The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 13

Chapter 13

When Detricand left the Vier Marchi he made his way along the Rue
d'Egypte to the house of M. de Mauprat. The front door was open, and a
nice savour of boiling fruit came from within. He knocked, and instantly
Guida appeared, her sleeves rolled back to her elbows, her fingers
stained with the rich red of the blackberries on the fire.

A curious shade of disappointment came into her face when she saw who it
was. It was clear to Detricand that she expected some one else; it was
also clear that his coming gave no especial pleasure to her, though she
looked at him with interest. She had thought of him more than once since
that day when the famous letter from France to the chevalier was read.
She had instinctively compared him, this roystering, notorious fellow,
with Philip d'Avranche, Philip the brave, the ambitious, the conquering.
She was sure that Philip had never over-drunk himself in his life; and
now, looking into the face of Detricand, she could tell that he had been
drinking again. One thing was apparent, however: he was better dressed
than she ever remembered seeing him, better pulled together, and bearing
himself with an air of purpose.

"I've fetched back your handkerchief--you tied up my head with it, you
know," he said, taking it from his pocket. "I'm going away, and I wanted
to thank you."

"Will you not come in, monsieur?" she said.

He readily entered the kitchen, still holding the handkerchief in his
hand, but he did not give it to her. "Where will you sit?" she said,
looking round. "I'm very busy. You mustn't mind my working," she added,
going to the brass bashin at the fire. "This preserve will spoil if I
don't watch it."

He seated himself on the veille, and nodded his head. "I like this," he
said. "I'm fond of kitchens. I always was. When I was fifteen I was sent
away from home because I liked the stables and the kitchen too well. Also
I fell in love with the cook."

Guida flushed, frowned, her lips tightened, then presently a look of
amusement broke over her face, and she burst out laughing.

"Why do you tell me these things?" she said. "Excuse me, monsieur, but
why do you always tell unpleasant things about yourself? People think ill
of you, and otherwise they might think--better."

"I don't want them to think better till I am better," he answered. "The
only way I can prevent myself becoming a sneak is by blabbing my faults.
Now, I was drunk last night--very, very drunk."

A look of disgust came into her face.

"Why do you relate this sort of thing to me, monsieur? Do--do I remind
you of the cook at home, or of an oyster-girl in Jersey?"

She was flushing, but her voice was clear and vibrant, the look of the
eyes direct and fearless. How dared he hold her handkerchief like that!

"I tell you them," he answered slowly, looking at the handkerchief in his
hand, then raising his eyes to hers with whimsical gravity, "because I
want you to ask me never to drink again."

She looked at him scarce comprehending, yet feeling a deep compliment
somewhere, for this man was a gentleman by birth, and his manner was
respectful, and had always been respectful to her.

"Why do you want me to ask you that?" she said. "Because I'm going to
France to join the war of the Vendee, and--"

"With the Comte de Tournay?" she interrupted. He nodded his head. "And if
I thought I was keeping a promise to--to you, I'd not break it. Will you
ask me to promise?" he persisted, watching her intently.

"Why, of course," she answered kindly, almost gently; the compliment was
so real, he could not be all bad.

"Then say my name, and ask me," he said.

"Monsieur--"

"Leave out the monsieur," he interrupted.

"Yves Savary dit Detricand, will you promise me, Guida Landresse--"

"De Landresse," he interposed courteously.

"--Guida Landresse de Landresse, that you will never again drink wine to
excess, and that you will never do anything that"--she paused confused.
"That you would not wish me to do," he said in a low voice.

"That I should not wish you to do," she repeated in a half-embarrassed
way.

"On my honour I promise," he said slowly.

A strange feeling came over her. She had suddenly, in some indirect,
allusive way, become interested in a man's life. Yet she had done
nothing, and in truth she cared nothing. They stood looking at each
other, she slightly embarrassed, he hopeful and eager, when suddenly a
step sounded without, a voice called "Guida!" and as Guida coloured and
Detricand turned towards the door, Philip d'Avranche entered impetuously.

He stopped short on seeing Detricand. They knew each other slightly, and
they bowed. Philip frowned. He saw that something had occurred between
the two. Detricand on his part realised the significance of that familiar
"Guida!" called from outside. He took up his cap.

"It is greeting and good-bye, I am just off for France," he said.

Philip eyed him coldly, and not a little maliciously, for he knew
Detricand's reputation well, the signs of a hard life were thick on him,
and he did not like to think of Guida being alone with him.

"France should offer a wide field for your talents just now," he answered
drily; "they seem wasted here." Detricand's eye flashed, but he answered
coolly: "It wasn't talent that brought me here, but a boy's folly; it's
not talent that's kept me from starving here, I'm afraid, but the
ingenuity of the desperate."

"Why stay here? The world was wide, and France but a step away. You would
not have needed talents there. You would no doubt have been rewarded by
the Court which sent you and Rullecour to ravage Jersey--"

"The proper order is Rullecour and me, monsieur." Detricand seemed
suddenly to have got back a manner to which he had been long a stranger.
His temper became imperturbable, and this was not lost on Philip; his
manner had a balanced serenity, while Philip himself had no such perfect
control; which made him the more impatient. Presently Detricand added in
a composed and nonchalant tone:

"I've no doubt there were those at Court who'd have clothed me in purple
and fine linen, and given me wine and milk, but it was my whim to work in
the galleys here, as it were."

"Then I trust you've enjoyed your Botany Bay," answered Philip mockingly.
"You've been your own jailer, you could lay the strokes on heavy or
light." He moved to the veille, and sat down. Guida busied herself at the
fireplace, but listened intently.

"I've certainly been my own enemy, whether the strokes were heavy or
light," replied Detricand, lifting a shoulder ironically.

"And a friend to Jersey at the same time, eh?" was the sneering reply.

Detricand was in the humour to tell the truth even to this man who hated
him. He was giving himself the luxury of auricular confession. But Philip
did not see that when once such a man has stood in his own pillory, sat
in his own stocks, voluntarily paid the piper, he will take no after
insult.

Detricand still would not be tempted out of his composure. "No," he
answered, "I've been an enemy to Jersey too, both by act and example; but
people here have been kind enough to forget the act, and the example I
set is not unique."

"You've never thought that you've outstayed your welcome, eh?"

"As to that, every country is free to whoever wills, if one cares to pay
the entrance fee and can endure the entertainment. One hasn't to
apologise for living in a country. You probably get no better treatment
than you deserve, and no worse. One thing balances another."

The man's cool impeachment and defence of himself irritated Philip, the
more so because Guida was present, and this gentlemanly vagrant had him
at advantage.

"You paid no entrance fee here; you stole in through a hole in the wall.
You should have been hanged."

"Monsieur d'Avranche!" said Guida reproachfully, turning round from the
fire.

Detricand's answer came biting and dry. "You are an officer of your King,
as was I. You should know that hanging the invaders of Jersey would have
been butchery. We were soldiers of France; we had the distinction of
being prisoners of war, monsieur."

This shot went home. Philip had been touched in that nerve called
military honour. He got to his feet. "You are right," he answered with
reluctant frankness. "Our grudge is not individual, it is against France,
and we'll pay it soon with good interest, monsieur."

"The individual grudge will not be lost sight of in the general, I hope?"
rejoined Detricand with cool suggestion, his clear, persistent grey eye
looking straight into Philip's.

"I shall do you that honour," said Philip with mistaken disdain.

Detricand bowed low. "You will always find me in the suite of the Prince
of Vaufontaine, monsieur, and ready to be so distinguished by you."
Turning to Guida, he added: "Mademoiselle will perhaps do me the honour
to notice me again one day?" then, with a mocking nod to Philip, he left
the house.

Guida and Philip stood looking after him in silence for a minute.
Suddenly Guida said to herself: "My handkerchief--why did he take my
handkerchief? He put it in his pocket again."

Philip turned on her impatiently.

"What was that adventurer saying to you, Guida? In the suite of the
Prince of Vaufontaine, my faith! What did he come here for?"

Guida looked at him in surprise. She scarcely grasped the significance of
the question. Before she had time to consider, he pressed it again, and
without hesitation she told him all that had happened--it was so very
little, of course--between Detricand and herself. She omitted nothing
save that Detricand had carried off the handkerchief, and she could not
have told, if she had been asked, why she did not speak of it.

Philip raged inwardly. He saw the meaning of the whole situation from
Detricand's stand-point, but he was wise enough from his own stand-point
to keep it to himself; and so both of them reserved something, she from
no motive that she knew, he from an ulterior one. He was angry too: angry
at Detricand, angry at Guida for her very innocence, and because she had
caught and held even the slight line of association Detricand had thrown.

In any case, Detricand was going to-morrow, and to-day-to-day should
decide all between Guida and himself. Used to bold moves, in this affair
of love he was living up to his custom; and the encounter with Detricand
here added the last touch to his resolution, nerved him to follow his
strong impulse to set all upon one hazard. A month ago he had told Guida
that he loved her; to-day there should be a still more daring venture. A
thing not captured by a forlorn hope seemed not worth having. The girl
had seized his emotions from the first moment, and had held them. To him
she was the most original creature he had ever met, the most natural, the
most humorous of temper, the most sincere. She had no duplicity, no
guile, no arts.

He said to himself that he knew his own mind always. He believed in
inspirations, and he would back his knowledge, his inspiration, by an
irretrievable move. Yesterday had come an important message from his
commander. That had decided him. To-day Guida should hear a message
beyond all others in importance.

"Won't you come into the garden?" he said presently.

"A moment--a moment," she answered him lightly, for the frown had passed
from his face, and he was his old buoyant self again. "I'm to make an end
to this bashin of berries first," she added. So saying, she waved him
away with a little air of tyranny; and he perched himself boyishly on the
big chair in the corner, and with idle impatience began playing with the
flax on the spinning-wheel near by. Then he took to humming a ditty the
Jersey housewife used to sing as she spun, while Guida disposed of the
sweet-smelling fruit. Suddenly she stopped and stamped her foot.

"No, no, that's not right, stupid sailor-man," she said, and she sang a
verse at him over the last details of her work:

       "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
         The moon wheels full, and the tide flows high,
        And your wedding-gown you must put it on
         Ere the night hath no moon in the sky--
            Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"

She paused. He was entranced. He had never heard her sing, and the full,
beautiful notes of her contralto voice thrilled him like organ music. His
look devoured her, her song captured him.

"Please go on," he said, "I never heard it that way." She was embarrassed
yet delighted by his praise, and she threw into the next verse a deep
weirdness:

       "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
         Your gown shall be stitched ere the old moon fade:
        The age of a moon shall your hands spin on,
         Or a wife in her shroud shall be laid--
              Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"

"Yes, yes, that's it!" he exclaimed with gay ardour. "That's it. Sing on.
There are two more verses."

"I'll only sing one," she answered, with a little air of wilfulness.

       "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
         The Little Good Folk the spell they have cast;
        By your work well done while the moon hath shone,
         Ye shall cleave unto joy at last--
            Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"

As she sang the last verse she seemed in a dream, and her rich voice,
rising with the spirit of the concluding lines, poured out the notes like
a bird drunk with the air of spring.

"Guida," he cried, springing to his feet, "when you sing like that it
seems to me I live in a world that has nothing to do with the sordid
business of life, with my dull trade--with getting the weather-gauge or
sailing in triple line. You're a planet all by yourself, Mistress Guida!
Are you ready to come into the garden?"

"Yes, yes, in a minute," she answered. "You go out to the big apple-tree,
and I'll come in a minute." The apple-tree was in the farthest corner of
the large garden. Near it was the summer-house where Guida and her mother
used to sit and read, Guida on the three-legged stool, her mother on the
low, wide seat covered with ferns. This spot Guida used to "flourish"
with flowers. The vines, too, crept through the rough latticework, and
all together made the place a bower, secluded and serene. The water of
the little stream outside the hedge made music too.

Philip placed himself on the bench beneath the appletree. What a change
was all this, he thought to himself, from the staring hot stones of
Malta, the squalor of Constantinople, the frigid cliffs of Spitzbergen,
the noisome tropical forests of the Indies! This was Arcady. It was
peace, it was content. His life was sure to be varied and perhaps
stormy--here would be the true change, the spirit of all this. Of course
he would have two sides to his life like most men: that lived before the
world, and that of the home. He would have the fight for fame. He would
have to use, not duplicity, but diplomacy, to play a kind of game; but
this other side to his life, the side of love and home, should be simple,
direct--all genuine and strong and true. In this way he would have a
wonderful career.

He heard Guida's footstep now, and standing up he parted the apple boughs
for her entrance. She was dressed all in white, without a touch of colour
save in the wild rose at her throat and the pretty red shoes with the
broad buckles which the Chevalier had given her. Her face, too, had
colour--the soft, warm tint of the peach-blossom--and her auburn hair was
like an aureole.

Philip's eyes gleamed. He stretched out both his hands in greeting and
tenderness. "Guida--sweetheart!" he said.

She laughed up at him mischievously, and put her hands behind her back.

"Ma fe, you are so very forward," she said, seating herself on the bench.
"And you must not call me Guida, and you've no right to call me
sweetheart."

"I know I've no right to call you anything, but to myself I always call
you Guida, and sweetheart too, and I've liked to think that you would
care to know my thoughts," he answered.

"Yes, I wish I knew your thoughts," she responded, looking up at him
intently; "I should like to know every thought in your mind. . . . Do you
know--you don't mind my saying just what I think?--I find myself feeling
that there's something in you that I never touch; I mean, that a friend
ought to touch, if it's a real friendship. You appear to be so frank, and
I know you are frank and good and true, and yet I seem always to be
hunting for something in your mind, and it slips away from me
always--always. I suppose it's because we're two different beings, and no
two beings can ever know each other in this world, not altogether. We're
what the Chevalier calls 'separate entities.' I seem to understand his
odd, wise talk better lately. He said the other day: 'Lonely we come into
the world, and lonely we go out of it.' That's what I mean. It makes me
shudder sometimes, that part of us which lives alone for ever. We go
running on as happy as can be, like Biribi there in the garden, and all
at once we stop short at a hedge, just as he does there--a hedge just too
tall to look over and with no foothold for climbing. That's what I want
so much; I want to look over the Hedge."

When she spoke like this to Philip, as she sometimes did, she seemed
quite unconscious that he was a listener, it was rather as if he were
part of her and thinking the same thoughts. To Philip she seemed
wonderful. He had never bothered his head in that way about abstract
things when he was her age, and he could not understand it in her. What
was more, he could not have thought as she did if he had tried. She had
that sort of mind which accepts no stereotyped reflection or idea; she
worked things out for herself. Her words were her own, and not another's.
She was not imitative, nor yet was she bizarre; she was individual,
simple, inquiring.

"That's the thing that hurts most in life," she added presently; "that
trying to find and not being able to--voila, what a child I am to babble
so!" she broke off with a little laugh, which had, however, a plaintive
note. There was a touch of undeveloped pathos in her character, for she
had been left alone too young, been given responsibility too soon.

He felt he must say something, and in a sympathetic tone he replied:

"Yes, Guida, but after a while we stop trying to follow and see and find,
and we walk in the old paths and take things as they are."

"Have you stopped?" she said to him wistfully. "Oh, no, not altogether,"
he replied, dropping his tones to tenderness, "for I've been trying to
peep over a hedge this afternoon, and I haven't done it yet." "Have you?"
she rejoined, then paused, for the look in his eyes embarrassed her. . . .
"Why do you look at me like that?" she added tremulously.

"Guida," he said earnestly, leaning towards her, "a month ago I asked you
if you would listen to me when I told you of my love, and you said you
would. Well, sometimes when we have met since, I have told you the same
story, and you've kept your promise and listened. Guida, I want to go on
telling you the same story for a long time--even till you or I die."

"Do you--ah, then, do you?" she asked simply. "Do you really wish that?"

"It is the greatest wish of my life, and always will be," he added,
taking her unresisting hands.

"I like to hear you say it," she answered simply, "and it cannot be
wrong, can it? Is there any wrong in my listening to you? Yet why do I
feel that it is not quite right?--sometimes I do feel that."

"One thing will make all right," he said eagerly; "one thing. I love you,
Guida, love you devotedly. Do you--tell me if you love me? Do not fear to
tell me, dearest, for then will come the thing that makes all right."

"I do not know," she responded, her heart beating fast, her eyes drooping
before him; "but when you go from me, I am not happy till I see you
again. When you are gone, I want to be alone that I may remember all you
have said, and say it over to myself again. When I hear you speak I want
to shut my eyes, I am so happy; and every word of mine seems clumsy when
you talk to me; and I feel of how little account I am beside you. Is that
love, Philip--Philip, do you think that is love?"

They were standing now. The fruit that hung above Guida's head was not
fairer and sweeter than she. Philip drew her to him, and her eyes lifted
to his.

"Is that love, Philip?" she repeated. "Tell me, for I do not know--it has
all come so soon. You are wiser; do not deceive me; you understand, and I
do not. Philip, do not let me deceive myself."

"As the Judgment of Life is before us, I believe you love me,
Guida--though I don't deserve it," he answered with tender seriousness.

"And it is right that you should love me; that we should love each other,
Philip?"

"It will be right soon," he said, "right for ever. Guida mine, I want you
to marry me."

His arm tightened round her waist, as though he half feared she would fly
from him. He was right; she made a motion backward, but he held her
firmly, tenderly. "Marry--marry you, Philip!" she exclaimed in trembling
dismay.

"Marry--yes, marry me, Guida. That will make all right; that will bind us
together for ever. Have you never thought of that?"

"Oh, never, never!" she answered. It was true, she had never thought of
that; there had not been time. Too much had come all at once. "Why should
I? I cannot--cannot. Oh, it could not be--not at least for a long, long
time, not for years and years, Philip."

"Guida," he answered gravely and persistently, "I want you to marry
me--to-morrow."

She was overwhelmed. She could scarcely speak. "To-morrow--to-morrow,
Philip? You are laughing at me. I could not--how could I marry you
to-morrow?"

"Guida, dearest,"--he took her hands more tightly now--"you must indeed.
The day after to-morrow my ship is going to Portsmouth for two months.
Then we return again here, but I will not go now unless I go as your
husband!"

"Oh, no, I could not--it is impossible, Philip! It is madness--it is
wrong. My grandfather--"

"Your grandfather need not know, sweetheart."

"How can you say such wicked things, Philip?"

"My dearest, it is not necessary for him to know. I don't want any one to
know until I come back from Portsmouth. Then I shall have a ship of my
own--commander of the Araminta I shall be then. I have word from the
Admiralty to that effect. But I dare not let them know that I am married
until I get commissioned to my ship. The Admiralty has set its face
against lieutenants marrying."

"Then do not marry, Philip. You ought not, you see."

Her pleading was like the beating of helpless wings against the bars of a
golden cage.

"But I must marry you, Guida. A sailor's life is uncertain, and what I
want I want now. When I come back from Portsmouth every one shall know,
but if you love me--and I know you do--you must marry me to-morrow. Until
I come back no one shall know about it except the clergyman, Mr. Dow of
St. Michael's--I have seen him--and Shoreham, a brother officer of mine.
Ah, you must, Guida, you must! Whatever is worth doing is better worth
doing in the time one's own heart says. I want it more, a thousand times
more, than I ever wanted anything in my life."

She looked at him in a troubled sort of way. Somehow she felt wiser than
he at that moment, wiser and stronger, though she scarcely defined the
feeling to herself, though she knew that in the end her brain would yield
to her heart in this.

"Would it make you so much happier, Philip?" she said more kindly than
joyfully, more in grave acquiescence than delighted belief.

"Yes, on my honour--supremely happy."

"You are afraid that otherwise, by some chance, you might lose me?" she
said it tenderly, yet with a little pain.

"Yes, yes, that is it, Guida dearest," he replied. "I suppose women are
different altogether from men," she answered. "I could have waited ever
so long, believing that you would come again, and that I should never
lose you. But men are different; I see, yes, I see that, Philip."

"We are more impetuous. We know, we sailors, that now-to-day-is our time;
that to-morrow may be Fate's, and Fate is a fickle jade: she beckons you
up with one hand to-day, and waves you down with the other to-morrow."

"Philip," she said, scarcely above a whisper, and putting her hands on
his arms, as her head sank towards him, "I must be honest with you--I
must be that or nothing at all. I do not feel as you do about it; I
can't. I would much--much--rather everybody knew. And I feel it almost
wrong that they do not." She paused a minute, her brow clouded slightly,
then cleared again, and she went on bravely: "Philip, if--if I should,
you must promise me that you will leave me as soon as ever we are
married, and that you will not try to see me until you come again from
Portsmouth. I am sure that is right, for the deception will not be so
great. I should be better able then to tell the poor grandpethe. Will you
promise me, Philip-dear? It--it is so hard for me. Ah, can't you
understand?"

This hopeless everlasting cry of a woman's soul!

He clasped her close. "Yes, Guida, my beloved, I understand, and I
promise you--I do promise you." Her head dropped on his breast, her arms
ran round his neck. He raised her face; her eyes were closed; they were
dropping tears. He tenderly kissed the tears away.

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