AFTER A YEAR
"Then," said Madame la Marquise, "you mean to be childish and obstinate about this, Fernande?"
"You may call it childish and obstinate, ma tante, if you wish," replied the young girl quietly.
"Meseems that you evince a singular want of loyalty in the matter. To leave La Frontenay—now—when the work of the past year is on the point of bearing fruit, when our chiefs are here every day, planning, concerting, arranging everything for our great coup. I, for one, would not be absent at such a time for the world."
"If I thought that my presence at La Frontenay would be of the slightest use to M. de Puisaye or to our cause, I would not hesitate, ma tante. But obviously women are de trop in war councils. What can I do save listen in silence? We must all accept blindly whatever our chiefs decide. I am quite prepared to do that; on the other hand, I see no object in my being present at their deliberations."
"But why?" ejaculated Madame, with a sigh of impatience. "In heaven's name, why?"
"I think that I could be of some use at Courson," replied Fernande firmly. "Sister Mary Ignatius, from the Visitation at Mortain, has promised to come and stay with me for a while. She is wonderfully clever at healing the wounded ... and meseems that we shall have need of her skill."
"You could make yourself more useful by organizing your base hospital here."
"Courson is more central and...."
"And what?"
"I could not bear to tend our wounded under the hospitality of M. de Maurel," concluded Fernande very quietly, with an intensity of feeling which caused Madame to exclaim angrily:
"You are stupid and childish, Fernande. Your father and I and Laurent have each told you that we look on your present attitude as nothing more than a silly whim. Last year's nonsense is a thing of the past. Ronnay, no doubt, has long forgotten all about it. In any case, it did not influence him in any way, and before he went he ordered Vardenne to attend to my installation at La Frontenay just as if nothing had happened. So why you should harbour so much foolishness in your head I cannot imagine."
Fernande made no reply. She turned away with a slightly impatient sigh, but a strange look of tenacity round her delicate mouth made her young face suddenly seem old and set.
Laurent de Mortain was sitting in a corner of the room, seemingly absorbed in turning over the pages of a book, and taking no part in the discussion, but now—at Fernande's obvious distress—he threw his book down; then he rose and came up to her.
"Do not let my mother worry you, Fernande," he said, as he took her inert hand in his and fondled it timidly. "There is—as you say—no special reason why you should remain at La Frontenay after to-day, and every reason why you should not. It will be almost impossible, I imagine, to avoid unpleasant rencontres in the future."
Quite gently but coolly, and with a detached little air, Fernande withdrew her hand, but she threw him a grateful look.
"I suppose that there is no doubt that de Maurel has come back?" interposed Madame coldly.
"No doubt whatever," replied Laurent. "He arrived at La Vieuville three days ago. The military overseers left La Frontenay yesterday."
"Oh, I knew those brutes had gone! The very sight of them in and about La Frontenay made me sick with hatred these past twelve months."
"I am not sure that you will find my worthy brother more pleasant to look on."
"Perhaps not," rejoined Madame, with a careless shrug of the shoulders. "Our bear is no doubt still suffering from a sore head, after the correction you administered to him last year. What a million pities that was!" she added with a sigh. "If you only had kept your temper then, Laurent!"
"Kept my temper?" he retorted hotly. "At sight of that lout forcing his attentions on my future wife?... I had been less than a man!"
"Fernande was not your future wife, then, Laurent."
"She was that in her heart already. Were you not, Fernande?" he added, as once again he drew near to the young girl and took hold of her hand. "Thank God she is that now!" he added, as he raised the little hand to his lips.
Madame la Marquise frowned. With all her love for her youngest son she yet was wroth with him for having so clumsily upset all her plans. She had but little patience with sentimental dalliance, and would have parted Laurent from the object of his heart's desire even now if it suited her purpose, and without the slightest compunction.
"In any case, mother," rejoined the young man, after a while, "you have had no cause to quarrel with Ronnay's burst of ill-temper, which took him off to Poland for close upon a year. Had he been at home, I doubt if you could have trafficked so easily with Leroux."
Before Madame la Marquise had time to reply the door was thrown open, and M. le Comte entered in the company of three other men, every one of whom Madame greeted most effusively:
"M. de Puisaye!" she exclaimed. "It is really an honour for this house to harbour our valiant chief! And you too, my dear Monsieur Prigent, and M. d'Aché!" she continued, as the three men in turn kissed her slender, finely-chiselled hand, then bowed to Mademoiselle Fernande and shook Laurent de Mortain by the hand.
"What a presage of greater things to come," she added excitedly, "that you should be able to enter the grounds and the Château of La Frontenay like this, in open daylight ... without fear of spies!"
The shorter of the three men—he whom Madame had addressed as de Puisaye—rubbed his hands gleefully together. He was a small man, dressed in worn and shabby clothes, who might have been termed good-looking but for the air of recklessness and dissipation which had already furrowed his face and dimmed the brightness of his eyes.
"A presage, indeed, Madame la Marquise," he said. "M. de Courson tells me that you have everything ready for our big coup, and that all we need decide now is the day on which it were best to carry it through."
"Optimistic as ever," broke in François Prigent, a tall, lean man, whose threadbare coat was a miracle of neatness, his down-at-heel boots polished till they shone, and whose nails were carefully manicured. "Our friend Joseph already sees himself the master of the Maurel foundries."
"And so he will be, by the grace of God," broke in Laurent confidently. "Personally, I do not see how we can fail. We were just speaking of our chances when you arrived, and as far as it is humanly possible to foresee events, the foundries will be turning out arms and munitions for the King's Majesty within the week."
"I should just like to hear exactly how we stand," here interposed the Vicomte d'Aché—a stout, florid man, with full lips and protruding eyes, which he kept fixed on Mademoiselle de Courson with undisguised admiration. "De Puisaye has told me nothing definite; in fact, he has been talking somewhat at random. I never saw a man quite so confident of success."
"And no wonder," quoth M. de Courson, whose sober manner contrasted vividly with the feverish excitement of all his friends. "No wonder that de Puisaye is confident of success. The situation in this little corner of Normandy is more favourable to the King's cause than any that hath ever gone before anywhere. Of course, we all know the importance and the value of the La Frontenay foundries."
"We do," assented d'Aché solemnly.
"They belong to my nephew, Ronnay de Maurel. He inherited them from his father—who was my sister Denise's first husband—when he was a mere baby. Old Gaston de Maurel administered his fortune and the foundries for him for many years, as Ronnay joined the Republican army when he was little more than sixteen, and was away from home for over twelve years."
"Old Gaston de Maurel is dead, is he not?" queried one of the men.
"No, he is not, worse luck!" commented Laurent, "though he was said to be dying a year and more ago."
"Anyhow," rejoined M. de Courson, "he has ceased to count for some time—in fact, ever since Ronnay came home wounded after Austerlitz and took over the management of his works himself."
"There are rumours all over the country of the eccentricity of the two de Maurels," interposed Prigent; "they are said to be hopeless rustics and quite illiterate. I trust," he added, with old-fashioned gallantry, "that Madame la Marquise will pardon this uncomplimentary remark about her eldest son."
"I pray you, do not spare me," said Madame, with a forced little laugh. "My son and I have nothing in common. As a matter of fact, people have talked a great deal of nonsense. Ronnay de Maurel may be a rustic, but he is not illiterate, and I looked upon him from the first as a dangerous enemy."
"He has influence with his men?" asked de Puisaye.
"He had," she assented, "a great deal."
"But what about now?"
"Well," resumed M. de Courson in his slow and deliberate way, "as to that we are somewhat in the dark. Ronnay de Maurel, after spending several months at La Vieuville, managing and reorganizing his factories, went away again about a year ago, to rejoin the army—so 'twas said—though I personally would have thought that his wounded leg unfitted him for the hard campaigning to which Bonaparte subjects his troops. Be that as it may, however, Ronnay de Maurel has been away from home for over a year now. He only returned a few days ago—much aged and still more severely crippled, so I am told. I have not seen him. While he was away old Gaston de Maurel took up the reins of government at the foundries in his own feeble hands. He seems to have rallied somewhat unexpectedly after Ronnay's departure, and though he really is sinking fast now—so they say—he certainly kept an eye on his nephew's interests, with the help of a military commission whom the War Office sent down here at Ronnay's desire to supervise the armament works."
"A military commission!" exclaimed d'Aché, with a contemptuous shrug of his wide shoulders. "The War Office! Hark at the insolence of that Corsican upstart!"
The others laughed, too. The Empire of France and its vast military and civil organization were mere objects of derision to these irrefragable Royalists.
"What was this military commission?" queried de Puisaye after a while.
"Ah, my good de Puisaye," exclaimed M. de Courson with a sigh, "you have lived so completely out of the world these past six or seven years, that I suppose you have no notion how absolutely this unfortunate country has come under the sway of military dictatorship. Everything, my good friend, is under military control—the police, of course; the municipality, the hospitals, the schools, the Church—let alone factories and munition foundries. Every man who owns and controls any kind of armament works and who finds it difficult to cope with his men has, it seems, the right to apply to the War Office to send him as many representatives as he may deem expedient to help him keep his workers in order. These representatives are really overseers with military rank and military authority; very convenient for the masters, but none too pleasant for the men!"
"Military tyranny invariably treads on the heels of democratic revolt," said Prigent sententiously. "The English have had their Cromwell, the unfortunate French nation is groaning under its Bonaparte."
"It does very little groaning just now," quoth M. de Courson dryly. "Bonaparte is amazingly popular. The army worships him—cela va sans dire—but so does the populace. We have had great difficulty in rallying the proletariat round here to their allegiance.”
"Well," interjected d'Aché somewhat impatiently, "what did this military commission do enfin? What did it consist of?"
"It consisted of four or five exceedingly vulgar men in uniform, who ruled the Maurel foundries with a rod of iron. Punishments for slackness and disobedience were doled out with a free hand, and the slightest attempt at concerted grumbling was instantly met with handcuffs, arrest, bread and water and other unpleasant manifestations of military discipline. The men openly sighed for the return of 'the General,' as they call Ronnay de Maurel, though he was none too pleasant a taskmaster either, so I've been told."
"And I suppose that while that military commission sat at La Frontenay, you were able to do very little in the way of recruiting for the King?"
"Very little indeed. You see, most of the able-bodied men in the neighbourhood are employed in the foundries, and it is only here and there that we have found a malcontent who was willing to come over to us. But we have got the two hundred men from the powder factory; they are ready to join us the moment your men march on La Frontenay."
"Ah!" exclaimed de Puisaye, as he once more rubbed his wrinkled hands together with an excited gesture which seemed habitual to him. "Ah! there you have it at last, my good d'Aché. Our friend de Courson has explained the situation to you as it has been this past year; now let me tell you how we stand at this present, and what causes me to be so certain for the future. The two hundred men of whom de Courson speaks are convicts employed solely in the more dangerous processes of the manufacture of gunpowder. They are a rough, surly, discontented lot, who live segregated from their fellow-workmen in compounds, which are under special supervision, and they are subject to special discipline. Personally, I should say that even so with these restrictions it was pleasanter to manufacture gunpowder in the factories of La Frontenay than in the jails of Caen or the galleys of Brest. But apparently Paul Leroux, who is in some sort of way the acknowledged leader of the gang, and his mates do not think so. They hate old Gaston de Maurel, they hate Ronnay, they execrated the military commission. They only work under strict compulsion—some say under the lash; in any case, they only work under the terror of punishment, and they are ready at any moment to rebel, to murder, to blow up the factory or to come in on our side—to do anything, in fact, for a change from their present condition, and, above all, for a bribe in the form of a promise of liberty and of money."
While de Puisaye spoke all the men had sat down and drawn their chairs together round a table which stood by the window in a corner of the room. Madame la Marquise, too, had joined the conclave, her enthusiasm and her energy were at least equal to that of any man. Only Fernande sat a little outside the circle, at the end of a sofa, near her father and close beside the window, from whence she could see right over the park to the distant wooded hills, thick and heavy with foliage now, and with the brilliant June sun picking out the clumps of wild roses round the edge of the wood, and the little stream in the valley which wound its turbulent course to the silent pool far away.
"Of course," resumed Joseph de Puisaye, after a while, "we all know that a set of jail-birds are not to be trusted in the long run, and it is not my intention that we should rely on them. But our friends here, Madame la Marquise de Mortain, M. de Courson and our ever loyal Laurent, have had certain access to these men for the past year, and they seem to have made marvellous use of their opportunities."
"I marvel that they were allowed to visit the foundries at all," commented François Prigent.
"We were only allowed the one visit," said Madame dryly. "Vardenne, my son's chief bailiff, engineered that for me. It seems that when Ronnay went away last year he never revoked the orders whereby he placed Vardenne entirely at my disposal; and though old Gaston de Maurel tried to interfere once or twice, Vardenne looked upon me as his mistress, and his attitude towards me influenced a good many others. I have been treated with marked respect by all and sundry in and around the property. It was only in the factories that Gaston and the military representatives held masterful sway, and there, after that one visit, not one of us was ever allowed to set foot."
"That being so, Madame la Marquise," continued de Puisaye with flattering earnestness, "I can only say that what you have accomplished is nothing short of miraculous."
"Oh!" rejoined Madame unblushingly, "my son Ronnay left a large sum of money behind for my use."
It was only Laurent, whose eyes never wandered away for long from the contemplation of Fernande, who noticed the quick, hot flush which at Madame's words had suffused the young girl's cheeks.
"I know, I know," interposed de Puisaye; "and, indeed, His Majesty owes you a deep debt of gratitude, Madame, for the privations which you endured so nobly, in order to place the bulk of that money at our disposal."
"I had to use some," rejoined the Marquise, "for bribing Leroux, and also our go-betweens. Unfortunately, those men to whom I had free access—the workmen in the foundries and armament works who live in the villages round—were not at all tractable. They are disloyal almost to a man. For them Bonaparte is a god and Ronnay de Maurel his prophet; we had to fall back on the convicts in the powder factory."
"With that man Paul Leroux as the chief asset," added M. de Courson.
"Beggars must not be choosers," commented de Puisaye with a sigh. "Two hundred jail-birds in the King's cause," he added naïvely, "are better than five hundred on the other side."
"Well, and what about Leroux and his gang, then?" queried d'Aché.
"On the occasion of our only visit to the foundries," replied Madame, "my brother, Laurent and I had agreed that one of us must have conversation with the man Leroux, with the help and connivance of the other two. Rumour had already told us that Leroux was the chief malcontent, who had given even the military representatives plenty of anxiety. We knew that we must get hold of him before we could approach any of the others. Fortunately luck was on our side. Something—I forget what—engaged the attention of one of the military representatives who were escorting us round the powder factory, my brother was able to engage the others in conversation, whilst Laurent drew the overseer Mathurin's attention to himself. This gave me just two minutes' talk with Leroux."
"Not very much," put in Prigent dryly. The others were listening in eager silence to Madame's narrative.
"Enough for my purpose," she continued. "Leroux was in a surly mood, smarting under some punishment which I've no doubt he deserved. A curse and a snarl from him directed at the overseer gave me my opening. In two minutes I managed to promise him freedom from his present position and money wherewith to create for himself a new one. He sucked in my suggestion greedily, and I asked him how we could communicate with one another in future. 'The boundary wall,' he muttered, 'where it was repaired recently—the stones are new-looking. I will throw a message over at that point when I can—during exercise hours—eight o'clock and two o'clock—you can be on the watch.' There was no time to say more. But I was satisfied. We had made a beginning. For over a week one of us was on the watch twice every day outside the boundary wall at the spot which Leroux had indicated. It was easily recognizable because of the new-looking stones. The spot is a lonely one. There is a footpath which follows the boundary wall at this point; the other side of the footpath is bordered by a bit of coppice wood. Either my brother, or Laurent, or I remained in observation, hidden in the coppice, while we heard the tramp of the men exercising inside the boundary wall. After a week, a piece of dirty paper, weighted by a stone, was flung over the wall. It had been my turn to watch. I picked up the paper and managed to decipher the scrawl upon it. Leroux explained that on this self-same spot in the wall—but on the inner side—he had succeeded in loosening a stone, immediately below the coping; he suggested that messages to him should be slipped behind the stone exactly five minutes before exercising time, and the stone replaced. The yard, he said, was always deserted then. Needless to say that we acted upon his suggestion, and the very next morning Laurent succeeded in clambering over the wall—though it is a high one—at exactly five minutes before eight o'clock, and managed to slip a message for Leroux into the hiding-place behind the stone."
"It all sounds like a fairy tale!" broke in d'Aché enthusiastically.
"Of course," here interposed M. de Courson, taking up the interrupted narrative, "after that, matters became comparatively simple. Leroux was more than ready to do all that we asked of him, and he kept us posted up with everything that went on inside the factory. Thus we enjoined him, for the sake of his own future and for the success of our undertaking, to drop his rebellious attitude—to become industrious, willing, a pattern amongst the workmen. We told him to gain the confidence of the War Office representatives by every means in his power and so to ingratiate himself with them that he might obtain the post of chief overseer of the powder factory, which would confer upon him privileges that he then could utilize for our service."
"Well, and did he succeed?"
"Indeed, he did," assented Madame la Marquise. "We have offered him a bribe of ten thousand francs if he served us in the way we required: the first step towards this service was to be his good conduct—the second his appointment as overseer."
"And what happened?"
"Paul Leroux is now overseer of the powder factory at La Frontenay. He was appointed by old Gaston de Maurel, who has been completely taken in by the man's change of front. Leroux is quoted throughout the district as a marvellous example of how a man can rise from his dead self, through patriotism and discipline, to a new life of industry and consideration. The epic of Leroux," added Madame with a laugh, "forms the comedy side of the palpitating drama which we have been enacting at La Frontenay these past twelve months."
"Splendid! Marvellous!" acclaimed the men in chorus, and d'Aché, less well informed than the others of what had been going on, added eagerly: "So much for the present; now what about the future?”
"The future," resumed M. de Courson quietly after a while, "is, in fact, rosier than any of us had ever dared to hope."
"Leroux will prove useful, you think?" queried Prigent.
"Leroux, my dear friends," broke in Madame triumphantly, "is prepared to hand over the entire factory to us, lock, stock and barrel. He has both the power and the means to do it. With the factory in our hands, the foundries and armament works will fall to us automatically."
"But how?" exclaimed d'Aché impassionedly, "in Heaven's name how? Believe me, the whole thing still seems to me like a fairy-tale."
"I am sure it does," she retorted gaily, "and yet it is all real ... so real ... Laurent!" she continued suddenly, turning to the young man, "I pray you go and see if Leroux hath come."
Laurent obeyed readily and de Puisaye said approvingly:
"Ah! you have the man here; that is good!"
"He can come and go at will now, out of his working hours," said M. de Courson, "and for the past two weeks has been up to the château every day to make report to us, as to what is going on inside the factories. Comparative freedom is one of the privileges which have been granted him now that he is chief overseer."
"You have, indeed, accomplished miracles, Madame," said de Puisaye, gallantly kissing Madame la Marquise de Mortain's well-shaped hand.
"Wait till you have spoken with Leroux," retorted Madame with a triumphant smile.
For the next moment or two no one spoke; obviously the nerves of every one in the room were strained to breaking point. Madame la Marquise leaned back in her chair. She was flushed with satisfaction and triumph; she kept her glowing eyes fixed upon Fernande as if she desired to challenge the young girl now to persist in her obstinacy of a while ago. "How can you think of abandoning this scene of coming triumphs?" she seemed to say. But Fernande kept her eyes resolutely averted from her aunt as well as from the three men, who seemed willing enough to while away these few minutes' suspense by casting admiring looks on the beautiful and silent girl by the window.
"Mademoiselle de Courson," said d'Aché, who had always been known for his gallantry, "has not honoured us by an expression of opinion on any point as yet."
"My father would tell you, sir, and justly, too, no doubt," said Fernande coldly, "that I am over-young to have an opinion on any point, and men have oft averred that danger looms largely on ahead whenever women meddle with politics."
"Then will Madame's diplomacy prove them wrong this time," cried de Puisaye gaily. "And I'll warrant that you, Mademoiselle, have borne no small share in the noble work that has been going on at La Frontenay for the behalf of His Majesty the King."
"There you do me too much honour, sir," rejoined Fernande. "I have been a passive witness here, seeing that I was—unwillingly enough, God knows!—a guest beneath M. de Maurel's roof."
Then, as Madame la Marquise uttered an exclamation of reproof and M. de Puisaye one of astonishment, M. de Courson broke in quietly:
"My daughter," he said, not without a stern look directed on Fernande, "hath meseems proved the truth of her assertion to your satisfaction, my friends. She is obviously too young to understand the grave issues which are at stake and wherein overstrung sensibilities must not be allowed to play a part."
Madame was frowning, and Fernande turned her little head once again obstinately away. And the three guests, scenting a family jar, promptly fell to talking of something else.