The absurdity and annoyance entailed by my new character, together with the study and trouble it cost me to play such a part, would have been intolerable but for the facilities it afforded me for enjoying with perfect freedom the society of Jacqueline. Thus, together we could ramble for hours, in the shady walks of the garden, and the green leafy turnings of the labyrinth, or sit in the bowers of fragrant roses, which were trained, trimmed, and cultured by my admirer, the gardener, whose name I shall long remember, was Urbain.
In the labyrinth we lost ourselves so often that the countess one day, somewhat to the confusion of poor Jacqueline, named it the Val sans retour, after that in the Breton forest of Broceliande—a mysterious path, out of which no false or fickle lover can ever return, for there the fairies raise up an impenetrable and impassable barrier. In that forest, too, say the legendaries, lies the tomb of Myrddyna, beneath a fatal and enchanted stone.
If the curé of St. Solidore actually paid madame the visit she spoke of, discovery was certain. I did not fear the good man much, save a severe rebuke for conduct that was unseemly; but then there was that devil of a commandant coming also from St. Malo, and already in anticipation, I felt myself a prisoner in its dreary casemates that overhung the sea!
This idea filled Jacqueline with terror.
"Give me up and leave me," said she, with hands clasped upon her forehead, while her tears fell fast, "to what end do we love each other, Basil?"
"True, Jacqueline—to what end indeed! But to give you up is impossible. To love you has become a part of my nature, my existence—myself; and being with you daily, has made that which was a passion, a confirmed habit."
"In mercy do not speak thus, I love you—love you dearly; yet our marriage is impossible, and I can see no future but despair."
"I know it," said I, gloomily and with clenched teeth. "Cursed be the fate that threw us together—the folly that kept me lingering here."
"Better would it have been that we had never met."
"That I had never rescued you, do you mean?"
"Or I you?" she would exclaim with a sad smile; and then a long, long kiss would close these interviews of mingled passion, joy, and pain.
One evening, after escorting Jacqueline to the door of the chateau, instead of entering with her I returned to the garden, for the purpose of dreaming over all that had passed between us, and also considering seriously the future, and what could be the end of a love so rash and desperate as ours. Twilight had set in, and from the garden I issued to the long avenue that led to the Rennes-road. It was dark and gloomy, and the clipped yews assumed all kinds of quaint and terrible forms. While loitering there, I became conscious that a man was observing me from behind one of the orange tubs, one of which, I have said, stood between each of the yews. Having no desire to meet any one, I was turning off hastily towards the chateau, when suddenly the lurker stepped before me, saying—
"Pardieu, my pretty one, it seems that he you wait for is not likely to come. Permit me to offer you my arm."
He was a tall, swinging fellow of a repulsive aspect, with a long knife in his belt and a broad hat slouched over his gloomy eyes.
"Stand back, monsieur," said I, firmly; "back, or it may be the worse for you. I am one of the household of Madame la Comtesse de Bourgneuf."
"I know that well enough; but don't be alarmed, my fair one—I am only a sportsman."
"Then permit me to pass."
"Oui—but I am a sportsman who looks for better game than a clumsy soubrette," said the fellow, whom I now perceived to be tipsy.
"Indeed, monsieur."
"Vraiment—perhaps Mademoiselle de Broglie herself. Does she often promenade here in the evening?"
Gathering my skirts up to my knees, as they sorely impeded me, I was running quickly away, encumbered by my stays and the paddings with which Angelique in her zeal had furnished them, when this man, who was both strong and active, overtook and confronted me again.
"Stop—speak!" he thundered out with a strange oath which I had somewhere heard before. "Pardieu, my saucy one, I shall teach you that I have not dragged a chain in the casemates of St. Malo, and at the aqueducts of Dol, for nothing."
"You are——" said I, gasping.
"Theophile Hautois," said he, closing the question.
I was thunderstruck, and the memory of Captain Brook, of the outrage he had contemplated with regard to Jacqueline, and my own narrow escape from his deadly couteau de chasse, flashed at once upon my memory. I was unarmed, defenceless, and sadly encumbered by my new costume, though at the same time it effectually disguised me.
I paused for a moment to recover my breath, and then concentrating all my strength and fury in one decisive blow, dealt fairly between the eyes, I knocked the ponderous ruffian down like a nine-pin, and, darting off towards the chateau, reached the vestibule in a state so breathless and excited, that any one who saw me would have deemed me a most timid and gentle woman in reality.
What Master Hautois thought, on receiving such a knock on the head from a fair hand, it may be difficult to conceive; but I saw no more of him for some time, nor could he be found, though the whole of the grounds were immediately and rigorously searched by Urbain and a party of armed men.
That this daring outlaw should prowl so near the chateau filled Jacqueline and her maid with the greatest alarm; and for myself, I took the precaution to carry about with me a small pistol, the charge of which I frequently renewed.
In the boudoir of the countess (a charming little circular chamber which opened off the drawing-room, and was entirely hung with rose-coloured silk, and had long windows which overlooked the garden and labyrinth), I was detailing to her my adventure in the avenue, and was also employed in the manly occupation of winding a skein of silk for some piece of work which her niece and Angelique were manufacturing for the cathedral of St. Malo, when the countess said to me—
"Basile, my child, you look very sad."
"Do I seem so, madame?"
"Yes," she continued, surveying me through her glass—a process which always made me wince; "I can read a sad expression in your eyes."
"It may be so, madame, there are few hearts without some hidden sorrow—some veiled secret."
"But you are so young! Ah, I see, you are in love!"
"It may be so," said I again, with a furtive glance at Jacqueline, near whom I was kneeling, and who grew pale as her aunt spoke.
"With some one far away?"
"Do not press me, madame; suffice that it is a mad and almost hopeless love—hopeless as regards its future," said I, bitterly, while Jacqueline gave me a secret and imploring glance. "I love, madam, how dearly and how deeply, is known only to Heaven and myself. There—that is my secret—that my hidden sorrow and joy—joy for the delight it gives me, and sorrow for its future."
The face of Jacqueline beamed with pleasure, and her eyes sparkled as she bent her flushed face over her needlework.
"I would that M. Jacquot would speak thus of me," said Angelique, "I shall pull his ears some day, till he does so."
The old lady politely asked pardon of me for her curiosity, and was proceeding to detail some of her own early experiences and to rehearse the number of Counts, Abbés, Chevaliers, and Grand Crosses of St. Louis, who had sighed and died for her, when a servant suddenly announced the Chevalier de Boisguiller; then we heard the clank of a sabre with the jingle of spurs, and that gay hussar in his brilliant uniform, all gold braid and bell buttons, with his fur cap in one hand, and the other caressing his dearly cherished moustache, entered, bowing and smiling to us all.
He was en route, he said, with his troop, from Rennes to the coast, and as he would pass near St. Malo, he had galloped on in front to pay his respects at the chateau, and obtain the honour of conveying any message for his father, the commandant, from the Countess Ninon—one who far excelled the Ninon of the preceding age.
There was mischief lurking in the handsome fellow's eyes as he said all this. He soon detected an impudent smile on the lips of Angelique, and, ere long, I found him eyeing me sharply through his glass, and I felt a horrible dread lest he should recognise me, or discover my sex.
I was certain the crisis had come, when the hussar captain said—
"By-the-by, my dear mademoiselle, what did you make of the Englishman, whose life you saved from my fellows, when we were last here?"
"The young man who saved my life from Hautois?" asked Jacqueline, slowly.
"Yes, 'twas turn about, it would seem."
"Monsieur le Chevalier, he was taken to St. Malo," said Angelique, who came to the rescue of her mistress.
"And since then, my girl?"
"We have heard no more of him."
"'Tis well," said the chevalier, who, as his eye chanced again to fall on me, caused my heart to swell alternately with alarm and anger. "Those English folks are about to pay us a visit again."
"Again—O mon Dieu!" we all exclaimed together.
"More shipping and troops are being concentrated at their rendezvous of both Portsmouth and Plymouth," said he, while playing with the gold tassels of the cord which held the furred pelisse on his left shoulder; "but my father is ready for them at St. Malo, and Brest and Cherbourg are in excellent hands."
Though reflection or thought evidently but seldom troubled our hussar, he now proceeded to make some remarks with which I, mentally, coincided.
"Parbleu! what did the King of Great Britain propose to gain by invading France with a force of about twelve thousand men? He takes a town or so, which he cannot keep—he effects a landing under great difficulties on our most dangerous coast, and lands only to embark again."
"The British did not invade France with the hope of conquest," said Jacqueline; "but to harass us and destroy our arsenals it would appear."
"Well, fair cousin, it may be so; but as the Duc de Marlborough is not like his namesake who fought against the Grand Monarque, I don't believe our courtiers at Paris or Versailles were very much alarmed by this recent landing of a handful of British at Cancalle Bay. At Versailles, they quite laughed at the idea of John Bull's vast armament to burn some fifteen or twenty old crazy hulks at St. Solidore."
"Fifteen or twenty, monsieur," said I, with unwise pique; "I thought the British destroyed eighty-six vessels of all kinds, and sank or destroyed two hundred and thirty-four pieces of cannon."
"Peste! you are well informed, my fair soubrette," said the captain, fixing his glass in his eye, and giving me a steady stare, while Jacqueline looked at me imploringly, and with intense alarm.
"Peace, Basile," said the countess, severely.
"But so many troops are now entering Brittany from all points," resumed the chevalier, "to strengthen the hands of the Duc d'Aiguillon, that I don't think our island neighbours will be so rash as to visit us again."
Kettledrums were now heard in the distance. I felt my cheek flush—my ears tingle at the sound; and when I looked up from my skein of silk, the keen eyes of Boisguiller were still regarding me.
"Already I must tear myself away, countess," said he, rising; "my troop will be here immediately."
"Why not halt for a time?"
"Nay, madame, a hundred men and horses are too many to trespass on your generosity, as our advanced party did before. Adieu, mademoiselle!" said he, kissing the hand of Jacqueline with a tenderness that certainly was not bestowed upon the yellow fingers of the Aunt Ninon; "adieu, pretty Angelique—and you, what is your name, mademoiselle?"
"Basile."
"Have you any tender messages for the Queen's Own Hussars? Believe me, girls, you are both too pretty to become the helpmates of charcoal-burners, and Breton woodcutters; so think of us sometimes."
Then with a low bow the chevalier pirouetted out of the room, and my heart beat more freely when I heard his horse galloping down the avenue.