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The Battle Of The Strong: A Romance of Two Kingdoms, a novel by Gilbert Parker |
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Chapter 12 |
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_ CHAPTER XII Philip d'Avranche sauntered slowly through the Vier Marchi, nodding right and left to people who greeted him. It was Saturday and market day in Jersey. The square was crowded with people. All was a cheerful babel; there was movement, colour everywhere. Here were the high and the humble, hardi vlon and hardi biaou--the ugly and the beautiful, the dwarfed and the tall, the dandy and the dowdy, the miser and the spendthrift; young ladies gay in silks, laces, and scarfs from Spain, and gentlemen with powdered wigs from Paris; sailors with red tunics from the Mediterranean, and fishermen with blue and purple blouses from Brazil; man-o'-war's-men with Greek petticoats, Turkish fezzes, and Portuguese espadras. Jersey housewives, in bedgones and white caps, with molleton dresses rolled up to the knees, pushed their way through the crowd, jars of black butter, or jugs of cinnamon brandy on their heads. From La Pyramide--the hospitable base of the statue of King George II--fishwives called the merits of their conger-eels and ormers; and the clatter of a thousand sabots made the Vier Marchi sound like a ship-builder's yard. In this square Philip had loitered and played as a child. Down there, leaning against a pillar of the Corn Market piazza was Elie Mattingley, the grizzly-haired seller of foreign silks and droll odds and ends, who had given him a silver flageolet when he was a little lad. There were the same swaggering manners, the big gold rings in his ears; there was the same red sash about the waist, the loose unbuttoned shirt, the truculent knifebelt; there were the same keen brown eyes looking you through and through, and the mouth with a middle tooth in both jaws gone. Elie Mattingley, pirate, smuggler, and sometime master of a privateer, had had dealings with people high and low in the island, and they had not always, nor often, been conducted in the open Vier Marchi. Fifteen years ago he used to have his little daughter Carterette always beside him when he sold his wares. Philip wondered what had become of her. He glanced round.... Ah, there she was, not far from her father, over in front of the guard-house, selling, at a little counter with a canopy of yellow silk (brought by her father from that distant land called Piracy), mogues of hot soupe a la graisse, simnels, curds, coffee, and Jersey wonders, which last she made on the spot by dipping the little rings of dough in a bashin of lard on a charcoal fire at her side. Carterette was short and spare, with soft yet snapping eyes as black as night--or her hair; with a warm, dusky skin, a tongue which clattered pleasantly, and very often wisely. She had a hand as small and plump as a baby's, and a pretty foot which, to the disgust of some mothers and maidens of greater degree, was encased in a red French slipper, instead of the wooden sabot stuffed with straw, while her ankles were nicely dressed in soft black stockings, in place of the woolen native hose, as became her station. Philip watched Carterette now for a moment, a dozen laughing memories coming back to him; for he had teased her and played with her when she was a child, had even called her his little sweetheart. Looking at her he wondered what her fate would be: To marry one of these fishermen or carters? No, she would look beyond that. Perhaps it would be one of those adventurers in bearskin cap and buckskin vest, home from Gaspe, where they had toiled in the great fisheries, some as common fishermen, some as mates and maybe one or two as masters. No, she would look beyond that. Perhaps she would be carried off by one of those well-to-do, black-bearded young farmers in the red knitted queminzolle, blue breeches, and black cocked hat, with his kegs of cider and bunches of parsley. That was more likely, for among the people there was every prejudice in her favour. She was Jersey born, her father was reputed to have laid by a goodly sum of money--not all got in this Vier Marchi; and that he was a smuggler and pirate roused a sentiment in their bosoms nearer to envy than aught else. Go away naked and come back clothed, empty and come back filled, simple and come back with a wink of knowledge, penniless and come back with the price of numerous vergees of land, and you might answer the island catechism without fear. Be lambs in Jersey, but harry the rest of the world with a lion's tooth, was the eleventh commandment in the Vier Marchi. Yes, thought Philip idly now, as he left the square, the girl would probably marry a rich farmer, and when he came again he should find her stout of body, and maybe shrewish of face, crying up the virtues of her black butter and her knitted stockings, having made the yellow silk canopy above her there into a gorgeous quilt for the nuptial bed. Yet the young farmers who hovered near her now, buying a glass of cider or a mogue of soup, received but scant notice. She laughed with them, treated them lightly, and went about her business again with a toss of the head. Not once did she show a moment's real interest, not until a fine upstanding fellow came round the corner from the Rue des Vignes, and passed her booth. She was dipping a doughnut into the boiling lard, but she paused with it suspended. The little dark face took on a warm glow, the eyes glistened. "Maitre Ranulph!" called the girl softly. Then as the tall fellow turned to her and lifted his cap she added briskly: "Where away so fast with face hard as hatchet?" "Garcon Cart'rette!" he said abstractedly--he had always called her that. He was about to move on. She frowned in vexation, yet she saw that he was pale and heavy-eyed, and she beckoned him to come to her. "What's gone wrong, big wood-worm?" she said, eyeing him closely, and striving anxiously to read his face. He looked at her sharply, but the softness in her black eyes somehow reassured him, and he said quite kindly: "Nannin, 'tite garcon, nothing's matter." "I thought you'd be blithe as a sparrow with your father back from the grave!" Then as Ranulph's face seemed to darken, she added: "He's not worse--he's not worse?" "No, no, he's well enough now," he said, forcing a smile. She was not satisfied, but she went on talking, intent to find the cause of his abstraction. "Only to think," she said--"only to think that he wasn't killed at all at the Battle of Jersey, and was a prisoner in France, and comes back here--and we all thought him dead, didn't we?" "I left him for dead that morning on the Grouville road," he answered. Then, as if with a great effort, and after the manner of one who has learned a part, he went on: "As the French ran away mad, paw of one on tail of other, they found him trying to drag himself along. They nabbed him, and carried him aboard their boats to pilot them out from the Rocque Platte, and over to France. Then because they hadn't gobbled us up here, what did the French Gover'ment do? They clapped a lot of 'em in irons and sent 'em away to South America, and my father with 'em. That's why we heard neither click nor clack of him all this time. He broke free a year ago. Then he fell sick. When he got well he set sail for Jersey, was wrecked off the Ecrehos, and everybody knows the rest. Diantre, he's had a hard time!" The girl had listened intently. She had heard all these things in flying rumours, and she had believed the rumours; but now that Maitre Ranulph told her--Ranulph, whose word she would have taken quicker than the oath of a Jurat--she doubted. With the doubt her face flushed as though she herself had been caught in a lie, had done a mean thing. Somehow her heart was aching for him, she knew not why. All this time she had held the doughnut poised; she seemed to have forgotten her work. Suddenly the wooden fork holding the cake was taken from her fingers by the daft Dormy Jamais who had crept near. "Des monz a fou," said he, "to spoil good eating so! What says fishing-man: When sails flap, owner may whistle for cargo. Tut, tut, goose Carterette!" Carterette took no note, but said to Ranulph: "Of course he had to pilot the Frenchmen back, or they'd have killed him, and it'd done no good to refuse. He was the first man that fought the French on the day of the battle, wasn't he? I've always heard that." Unconsciously she was building up a defence for Olivier Delagarde. She was, as it were, anticipating insinuation from other quarters. She was playing Ranulph's game, because she instinctively felt that behind this story there was gloom in his mind and mystery in the tale itself. She noticed too that he shrank from her words. She was not very quick of intellect, so she had to feel her way fumblingly. She must have time to think, but she said tentatively: "I suppose it's no secret? I can tell any one at all what happened to your father?" she asked. "Oh so--sure so!" he said rather eagerly. "Tell every one about it. He doesn't mind." Maitre Ranulph deceived but badly. Bold and convincing in all honest things, he was, as yet, unconvincing in this grave deception. All these years he had kept silence, enduring what he thought a buried shame; but that shame had risen from the dead, a living agony. His father had betrayed the island to the French: if the truth were known to-day they would hang him for a traitor on the Mont es Pendus. No mercy and scant shrift would be shown him. Whatever came, he must drink this bitter cup to the dregs. He could never betray his own father. He must consume with inward disgust while Olivier Delagarde shamelessly babbled his monstrous lies to all who would listen. And he must tell these lies too, conceal, deceive, and live in hourly fear of discovery. He must sit opposite his father day by day at table, talk with him, care for him, shrinking inwardly at every knock at the door lest it should be an officer come to carry the pitiful traitor off to prison. And, more than all, he must give up for ever the thought of Guida. Here was the acid that ate home, the black hopelessness, the machine of fate clamping his heart. Never again could he rise in the morning with a song on his lips; never again his happy meditations go lilting with the clanging blows of the adze and the singing of the saws. All these things had vanished when he looked into a tent-door on the Ecrehos. Now, in spite of himself, whenever he thought upon Guida's face, this other fateful figure, this Medusan head of a traitor, shot in between. Since his return his father had not been strong enough to go abroad; but to-day he meant to walk to the Vier Marchi. At first Ranulph had decided to go as usual to his ship-yard at St. Aubin's, but at last in anxious fear he too had come to the Vier Marchi. There was a horrible fascination in being where his father was, in listening to his falsehoods, in watching the turns and twists of his gross hypocrisies. But yet at times he was moved by a strange pity, for Olivier Delagarde was, in truth, far older than his years: a thin, shuffling, pallid invalid, with a face of mingled sanctity and viciousness. If the old man lied, and had not been in prison all these years, he must have had misery far worse, for neither vice nor poverty alone could so shatter a human being. The son's pity seemed to look down from a great height upon the contemptible figure with the beautiful white hair and the abominable mouth. This compassion kept him from becoming hard, but it would also preserve him to hourly sacrifice--Prometheus chained to his rock. In the short fortnight that had gone since the day upon the Ecrehos, he had changed as much as do most people in ten years. Since then he had seen neither Philip nor Guida. To Carterette he seemed not the man she had known. With her woman's instinct she knew that he loved Guida, but she also knew that nothing which might have happened between them could have brought this look of shame and shrinking into his face. As these thoughts flashed through her mind her heart grew warmer. Suppose Ranulph was in some trouble--well, now might be her great chance. She might show him that he could not live without her friendship, and then perhaps, by-and-bye, that he could not live without her love. Ranulph was about to move on. She stopped him. "When you need me, Maitre Ranulph, you know where to find me," she said scarce above a whisper. He looked at her sharply, almost fiercely, but again the tenderness of her eyes, the directness of her gaze, convinced him. She might be, as she was, variable with other people; with himself she was invincibly straightforward. "P'raps you don't trust me?" she added, for she read his changing expression. "I'd trust you quick enough," he said. "Then do it now--you're having some bad trouble," she rejoined. He leaned over her stall and said to her steadily and with a little moroseness: "See you, ma garche, if I was in trouble I'd bear it by myself. I'd ask no one to help me. I'm a man, and I can stand alone. Don't go telling folks I look as if I was in trouble. I'm going to launch to-morrow the biggest ship ever sent from a Jersey building yard--that doesn't look like trouble, does it? Turn about is fair play, garcon Cart'rette: so when you're in trouble come to me. You're not a man, and it's a man's place to help a woman, all the more when she's a fine and good little stand-by like you." He forced a smile, turned upon his heel, and threaded his way through the square, keeping a look-out for his father. This he could do easily, for he was the tallest man in the Vier Marchi by at least three inches. Carterette, oblivious of all else, stood gazing after him. She was only recalled to herself by Dormy Jamais. He was diligently cooking her Jersey wonders, now and then turning his eyes up at her--eyes which were like spots of greyish, yellowish light in a face of putty and flour; without eyelashes, without eyebrows, a little like a fish's, something like a monkey's. They were never still. They were set in the face like little round glow worms in a mould of clay. They burned on night and day--no man had ever seen Dormy Jamais asleep. Carterette did not resent his officiousness. He had a kind of kennel in her father's boat-house, and he was devoted to her. More than all else, Dormy Jamaas was clean. His clothes were mostly rags, but they were comely, compact rags. When he washed them no one seemed to know, but no languid young gentleman lounging where the sun was warmest in the Vier Marchi was better laundered. As Carterette turned round to him he was twirling a cake on the wooden fork, and trolling:
The daft one held up his fingers, but to do so had to thrust a cake into his mouth. "They're as clean as a ha'pendy," he said, mumbling through the cake. Then he emptied his mouth of it, and was about to place it with the others. "Black beganne," she cried; "how dare you! V'la--into your pocket with it!" He did as he was bid, humming to himself again:
"That poor Maitre Ranulph," said Dormy, "once he was lively as a basket of mice; but now--" "Well, now, achocre?" she said irritably, stamping her foot. "Now the cat's out of the bag--oui-gia!" "You're as cunning as a Norman--you've got things in your noddee!" she cried with angry impatience. He nodded, grinning. "As thick as haws," he answered. She heard behind her a laugh of foolish good-nature, which made her angry too, for it seemed to be making fun of her. She wheeled to see M. Savary dit Detricand leaning with both elbows on the little counter, his chin in his hand, grinning provokingly, "Oh, it's you!" she said snappishly; "I hope you're pleased." "Don't be cross," he answered, his head swinging unsteadily. "I wasn't laughing at you, heaven-born Jersienne. I wasn't, 'pon honour! I was laughing at a thing I saw five minutes ago." He nodded in gurgling enjoyment now. "You mustn't mind me, seraphine," he added, "I'd a hot night, and I'm warm as a thrush now. But I saw a thing five minutes ago!"--he rolled on the stall. "'Sh!" he added in a loud mock whisper, "here he comes now. Milles diables, but here's a tongue for you, and here's a royal gentleman speaking truth like a travelling dentist!" Carterette followed his gesture and saw coming out of the Route es Couochons, where the brave Peirson issued to his death eleven years before, Maitre Ranulph's father. He walked with the air of a man courting observation. He imagined himself a hero; he had told his lie so many times now that he almost believed it himself. He was soon surrounded. Disliked when he lived in Jersey before the invasion years ago, that seemed forgotten now; for word had gone abroad that he was a patriot raised from the dead, an honour to his country. Many pressed forward to shake hands with him. "Help of heaven, is that you, m'sieu'?" asked one. "You owed me five chelins, but I wiped it out, O my good!" cried another generously. "Shaken," cried a tall tarter holding out his hand. He had lived in England, and now easily made English verbs into French. One after another called on him to tell his story; some tried to hurry him to La Pyramide, but others placed a cider-keg near, and almost lifted him on to it. "Go on, go on, tell us the story," they cried. "To the devil with the Frenchies!" "Here--here's a dish of Adam's ale," cried an old woman, handing him a bowl of water. They cheered him lustily. The pallor of his face changed to a warmth. He had the fatuousness of those who deceive with impunity. With confidence he unreeled the dark line out to the end. When he had told his story, still hungry for applause, he repeated the account of how the tatterdemalion brigade of Frenchmen came down upon him out of the night, and how he should have killed Rullecour himself had it not been for an officer who struck him down from behind. During the recital Ranulph had drawn near. He watched the enthusiasm with which the crowd received every little detail of the egregious history. Everybody believed the old man, who was safe, no matter what happened to himself, Ranulph Delagarde, ex-artilleryman, ship-builder--and son of a criminal. At any rate the worst was over now, the first public statement of the lifelong lie. He drew a sigh of relief and misery in one. At that instant he caught sight of the flushed face of Detricand, who broke into a laugh of tipsy mirth when Olivier Delagarde told how the French officer had stricken him down as he was about finishing off Rullecour. All at once the whole thing rushed upon Ranulph. What a fool he had been! He had met this officer of Rullecour's these ten years past, and never once had the Frenchman, by so much as a hint, suggested that he knew the truth about his father. Here and now the contemptuous mirth upon the Frenchman's face told the whole story. The danger and horror of the situation descended on him. Instantly he started towards Detricand. At that moment his father caught sight of Detricand also, saw the laugh, the sneer, and recognised him. Halting short in his speech he turned pale and trembled, staring as at a ghost. He had never counted on this. His breath almost stopped as he saw Ranulph approach Detricand. Now the end was come. His fabric of lies would be torn down; he would be tried and hanged on the Mont es Pendus, or even be torn to pieces by this crowd. Yet he could not have moved a foot from where he was if he had been given a million pounds. The sight of Ranulph's face revealed to Detricand the true meaning of this farce and how easily it might become a tragedy. He read the story of the son's torture, of his sacrifice; and his decision was instantly made: he would befriend him. Looking straight into his eyes, his own said he had resolved to know nothing whatever about this criminal on the cider-cask. The two men telegraphed to each other a perfect understanding, and then Detricand turned on his heel, and walked away into the crowd. The sudden change in the old man's appearance had not been lost on the spectators, but they set it down to weakness or a sudden sickness. One ran for a glass of brandy, another for cider, and an old woman handed up to him a mogue of cinnamon drops. The old man tremblingly drank the brandy. When he looked again Detricand had disappeared. A dark, sinister expression crossed his face, an evil thought pulled down the corners of his mouth as he stepped from the cask. His son went to him and taking his arm, said: "Come, you've done enough for to-day." The old man made no reply, but submissively walked away into the Coin & Anes. Once however he turned and looked the way Detricand had gone, muttering. The peasants cheered him as he passed. Presently, free of the crowd and entering the Rue d'Egypte, he said to Ranulph: "I'm going alone; I don't need you." "Where are you going?" asked Ranulph. "Home," answered the old man gloomily. Ranulph stopped. "All right; better not come out again to-day." "You're not going to let that Frenchman hurt me?" suddenly asked Delagarde with morose anxiety. "You're going to stop that? They'd put me in prison." Ranulph stooped over his father, his eyes alive with anger, his face blurred with disgust. "Go home," said he, "and never mention this again while you live, or I'll take you to prison myself." Ranulph watched his father disappear down the Rue d'Egypte, then he retraced his steps to the Vier Marchi. With a new-formed determination he quickened his walk, ruling his face to a sort of forced gaiety, lest any one should think his moodiness strange. One person after another accosted him. He listened eagerly, to see if anything were said which might show suspicion of his father. But the gossip was all in old Delagarde's favour. From group to group he went, answering greetings cheerily and steeling himself to the whole disgusting business. Presently he saw the Chevalier du Champsavoys with the Sieur de Mauprat. This was the first public appearance of the chevalier since the sad business at the Vier Prison a fortnight before. The simple folk had forgotten their insane treatment of him then, and they saluted him now with a chirping: "Es-tu biaou, chevalier?" and "Es-tu gentiment, m'sieu'?" to which he responded with amiable forgiveness. To his idea they were only naughty children, their minds reasoning no more clearly than they saw the streets through the tiny little squares of bottle-glass in the windows of their homes. All at once they came face to face with Detricand. The chevalier stopped short with pleased yet wistful surprise. His brow knitted when he saw that his compatriot had been drinking again, and his eyes had a pained look as he said eagerly: "Have you heard from the Comte de Tournay, monsieur? I have not seen you these days past. You said you would not disappoint me." Detricand drew from his pocket a letter and handed it over, saying: "This comes from the comte." The old gentleman took the letter, nervously opened it, and read it slowly, saying each sentence over twice as though to get the full meaning. "Ah," he exclaimed, "he is going back to France to fight for the King!" Then he looked at Detricand sadly, benevolently. "Mon cher," said he, "if I could but persuade you to abjure the wine-cup and follow his example!" Detricand drew himself up with a jerk. "You can persuade me, chevalier," said he. "This is my last bout. I had sworn to have it with--with a soldier I knew, and I've kept my word. But it's the last, the very last in my life, on the honour of--the Detricands. And I am going with the Comte de Tournay to fight for the King." The little chevalier's lips trembled, and taking the young man by the collar of his coat, he stood tiptoed, and kissed him on both cheeks. "Will you accept something from me?" asked M. de Mauprat, joining in his friend's enthusiasm. He took from his pocket a timepiece he had worn for fifty years. "It is a little gift to my France, which I shall see no more," he added. "May no time be ill spent that it records for you, monsieur." Detricand laughed in his careless way, but the face, seamed with dissipation, took on a new and better look, as with a hand-grasp of gratitude he put the timepiece in his pocket. "I'll do my best," he said simply. "I'll be with de la Rochejaquelein and the army of the Vendee to-morrow night." Then he shook hands with both little gentlemen and moved away towards the Rue des Tres Pigeons. Presently some one touched his arm. He looked round. It was Ranulph. "I stood near," said Ranulph; "I chanced to hear what you said to them. You've been a friend to me today--and these eleven years past. You knew about my father, all the time." Before replying Detricand glanced round to see that no one was listening. "Look you, monsieur, a man must keep some decencies in his life, or cut his own throat. What a ruffian I'd be to do you or your father harm! I'm silent, of course. Let your mind rest about me. But there's the baker Carcaud--" "The baker?" asked Ranulph dumfounded. "I thought he was tied to a rock and left to drown, by Rullecour's orders." "I had him set free after Rullecour had gone on to the town. He got away to France." Ranulph's anxiety deepened. "He might come back, and then if anything happened to him--" "He'd try and make things happen to others, eh? But there's little danger of his coming back. They know he's a traitor, and he knows he'd be hung. If he's alive he'll stay where he is. Cheer up! Take my word, Olivier Delagarde has only himself to fear." He put out his hand. "Good-bye. If ever I can do anything for you, if you ever want to find me, come or send to--no, I'll write it," he suddenly added, and scribbling something on a piece of paper he handed it over. They parted with another handshake, Detricand making his way into the Rue d'Egypte, and towards the Place du Vier Prison. Ranulph stood looking dazedly at the crowd before him, misery, revolt, and bitterness in his heart. This French adventurer, Detricand, after years of riotous living, could pick up the threads of life again with a laugh and no shame, while he felt himself going down, down, down, with no hope of ever rising again. As he stood buried in his reflections the town crier entered the Vier Marchi, and, going to La Pyramide, took his place upon the steps, and in a loud voice began reading a proclamation. It was to the effect that the great Fishing Company trading to Gaspe needed twenty Jersiais to go out and replace a number of the company's officers and men who had been drowned in a gale off the rock called Perch. To these twenty, if they went at once, good pay would be given. But they must be men of intelligence and vigour, of well-known character. The critical moment in Maitre Ranulph's life came now. Here he was penned up in a little island, chained to a criminal having the fame of a martyr. It was not to be borne. Why not leave it all behind? Why not let his father shift for himself, abide his own fate? Why not leave him the home, what money he had laid by, and go-go-go where he could forget, go where he could breathe. Surely self-preservation, that was the first law; surely no known code of human practice called upon him to share the daily crimes of any living soul--it was a daily repetition of his crime for this traitor to carry on the atrocious lie of patriotism. He would go. It was his right. Taking a few steps towards the officer of the company standing by the crier, he was about to speak. Some one touched him. He turned and saw Carterette. She had divined his intention, and though she was in the dark as to the motive, she saw that he meant to go to Gaspe. Her heart seemed to contract till the pain of it hurt her; then, as a new thought flashed into her mind, it was freed again and began pounding hard against her breast. She must prevent him from leaving Jersey, from leaving her. What she might feel personally would have no effect upon him; she would appeal to him from a different stand-point. "You must not go," she said. "You must not leave your father alone, Maitre Ranulph." For a minute he did not reply. Through his dark wretchedness one thought pierced its way: this girl was his good friend. "Then I'll take him with me," he said. "He would die in the awful cold," she answered. "Nannin-gia, you must stay." "Eh ben, I will think!" he said presently, with an air of heavy resignation, and, turning, walked away. Her eyes followed him. As she went back to her booth she smiled: he had come one step her way. He would not go. _ |
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