"It is not necessary at this moment, monsieur. You will not meet me at the Chateau de Lancilly."
"But you may possibly meet me--Vicomte des Barres--for your father and I sometimes put our old acquaintance before politics--" cried the voice from the carriage. "You will be very welcome to your family. But this arranges matters, Monsieur le Capitaine, for you are on the wrong road."
"Sapristi! The wrong road! Why, I picked up a wounded fellow and brought him a few miles. He got down to take a short cut home, and told me the next turn to the right would bring me to Lancilly. He was lying, then? A fellow called Joubard, not of my regiment."
"What do you say?" said d"Ombre to Angelot, who had already greeted him, lingering in the background to see the end of the dispute.
Georges de Sainfoy now first looked at the sportsman standing by the roadside, and Angelot looked at him. Monsieur des Barres, a little stiff from a long day"s shooting--for he was not so lithe and active as his host, and not so young as the Baron--now got down from the carriage and joined the group.
"Bonjour, Monsieur Ange," he said kindly. "You have been shooting, I see, but not with your uncle. Have you met before, you two?" He glanced at Georges de Sainfoy, who stared haughtily. Even in the dim dusk Angelot could see that he was wonderfully like his mother.
"No, monsieur," he answered. "Not since twenty years ago, at least, and I think my cousin remembers that time as little as I do."
He spoke carelessly and lightly. De Sainfoy"s fine blue eyes considered him coldly, measured his height and breadth and found them wanting.
"Ah! You are a La Mariniere, I suppose?" he said.
"Ange de la Mariniere, at your service."
Georges held out his hand. It was with an oddly unwilling sensation that Angelot gave his. Though the action might be friendly, there was something slighting, something impatient, in the stranger"s manner; and the cousins already disliked each other, not yet knowing why.
"Are my family well? Do they expect me?" said Georges de Sainfoy.
"I believe they are very well. I do not know if they expect you,"
Angelot answered.
"Is it true that this is not the road to Lancilly?"
D"Ombre growled something about military insolence, and Monsieur des Barres laughed.
"Pardon, gentlemen," said De Sainfoy. "I am impatient, I know. A soldier on his way home does not expect to be stopped by etiquettes about pa.s.sing on the road. My cousin knows the country; I appeal to him, as one of you did just now. Is this the way to Lancilly, or not?"
Angelot laughed. "Yes--and no," he said.
"What do you mean by that? Come, I am in no humour for joking."
Angelot looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.
"It is _a_ road, but not _the_ road," he said. "No one in his senses would drive this way to Lancilly. This part of it is bad enough; further on, where it goes down into the valley, it is much worse; I doubt if a heavy carriage could pa.s.s. You turned to the right too soon. Martin Joubard forgot this lane, perhaps. He would hardly have directed you this way--unless--"
"Unless what?"
"Unless he wished to show you the nature of the country, in case you should think of invading it in force."
The two Chouans laughed.
"Well said, Angelot!" muttered Cesar d"Ombre.
Georges de Sainfoy, stiff and haughty, did not trouble himself about any jest or earnest concealed under his cousin"s speech and the way the neighbours took it. He realised, perhaps, that in this wild west country the name of Napoleon was not altogether one to conjure with, that he had not left the enemies of the Empire behind him in Spain. But he realised, too, that this was hardly the place or the time to a.s.sert his own importance and his master"s authority.
"Do you mean that this road is utterly impa.s.sable?" he said to Angelot.
"How then did these gentlemen--"
"They did not come from Lancilly. They drove across the moor from my uncle"s house, Les Chouettes, and turned into the lane a few hundred yards higher up. As to impa.s.sable--I think your wheels will come off, if you attempt it, and your horses" knees will suffer. Where the ruts are not two feet deep, the bare rock is almost perpendicular."
"Still it is not impa.s.sable?"
"Not in a case of necessity. But you will not attempt it."
"And why not?"
"Because on this hill Monsieur des Barres and Monsieur d"Ombre cannot back out of your way, and you can back out of theirs--and must."
""Must" to me!" Georges de Sainfoy said between his teeth.
"Let us a.s.sure you, monsieur, that we regret the necessity--" Monsieur des Barres interfered in his politest manner.
"Enough, monsieur."
De Sainfoy gave his orders. His servants sprang down and helped the post-boy to back the horses to the foot of the hill. It was a long business, with a great deal of kicking, struggling, scrambling, and swearing. Monsieur des Barres" carriage followed slowly, he and Georges de Sainfoy walking down together. The Baron d"Ombre lingered to say a friendly good-night to Angelot, who was not disposed to wait on his cousin any further. That night there was born a kind of sympathy, new and strange, between the fierce young Chouan and the careless boy still halting between two opinions.
"Old Joubard"s son is come back, then?" Cesar asked. "Will that attach the old man to the Empire? Your uncle can never tell us on which side he is likely to be."
"Dame! I should think not!" said Angelot. "Poor Martin--I saw him just now. He has left a leg and an arm in Spain."
"Poor fellow! That flourishing cousin of yours is better off. On my word, we are obliged to you, Monsieur des Barres and I. If you had not been there to bring him to his senses--Come, Angelot, this country is not a place for loyal men. Do you care to stay here and be bullied by upstart soldiers? Start off with me to join the Princes; there is nothing to be done here."
"Ah!" Angelot laughed, though rather sadly. "Indeed, you tempt me--it is true, there is nothing here. But I have a father, and he has a vintage coming on. After that--I will consider."
"Yes, consider--and say nothing. I see you are discontented; the first step in the right way. Good-night, my friend."
If discontent had been despair, the army of the emigrants might have had a lively recruit in those days. But Martin Joubard had come back, so that anything seemed possible. Hope was not dead, and his native Anjou still held the heart of Angelot.
CHAPTER XVIII
HOW CAPTAIN GEORGES PAID A VISIT OF CEREMONY
Georges de Sainfoy had always been his mother"s image and idol. It was not wonderful then that he should take her side strongly in this matter of his sister"s love affair and marriage.
Helene, for him, was a poor pretty fool just out of the schoolroom, who must learn her duty in life, and the sooner the better. Angelot was a country boy, his pretensions below contempt, who yet deserved sharp punishment for lifting his eyes so high, if not for the cool air of equality with which he had ordered back his superior cousin"s carriage.
General Ratoneau, in a soldier"s eyes, was a distinguished man, a future Marshal of France. Nothing more was needed to make him a desirable brother-in-law. Georges was enthusiastic on that point.
Two things there were, which his mother impressed upon him earnestly and with difficulty; one, that Ratoneau"s probable triumph was a secret, and must seem as great a surprise to herself and to him as it really would be to Helene and his father; the other, that for the sake of Urbain de la Mariniere, the valuable friend, he must pick no fresh quarrel with Angelot, already deep in disgrace with all the family.
"It is as well that you told me, or I should have been tempted to try a horse-whipping," said Captain Georges.