Angelot

Helene stretched down eager hands among the thick leaves.

"Angelot! Angelot!"

She heard nothing but the rustling down below, saw nothing but the thick leaves under the stars, though somebody had opened the chapel door, and though her treacherous candle, throwing a square of light upon the dark trees opposite, showed not only her own imploring shadow, but that of a tall figure stepping up behind her. In another moment her arm was seized in a grasp by no means gentle, and she turned round with a scream to face Madame de Sainfoy.

Her cry might have stopped Angelot in his swift descent and brought him to the window again, but as he neared the ground he saw that some one was waiting for him, some one standing on the flat gra.s.s, under the light of such stars as shone down into the moat, gazing with fixed gravity at the window from which Helene was leaning.

Angelot"s light spring to the ground brought him within a couple of yards of the motionless figure, and his white face flushed red when he saw that it was Helene"s father. The few moments during which he faced Comte Herve silently were the worst his happy young life had ever known.

The elder man did not speak till Helene, with that last little cry, had disappeared from the window. Then he looked at Angelot.

"I am sorry, Ange," he said, "for I owe a good deal to your father. But I will ask you to wait here while I fetch my pistols. It is best to settle such a matter on the spot--though you hardly deserve to be so well treated."

"Monsieur--" Angelot almost choked.

"Ah! Do not trouble yourself to hunt for excuses--there are none," said the Comte.

He was moving off, but Angelot threw himself in his way.

"Bring one pistol," he said. "One will be enough, for I cannot fight you--you know it. But you may kill me if it pleases you."

Herve shrugged his shoulders.

"How long has this been going on? How many times have you met my daughter clandestinely? Does it seem to you the behaviour of a gentleman? On my soul, you deserve to be shot down like a dog, as you say!"

"No, monsieur," Angelot said quickly, "I give you leave to do it, for I see now that life must be misery. But I have done no such harm as to deserve to be shot! No! I love and adore my cousin, and you must have known it--every one knows it, I should think. Can I sit quietly at home while her family gives her the choice between General Ratoneau and a convent? No, I confess it is more than I can bear."

"And if her family had given her such a choice--which is false, by the bye--what could you do? Is it likely that they would change their minds and give her to you, as your uncle Joseph suggested? And would you expect to gain their favour by this sort of thing?" He pointed to the window. "No, young man; if you were not your father"s son, my grooms might whip you out of Lancilly, and I should feel justified in giving the order."

Angelot broke into a short laugh. "A pistol-shot is not an insult," he said. "But you are angry."

"And you are Urbain"s son," the Comte said.

There was a world of reproach in the words, but little violent anger.

The two men stood and looked at each other; and it was not the least strange part of the position that they were still, as they had been all along, mutually attracted. Both natures were open, sweet-tempered, and generous. A certain grace and charm about Herve de Sainfoy drew Angelot, as it had drawn his father. The touch of romance in Angelot, his beauty, his bold, defiant air, took Herve"s fancy.

"You climb like a monkey or a sailor," he said. "But you tried another exit, did you not? Was it you who was hammering at the door down there?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Tell me all."

The questions were severe, but Angelot answered them frankly and truly, as far as he could do so and take the whole blame upon himself.

"It was I," he said; "I did the whole wrong, if it was wrong. Do not let madame her mother be angry with her. But for G.o.d"s sake do not make her marry Ratoneau. She is timid, she is delicate--ah, monsieur--and we are cousins, after all--"

There was a break in his voice, and the Comte almost smiled.

"You are a pair of very absurd and troublesome children," he said, much more kindly. "But you are old enough to know better; it is ignorance of the world to think that lives can be arranged to suit private inclinations. I could not give you my daughter, even if I wished it; you ought to see, as your father would, that you are not in a position to expect such a wife. You are not even on my side in politics, though you very well might be. If you were in the army, with even the prospect of distinguishing yourself like General Ratoneau--and why not even now--"

It was a tremendous temptation, but only for a moment. Angelot thought of his mother and of his uncle Joseph.

"I cannot go into the army," he said quickly.

"No--you are a Chouan at heart, I know," said Herve.

He added presently, as the young man stood silent and doubtful before him--"You will give me your word of honour, Angelot, that there is no more of this--that you do not attempt to see my daughter again."

Angelot answered him, after a moment"s pause, "I warn you that I shall break my word, if I hear more of Ratoneau."

"The devil take Ratoneau!" replied his cousin. "You will give me your word, and I will give you mine. I will never consent to such a marriage as that for Helene. Are you satisfied now?"

"You give me life and hope," said Angelot.

"Not at all. It is not for your sake, I a.s.sure you."

Angelot"s poor love went to bed that night in a pa.s.sion of tears. The time came for her to know and confess that Angelot"s father, when he barred the postern door, might have had more than one guardian angel behind him; but that time was not yet.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW TWO SOLDIERS CAME HOME FROM SPAIN

The family scandal was great. Angelot, if he had ever thought about such possibilities at all, would never have imagined that his relations could be so angry with him; and this without exception. Monsieur de Sainfoy, the most entirely justified, was by far the gentlest. Madame de Sainfoy"s flame of furious wrath enveloped every one. She refused at first even to see Monsieur Urbain; she vowed that she would leave Lancilly at once, take Helene back to Paris, let the odious old place fall back into the ruin from which she wished it had never been rescued, shake herself and her children free from the contact of these low, insolent cousins who presumed so far on their position, on the grat.i.tude that might be supposed due to them. Urbain, however, having stuck to his point and obtained a private interview with her, in which he promised that his son should be sent away, or at least should annoy her no more, her tone became a little milder and she did not insist on breaking up the establishment. After all, Urbain pointed out, _Tout va bien!_ It was to be expected that an imperial order would very soon decide Helene"s future and check for ever young Angelot"s ambition. Madame de Sainfoy perceived that it was worth while to wait.

In the meantime, the philosopher"s nature was stirred to its depths. If it had not been for his wife"s strong opposition, he would have insisted on Angelot"s accepting one of those commissions which Napoleon was always ready to give to young men of good family, sometimes indeed, when the family was known to be strongly Royalist, making them sub-lieutenants in spite of themselves and throwing them into prison if they refused to serve. Anne would not have it. She was as angry with Angelot as any one. That he should not only have been taken captive, soul and body, by Lancilly, but should have put himself so hopelessly in the wrong, filled her with rage and grief. But she would not have matters made worse by committing her boy to the Empire. She would rather, as Monsieur Joseph suggested, pack him off across the frontier to join the army of the Princes. But then, again, his father would never consent to that.

"Why do they not send the girl away!" she cried. "Why not send her to a Paris convent till they find a husband for her! We do not want her here, with that pale face and those tragic eyes of hers, making havoc of our young men. I respect Herve for refusing that horrible General, but why does he not take means to find some one else! They are beyond my understanding, Herve and Adelade. I wish they had never come back, never brought that girl here to distract my Angelot. He was free and happy till they came. Ah, mon Dieu! how they make me suffer, these people!"

"Do not blame them for Angelot"s dishonourable weakness," said her husband, sternly. "If your son had possessed reason and self-control, which I have tried in vain all my life to teach him, none of all this need have happened. There is no excuse for him."

"I am making none. I am very angry with him. I am not blaming your dear Sainfoys. I only say that if they had never come, or if Providence had given them an ugly daughter, this could not have happened. You will not try to deny that, I suppose!"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"Your logic is faultless, my dear Anne. If you had not married me, there would have been no handsome boy to fall in love with a pretty girl. And if La Mariniere had not been near Lancilly--"

"Are you ever serious?" she said, and swept out of the room.

His strong face was grave enough as he looked after her.

But in Angelot"s presence there was no such philosophical trifling. He was made to feel himself in deep disgrace with both his parents, and he was young enough to feel it very keenly. After the first tremendous scolding, they hardly spoke to him; he went in and out in a gloomy silence most strange to the sunny life of La Mariniere. And at Les Chouettes it was no better.

In truth, Angelot found his uncle Joseph"s deep displeasure harder to bear than that of any one else. There was something clandestine about the affair which touched the little gentleman"s sense of honour; his code of manners and good breeding was also offended. He knew life; his own younger days had been stormy; and even now, though respecting morality, he was not strict or narrow. But such adventures as this of Angelot"s seemed to him on a lower plane of society than belonged to Lancilly or La Mariniere. A secret meeting at night; climbing ivy like a thief; making use of his familiarity with the old house to do what, after all, was an injury as well as an offence to its owners,--all this was matter of deep disgust to Monsieur Joseph.

"I thought Ange was a gentleman!" he said; and to Henriette, who with bitter tears confessed to him her part in the story, he would not even admire the daring spirit in which he and she had often rejoiced together.