head. + +"Such news, dear! Endymion has ordered a chaise from 'The Dogs,' and +is going to take me to Dartmoor!" + +"Dartmoor--God bless my soul!" He rubbed his head, and added with a +twinkle: "Why, what have you been doing?" + +"Endymion has a cartel of exchange for M. Raoul, and we are to carry +it." + +"Ah, so that is what you two have been conspiring over? I smelt a rat +somewhere. But, really, this is delightful of you--delightful of you +both. Only, why on earth should you be carrying the release yourselves, +in this weather." + +"He is very ill," said Dorothea, seriously. + +"Indeed? Poor fellow, poor fellow. Still, that scarcely explains--" + +"And you will be good, and take your meals regularly when Mudge beats +the gong? And you won't sit up late and set fire to the house? But I +must run off and tell everyone to take care of you." + +She kissed him again, and was half-way down the corridor before he +called after her: + +"Dorothea, Dorothea! the drawings!" + +"Ah, to be sure; I forgot," she murmured, as he thrust the parcel into +her hand. + +"Forgot? Forgot the drawings? But, God bless my soul!--" + +He passed his hand over his grey hairs and stared down the corridor +after her. + +The roads were heavy to start, with, and beyond Chard they grew +heavier. At Honiton, which our travellers reached at midnight, it was +snowing; and Dorothea, when the sleepy chamber-maid aroused her at +dawn, looked out upon a forbidding world of white. The postboys were +growling, and she half feared that Endymion would abandon the journey +for the day. But if he lacked her zeal, he had the true Englishman's +hatred of turning back. She, who had known him always for a master of +men, learned a new awe of her splendid brother. He took command; he +cross-examined landlord and postboys, pooh-poohed their objections, +extracted from them in half-a-dozen curt questions more information +than, five minutes before, they were conscious of possessing, to judge +from the scratching of heads which produced it; finally, he handed +Dorothea into the chaise, sprang in himself, and closed discussion +with a slam of the door. They were driven off amid the salaams of +ostler, boots, waiter, and two chambermaids, among whom he had +scattered largess with the lordliest hand. + +So the chaise ploughed through Exeter to Moreton Hampstead, where they +supped and rested for another night. But before dawn they were off +again. Snow lay in thick drifts on the skirts of the great moor, and +snow whirled about them as they climbed, until day broke upon a howling +desert, across which Dorothea peered but could discern no features. +Not leagues but years divided Bayfield from this tableland, high over +all the world, uninhabited, without tree or gate or hedge. Her eyes +were heavy with lack of sleep, smarting with the bite of the north +wind, which neither ceased nor eased until, towards ten o'clock, the +carriage began to lumber downhill towards Two Bridges, under the lee of +Crockern Tor. Beyond came a heavy piece of collar work, the horses +dropping to a walk as they heaved through the drifts towards a +depression between two tors closing the view ahead. Dorothea's eyes, +avoiding the wind, were fixed on the tor to the left, when Endymion +touched her hand and pointed towards the base of the other. There, +grey--almost black--against the white hillside, a mass of masonry +loomed up through the weather; the great circle of the War Prison. + +The road did not lead them to it direct. They must halt first at the +bare village of Prince Town, and drink coffee and warm themselves at +the "Plume of Feathers Inn," before facing the last few hundred yards +beneath the lee of North Hessary. But a little before noon, Dorothea-- +still with a sense of being lifted on a platform miles above the world +she knew--alighted before a tremendous archway of piled granite set +in a featureless wall, and closed with a sheeted gate of iron. A grey- +coated sentry, pacing here in front of his snow-capped box, challenged +and demanded their business. + +"Visitors for the Commandant!" The sentry tugged at an iron bellpull, +and a bell tolled twice within. Dorothea's feet were half-frozen in +spite of her wraps--she stamped them in the snow while she studied the +gateway and the enormous blocks which arched it, unhewn save for two +words carved in Roman capitals--"PARCERE SUBJECTIS." + +A key turned in the wicket. "Visitors for the Commandant!" They +stepped through, and after pausing a moment while the porter shot the +lock again behind them, followed him across the yard to the +Commandant's quarters. + +The outer wall of the great War Prison enclosed a circle of thirty +acres; within it a second wall surrounded an acre in which stood the +five rectangular blocks of the prison proper, with two slightly smaller +buildings--the one a hospital, the other set apart for the petty +officers; and between the inner and outer walls ran a _via militaris_, +close on a mile in circumference, constantly paraded by the guard, and +having raised platforms from which the sentinels could overlook the +inner wall and the area. The area was not completely circular, since, +where it faced the great gate, a segment had been cut out of it for the +Commandant's quarters and outbuildings and the entrance yard, across +which, our travellers now followed their guide. + + +The Commandant hurried out from his office to welcome them--a bustling +little officer with sandy hair and the kindliest possible face; a +trifle self-important, obviously proud of his prison, and, after a +fashion, of his prisoners too; anxiously, elaborately polite in his +manner, especially towards Dorothea. + +"Major Westcote!"--he gave Endymion his full title--"My dear sir, +this is indeed--And Miss Westcote?" he bowed as he was introduced, +"Delighted--honoured! But what a journey! You must be famished, +positively; you will be wanting luncheon at once--yes, really you must +allow me. No? A glass of sherry, then, and a biscuit at least . . ." +He ran to the door, called to his orderly to bring some glasses, and +came back rubbing his hands. "It's an ill wind, as they say . . ." + +"We have come with the order about which we have corresponded." + +"For that poor fellow Raoul?" The Commandant nodded gaily and smiled; +and Dorothea, who had been watching his face, felt the load dissolve +and roll off her heart, as a pile of snow slides from a bough in the +sunshine. "He is better, I am glad to report--out of bed and fairly +convalescent indeed. But I hope my message did not alarm you +needlessly. It was touch-and-go with him for twenty-four hours; still, +he was bettering when I wrote. And to bring you all this way, and in +such weather!" + +"My sister and I," explained Endymion, "take a particular interest in +his case." + +But the voluble officer was not so easily silenced. + +"So, to be sure, I gathered." He bowed gallantly to Dorothea. "'O +woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please'--not, +of course, that I attribute any such foibles to Miss Westcote, but for +the sake of the conclusion." + +"Can we see him?" + +"Eh? Before luncheon? Oh, most assuredly, if you wish it. He has been +transferred to the Convalescents' Ward. We will step across at once." +He drew from his pocket a small master-key, attached by a steel chain +to his belt, and blew into the wards thoughtfully while he studied the +paper handed to him by Endymion. "Quite in order, of course. No doubt, +you and Miss Westcote would prefer to break the good news to him in +private? Yes, yes; I will have him sent up to the Consulting Room. The +Doctor has finished his morning rounds, and you will be quite alone +there." + +He picked up his cap and escorted them out and across the court to the +gate of the main prison. Beyond this Dorothea found herself in a vast +snowy yard, along two sides of which ran covered ways or piazzas open +to the air, but faced with iron bars, and behind these bars flitted the +forms of the prisoners at exercise, stamping the flagged pavement to +keep their starved blood in circulation. At a sight of the Commandant +with his two visitors--so small a spectacle had power to divert them-- +all this movement, this stamping, was hushed suddenly. Voices broke +into chatter; faces appeared between the bars and stared. + +"Yes," said the Commandant, reading Dorothea's thought, "a large family +to be responsible for! How many would you guess, now?" + +"A thousand, at least," she murmured. + +"Six thousand! Each of those blocks yonder will accommodate fifteen +hundred men. And then there is the hospital--usually pretty full at +this season, I regret to say. Come, I won't detain you; but really in +passing you must have a look at one of our dormitories." + +He threw open a door, and she gazed in upon a long-drawn avenue of iron +pillars slung with double tiers of hammocks. The place seemed clean +enough: at the far end of the vista a fatigue gang of prisoners was +busy with pails and brushes; but either it had not been thoroughly +ventilated, or the dense numbers packed in it for so many hours a day +had given the building an atmosphere of its own, warm and unpleasant, +if not precisely foetid, after the pure, stinging air of the moorland. + +"We can sleep seven hundred here," said the Commandant; "and another +dormitory of the same size runs overhead. The top story they use as a +promenade and for indoor recreation." He pointed to a number of grilles +set in the wall at the back, at equal distances. "For air," he +explained, "and also for keeping watch on _messieurs_. Yes, we find +that necessary. Behind each is a small chamber, hollowed most +scientifically, quite a little temple of acoustics. If Miss Westcote, +now, would care to step into one and listen, while I stand below with +the Major and converse in ordinary tones--" + +"No, no," Dorothea declined, hurriedly, and with a shiver. + +It hurt her to think of Raoul herded among seven hundred miserables in +this endless barrack, his every movement overlooked, his smallest +speech overheard, by an eaves-dropping sentry. + +"I think, Endymion chimed in, my sister feels her long journey, and +would be glad to get our business over." + +"Ah, to be sure--a thousand pardons!" + +The Commandant shut the door and piloted them across to the hospital +block. Here on the threshold the same warm, acrid atmosphere assailed +Dorothea's nostrils, and almost choked her breathing. Their guide led +the way up a flight of stone steps to the first floor, and down a +whitewashed corridor, lit along one side with narrow barred casements. +A little more than half-way down the corridor the blank wall facing +these casements was pierced by a low arched passage. Into this burrow +the Commandant dived; and, standing outside, they heard a key turned +in a lock. He reappeared and beckoned to them. + +"From the gallery here," he whispered, "you look right down into the +Convalescent Ward." + +Through the iron bars of the gallery Dorothea caught a glimpse of a +long bare room, with twenty or thirty dejected figures in suits and +caps of greyish-blue flannel, huddled about a stove. Some were playing +at cards, others at dominoes. The murmur of their voices ascended and +hummed in the little passage. + +"Hist! Your friend is below there, if you care to have a peep at him." + +But Dorothea had already drawn back. All this spying and listening +revolted her. The polite Commandant noted the movement. + +"You prefer that he should be fetched at once?" He stepped past them +into the corridor. "Smithers!" he called. "Smithers!" + +A hospital orderly appeared at a door almost opposite the passage, +and saluted. + +"Run down to the Convalescent Ward and fetch up Number Two-six-seven- +two.--I know the number of each of my children. I never make a +mistake," he confided in Dorothea's ear. "As quick as you can, please! +Stay; you may add that some visitors have called and wish to speak +with him." + +The orderly saluted again, and hurried off. + +"You wish, of course, to see him alone together?" + +"I think," answered Endymion, slowly, "my sister would prefer a word +or two with him alone." + +"Certainly. Will you step into the surgery, Miss Westcote?" He +indicated the door at which the orderly had appeared. "Smithers will +not take two minutes in fetching the prisoner; and perhaps, if you +will excuse us, a visit to the hospital itself will repay your brother. +We are rather proud of our sanitation here: a glance over our +arrangements--five minutes only--" + +Endymion, at a nod from Dorothea, permitted himself to be led away by +the inexorable man. + +She watched them to the end of the corridor, and had her hand on the +surgery door to push it open, when a voice from below smote her ears. + +"Number Two-six-seven-two to come to the surgery at once, to see +visitors!" + +The voice rang up through the little passage behind her. She turned; +the door at the end of it stood half-open; beyond it she saw the bars +of the gallery, and through these a space of whitewashed wall at the +end of the ward. + +She was turning again, when a babble of voices answered the orderly's +announcement. "Raoul! Raoul!" half-a-dozen were calling, and then one +spoke up sharp and distinct: + +"Tenez, mon bonhomme, ce sera votre _gilet_, à coup sur!" + +A burst of laughter followed. + +"C'est son _gilet_--his little Waistcoat--à chauffer la poitrine--" + +"Des visiteurs, dit il? Voyons, coquin, n'y-a-t-il pas par hasard une +visiteuse de la partie." + +"Une 'Waistcoat' par example?--de quarante ans environ, le drap un +peu râpé . . ." + +"Qui se nomme Dorothée--ce que veut dire le gilet dieudonné . . ." + +"Easy now!" the Orderly's voice remonstrated. "Easy, I tell you, ye +born mill-clappers! There's a lady in the party, if that's what you're +asking." + +Dorothea put out a hand against the jamb of the surgery door, to +steady herself She heard the smack of a palm below and some one uttered +a serio-comic groan. + +"Enfoncé! Il m'a parié dix sous qu'elle viendrait avant le jour de Pan, +et aussi du tabac avec tout le Numero Six. Nous en ferons la dot de +Mademoiselle!" The fellow burst out singing-- + + "J'ai du bon tabac + Dans ma tabatière." + +"Dites donc, mon petit,"--but the cheerful epithet he bestowed on +Raoul is unquotable here--"Elle ne fume pas, votre Anglaise? Elle +n'est pas Créole, c'est entendu." + +Dorothea had stepped into the surgery. A small round table stood in the +middle of the room; she caught at the edge of it and rested so for a +moment, for the walls seemed to be swaying and she durst not lift her +hands to shut out the roars of laughter. They rang in her ears and +shouted and stunned her. Her whole body writhed. + +The hubbub below sank to a confused murmur. She heard footsteps in the +corridor--the firm tramp of the orderly followed by the shuffle of +list slippers. + +"Number Two-six-seven-two is outside, ma'am. Am I to show him in?" + +She bent her head and moved towards the fireplace. She heard him +shuffle in, and the door shut behind him. Still she did not turn. + +"Dorothea!"--his voice shook with joy, with passion. How well she +knew that deep Provençal tremolo. She could have laughed aloud in her +bitterness. + +"Dorothea!" + +She faced him at length. He stood there, stretching out both hands to +her. He was handsome as ever, but pale and sadly pinched. Beyond all +doubt he had suffered. His grey-blue hospital suit hung about him in +folds. + +In her eyes he read at once that something was wrong--but without +comprehending. "You sent for me," he stammered; "you have come--" + +She found her voice and, to her surprise, it was quite firm. + +"Yes, we have brought your release," she said; and, watching his eyes, +saw the joy leap up in them, saw it quenched the next instant as he +composed his features to a fond solicitude for her. + +"But you?" he murmured. "What has happened? Tell me--no, do not draw +away! Your hand, at least." + +Contempt, for herself or for him, gave her a moment's strength, but it +broke down again. + +"It is horrible!" was all she answered and looked about her with a +shiver. + +"Ah, the place frightens you! Well," he laughed, reassuringly, "it +frightened me at first. But for the thought of you, dearest, to +comfort--" + +She stepped past him and opened the door. For a moment a wild notion +seized him that she was escaping, and he put out an imploring hand; +but he saw that, with her hand on the jamb, she was listening, and he, +too, listened. The voices in the Convalescent Ward came up to them, +scarcely muffled, through the low passage, and with them a cackling +laugh. Then he understood. + +Their eyes met. He bowed his head. + +"Nevertheless, I have suffered." + +He said it humbly, after many seconds, and in a voice so low that it +seemed a second or two before she heard. For the first time she put +out a hand and touched his sleeve. + +"Yes, you have suffered, and for me. Let me go on believing that. You +did a noble thing, and I shall try to remember you by it--to remember +that you were capable of it. 'It was for my sake,' I shall say, and +then I shall be proud. Oh, yes, sometimes I shall be very proud! But +in love--" + +Her voice faltered, and he looked up sharply. + +"In love"--she smiled, but passing faintly--"it's the little things, +is it not? It's the little things that count." + +She touched his sleeve again, and passed into the room, leaving him +there at a standstill, as Endymion and the Commandant came round the +corner at the far end of the corridor. + +"Excuse me," said Endymion, and, stepping past Raoul without a glance, +looked into the surgery. After a moment he shut the door quietly, and, +standing with his back to it, addressed the prisoner: "I perceive, sir, +that my sister has told you the news. We have effected an exchange for +you, and the Commandant tells me that to-morrow, if the roads permit, +you will be sent down to Plymouth and released. It is unnecessary for +you to thank me; it would, indeed, be offensive. I wish you a safe +passage home, and pray heaven to spare me the annoyance of seeing your +face again." + +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 _tabatière_: and, my faith! Miss Dorothea, there will be +sneezings in certain quarters when he opens it there. + + "Il a du bon tabac + Dans sa tabatière + +"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: _Giroflé, 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. + +"But there came a day--how shall I tell it?--when calamity fell upon +the cottage. For some time the farmers up the valley had been missing +sheep. What so easy now as to suspect the two women who were never +known to buy either bread or butcher's meat? You can guess! A rabble +marched up from the town and broke in upon them. It found nothing, of +course; and I am told that at sight of the face of the poor elder +sister it fled back in panic, leaving the place a wreck. + +"It so happened that M. Benest had pretermitted his angling, that +afternoon, for a stroll along the cliff: but he heard the news on his +return, from his landlady, while he sat at tea--that is to say, he +heard a part of it, for before the story was out he had set down his +teacup, caught up hat and stick, and stumped out of the house. The most +of the townspeople were indoors at tea, discussing the sensation; the +few he encountered had no greeting from him. He looked neither to the +right nor to the left; had no ears for his friends, the trout, as they +rose at the evening flies. He reached the signpost and--walked past +it! He stumped straight up to the garden gate, which stood ajar, and +pushed it wide with his stick. + +"There were signs of trampling on the flower-beds; but--for it was +July--the whole garden blazed with hollyhocks, oeillets, sweet +Williams, sweet peas, above all with that yellow flower--mimulus, +monkey flower, is it not?--which grows so profusely in gardens beside +streams. The air was weighted with scent of the réséda and of the +jasmine which climbed the wall and almost choked the roses. + +"The cottage door stood ajar also. He thrust this open too, and for +the first time stood face to face with Mademoiselle Henriette. + +"She sat by the kitchen table, with one arm flung across it, and her +body bowed with grief. At her feet lay a trodden bunch of the monkey +flowers: and at the tap-tap of his wooden leg on the threshold she +sprang up and faced him, across the yellow blossoms. + +"'Mademoiselle,' he began, 'I have just learnt--but it is an infamy! +_Permettez_--I am French, I also, though you do not know me perhaps.' + +"And with that M. Benest stammered and came to a halt, for her eyes +were worse than woeful. They were accusing--yes, accusing _him_. Of +what? _Nom de tonnerre_, what had he done? + +"'You, Monsieur! _You_--an officer of France!' + +"_'Mais quel rapport y a-t-il?'_ + +"'Your _parole_, Monsieur!' + +"_'Peste!_ I forgot,' said M. Benest, half to himself. + +"'Forgot? Forgot your _parole? Mais ecoutez donc! Nous savons souffrir, +nous autres franfaises . . . Et la petite qui meurt--et--et moi qui +mourrai Presqu' a l'heure--mais nous nous en tenons a' ne pas +dishonorer la Patrie a la fin. Ca finira bien, sous-officier--allez- +vous--allez-vous en. Mais allez!'_ + +"She stamped her foot upon the flowers, and M. Benest turned and fled +from her. Nay, in his haste, taking a short-cut towards the signpost, +he plunged his wooden leg deep in the marsh, and tumbled helpless, +overwhelmed with shame. + +"He never passed the signpost again, nor caught another glimpse of +Mademoiselle Henriette's cap. Three days later the Rector broke into +the cottage and discovered her seated, dead and stiff, her hands +stained with digging her sister's grave. + +"And the cottage had no new tenant. Only M. Benest continued to eye it +wistfully, as he cast his flies and pondered on his offence, which she +had died without forgiving. + +"But one July, two years after her death, a patch of gold appeared on +the marsh below the hedge--a patch of the monkey-flower. Some seeds +had been blown thither, or carried down by the stream. + +"Next July the patch had doubled its length. + +"'The flowers are travelling towards me,' said M. Benest. + +"And year by year the stream brought them nearer. That was a terrible +July for him when they came within two feet of the signpost; but he +would not stretch a hand beyond it. + +"'She coquets with her forgiveness, the poor Mademoiselle Henriette. +But I can wait: _'faut pas deshonorer la patrie a la fin!'_ + +"Before the next July he had made sure of one plant at least on his +side of the signpost; and fished beside it day after day, fearful lest +some animal should browse upon it. But when the happy morning came for +it to open, and M. Benest knelt beside his prize, he drew back a hand. + +"'Is it quite open?' he asked. 'Better wait, since all is safe, for the +sun to warm it a little longer.' + +"And he waited, until a trout, to remind him, perhaps, took a fly with +a splash beneath his nose. Then, with a start, M. Benest's fingers +closed and snapped off the yellow blossom. + +"'She has forgiven me,' said he. Now I can forgive myself.'" + +For a moment or two, though his story was ended, the General continued +to toy with the stem of his wine glass. One or two of the guests cried +"Bravo!" But Lady Bateson's eyes were wet, and Dorothea gazed hard for +a while into the polished surface of the mahogany before she recalled +herself, and, with a nod, swept the ladies away to the drawing-room. + +Later, in a pause between two songs, the General dropped into a seat +beside her. + +"Can you guess who sent me that story?" he asked. "It was M. Raoul; +and he travelled across from Plymouth in the ship with this M. Benest, +who happened to get his exchange at about the same time. It was clever +of him to worm out the story--if, indeed, he did not invent it. But +that young man has genius for pathos." + +"I did not know that you corresponded." + +"Indeed, nor did I. He chose to write. I may answer; and, again, I may +not. To tell you the truth, I have never been sure if we condemned him +quite justly." + +Dorothea found herself able to look straight into the kindly old eyes. + +"It was a beautiful story. Did you tell it for me?" + +"Yes, Mademoiselle, in thanks and in contrition. We are all prisoners +in this world; but while it is certain you have made fortitude easier +for us, I have suspected that there was a time when I, for one, might +have been bolder and repaid you, but stood aside. Also, I think you no +longer require help." + +"No longer, General. But what you say is true: we are all prisoners +here, or sentries at the best." And Dorothea, resting her fan on her +lap, let these lines fall from her, not consciously quoting, but +musing on each word as it fell: + + "Brutus and Cato might discharge their souls, + And give them furloughs for another world; + But we, like sentries, are obliged to stand + In starless nights, and wait the appointed hour." + +The General stared. + +"Ah, Mademoiselle, what poet taught you that?" + +"It was a kinswoman," she answered, and caught herself blushing. "I do +not know the author." + +* * * * * * * * * + +The secret of the Commissary's dinner-party came out early next morning, +when the call came for the prisoners to leave Axcester. And, whenever +Dorothea looked back on this epoch in her life, what she found most +wonderful was the suddenness of its end. As day broke in a drizzle, and +before she was well awake, a troop of dragoons, followed by a company +of the 52nd Regiment of foot, passed the Bayfield gates on the way to +Axcester. The troopers entered the town while the Ting-tang was +sounding, and before the roll could be called the prisoners were +surrounded. Their release had come; and though many had sighed for it +for years, it found them quite unprepared. + +Their release had come; but first they must be marched through the +length of the country to Kelso, there to await the formalities of +exchange. At four in the afternoon the infantry marched out with the +first great batch. Early next morning the rest--owners of furniture, +granted a few hours to arrange for its storage or sale--followed their +comrades. There was no cloud of dust upon the road for Dorothea to +watch. They departed in sheets of rain and under the dusk of dawn. She +never again saw General Rochambeau. + +It is recorded that in his fifty-seventh year Endymion Westcote married +(but the bride was not Lady Bateson), and that children were born to +him. Narcissus lived on at Bayfield and compiled at his leisure a +_History of Axcester_, which mentions the decoration of the Orange Room +by "a young Frenchman of talent, who has been good enough to assist +the author in a most important work." But Dorothea preferred her +independence and a cottage not far from the bridge, where Endymion's +children might romp as they listed, but never seemed to disturb its +exquisite order. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10548 *** |