The Battle of the Strong

XXV.

GUIDA was sitting on the veille reading an old London paper which she had bought of the mate on the packet from Southampton. One page contained an account of the execution of Louis XVI.; another reported the fight between the English thirty-six gun frigate Araminta and the French Niobe. The engagement had been desperate, the valiant Araminta having been fought not alone against odds as to her enemy, but against the irresistible perils of a coast of which the Admiralty charts gave cruelly imperfect information. To the Admiralty was due the fact that the Araminta was now at the bottom of the sea, and its young commander confined in a French fortress, his brave and distinguished services lost to the country. Nor had the government yet sought to lessen the injury by arranging a cartel for the release of the unfortunate commander.

The Araminta! To Guida the letters of the word seemed to stand out from the paper like shining hieroglyphs on a misty gray curtain. All the rest of the page was resolved into a filmy floating substance, no more tangible than the ashy skeleton of burnt paper on which writing still lives when the paper itself has been eaten by flame, and the flame swallowed by the air.

Araminta, — this was all her eyes saw; that familiar name in the flaring, fantastic handwriting of the genius of life, who had scrawled her destiny in that one word.

Slowly the monstrous ciphers faded from the gray hemisphere of space, and she saw again the newspaper in her trembling fingers, the kitchen into which the sunlight streamed from the open window, the dog Biribi basking in the doorway. That living quiet which descends upon a kitchen when the midday meal and work are done came suddenly home to her, in contrast to the turmoil of her mind and being.

So that was why Philip had not written to her ! While her heart was growing bitter against him, he had been fighting his vessel against great odds, and at last had been shipwrecked and carried off a prisoner. A strange new understanding took possession of her. Her life widened. She realized all at once how the eyes of the whole world might be fixed upon a single ship, a few cannon, and some scores of men. The general of a great army leading tens of thousands into the clash of battle, — that had always been within her comprehension ; but this was almost miraculous, this abrupt projection of one ship and her commander upon the canvas of fame. Philip had left her, unknown save to a few; with the nations turned to see, he had made a gallant and splendid fight, and now he was a prisoner in a French fortress !

This, then, was why her grandfather had received no letter from Philip concerning the marriage. Well, she must now speak for herself ; she must announce her marriage. Must she show Philip’s letters ? No, no, she could not. . . . Then a new suggestion came to her: there was one remaining proof of her marriage. Since no banns bad been published, Philip must have obtained a license from the dean of the island, and he would have a record of it. All she had to do now was to get a copy of this record. But no, a license to marry was no proof of marriage ; it was but evidence of intention.

Still, she would go to the dean this very moment. It was not right that she should wait longer : indeed, in waiting so long she had already done great wrong to herself, and maybe to Philip.

She rose from the veille with a sense of relief. No more of this secrecy, making her innocence seem guilt; no more painful dreams of punishment for some intangible crime ; no more starting if she heard an unexpected footstep; no more hurried walk through the streets, looking neither to right nor to left; no more inward struggles wearing away her life.

To-morrow — to-morrow — no, this very night, her grandfather and one other, even Maîtresse Aimable, should know all; and she should sleep so quietly, oh, so quietly, to-night.

Looking into a mirror on the wall, — it had been a gift of the chevalier, — she smiled at herself. Why, how foolish of her it had been to feel so much and to imagine terrible things ! Her eyes were shining now, and her hair, catching the sunshine from the window, glistened like burnished copper. She turned to see how it shone on the temple and the side of her head. How Philip had loved her hair ! Her eyes lingered for a moment placidly on herself ; then she started abruptly. A wave of feeling, a shiver, passed through her, her brow gathered in perplexity, she flushed deeply.

Turning away from the mirror, she went and sat down again on the edge of the veille. Her mind had changed. She would go to the dean’s, but not till it was dark. She suddenly thought it strange that the dean had never said anything about the license. Why, again, perhaps he had ! How should she know what gossip was going on in the town ? But no, she was quick to feel, and if there had been gossip she would have felt it in the manner of her neighbors. Besides, gossip as to a license to marry was all on the right side. She sighed — she had sighed so often of late—to think what a tangle it all was, of how it would be smoothed out to-morrow, of what —

There was a click of the garden gate, a footstep on the walk, a half-growl from Biribi, and the face of Carterette Mattingley appeared in the kitchen doorway. Seeing Guida sitting on the veille, she came in quickly, her dancing dark eyes heralding great news.

“ Don’t get up, macouzaine,” she said, “ please don’t. Sit just there, and let me sit beside you. Ah, but I have the most wonderful news ! ”

Carterette was out of breath. She had hurried here from her home. As she said herself, her two feet were n’t in one shoe on the way, and that and her news made her quiver with excitement.

At first, palpitating with eagerness, bursting with mystery, she could do no more than sit and look into Guida’s face. Carterette was quick of instinct in her way, but yet she had not seen any marked change in her friend during the past few months. Certainly Guida had not been so buoyant as was her wont, but Carterette herself had been so occupied in thinking of her own particular secret that she was not observant of others. At times she saw Ranulph. and then she was uplifted, to be immediately depressed again ; for she perceived that he was cast down, that his old cheerfulness was gone, and that a sombreness had settled on him. Somehow, though she was not quite happy when she did not see him, she was then even happier than when she did, for she seemed so powerless to lighten his gravity. She flattered herself, however, that she could do so if she had the right and the good opportunity, — the more so that Ranulph no longer visited the cottage in the Place du Vier Prison.

That drew her closer to Guida, also ; for in truth Carterette had no loftiness of nature. Like most people, she was selfish enough to hold a person a little dearer for not standing in her own particular light. Long ago she had shrewdly guessed that Guida’s interest lay elsewhere than with Ranulph, and when Philip d’Avranche was in St. Helier’s she had fastened upon him as the object of Guida’s favor. But then many sailors had made love to her, and knowing it was here to-day and away to-morrow with them, her heart had remained untouched. Why, then, should she think Guida would take the officer seriously where she herself held the sailor lightly ? But at the same time she had an instinct that what concerned Philip would interest Guida, — she herself always cared to hear the fate of an old admirer, — and this was what had brought her to the cottage to-day.

“ Guess who I ’ve got a letter from ! ” she asked of Guida, who had taken up some sewing, and was now industriously regarding the stitches.

At Carterette’s question Guida looked up and said with a smile, “ From some one you like, I know.”

Carterette laughed gayly. “ Bà sû, I should think I did — in a way. But what’s his name ? Come, guess, Ma’m’selle Dignity.”

“ Eh ben, the fairy godmother,” answered Guida, trying hard not to show an interest she felt all too keenly ; for nowadays it seemed to her that all news should be about Philip. Besides, she was gaining time and preparing herself for — she knew not what!

“ Oh my grief! ” responded the browneyed elf, kicking off the red slipper that had once so vexed the Lady of St. Michael, and thrusting her foot into it again, “ never a fairy godmother had I, unless it’s old Manon Moignard, the witch : —

Nannin, ma’m’selle, it’s plain to be seen you can’t guess what a cornfield grows besides red poppies! ” and laughing in sheer delight at the mystery she was making, she broke off into a whimsical nursery rhyme : —

She kicked off her red slipper again, and flying halfway across the room it alighted on the table, and a little mud from the heel dropped on the clean scoured surface. With a little moue of mockery, she slowly got up and tiptoed across the floor, like a child afraid of being scolded. Gathering the dirt carefully, and looking demurely askance at Guida the while, she tiptoed over to the fireplace with it.

“Naughty Carterette!” she said at herself with admiring reproval, as she looked in Guida’s mirror, and added, as she glanced with farcical approval round the room, “ And it all shines like a peacock’s feather, too ! ”

Guida longed to snatch the letter from Carterette’s hand and read it, but she only said calmly, though the words fluttered in her throat, “ You ’re as gay as a chaffinch, gargon Carterette ! ”

Garçon Carterette ! Instantly Carterette sobered down. No one save fianulph had ever called her garçon Carterette !

Guida had used the words purposely ; she had heard Ranulph call Carterette by them, and she knew they would change the madcap’s mood. Carterette, to hide a sudden flush, stooped and slowly put on her slipper. Then she came back to the veille, and sat down beside Guida, saying as she did so, “ Yes, I’m always as gay as a chaffinch — me ! ”

She unfolded the letter slowly, and Guida stopped sewing, but with the point of her needle mechanically began to prick the linen lying on her knee.

“ Well,” said Carterette deliberately, “ this letter is from a pend’loque of a fellow, — at least, we used to call him that. — though if you come to think, he was always polite as a mended porringer. It was n’t often he had two sous to rub against each other, and — and not enough buttons for his clothes ! ”

Guida smiled. She guessed whom Carterette meant. “ Has Monsieur Détricand more buttons now?” she asked, with a little whimsical lift of the eyebrows.

“Ah bidemme, yes, and gold too, all over him — like that!” She made a quick sweeping gesture with her hand, which would seem to make Detricand a very spangle of buttons. “.Come, what do you think ? He’s a general now ! ”

“A general!” Instantly Guida thought of Philip, and a kind of envy shot into her heart that this vaurien Détricand should mount so high in a few months, — a man whose past had shown nothing to warrant such success. “ A general! Where ? ” she asked.

“ In the Vendée army, fighting for the new King of France ; you know the Revolutionists cut off the last King’s head.”

At another time Guida’s heart would have throbbed with elation, for the romance of that union of aristocrat and peasant appealed keenly to her imagination ; but she only said in the patois of the people themselves, “ Ma fuifre — yes, I know.”

Carterette was delighted to dole out her news thus, and get her due reward of astonishment. “ And he’s got another name,” she added. “ At least, it’s not another; he always had it, but he did n’t call himself by it. Pardi, he’s more than the chevalier ; he ’s the Comte Détricand de Tournay. Ah, then, believe me if you choose ! There it is.” She pointed to the signature of the letter, and with a gush of eloquence explained how it all was about Détricand the vaurien and Détricand the Comte de Tournay.

“ Good riddance to Monsieur Savary dit Ddtricand, and good welcome to Monsieur the Comte de Tournay,” answered Guida, trying hard to humor Carterette, that she might sooner hear the news yet withheld. “ And what comes after that ? ”

Carterette was half sorry that her great moment had come ; she wished she could have prolonged the suspense. But she let herself be comforted by the anticipated effect of her wonderful on dit.

“ I ’ll tell you what comes after — ah, but see, then, what a wonder I have for you! You know that Monsieur Philip d’Avranche : well, what do you think has happened to him ? ”

Guida felt as if some monstrous hand had her heart in its grasp, crushing it. Presentiment took possession of her. Carterette was busy running over the pages of the letter, and did not notice how her face had lost its color. She had no thought that Guida had any vital interest in Philip, and she ruthlessly, though unconsciously, began to torture the young wife as few are tortured in this world.

She read aloud Détricand’s description of his visit to the castle of Bercy, and of the meeting with Philip.

“ ‘ See what comes of a name ! ’ ” wrote Ddtricand, and repeated Carterette. “ ‘ Here was a poor prisoner whose ancestor, hundreds of years ago, may or may not have been a relative of the d’Avranclies of Clermont, when a disappointed duke, with an eye open for heirs, takes a fancy to the good-looking face of the poor prisoner, and voilà ! you have him whisked off to a castle, fed on milk and honey, and adopted into the family. Then a pedigree is nicely grown on a summer day, and this tine young Jersey adventurer is found to be a green branch from the old root ; and there’s a great blare of trumpets, and the states of the duchy are called together to make this English officer a prince — and that’s the Thousand and One Nights in Arabia, Ma’m’selle Carterette ! ’ ”

Guida was sitting rigid and still. In the slight pause Carterette made, a hundred confused, torturing thoughts ran swiftly through her mind, and presently floated into the succeeding sentences of the letter: —

“ ‘ As for me, I’m like Rabot’s mare, I have n’t time to laugh at my own foolishness. I’m either up to my knees in grass or cla,y fighting Revolutionists, or I ’m riding hard day and night till I ’m round-backed like a wood-louse, to make up for all the good time I so badly lost in your little island. You would not have expected that, my friend with the tongue that stings, would you ? But then, ma’m’selle of the red slippers, one is never butted save by a dishorned cow, as your father used to say.’ ”

Carterette paused again, saying in an aside, “ That is m’sieu’ all over, all so gay. But who knows ? For he says, too, that the other day, a-fighting Fontenay, five thousand of his men come across a cavalry as they run to take the guns that eat them up like cabbages, and they drop on their knees, and he drops with them, and they all pray to God to help them, while the cannon-balls whizwhiz over their heads. He says God did hear them, for He told them that if they fell down flat when the guns were fired the balls would n’t touch ’em.”

During this interlude, Guida, full of impatience and anxiety, could scarcely sit still. She began sewing again, though her fingers trembled so that she could hardly make a stitch. But Carterette, the little egotist, did not notice her disturbance ; her own excitement dimmed her observation.

She began reading again. The first few words had little or no significance for Guida, but presently she was held as by the fascination of a serpent.

“ ‘ And, Ma’m’selle Carterette, what do you think this young captain, now Prince Philip d’Avranche and successor to the title of Bercy, — what do you think he is next to do ? Even to marry a countess of great family whom the old duke has chosen for him, so that the name of d’Avranche may not die out in the land. And that is the way that love begins. . . . Wherefore I want you to write and tell me ’ ” —

What he wanted Carterette to tell him Guida never heard, though it concerned herself, for she gave a cry like a dumb animal in agony, and sat rigid and blanched, the needle she had been using imbedded in her finger to the bone, but not a motion, not a sign of human animation, in her face or figure.

All at once some conception of the truth burst upon the affrighted Carterette. She had all along thought that Philip and Guida had liked each other, but she had never thought of aught serious between them. Besides, in her childish egotism, as unconscious as it was heartless, she had seen in the present letter no more than the great news it contained. She imagined the real truth as little as Détricand had done.

But now she saw the blanched face, the filmy eyes, the stark look, the finger pierced by the needle, and she knew that a human heart had been pierced, too, with a pain worse than death. It was worse; for she had seen death, and she had never seen anything like this in its dire misery and horror. She caught the needle quickly from the finger, wrapped her kerchief round the wound, threw away the sewing from Guida’s lap, and running an arm about her waist made as if to lay a hot cheek against the cold face of her friend. Suddenly, however, with a new and painful knowledge, and a face as white and scared as Guida’s own, she ran to the dresser, caught up a hanap, and brought some water. Guida still sat as though life had left her, and the body, arrested in its activity, would presently relax and collapse.

Carterette was no irresponsible, lightheaded, stupid peasant ; she had sense, resolution, and self-possession. She tenderly put the water to Guida’s lips, with comforting, reassuring words, though her own brain was in a whirl, and a hundred dark premonitions flashed through her mind.

“ Ah, man gui, man pèthe ! ” she said in the homely patois. “ There, drink, drink, dear, dear couzaine ! ” Guida’s lips opened, and she drank slowly, putting her hand to her heart with a gesture of pain. Carterette set down the hanap and caught her hands. “ Come, come, these cold hands, —pergui, but we must stop that! They are so cold ! ” She rubbed them hard. “ The poor child of heaven, what has come over you ? Speak to me. . . . Ah, but see, everything will come all right by and by ! God is good. Nothing’s as bad as what it seems. There was never a gray wind but there’s a grayer. Nannin-gia, take it not so to heart, my couzaine ; thou shalt have love enough in the world !

. . . Ah, grand doux d’la vie, but I could kill him ! ” she added under her breath, and she rubbed Guida’s hands still, and looked frankly, generously, into her eyes. Yet, try as she would in that supreme moment, she could not feel all she used to do concerning her. There is something humiliating in even an undeserved injury, — something which, in average human eyes, depreciates the worthiness of its victim. To this hour Carterette had looked upon Guida as a being far above her own companionship, an idea which Guida herself always had combated. All in a moment, however, in this new office of comforter to her anguished and abandoned friend, their relative status was altered. The plane on which Guida had moved was lowered ; pity, while it deepened the kindness and tenderness, lessened the gap between them.

Perhaps something of this passed through Guida’s mind, and the deep pride and courage of her nature came to her assistance. She withdrew her hands from Carterette’s and mechanically smoothed back her hair, and then, as Carterette sat watching her, folded up the sewing and put it in the workbasket hanging on the wall beside the veille.

There was something unnatural in her governance of herself now. She seemed as if doing things in a dream, but she did them accurately and with apparent purpose. She looked at the clock ; then went to light the fire, for it was almost time to get her grandfather’s tea. She did not appear conscious of the presence of Carterette, who still sat on the veille, not knowing quite what to do. At last, as the flame flashed up in the chimney, she came over to her friend, and said, “ Carterette, I am going to the dean’s. Will you run and ask Maîtresse Aimable to come here to me soon ? ”

Her voice was steady, hut it was the steadiness of despair, — that steadiness which comes to those upon whose nerves has fallen a great numbness, upon whose sensibilities has settled a cloud which stills them as the thick mist stills the ripples on the waters of a fen.

All the glamour of Guida’s youth had dropped away. She had deemed life good, and behold, it was not good; she had thought her dayspring was on high, and her happiness had burnt out into the darkness like quick-consuming flax. But all was strangely quiet in her heart and mind. Nothing more that she feared could happen to her ; the worst had happened, and now there came down on her the impervious calm of the doomed.

Carterette was awed by her face, and saying that she would go at once to Maitresse Aimable she started toward the door, but as quickly stopped and came back to Guida, who was taking her hat from a nail. With none of the impulse that usually marked her actions, Carterette put her arms round Guida’s neck and kissed her, saying with a subdued intensity and purpose, “ I’d go through fire and water for you. I want to help you every way I can — me ! ”

Guida did not reply, but she kissed the lu&gto;hot cheek of the smuggler-pirate’s daughter as in dying one might kiss the face of a friend seen with filmy eyes, and sent her away.

When she had gone Guida drew herself up with a shiver ; yet she was conscious that new senses and instincts were born in her, or were now first awakened to life. She could not quite command them yet, but she felt them, and, in so far as she had power to think, she used them.

Leaving the house and stepping into the Place du Vier Prison, she walked quietly and steadily up the Rue d’Drière. She did not notice that people she met glanced at her curiously, and turned to look after her as she hurried on.

XXVI.

It had been a hot, oppressive day, but when, a half-hour later, Guida hastened back through the Place du Vier Prison a vast black cloud had drawn up from the southeast, dropping a curtain of darkness upon the town. As she neared the doorway of the cottage a few heavy drops began to fall, and in spite of her overpowering trouble she quickened her footsteps, fearing that her grandfather had come back to find the house empty and no light or supper ready.

M. de Mauprat had preceded her by not more than five minutes. His footsteps across the Place du Vier Prison had been unsteady, his head bowed, though more than once he raised it with a sort of effort, as it were in indignation or defiance. He muttered to himself as he opened the door, and he paused in the hallway as though hesitating to go forward. After a moment he made a piteous gesture of his hand toward tlie kitchen, and whispered to himself in a kind of reassurance. Then he entered the room and stood still. All was dark save for the glimmer of the fire.

“ Guida ! Guida ! ” he said in a shaking, muffled voice. There was no answer. He put his hat and stick in the corner, and felt his way past the table to his great chair, — he seemed to have lost his sight. Finding the familiar worn arm of the chair, he seated himself with a heavy sigh. His lips moved, and he shook his head now and then as though in protest against some unspoken thought.

Presently he brought his clenched hand down heavily on the chair-arm, and said aloud, “ They lie ! they lie! The connétable lies! Their tongues shall be cut out. . . . Ah, my little, little child ! . . . The connétable dared — be dared — to tell me this evil gossip — of my little one — of my Guida ! ”

He laughed contemptuously, but it was a crackling, dry laugh, painful in its cheerlessness. He drew his snuff-box from his pocket, opened it, and slowly taking a pinch raised it toward his nose ; but the hand paused halfway, as though a new thought had arrested it.

In the pause there came the sound of the front door opening, and then footsteps in the hall.

The pinch of snuff fell from the fingers of the old man upon the white cloth of his short-clothes, but as Guida entered tlie kitchen and stood still a moment he did not stir in his seat. The thundercloud had come still lower and the room was dark, even the coals in the fireplace being now covered with gray ashes.

“ Grandpètlie ! Grandpèthe ! ” Guida said.

He did not answer. His heart was fluttering ; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, dry and thick. Now he should know the truth ; now he should he sure that they had lied about his little Guida, those slanderers of the Vier Marchi. But, too, he had a strange, depressing fear, at variance with his loving faith and belief that in Guida there was no wrong,—such a belief as has the strong swimmer that be can reach the shore through the wave and tide; yet also with the strange foreboding, preluding the cramp that makes powerless, defying youth, strength, and skill, He could not have spoken if it had been to save his own life or hers.

Getting no answer to her words, Guida went first to the chimney and stirred the fire, the old man sitting rigid in his chair, and regarding her with fixed, watchful eyes. Then she found two candles and lighted them, placing them on the mantel, and, going to the crasset which hung by its osier rings from a beam in the middle of the room, slowly lighted it. Turning round, she was full in the light of the candles and the shooting flames of the fire.

The Sieur de Mauprat’s eyes had followed her every motion, unconscious of his presence as she was. This, this was not the Guida he had known! This was not his grandchild, this woman with the pale, cold face and dark, unhappy eyes; this was not the laughing girl who but yesterday was a babe at his knee. This was not —

The truth, which had yet been before his blinded eyes how long, burst upon him. The shock of it snapped the filmy thread of being. As the soul, escaping, found its wings, spread them, and rose from that dun morass called life, the Sieur de Mauprat, giving a long, deep sigh, fell back in the great armchair dead, and the silver snuff-box rattled to the floor.

Guida turned with a sharp cry. She ran to him, and lifted up the head that lay over on his shoulder; she called to him, she felt his pulse. Opening his waistcoat, she put her ear to his heart; but it was still — still.

A mist came over her own eyes, and without a cry or a word she slid downward to the floor, unconscious, as the black thunderstorm broke upon the Place du Vier Prison.

The rain was like a curtain let down between the prying, clattering world without and the strange peace within : the old man in his perfect sleep; the young, misused wife in that oblivion borrowed from death, and as tender and companionable while it lasts.

As if in a merciful indulgence, Fate permitted no one to enter upon the dark scene save a woman in whom was a deep motherhood which had never nourished a child, and to whom this silence and this sorrow gave no terrors. Silence was her constant companion, and for sorrow she had been granted the touch that assuages the sharpness of pain, and the love that is called neighborly kindness.

Unto her it was given to minister here. As the night went by, and the offices had been done for the dead, she took her place by the bedside of the young wife, who lay Staring into space, tearless and still, the life consuming away within her.

But at last, toward morning, sleep came, as suddenly as death had come to the Sieur de Mauprat. Then Maîtresse Aimable went into the kitchen, and on to the front room, where, with his head buried in his hands, Ranulph Delagarde sat watching beside the body of the Sieur de Mauprat.

XXVII.

In the Rue d’Drière, the undertaker and his head apprentice were very merry. But why should they not have been ? People had to die, quoth the undertaker, and when dead they must be buried : burying was a trade, and wherefore should not one — discreetly — be cheerful at one’s trade ? In undertaking there were many miles to trudge with coffins in a week, and the fixed, sad, sympathetic look which long custom had stereotyped was as wearisome to the face as a cast of plaster of Paris. Moreover, the undertaker was master of ceremonies at the house of bereavement as well. He not only arranged the funeral ; he sent out the invitations to the “ friends of deceased, who are requested to return to the house of the mourners after the obsequies for refreshment.” The preparations for this feast were all made by the undertaker, — master of burials, as he chose to be called.

Once, after a busy six months, in which a fever had carried off many a Jersiais, this master of burials had given a picnic to his apprentices, workmen, and their families. At this buoyant function he had raised his glass, and with a playful plaintiveness had proposed, “ The day we celebrate ! ”

He was in a no less blithesome mood this day. The head apprentice was reading aloud the accounts for the burials of the month, while the master was checking off the items, nodding approval, commenting, correcting, or condemning with strange expletives.

“ Don’t gabble, gabble! Next one slowlee ! ” said the master of burials, as the second account was laid aside, duly approved. “ Eh ben, now let’s hear the next. Who is it — him ? ”

“ That Josué; Anquetil,” answered the apprentice.

The master of burials rubbed his hands together with a creepy sort of glee. “ Ah, that was a clever piece of work ! Too little of a length and a width for the box ; but let us be thankful, — it might have been too short, and it wasn’t.”

“ No danger of that, pardingue,” broke in the apprentice. “ The first it belonged to was a foot longer than Josud — he.”

“ But I made the most of Josué,” continued the master. “ The mouth was crooked, but he was clean, clean, — I shaved him just in time. And he had good hair for combing to a peaceful look, and he was light to carry, — oh my good ! Go on : what has Josué the centenier to say for himself ? ”

With a drawling, dull indifference, the lank, hatchet-faced servitor of the master servitor of the grave read off the items:

The Relict of Josué Anquetil, Centenier , in account with Etienne Mahye , Master of Burials.

Livres. Sols.

Item :

Paid to gentlemen of Vingtaine, who

carried him to his grave.4 4

Ditto to me, Etienne Mahye, for

coffin. 4 0

Ditto to me, E. M., for proper gloves

of silk and cotton. 1 0

Ditto to me, E. M., for laying of him

out and all that appertains. 0 7

Ditto to me, E. M., for divers.0 4

The master of burials interrupted: “ Bat’ d’la goule, you’ve forgot the blacking for coffin ! ”

The apprentice made the correction without deigning reply, and then proceeded : —

Ditto to me, E. M., for black for

blacking’ coffin. 0 3

Ditto to me, E. M., paid out for supper after obs’quies. 3 2

Ditto to me, E. M., paid out for 18 lbs. of pork at 4s. p’r lb. for ditto 4 8

Ditto to me, E. M., paid out for 1

lb. suet for ditto. 0 7

Ditto to me, E. M., paid out for wine (3 pots and 1 pt. at a shilling) for ditto. 2 5

Ditto to me, E. M., paid out for oil

and candle. 0 7

Ditto to me, E. M., given to the poor, as fitting station of deceased. 4 0

The apprentice stopped. “ That’s all,” he said.

There was a furious leer on the face of the master of burials. So, after all his care, apprentices would never learn to make mistakes on his side. “ Always on the side of the corpse, that can thank nobody for naught, oh my grief ! ” was his snarling comment. “ What about those turnips from Dénise Gareau, numskull ! ” he squeaked, in a voice something between a sneer and a snort.

The apprentice was unmoved. He sniffed, rubbed his nose with a forefinger, laboriously wrote for a moment, and then added : —

Ditto to Madame D&iise Gareau for turnips for supper after obs’quies..10 sols.

“ Saperlote ! leave out the madams, calf-lugs — you ! ”

The apprentice did not move a finger. Obstinacy sat enthroned on him. In a rage, the master made a snatch at a metal flower-wreath to throw at. him.

“ Shan’t! She’s my aunt. 1 knows my duties to my aunt — me ! ” remarked the apprentice stolidly.

The master burst out in a laugh of scorn. “ Gad’rabotin, here’s family pride for you ! I ’ll go stick dandelines in my old sow’s ear, — respé d’la compagnie.”

The apprentice was still calm. " If you want to flourish yourself, don’t mind me,” said he, and picking up the next account he began reading : —

The first words read by the apprentice had stilled the breaking storm of the master’s anger. It dissolved in a fragrant dew of proud reminiscence, profit, speculation, and scandal.

He himself had no open prejudices. He was an official of the public, — or so he counted himself, — and he very shrewdly knew his duty in that walk of life to which it had pleased Heaven to call him. The greater the notoriety of the death, the more in evidence was the master and all his belongings. Death with honor was an advantage to him ; death with disaster was a boon ; death with scandal was a godsend. It brought tears of gratitude to his eyes when the death and the scandal were in high places. These were the only real tears he ever shed. His heart was in his head, and the head thought solely of Etienne Mahye. Though he wore an air of sorrow and sympathy in public, he had no more feeling than a hangman. His sympathy seemed to say to the living, “ I wonder how soon you ’ll come into my hands ! ” and to the dead, “ What a pity you can die only once, and that secondhand coffins are so hard to get! ”

droned the voice of the apprentice,

“ Oh my good ! ” interrupted the master of burials, with a barren chuckle. " Oh my good, that was a day in a lifetime ! I’ve done fine work in my time, but the Lord bestowed his countenance upon that day, — not a cloud above, no dust beneath, a flowing tide, and a calm sea. The Royal Court, too, caught on a sudden marching in their robes, turns to and joins the cortegee, and the little birds a-tweeting-tweeting, and two parsons at the grave. Pardingue, but the Lord was with me, and ” —

The apprentice laughed, — a dry, mirthless laugh of disbelief and ridicule. “ Ba su, master, the Lord was watching you. There was two silver bits inside that coffin ! ”

“ Bigre ! ” The master was pale with rage. His lips drew back, disclosing his long dark teeth and sickly gums, — a grimace of fury. He reached out to seize a hammer lying at his hand, but the apprentice said quickly, —

“ That’s the cholera hammer — ah bah ! ”

The master of burials dropped the hammer as though it were at white heat, and eyed it with scared scrutiny. This hammer had been used in nailing down the coffins of six cholera patients who had died in one house at Rozel Bay a year before. The master would not go near the place, so this apprentice had gone, on a promise from the Royal Court that he should have for himself — this is what he asked — free lodging in two small upper rooms of the Cohue Royale, just under the bell which said to the world, Chicane — chicane ! Chicane — chicane !

This he asked, and this he got, and he alone of all Jersey went out to bury three persons who had died of cholera; and then to watch three others die, to bury them as soon as they were cold, and come back, with a leer of satisfaction, to claim his price. At first people were inclined to make a hero of him, but that only made him grin the more, and the island reluctantly decided at last that he had done the work solely for fee and reward.

The hammer he had used in nailing the coffins he had carried through the town, like an emblem of terror and death, and henceforth he alone in the shop of the master of burials used it.

“ It won’t hurt you if you leave it alone,” said the apprentice grimly to the master of burials. “ But if you go bothering, I ’ll put it in your bed, and it ’ll do after to nail down your coffin — you! ”

Then he went on reading with a dull, malicious calmness, as if the matter were the merest trifle, and he were anxious to get on with his work : —

Item — one dozen pairs of gloves for mourners.

“ Par made ! that’s one way of putting it,” commented the apprentice; “ for what mourners was there but ma’m’selle herself, and she as quiet as a mice and not a teardrop, and all the island with necks end to end for a look at her, and you, master, whispering to her, ‘The Lord is the Giver and Taker,’ and the femme de ballast t’other side, saying,

‘ My de-are, my de-are, bear thee up, bear thee up — thee ’ ? ”

“ And she looking so steady in front of her, as if never was shame about her

— and her there soon to be! and no ring of gold upon her hand, and all the world staring ! ” broke in the master, who, having now edged far off from the cholera hammer, was launched upon a theme that roused all his emotions. “ All the world staring, and good reason ! ”

“ And she scarce winking, eh ? ” “True, that! Her eyes did n’t feel the cold,” said the master of burials with a leer, for to his sight, as to that of others, only as boldness had been Guida’s bitter courage, the numb, blank, despairing gaze, coming from eyes that turned their agony inward.

“ What I want to know is,” added the master, — “ what I want to know is, who was the man, bà su ? ”

That’s what none but they two knows, and she says neither bouf ni baf,” said the apprentice. “ But it’s none business to we — nannin-gia ! ”

He took up the account again, and prepared to read it. The master, however, had been awakened to a congenial theme. “ Poor fallen child of nature ! ” said lie. “For what is birth or what is looks of virtue like a summer flower! It is to be brought down by hand of man.” He was warmed to his theme. Habit had so long made him as much hypocrite as his trade had made him stony-hearted that he was at once sentimentalist and hard materialist. “ Some pend loque has brought her beauty to this pass, but she must suffer; and also his time will come, the sulphur, the torment, the worm that dieth not — and no Abraham for parched tongue — misery me ! They that meet in sin here shall meet hereafter in burning fiery furnace.”

The cackle of the apprentice rose above the whining voice : “ Murder, too, — don’t forget the murder, master. The co unstable told the old Sieur de Mauprat what people were blabbing, and in halfhour dead he was — lie ! ”

“ The sieur’s blood it is upon their heads,” continued the master of burials ; “it will rise up from the ground” —

The apprentice interrupted : “ A good thing if the sieur himself does n’t rise, for you’d get naught for coffin or the obs’quies. It was you tells the connétable what folks blabbed, and the eonndtable tells the sieur, and the sieur it kills him dead. So if he rised, he’d not pay you for murdering him, — no, bidemme ! And this is a gobbly mouthful — this ! ” he added, holding up the bill.

The undertaker’s lips smacked softly, as though in truth he were waiting for the mouthful. Rubbing his hands, and drawing his lean leg up so that it touched his nose, he looked over it with avid eyes, and said, “ How much is it ? — don’t read the items, but come to total debit, — how much is it ? How much does she pay me ? ”

Ma’m’selle Landresse, debtor in all for one hundred and twenty livres, eleven sols, and two farthings.

“ Shan’t we make it one hundred and twenty-one livres ? ” asked the apprentice.

“ No ; the odd sols and farthings look better,” returned the master of burials, “ they look exact. But the courage it needs to be honest! Oh my grief, if ” —

“ ’Sh ! ” said the apprentice, pointing, and the master of burials, turning, saw Guida pass the doorway.

With a hungry instinct for the morbid, they stole to the doorway and looked down the Rue d’Drière after Guida. The master was sympathetic, for had he not in his fingers a bill for a hundred and twenty livres odd, at that moment ? The face of the apprentice was implacable, but the way he craned his neck and tightened the forehead over his large, protuberant eyes showed his intense curiosity. His face was like that of some strong fate, superior to the influences of man’s sorrow, shame, or death. Presently he laughed, — a crackling cackle like new-lighted kindling-wood ; nothing could have been more inhuman in sound. What in particular aroused this arid mirth probably he himself did not know. Maybe it was a native cruelty which had a sort of sardonic pleasure in the miseries of the world. Or was it the one perception sometimes given to the dullest mind, of the futility of goodness, the futility of all ? This is the kinder probability, for the apprentice was the new companion of Dormy Jamais, and now shared with him his rooms at the top of the Cohue Royale ; and certainly Dormy Jamais was neither sardonic nor cruel. In truth, there must have been some natural bond between the blank, sardonic undertaker’s apprentice and the poor bégan ne. Of late Dormy had haunted the precincts of the Place du Vier Prison, and was the only person besides Maîtresse Aimable whom Guida welcomed. His tireless feet w’ent clac-clac past her doorway, or halted by it, or entered in when it pleased him. He was more a watch-dog than Biribi; he fetched and carried ; he was silent and sleepless. It was as if some past misfortune had opened his eyes to the awful bitterness of life, and they had never closed again.

The dry cackle of the apprentice as he looked after Guida roused a mockery of indignation in the master. " Sacré matin, a back-hander on the jaw ’d do you good, slubberdegullion — you ! Ah, get out, and scrub the coffin blacking from your jowl ! ” he rasped out, with furious contempt.

The apprentice seemed not to hear, but kept on looking after Guida, a pitiless leer on his face. “ Et ben, lucky for her the sieur died before he had chance to change his will. She ’d have got ni fiche ni bran from him ! ”

“ Holy jacks, if you don’t stop that I ’ll give you a coffin before your time, you keg of nails ! Sorrow and prayer at the throne of grace that she may have a contrite heart ” — he clutched the funeral bill tighter in his fingers — “ is what all must feel for her. The day the sieur died and it all came out, I wept; bedtime come I had to sop my eyes with elder-water. The day o the burial mine eyes were so sore a-draining,

I had to put a rotten sweet apple on ’em overnight— me ! ”

“ Ah bah ! she does n’t need rosemary wash for her hair ! ” said the apprentice admiringly, looking down the street after Guida as she turned into the Rue d’Egypte, near the Vier Prison.

Perhaps it was a momentary sympathy for beauty in distress which made the master say, as he backed from the doorway stealthily, " Gatd’en’àle, t is well she has enough to live on. and to provide for what’s to come !”

But if it was a note of humanity in his voice it passed quickly, for presently, as he examined the bill for the funeral of the Sieur de Mauprat, he said to the apprentice in a shrill voice, “ Achocre, you’ve left out the extra satin for his pillow — you ! ”

“ There was n’t any extra satin, drawled the apprentice.

With a snarl the master of burials seized a pen and wrote in the account: Item — to extra satin for pillow, three livres.

XXVIII.

Guida’s once blithe, rose-colored face was pale as ivory, the mouth had a look of deep sadness, and the step was slow ; but the eye was clear and steady, and her hair, brushed back under the black crape of the bonnet as smoothly as its nature would admit, gave to the broad brow a setting of rare attraction and sombre nobility. It was not a face that knew inward shame, but it carried a look that showed knowledge of life’s cruelties, and a bitter sensitiveness to pain. It was, however, fearless, and it had no touch of the consciousness or the consequences of sin ; it was purity itself.

Her face alone should have proclaimed abroad her innocence, though she had uttered no word in testimony. To most people, nevertheless, her fearless sincerity only added to her crime, and increased the scandalous mystery. Yet her manner awed some, and her silence held most back. The few who came to offer sympathy, with rude curiousness in their eyes and as much inhumanity as pity in their hearts, were turned away, gently but firmly, more than once with proud resentment.

So it chanced that soon only Maîtresse Aimable came, she who asked no questions, desired no secrets. The Chevalier du Champsavoys had not been with Guida, for on the afternoon of the very day that her grandfather died he had gone a secret voyage to St. Malo, to meet the old solicitor of his family. He knew nothing of his friend’s death or of Guida’s trouble.

Nor yet did Maître Ranulph visit her after the funeral of the Sieur de Mauprat. The horror of the thing had struck him dumb, and his mind was one confused mass of conflicting thoughts, He believed in Guida utterly, but there — there were the terrifying facts before him. Yet, with an obstinacy peculiar to him, he still went on believing in her goodness and in her truth. Of the man who had injured her he had no doubt, and his mind was clear as to his course in the hour when he and Philip d’Avranche should meet. But meanwhile, though he seldom went near the Place du Vier Prison, he visited Maîtresse Aimable, and from day to day he knew all that happened to Guida. As of old, without her knowledge, he did many things for her through the same Maîtresse Aimable. It quickly came to be known in the island that any one who spoke ill of Guida in his presence did so at no little risk. At first there had been those who marked him as the culprit; but somehow that did not suit with the case, for it was clear he loved Guida now as he had always done, and this all the world knew, and knew also that he would have married lier all too gladly. Presently Détricand and Philip were the only names mentioned; finally, as though by common consent, Philip was settled upon, for such evidence as there was pointed that way. The gossips set about to recall all that had happened when Philip was in Jersey last. Here one came forward with tittle of truth, and there another with tattle of falsehood, and at last as wild a story was fabricated as might be heard in a long day.

But the truth none of them knew, for in bitterness Guida kept her own counsel.

When she reached the cottage in the Place du Vier Prison now, she took from a drawer the letter Philip had written her on the day he first met the Comtesse Chantavoine. She had received it a week before. She read it through slowly, shuddering a little once or twice. When she had finished reading, she drew paper to her and began a letter.

No, Philip d’Avranche [she wrote], your message came too late. All that you might have said and done should have been said and done long ago, — in that past which I believe in no more. I will not now ask you why, from the first, you acted as you did toward me. Words can alter nothing now. Once I thought you sincere, and this letter you send me would have me believe so still. Do you then think so poorly of my intelligence ?

In spite of all your promises, in spite of the surrender of an honest heart and a good life to you, in spite of truth and loyalty and love, in spite of every call of honor, you denied me — dared to deny me — at the very time you wrote me this letter.

For the passing honors of this world you set aside, first by secrecy, and then by falsehood, the helpless girl to whom you once swore faith and undying love. You, who knew the open book of her heart, you threw it in the dust. “ Of course there is no wife ? ” the Duc de Bercy said to you before the states of Bercy. “ Of course,” you answered. Without pity you told your lie.

Were you blind, that you did not see the consequences ? Did you not realize the horror of it ? Or were you so wicked that you did not care ? For I know that before you wrote me this letter, and afterward when you had been made heir to the duchy, the Comtesse Chantavoine was openly named by the Duc de Bercy for your wife.

I understand all now, and I want you clearly to know that I am no longer the thoughtless, believing girl whom you drew from her simple life to give her so cruel a fate. Yesterday I was a child; to-day— Oh, above all else, do you think I can ever forgive you for having killed the youth, the trust, the joy of life that was in me! You have made me old — old ; for all the real youth in me is gone forever. You have spoiled for me forever my rightful share of the joyous and the good. My heart is sixty, though my body is not twenty. You have killed the summer of my life ; it is winter with me, and I shall never see another spring. How dared you rob me of all that was my birthright, and give me nothing, nothing in return ?

Do you remember how I begged you not to make me marry you, but you urged me, and because I loved you and trusted you I did ? How I entreated you not to make me marry you secretly, and you insisted, and, loving you, I did ? How I made you promise you would leave me at the altar, and not see me until you came again to claim me for your wife openly, and you broke that promise ? Do you remember ?

Do you remember that night in the garden, when the wind came moaning from the sea ? Do you remember how you took me in your arms, and even while I listened to your tender and assuring words, in that moment — Ah, the hurt and the wrong and the shame of it! Afterward, in the strange confusion, in the blind helplessness of my life, I tried to say, “ But he loved me,” and I also tried to forgive you. Not realizing your wickedness wholly, perhaps in time I might have seemed to you to forgive, and to make myself believe I did ; but understanding all now, I feel that in the hour when you betrayed me, your own wife, I really ceased to love you. The death of love began then, and when at last I knew you had denied me it was buried forever.

I must go on alone, deprived of all that makes life bearable ; it is for you to keep on climbing higher by your vanity, your strength, and your deceit. But yet I know that, however high you climb, you will never find repose. The memory of a wronged woman will be with you always. You will not exist for me, you will not be even a memory ; but even against your will I shall always be part of you, — of your brain, of your heart, of your soul; for the haunting thought of the innocence you wronged will be your torment in your greatest hour. This is not a threat ; it is a prophecy.

Your worst torment will be then ; mine has already been with me. When the weight of my miseries first fell upon me I thought that I must die. Why should I live, — why should I not die ? The sea was near, and it buries deep. I thought of all the people that live on the great earth, and I said to myself that the soul of one poor girl could not count in it all, — that it could concern no one but myself. It was all clear to me, — it was certain that I must die. The end of it all should be quietness and rest, — no more aching heart, no more heavy feet, no more sleepless eyes that look upon the world as through a flame of fire.

I live still, you see, not because I fear to die, but because there came to me a voice in the night which said, “ Is thy life thine to give or to destroy ? ” The voice was clearer than my own thinking. It told my heart that death by one’s own hand meant shame ; and I understood that to reach that peace I must drag unwilling feet over the good name and memory of my beloved dead. I remembered my mother, — if you had remembered her, perhaps you would have guarded the gift of my love, and not have trampled it under your feet, — I remembered my mother, and so I live on. You live on, also, but your star has fallen from the sky. I know that, for I know what I might have been to you. I was your good destiny, but, like some madman who destroys his child, you dragged me from my quiet home, and with rough denial left me helpless in the highway. God sent my love to bless you, but you have turned it on me as a scourge. Your passion and your cowardice have lost me all — and your losses God will send you.

There is but little more to say. If it lies in my power, I shall never see you again while I live. And you will not wish it. Yes, in spite of your eloquent letter lying here beside me, you will not wish it, and you shall not expect it. I am not your wife save by the law; and little have you cared for law ! Little, too, would the law help you in this now, for which you will rejoice. For the ease of your mind I hasten to tell you why.

First let me inform you that none in this land knows me to be your wife. Your letter to my grandfather never reached him, and to this hour I have held my peace. The clergyman who married us is a prisoner among the French, and the strong-box which held the register of St. Michael’s Church was stolen. The one other witness, Mr. Shoreham, your lieutenant, as you tell me, went down with the Araminta. So you are safe in your denial of me. For me, I am firmly set to live my own life, in my own way, with what strength I can. A few short months ago I thought that the love I knew would never change through time or tears. Time has not changed it, but the tears which are my portion have. At last I see beyond the Hedge ; and now I would endure all the tortures of earth and time rather than call you husband ever again.

Your course is clear. You cannot turn back now ; you have gone too far. Your new honors and titles were got at the last by a coarse lie. To acknowledge the lie would be ruin, for all the world knows that Commander Philip d’Avranche of the King’s Navy is now the adopted son of the Prince d’Avranche, Duc de Bercy, second in succession to his serene highness. Surely the house of Bercy has cause for joy, with an imbecile for the first in succession, and a traitor for the second !

I return herewith the fifty pounds you sent me, — you will not question why.

. . . And so all ends. This is a last farewell between us. Henceforth my life is my own. Do you remember what you said to me on the Ecrdhos ? " If ever I deceive you, may I die a black, dishonorable death, abandoned and alone ! I should deserve that if ever I deceived you, Guida.” Think of that, in your vain glory hereafter.

GUIDA LANDRESSE DE LANDRESSE.

Gilbert Parker.

(To be continued.)