(1) About midnight on the 14th of February—her name-day, which the ladies of La Vergne had celebrated, though with heavy hearts, by a little feast—Mme de Trélan was awakened by a commotion in the hall below. Many people seemed to be there, and she heard the jingle of accoutrements. For a moment she thought the invaders might be Republicans; then, with a leap of the heart, that it might conceivably be . . . someone else. She opened her door and listened, and, since sounds floated very clearly up the great staircase, she did catch the sound she craved for. She flung on a cloak and went out into the gallery.
Down in the hall, in the midst of his remaining staff, her husband was apologising with great courtesy for taking possession of Mme de la Vergne’s house without leave. Nothing, he declared, but necessity would have made him do so. As she must be aware, he had his back fairly to the wall now; there were only sixty men with him, but it was possible that by using La Vergne as a centre he might succeed in rallying the broken remnants of the late M. du Ménars’ force. On the morrow he would lay before the three ladies the arrangements he proposed for their conveyance to a place of safety—though he had no intention, he assured her, of allowing himself to be attacked in the chateau.
But Valentine heard Mme de la Vergne, a perfectly dignified figure, despite her hastily donned déshabillé, in the little crowd of uniformed and booted and lantern-bearing men, reply quite calmly that there was no need to waste time over such a discussion. “My daughter and I shall have the honour to entertain you in our house, Monsieur le . . . Marquis, for as long as you require it. All we have is at your disposal. But we do not intend to leave it.”
Valentine did not wait for Gaston’s reply; she knew he would not argue the point then in front of his officers, including, as they did, his hostess’s son. Returning to her room, she began to rekindle the dying fire there, to warm him when he came. She felt a little stunned. She had not known that things were going as ill as this.
Half an hour later she heard his knock at her door. As he entered she saw how his air was changed—for it was not only that his uniform was worn and stained, his boots covered with mud, the scarf she had embroidered soiled—and the change went like a knife through her heart. But all he did, the first greetings over, was to apologise for his state—the gentleman of the great world ashamed for appearing so in the presence of a woman.
“I am not fit to be in your room, Valentine,” he said, looking down at himself with distaste. “I have not had my clothes off for the last week. You must forgive this unceremonious visit.”
She was sitting in her chair again now, and he stood by her in the firelight. Pride and anguish strove together in her as she looked up at him.
“Gaston, I heard what you said in the hall. Tell me the worst, my darling! We have heard that Cadoudal is treating with the Republicans, but we cannot believe it. But if it should be true, if he should submit, would there be no one left in arms at all—no one in the C?tes-du-Nord even——no one but you . . . no one?”
She could only see his profile. He was fingering a little Chinese figure that stood on her mantelpiece.
“Where does this mandarin come from, I wonder? It reminds me of one we had at Mirabel. We had several, I think . . .” Then he looked down at her. “Yes, Valentine, it is the last act. Cadoudal has submitted. He signed near Vannes yesterday . . . I am alone in arms; there is no one else left. Unless help comes from England in the next few days——”
He broke off, turned back to the mandarin, and then, abruptly, his sword clanking against the floor as he did so, knelt down and buried his face on her knees. And, fighting back the sob that rose in her own throat, she folded her arms round his neck and kissed the wet, iron-grey hair.
“My darling, my darling, how tired you are!” She smoothed the bowed head as she would have smoothed a child’s, terribly conscious all the time of the restraint he was putting on himself not to break down altogether. For his hands were gripping the arms of her chair on either side of her, and every now and again a shudder went through him.
“I will never consent to the disarmament of Finistère, never—never—never!” he said in a smothered voice. “I will die first!”
Her hand stopped. “Is that what you fear, Gaston? Is that it? O my knight without reproach, you shall do what you think best. If it is necessary—if you must in honour—you shall . . . die.”
“I will not hold you back.” But she had no need to add that, and she did not. Her husband lifted his head, almost frightened at the sublimity of her self-forgetfulness.
“Valentine,” he exclaimed, “is it possible that you—a woman—understand?”
“I love you,” she said simply.
He knelt there staring at her, the firelight showing, on his sad and weary features, an expression that was almost awe. Then he made a movement and caught her to him.
“I said you were my oriflamme. I shall fight to the last as long as I have the means, and with how much more courage if you give me leave to die! . . . But I shall not let them attack La Vergne, though you, I know, would not fear it.”
“Nor would the others,” she answered. “Then will you not make it your headquarters?”
“I do not know yet. When Brune’s advance begins . . . But though I do not intend to stand a siege here, I fear I must send you and the other ladies away.”
Valentine said nothing, but a little shiver went through her in her turn.
“It is true,” said Gaston, feeling it, “that Mme de la Vergne has already refused to go. And you, my darling——”
“You must do as you think best,” she said again. She would not give open utterance to the wild prayer that was ringing through her.
He sighed, and loosing his hold of her hands, got to his feet, drawing her up with him.
“Gaston, you will sleep now?”
He shook his head. “I must go round the sentries again first. All my officers—all that are left, that is—are as weary as I. As for a bed, I have not seen one for weeks. Something harder will be more familiar. I shall sleep in the hall; there is a bearskin rug there that promises well.”
“Where did you sleep last night, Gaston?”
His voice changed. “In a very holy place, beloved—the place where you came back to me from the dead—the Allée des Vieilles.”
He kissed her on the brow and went out.
“I never thought,” said Artamène next day to Roland, with one of his old flashes of gaiety, not so frequent now as of yore. “I never thought that I should live to admire my own mother more than Cleopatra or la Grande Mademoiselle and other determined ladies! Imagine her standing up to M. le Duc like that—and routing him! It is for you to tremble, Roland, at these unsuspected qualities, since as your future mother-in-law . . .”
For before the unshakable determination of Mme de la Vergne not to be turned out of her own house, as evinced in a private interview with the friendly invader that morning, the determination—perhaps not quite so strong—of the Duc de Trélan to turn her out was baffled.
“I think,” said Lucien, “that there are disadvantages in being a gentleman. M. le Marquis is always grand seigneur; had he been one of these sans-culotte generals he would have bundled her out without ceremony—excuse the verb, mon cher.”
“There are compensations, too,” observed Roland. “Thanks to the admirable—or ominous—firmness of Mme de la Vergne, the Duchesse can remain also.”
“You pointedly omit the advantage to yourself, I notice,” said Marthe’s brother, “It will be my duty to call you out for that, Roland, to-morrow morning. There being no . . . no Moulin-aux-Fées handy, I suggest rakes, in the poultry-yard; but you shall be buried in the arbour of famous memory.”
“I wonder how long any of us will stay here,” observed Lucien thoughtfully. “And as to being buried—we may not have much choice in the matter of locality.”
The other two looked at him with equal thoughtfulness, for in this ebb of fortune the idea was not by now a new one.
“I make only one stipulation about my death,” announced the Chevalier de la Vergne with composure, “and that is, to fall at the same moment as M. le Duc. And you, Roland, have you chosen yours? You look as if you were selecting it.”
“No, I was thinking about Mme la Duchesse,” answered the young man rather unexpectedly.
(2)
It is a terrible hour when a man of superlative pride and self-will learns that Destiny—or another man—has a stronger will than he.
And this hour struck for Gaston de Trélan the very day after his arrival at La Vergne, when he received an ultimatum from General Brune giving him twenty-four hours in which to consent to an unconditional surrender, involving disarmament as well as disbandment. Otherwise the army of Holland, already on the march, would enter Finistère at several points—Finistère laid open to them not only by the capitulation of her more formidable neighbours, the Morbihan............