The Battle Of The Strong [A Romance of Two Kingdoms], Volume 4.

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THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG

[A ROMANCE OF TWO KINGDOMS]

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 4.

CHAPTER XXIII

With what seemed an unnecessary boldness Detricand slept that night at
the inn, "The Golden Crown," in the town of Bercy: a Royalist of the
Vendee exposing himself to deadly peril in a town sworn to alliance with
the Revolutionary Government. He knew that the town, even the inn, might
be full of spies; but one other thing he also knew: the innkeeper of "The
Golden Crown" would not betray him, unless he had greatly changed since
fifteen years ago. Then they had been friends, for his uncle of
Vaufontaine had had a small estate in Bercy itself, in ironical
proximity to the castle.

He walked boldly into the inn parlour. There were but four men in the
room--the landlord, two stout burghers, and Frange Pergot, the porter of
the castle, who had lost no time carrying his news: not to betray his old
comrade in escapade, but to tell a chosen few, Royalists under the rose,
that he had seen one of those servants of God, an officer of the Vendee.

At sight of the white badge with the red cross on Detricand's coat, the
four stood up and answered his greeting with devout respect; and he had
speedy assurance that in this inn he was safe from betrayal. Presently
he learned that three days hence a meeting of the States of Bercy was to
be held for setting the seal upon the Duke's formal adoption of Philip,
and to execute a deed of succession. It was deemed certain that, ere
this, the officer sent to England would have returned with Philip's
freedom and King George's licence to accept the succession in the duchy.
From interest in these matters alone Detricand would not have remained at
Bercy, but he thought to use the time for secretly meeting officers of
the duchy likely to favour the cause of the Royalists.

During these three days of waiting he heard with grave concern a
rumour that the great meeting of the States would be marked by Philip's
betrothal with the Comtesse Chantavoine. He cared naught for the
succession, but there was ever with him the remembrance of Guida
Landresse de Landresse, and what touched Philip d'Avranche he had come
to associate with her. Of the true relations between Guida and Philip
he knew nothing, but from that last day in Jersey he did know that Philip
had roused in her emotions, perhaps less vital than love but certainly
less equable than friendship.

Now in his fear that Guida might suffer, the more he thought of the
Comtesse Chantavoine as the chosen wife of Philip the more it troubled
him. He could not shake off oppressive thoughts concerning Guida and
this betrothal. They interwove themselves through all his secret
business with the Royalists of Bercy. For his own part, he would
have gone far and done much to shield her from injury. He had seen and
known in her something higher than Philip might understand--a simple
womanliness, a profound depth of character. His pledge to her had been
the key-note of his new life. Some day, if he lived and his cause
prospered, he would go back to Jersey--too late perhaps to tell her what
was in his heart, but not too late to tell her the promise had been kept.

It was a relief when the morning of the third day came, bright and
joyous, and he knew that before the sun went down he should be on his way
back to Saumur.

His friend the innkeeper urged him not to attend the meeting of the
States of Bercy, lest he should be recognised by spies of government.
He was, however, firm in his will to go, but he exchanged his coat with
the red cross for one less conspicuous.

With this eventful morn came the news that the envoy to England had
returned with Philip's freedom by exchange of prisoners, and with the
needful licence from King George. But other news too was carrying
through the town: the French Government, having learned of the Duke's
intentions towards Philip, had despatched envoys from Paris to forbid the
adoption and deed of succession.

Though the Duke would have defied them, it behoved him to end the matter,
if possible, before these envoys' arrival. The States therefore was
hurriedly convened two hours before the time appointed, and the race
began between the Duke and the emissaries of the French Government.

It was a perfect day, and as the brilliant procession wound down the
great rock from the castle, in ever-increasing, glittering line, the
effect was mediaeval in its glowing splendour. All had been ready for
two days, and the general enthusiasm had seized upon the occasion with an
adventurous picturesqueness, in keeping with this strange elevation of a
simple British captain to royal estate. This buoyant, clear-faced,
stalwart figure had sprung suddenly out of the dark into the garish light
of sovereign place, and the imagination of the people had been touched.
He was so genial too, so easy-mannered, this d'Avranche of Jersey, whose
genealogy had been posted on a hundred walls and carried by a thousand
mouths through the principality. As Philip rode past on the left of the
exulting Duke, the crowds cheered him wildly. Only on the faces of Comte
Carignan Damour and his friends was discontent, and they must perforce be
still. Philip himself was outwardly calm, with that desperate quiet
which belongs to the most perilous, most adventurous achieving. Words he
had used many years ago in Jersey kept ringing in his ears--"'Good-bye,
Sir Philip'--I'll be more than that some day."

The Assembly being opened, in a breathless silence the Governor-General
of the duchy read aloud the licence of the King of England for Philip
d'Avranche, an officer in his navy, to assume the honours to be conferred
upon him by the Duke and the States of Bercy. Then, by command of the
Duke, the President of the States read aloud the new order of succession:

"1. To the Hereditary Prince Leopold John and his heirs male; in default
of which to

"2. The Prince successor, Philip d'Avranche and his heirs male; in
default of which to

"3. The heir male of the House of Vaufontaine." Afterwards came reading
of the deed of gift by which the Duke made over to Prince Philip certain
possessions in the province of d'Avranche. To all this the assent of
Prince Leopold John had been formally secured. After the Assembly and
the chief officers of the duchy should have ratified these documents and
the Duke signed them, they were to be enclosed in a box with three locks
and deposited with the Sovereign Court at Bercy. Duplicates were also to
be sent to London and registered in the records of the College of Arms.
Amid great enthusiasm, the States, by unanimous vote, at once ratified
the documents. The one notable dissentient was the Intendant, Count
Carignan Damour, the devout ally of the French Government. It was he who
had sent Fouche word concerning Philip's adoption; it was also he who had
at last, through his spies, discovered Detricand's presence in the town,
and had taken action thereupon. In the States, however, he had no vote,
and wisdom kept him silent, though he was watchful for any chance to
delay events against the arrival of the French envoys.

They should soon be here, and, during the proceedings in the States, he
watched the doors anxiously. Every minute that passed made him more
restless, less hopeful. He had a double motive in preventing this new
succession. With Philip as adopted son and heir there would be fewer
spoils of office; with Philip as duke there would be none at all, for the
instinct of distrust and antipathy was mutual. Besides, as a Republican,
he looked for his reward from Fouche in good time.

Presently it was announced by the President that the signatures to the
acts of the States would be set in private. Thereupon, with all the
concourse standing, the Duke, surrounded by the law, military, and civil
officers of the duchy, girded upon Philip the jewelled sword which had
been handed down in the House of d'Avranche from generation to
generation. The open function being thus ended, the people were enjoined
to proceed at once to the cathedral, where a Te Deum would be sung.

The public then retired, leaving the Duke and a few of the highest
officials of the duchy to formally sign and seal the deeds. When the
outer doors were closed, one unofficial person remained--Comte Detricand
de Tournay, of the House of Vaufontaine. Leaning against a pillar, he
stood looking calmly at the group surrounding the Duke at the great
council-table.

Suddenly the Duke turned to a door at the right of the President's chair,
and, opening it, bowed courteously to some one beyond. An instant
afterwards there entered the Comtesse Chantavoine, with her uncle the
Marquis Grandjon-Larisse, an aged and feeble but distinguished figure.
They advanced towards the table, the lady on the Duke's arm, and Philip,
saluting them gravely, offered the Marquis a chair. At first the Marquis
declined it, but the Duke pressed him, and in the subsequent proceedings
he of all the number was seated.

Detricand apprehended the meaning of the scene. This was the lady whom
the Duke had chosen as wife for the new Prince. The Duke had invited the
Comtesse to witness the final act which was to make Philip d'Avranche his
heir in legal fact as by verbal proclamation; not doubting that the
romantic nature of the incident would impress her. He had even hoped
that the function might be followed by a formal betrothal in the presence
of the officials; and the situation might still have been critical for
Philip had it not been for the pronounced reserve of the Comtesse
herself.

Tall, of gracious and stately carriage, the curious quietness of the face
of the Comtesse would have been almost an unbecoming gravity were it not
that the eyes, clear, dark, and strong, lightened it. The mouth had a
somewhat set sweetness, even as the face was somewhat fixed in its calm.
In her bearing, in all her motions, there was a regal quality; yet, too,
something of isolation, of withdrawal, in her self-possession and
unruffled observation. She seemed, to Detricand, a figure apart, a woman
whose friendship would be everlasting, but whose love would be more an
affectionate habit than a passion; and in whom devotion would be strong
because devotion was the key-note of her nature. The dress of a nun
would have turned her into a saint; of a peasant would have made her a
Madonna; of a Quaker, would have made her a dreamer and a devote; of a
queen, would have made her benign yet unapproachable. It struck him all
at once as he looked, that this woman had one quality in absolute kinship
with Guida Landresse--honesty of mind and nature; only with this young
aristocrat the honesty would be without passion. She had straight-
forwardness, a firm if limited intellect, a clear-mindedness belonging
somewhat to narrowness of outlook, but a genuine capacity for
understanding the right and the wrong of things. Guida, so Detricand
thought, might break her heart and live on; this woman would break her
heart and die: the one would grow larger through suffering, the other
shrink to a numb coldness.

So he entertained himself by these flashes of discernment, presently
merged in wonderment as to what was in Philip's mind as he stood there,
destiny hanging in that drop of ink at the point of the pen in the Duke's
fingers!

Philip was thinking of the destiny, but more than all else just now he
was thinking of the woman before him and the issue to be faced by him
regarding her. His thoughts were not so clear nor so discerning as
Detricand's. No more than he understood Guida did he understand
this clear-eyed, still, self-possessed woman. He thought her cold,
unsympathetic, barren of that glow which should set the pulses of a man
like himself bounding. It never occurred to him that these still waters
ran deep, that to awaken this seemingly glacial nature, to kindle a fire
on this altar, would be to secure unto his life's end a steady, enduring
flame of devotion. He revolted from her; not alone because he had a
wife, but because the Comtesse chilled him, because with her, in any
case, he should never be able to play the passionate lover as he had done
with Guida; and with Philip not to be the passionate lover was to be no
lover at all. One thing only appealed to him: she was the Comtesse
Chantavoine, a fitting consort in the eyes of the world for a sovereign
duke. He was more than a little carried off his feet by the marvel of
the situation. He could think of nothing quite clearly; everything was
confused and shifting in his mind.

The first words of the Duke were merely an informal greeting to his
council and the high officers present. He was about to speak further
when some one drew his attention to Detricand's presence. An order was
given to challenge the stranger, but Detricand, without waiting for the
approach of the officer, advanced towards the table, and, addressing the
Duke, said:

"The Duc de Bercy will not forbid the presence of his cousin, Detricand
de Tournay, at this impressive ceremony?"

The Duke, dumfounded, though he preserved an outward calm, could not
answer for an instant. Then with a triumphant, vindictive smile which
puckered his yellow cheeks like a wild apple, he said:

"The Comte de Tournay is welcome to behold an end of the ambitions of
the Vaufontaines." He looked towards Philip with an exulting pride.
"Monsieur le Comte is quite right," he added, turning to his council--
"he may always claim the privileges of a relative of the Bercys; but the
hospitality goes not beyond my house and my presence, and monsieur le
comte will understand my meaning."

At that moment Detricand caught the eye of Damour the Intendant, and he
understood perfectly. This man, the innkeeper had told him, was known to
be a Revolutionary, and he felt he was in imminent danger.

He came nearer, however, bowing to all present, and, making no reply to
the Duke save a simple, "I thank your Highness," took a place near the
council-table.

The short ceremony of signing the deeds immediately followed. A few
formal questions were asked of Philip, to which he briefly replied, and
afterwards he made the oath of allegiance to the Duke, with his hand upon
the ancient sword of the d'Avranches. These preliminaries ended, the
Duke was just stooping to put his pen to the paper for signature, when
the Intendant, as much to annoy Philip as still to stay the proceedings
against the coming of Fouche's men, said:

"It would appear that one question has been omitted in the formalities of
this Court." He paused dramatically. He was only aiming a random shot;
he would make the most of it.

The Duke looked up perturbed, and said sharply: "What is that--what is
that, monsieur?"

"A form, monsieur le duc, a mere form. Monsieur"--he bowed towards
Philip politely--"monsieur is not already married? There is no--" He
paused again.

For an instant there was absolute stillness. Philip had felt his heart
give one great thump of terror: Did the Intendant know anything? Did
Detricand know anything.

Standing rigid for a moment, his pen poised, the Duke looked sharply at
the Intendant and then still more sharply at Philip. The progress of
that look had granted Philip an instant's time to recover his composure.
He was conscious that the Comtesse Chantavoine had given a little start,
and then had become quite still and calm. Now her eyes were intently
fixed upon him.

He had, however, been too often in physical danger to lose his nerve at
this moment. The instant was big with peril; it was the turning point of
his life, and he felt it. His eyes dropped towards the spot of ink at
the point of the pen the Duke held. It fascinated him, it was destiny.

He took a step nearer to the table, and, drawing himself up, looked his
princely interlocutor steadily in the eyes.

"Of course there is no marriage--no woman?" asked the Duke a little
hoarsely, his eyes fastened on Philip's. With steady voice Philip
replied: "Of course, monsieur le duc."

There was another stillness. Some one sighed heavily. It was the
Comtesse Chantavoine.

The next instant the Duke stooped, and wrote his signature three times
hurriedly upon the deeds.

A moment afterwards, Detricand was in the street, making towards "The
Golden Crown." As he hurried on he heard the galloping of horses ahead
of him. Suddenly some one plucked him by the arm from a doorway.

"Quick--within!" said a voice. It was that of the Duke's porter, Frange
Pergot. Without hesitation or a word, Detricand did as he was bid, and
the door clanged to behind him.

"Fouche's men are coming down the street; spies have betrayed you,"
whispered Pergot. "Follow me. I will hide you till night, and then you
must away."

Pergot had spoken the truth. But Detricand was safely hidden, and
Fouche's men came too late to capture the Vendean chief or to forbid
those formal acts which made Philip d'Avranche a prince.

Once again at Saumur, a week later, Detricand wrote a long letter to
Carterette Mattingley, in Jersey, in which he set forth these strange
events at Bercy, and asked certain questions concerning Guida.

CHAPTER XXIV

Since the day of his secret marriage with Guida, Philip had been carried
along in the gale of naval preparation and incidents of war as a leaf is
borne onward by a storm--no looking back, to-morrow always the goal. But
as a wounded traveller nursing carefully his hurt seeks shelter from the
scorching sun and the dank air, and travels by little stages lest he
never come at all to friendly hostel, so Guida made her way slowly
through the months of winter and of spring.

In the past, it had been February to Guida because the yellow Lenten
lilies grew on all the sheltered cotils; March because the periwinkle and
the lords-and-ladies came; May when the cliffs were a blaze of golden
gorse and the perfume thereof made all the land sweet as a honeycomb.

Then came the other months, with hawthorn trees and hedges all in blow;
the honeysuckle gladdening the doorways, the lilac in bloomy thickets;
the ox-eyed daisy of Whitsuntide; the yellow rose of St. Brelade that
lies down in the sand and stands up in the hedges; the "mergots" which,
like good soldiers, are first in the field and last out of it; the
unscented dog-violets, orchises and celandines; the osier beds, the ivy
on every barn; the purple thrift in masses on the cliff; the sea-thistle
in its glaucous green--"the laughter of the fields whose laugh was gold."
And all was summer.

Came a time thereafter, when the children of the poor gathered
blackberries for preserves and home made wine; when the wild stock
flowered in St. Ouen's Bay; when the bracken fern was gathered from every
cotil, and dried for apple-storing, for bedding for the cherished cow,
for back-rests for the veilles, and seats round the winter fire; when
peaches, apricots, and nectarines made the walls sumptuous red and gold;
when the wild plum and crab-apple flourished in secluded roadways, and
the tamarisk dropped its brown pods upon the earth. And all this was
autumn.

At last, when the birds of passage swept aloft, snipe and teal and
barnacle geese, and the rains began; when the green lizard with its
turquoise-blue throat vanished; when the Jersey crapaud was heard
croaking no longer in the valleys and the ponds; and the cows were well
blanketed--then winter had come again.

Such was the association of seasons in Guida's mind until one day of a
certain year, when for a few hours a man had called her his wife, and
then had sailed away. There was no log that might thereafter record the
days and weeks unwinding the coils of an endless chain into that sea
whither Philip had gone.

Letters she had had, two letters, one in January, one in March. How many
times, when a Channel-packet came in, did she go to the doorway and watch
for old Mere Rossignol, making the rounds with her han basket, chanting
the names of those for whom she had letters; and how many times did she
go back to the kitchen, choking down a sob!

The first letter from Philip was at once a blessing and a blow; it was a
reassurance and it was a misery. It spoke of bread, as it were, yet
offered a stone. It eloquently, passionately told of his love; but it
also told, with a torturing ease, that the Araminta was commissioned with
sealed orders, and he did not know when he should see her nor when he
should be able to write again. War had been declared against France,
and they might not touch a port nor have chance to send a letter by a
homeward vessel for weeks, and maybe months. This was painful, of
course, but it was fate, it was his profession, and it could not be
helped. Of course--she must understand--he would write constantly,
telling her, as through a kind of diary, what he was doing every day,
and then when the chance came the big budget should go to her.

A pain came to Guida's heart as she read the flowing tale of his buoyant
love. Had she been the man and he the woman, she could never have
written so smoothly of "fate," and "profession," nor told of this
separation with so complaisant a sorrow. With her the words would have
been wrenched forth from her heart, scarred into the paper with the
bitterness of a spirit tried beyond enduring.

With what enthusiasm did Philip, immediately after his heart-breaking
news, write of what the war might do for him; what avenues of advancement
it might open up, what splendid chances it would offer for success in his
career! Did he mean that to comfort her, she asked herself. Did he mean
it to divert her from the pain of the separation, to give her something
to hope for? She read the letter over and over again--yet no, she could
not, though her heart was so willing, find that meaning in it. It was
all Philip, Philip full of hope, purpose, prowess, ambition. Did he
think--did he think that that could ease the pain, could lighten the dark
day settling down on her? Could he imagine that anything might
compensate for his absence in the coming months, in this year of all
years in her life? His lengthened absence might be inevitable, it might
be fate, but could he not see the bitter cruelty of it? He had said that
he would be back with her again in two months; and now--ah, did he not
know!

As the weeks came and went again she felt that indeed he did not know--
or care, maybe.

Some natures cling to beliefs long after conviction has been shattered.
These are they of the limited imagination, the loyal, the pertinacious,
and the affectionate, the single-hearted children of habit; blind where
they do not wish to see, stubborn where their inclinations lie,
unamenable to reason, wholly held by legitimate obligations.

But Guida was not of these. Her brain and imagination were as strong as
her affections. Her incurable honesty was the deepest thing in her; she
did not know even how to deceive herself. As her experience deepened
under the influence of a sorrow which still was joy, and a joy that still
was sorrow, her vision became acute and piercing. Her mind was like some
kaleidoscope. Pictures of things, little and big, which had happened to
her in her life, flashed by her inner vision in furious procession. It
was as if, in the photographic machinery of the brain, some shutter had
slipped from its place, and a hundred orderless and ungoverned pictures,
loosed from natural restraint, rushed by.

Five months had gone since Philip had left her: two months since
she had received his second letter, months of complexity of feeling;
of tremulousness of discovery; of hungry eagerness for news of the war;
of sudden little outbursts of temper in her household life--a new thing
in her experience; of passionate touches of tenderness towards her
grandfather; of occasional biting comments in the conversations between
the Sieur and the Chevalier, causing both gentlemen to look at each other
in silent amaze; of as marked lapses into listless disregard of any talk
going on around her.

She had been used often to sit still, doing nothing, in a sort of
physical content, as the Sieur and his visitors talked; now her hands
were always busy, knitting, sewing, or spinning, the steady gaze upon the
work showing that her thoughts were far away. Though the Chevalier and
her grandfather vaguely noted these changes, they as vaguely set them
down to her growing womanhood. In any case, they held it was not for
them to comment upon a woman or upon a woman's ways. And a girl like
Guida was an incomprehensible being, with an orbit and a system all her
own; whose sayings and doings were as little to be reduced to their
understandings as the vagaries of any star in the Milky Way or the
currents in St. Michael's Basin.

One evening she sat before the fire thinking of Philip. Her grandfather
had retired earlier than usual. Biribi lay asleep on the veille. There
was no sound save the ticking of the clock on the mantel above her head,
the dog's slow breathing, the snapping of the log on the fire, and a soft
rush of heat up the chimney. The words of Philip's letters, from which
she had extracted every atom of tenderness they held, were always in her
ears. At last one phrase kept repeating itself to her like some
plaintive refrain, torturing in its mournful suggestion. It was this:
"But you see, beloved, though I am absent from you I shall have such
splendid chances to get on. There's no limit to what this war may do for
me."

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