Nance glanced over her shoulder as she knelt. A man had appeared round the corner of the house and was walking toward her along the stone-paved path. He was a tall man, dressed in black, with roguish, sinister eyes, an arrogant mouth, and a haughty way of carrying his head and shoulders.
Anthony Durrell turned and seemed nonplussed for the moment.
"It is you, Chevalier——"
De Rothan was a magnificent fool when a pretty woman held the stage. He gave Nance one of his French-Irish bows, hat over his heart, the heels of his shoes together. De Rothan had the reddish, raddled skin, and the angry blue eyes of the Irishman. The refinements were French, the cleverness, the subtlety, the love of intrigue.
"Mr. Durrell, present a poor exile to your daughter."
Nance had risen from her piece of sacking. Her hands were stained with soil, and stooping had flushed her face. The stranger's magnificent manners seemed out of place. She believed that the man was quizzing her.
Durrell closed his book with a snap, courteous under compulsion.
"Nance, this is the Chevalier de Rothan; an old friend of mine. I knew him in France many years ago."
De Rothan laughed, with his eyes on Nance.
"Mees Durrell, your father would make me out an old man! But it is not so. I can run and leap against any lad of twenty."
There are some men whose vanity cannot be controlled when they are brought into the presence of women. De Rothan was such a man. He was the peacock on the instant, strutting, swaggering, not content unless he outshone all other men.
"Though an exile, the English women have almost made me forget my France. Why is it, Mees Durrell, that the English women have such beautiful skins? Roses and milk, roses and milk."
Nance said nothing. The man's voice had driven her into a confusion of conjectures. If he were an old friend of her father's, how was it she had never heard of him before? And why all this midnight mystery, the stealthy coming by night?
She realised that both De Rothan and her father were watching her. It was imperative that she should speak to him, or seem like a gauche child.
"I am glad to see an old friend of my father's."
"Mees Durrell, will you make me old!"
"I don't think you are very young!"
He laughed and bowed.
"Mam'selle, your father is the cleverest of men. But to have such a daughter! That was a stroke of genius."
Nance smiled, but there was no pleasure in her smile. She supposed these were French manners, but they made her feel foolish and ill at ease.
"I am afraid father has never spoken to me of you."
She noticed that the men exchanged glances. Durrell intervened.
"Nance, child, the Chevalier will take tea with us."
"Yes, father."
She understood the hint and was glad to go. There was something puzzling and unwholesome about the man.
De Rothan followed her with his eyes.
"Faith, sir, the child is charming, and so innocent."
Durrell was not pleased.
"Do not try your airs and graces here, my friend."
"Psst—I am perfectly sincere. I pay homage to beauty——"
"Curtail it. Shall we walk a little way over the common?"
He glanced at the windows of the house, crossed the terrace and descended the steps. De Rothan followed him, staring with a certain whimsical contempt at Durrell's back.
"Has the young squire been here again?"
"This very morning—at six o'clock."
"Youth is in a hurry!"
"I have put a bridle upon his eagerness. I sent him packing. And Nance knows."
"Knows what?"
"That young Benham is a reprobate, and a loose liver."
"The devil she does! You told her?"
"Certainly. I did not mean the friendship to develop."
De Rothan looked half grave and half amused.
"Well, you have given me your news without miserliness. I return you news of my own. Villeneuve has got out of Toulon."
"What!"
"And has given Nelson the slip."
Durrell's face shone with sudden exultation.
"Man, is it true?"
"True as news can be. But listen to this. He has picked up some of the Spaniards, driven Orde's squadron out of the way, and is at sea. All England is in a sweat, and cursing. They know nothing. They quake in the dark."
"Yes—but Nelson?"
"Listen. This would be worth money in England. Villeneuve sails for the West Indies. Don't breathe it. He cuts himself loose, see—disappears. The English are left at blindman's-buff. Then the West Indies are harried. Nelson is lured thither. Back bolts Villeneuve, drives the blockading fleet from Brest, joins our ships there, and sails up the Channel with close on forty sail of the line. The straits are ours. Napoleon rushes his grenadiers across. After that—the deluge!"
Durrell stood and stared towards the sea with a look of exultation.
"And we shall help to bring in liberty."
De Rothan sneered behind the visionary's back.
"We shall show them where and how to strike. This house and hill of yours, Durrell, will be the first point they will make safe. There will be trenches and batteries here. The Emperor will stand upon your terrace, sir, with all the gorgeous gentlemen of his staff. As for me, I shall be the light-heeled Mercury. I know where the cattle and corn are to be found. I know the powder-mills, the best wells, every road and by-road. I shall be with the cavalry. God—these raw, red-coated bumpkins! How we shall sabre them!"
Durrell was like a man who had heard that his great enemy was to be overwhelmed with ruin and shame. England had made him suffer, and, fanatic and dreamer that he was, his enthusiasm did not lack a spice of vengeance. He wanted to see England suffer in turn, to see her purged of the poison of privilege, of the aristocrats, the lordlings, and the rich commoners whom he hated.
His mood came near to gaiety, if an austere and fanatical excitement can be called gay. He forgave De Rothan his vanity, and went in holding the arch-spy's arm as a man holds the arm of his dearest friend. De Rothan had twinkles of cynical amusement in his eyes. What did a bookworm and a dreamer expect from Napoleon and the French? He would be left to chant rhapsodies in a corner, and to shout "Liberty! Liberty!" provided that he did not turn round and shout it to the English.
De Rothan took advantage of Durrell's good humour, and prepared to enjoy himself with Nance. The girl's silence and reserve piqued him. He loved conquests, and would boast that no woman could withstand him.
His gallantry and his oglings worried Nance. She disliked the expression of his quarrelsome blue eyes. He was too free, too familiar to please her, nor was she in a mood for coquetry. Her opinion of De Rothan was suggested by the fact that she had not changed her old stuff dress.
"Ah, Mees Nance, your hands play with the cups and the sugar and the milk as though you played the harpsichord. Have you music here? No? Your father should buy you a harpsichord. It would show off your pretty fingers."
"I should not be able to play it."
"No? Why, by the honour of Louis, I would teach you myself. So many of us exiles have become music-masters. Durrell, my good friend, buy your daughter a harpsichord, and I will teach her to play and to sing."
Durrell gave them one of his austere smiles. He was happy, exultant, and saw nothing sinister in De Rothan's playfulness.
"All in good time—all in good time. Nance has not had all that she might have had."
"What, sir! And she has so much already! Most of the women would think she had too much."
He bowed to Nance.
"One may not drink to beauty—in tea. The sparkling wine of France! I imagine that I drink it to you, Mees Nance."
The girl was silent and irresponsive. Perhaps De Rothan felt challenged; perhaps she pleased him more than he had expected. Before the meal was over some of the froth had been blown from his fooling. The man was more than half in earnest. The expression of his eyes changed. They betrayed a subtle, gloating, admiration that is seen at times in the eyes of men.
De Rothan's leave-taking was half insolent, half tender. It had always been his way to treat women with audacity. He attacked them with the bold ferocity of his self-confidence.
"Mees Nance, this is the first day of spring. I kiss your hands. I felicitate your father. Never will he produce another such poem."
His bold eyes thrust his admiration into her face. Durrell was still living in dreams.
"Must you go, my friend? Well, well, now that you are in these parts, we shall see you more often."
"Sir, could I help it? The sun shines at Stonehanger."
Nance was silent and thoughtful when De Rothan had gone. She cleared the tea things away, while Anthony Durrell sat on the couch by the window and filled the bowl of a long clay pipe.
"Who is that man, father?"
"De Rothan? An exile, a French aristocrat. He waits for the return of King Louis."
Durrell showed the Jesuitical spirit in his belief that the end justified the means.
"Has he been long in Sussex?"
"No, not very long. Otherwise you would have seen him before."
"Where does he live?"
"He has rented an old house away yonder over the ridge?"
It was on Nance's tongue to speak of that night when she had heard De Rothan's voice in her father's room. But some impulse drove the words back. She went put with the tray, leaving her father to dream impossible dreams of an impossible future.
She was thinking of Jasper Benham, nor was it very marvellous that Jasper could keep her in countenance in the matter of thinking. He had ridden home in no pleasant temper, puzzled and challenged by Anthony Durrell's blunt prejudice against him. Nor could Jasper help remembering Parson Goffin's insinuations. Durrell might not want strangers at Stonehanger. And yet it seemed bad policy to be so frankly churlish.
At Rush Heath Jasper found half-a-score red-coats drinking beer in the stable-yard. Jack Bumpstead was watering their horses, and joining in the gossip that flitted about the pewter pots.
"Capt'n Jennison be in t' parlour, Master Jasper."
And Jasper found Captain Jennison comfortably seated at breakfast, making himself wholly at home in Squire Kit's chair.
He was a grim-mouthed, swarthy little man, with massive limbs and a big chest. His temper was abrupt and dangerous.
"Morning to you, Benham. Time's precious, sir. Excuse me if I open my mouth to eat and to talk. I have important orders, sir, but Captain Curtiss was not to be found. God knows what the man has done with himself!"
Jasper drew a chair to the table, and helped himself to cold meat-pie.
"I am at your service, captain."
"The fact is, sir, that Villeneuve has got out of Toulon. Where Nelson is, only the devil knows. Mischief is brewing, and we are most damnably in the dark. They say that in London men have faces as long as lamp-posts. We are to be on the alert, sir. I have been sent out to warn all the volunteer officers to have their men ready for any emergency."
"Then there is a chance of the French getting across?"
"A confoundedly good chance, sir, and I can't say I have much faith in our row of dove-cots and their pop-guns. We must have every man ready who can carry a musket. Whip up all your men, billet 'em in Battle, somewhere handy—here, if you like. Have your wagons ready. We are waiting in the dark. Villeneuve may be coming up the Channel for all we know."
Jasper had the grave face of a man who took his duties very seriously.
"It shall be done, Captain Jennison. I am to act for Captain Curtiss?"
"Good Lord, sir, yes. That gentleman will be shaving himself when the French cavalry are galloping past Tunbridge."
Captain Jennison gathered his men and rode on, while Jasper sent Jack Bumpstead to re-saddle Devil Dick, and went to spend five minutes with his father. He was fond of the fiery, blasphemous old curmudgeon, and Squire Kit was proud of Jasper, and very generous in his way. He was the sort of man who cursed because it had become a habit with him, and ill health had not sweetened his temper.
"Well, Jasper, well, lad——?"
"Captain Jennison has been here, father. It is likely that the French may get across."
"The French! Rot their teeth! Let 'em come, sir. What are we in such a pest of a fear of the French for? We'll give 'em something to remember. Let 'em come, I say."
Jasper was at the door and ready to mount when a green curricle came swinging up the road, with Rose Benham's plain face looking out from a big straw bonnet.
Jasper smothered a gust of impatience. Rose threw the reins to the groom, and descended with an air of eager concern.
"Jasper, what is the news? I have heard all sorts of rumours."
"It seems likely that the French will get across."
"The wretches!"
"We have orders to bring our men together. I am off to whip them in."
A gloved hand came out, and touched Jasper's sleeve.
"O, Jasper, what will happen? I can't help being afraid."
Rose was not at her best when she was sentimental.
"Every one will be warned. You will have to go inland."
"I was not thinking of myself, Jasper. I shall be praying to God for you and our friends. But why should I be sent away? Women may be of use."
"It may not come to that, Rose."
Her hand still touched his sleeve, and her display of tenderness irritated him. He could not return it, and his mouth felt stiff.
"How grave you look. Does Uncle Kit know?"
"Yes."
"Poor, dear old man. I might go and comfort him."
"I shouldn't, Rose."
For Squire Kit was deep in one long, blasphemous soliloquy.
There was a short, constrained silence, Jasper avoiding his cousin's eyes.
"Now, I know I am keeping you. Duty calls. But, O Jasper, it is hard——"
"The French are not here yet."
"How brave and calm you look."
She had tried very hard to make the man kiss her, but Jasper's face was obstinate and cold.