Wounded Name — Chapter 6: The Road to the Beech Tree, part 1

(1) The whole unhappy story, the substance of which was told that morning in the cave, began on the radiant April day when Aymar de la Rocheterie rode along the high bank of the river Aven on his way from the conference with du Tremblay and other Royalist chiefs at Saint-Pierre de Plesguen to his own house of Sessignes.

He had left his men, some five hundred strong, under M. Nicolas de Fresne, his second-in-command, ensconced, very inconveniently for the Bonapartists, in the Bois des Fauvettes, a spur on the great forest of Armor.

And now, well pleased with the scheme for which he and du Tremblay were chiefly responsible, and in which he and his "Eperviers" would presently play a part, he was intending for once to spend a night under his own roof, since by taking this particular route back to his little force he would pass the very gates of the château.

And so he could pay his respects to his grandmother, who ruled it for him, and to his cousin, Mme de Villecresne, who dwelt there, neither widow nor wife.

And thus he came, about midday, to the village of Keraven, and found to his surprise that it was full of troops of the line--but Royalist, for they wore the white cockade--and just outside its pleasant inn, the _Abeille d'Or_, encountered their commanding officer, the Chevalier de Saint-Etienne, who was a friend of his.

To him he expressed the hope that his officers had not eaten up everything in the hostelry, since he had been intending to get a meal there.

"Plenty to eat," replied M. de Saint-Etienne, as Aymar took the bridle of his horse to lead him off.

"And I have a private room .

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at least .

."

he hesitated, "there is someone else in it, but----" "Avow," said Aymar, laughing, "that the other person is Mme de Saint-Etienne, disguised as your youngest subaltern."

For his friend was newly married, and much in love.

"No," said the young soldier seriously, "it is only a middle-aged gentleman of my acquaintance, who stopped here to bait, and who is going to share my meal.

Will you not---" He broke off, said rather hurriedly, "I'll see you when you have put up your horse," and vanished--to Aymar's considerable surprise, since he was plainly on the verge of asking him also to share this repast.

Aymar was going back to the inn door when, just in front of one of the open windows, a spur came loose, and, stooping to fasten it, he overheard a man's voice, with an authoritative but kindly ring about it, saying, "So that was L'Oiseleur you were talking to!

I have always thought that I should like to make his acquaintance; here is the opportunity.

Can you persuade him, do you think, to come in and share an omelette with a dull old country gentleman?"

"That is just what I--" his friend's voice was beginning, when Aymar hastily pulled off his spur altogether and walked out of earshot.

By the time he had readjusted it on the doorstep the young Colonel emerged and said, smiling, "'Mme de Saint-Etienne' is anxious to make your acquaintance, La Rocheterie.

I am afraid I have already told him who you are--needless to say, I can answer for his discretion and sentiments rather better than for my own."

"Your own discretion, my dear fellow, is as remarkable as if you really had a lady in there!"

retorted Aymar, amused, and putting an arm through his.

"But who is this veiled stranger?"

"Oh, nobody in particular," said the youthful commander, getting rather red.

"But you know how peppery old gentlemen sometimes are if their convenience is not consulted."

Yet it was no "old gentleman" who was sitting at the window of the parlour into which Saint-Etienne now drew his friend, but a man of middle age with a distinguished and intelligent face--M. du Parc, to whom Aymar was duly introduced, and whose conversation, as the three sat at déjeuner together, he soon found anything but dull.

M.

du Parc might be a country squire, but he had a very pretty, mordant wit tempered by a great deal of natural bonhomie and humour; moreover, L'Oiseleur could not help feeling that he possessed a wide experience of life and of men, though exactly in what capacity he could not be sure.

But M. du Parc did not obtrude himself unnecessarily into the talk; he rather listened with a sort of benevolent shrewdness to what the two young Royalists had to say to each other.

Saint-Etienne, it appeared, was much, to his disgust, under orders to remain at Keraven for three days, according to some plan of Sol de Grisolles, the general-in-chief of the Royalist forces in Brittany.

"I would not object to waiting," he announced, "if there were only a chance of doing something meanwhile--and indeed I am rather expected to make myself unpleasant, if I can.

But I find I am not strong enough to make an attack on the Imperialists over at Saint-Goazec, as I should like to do."

"Under a certain Colonel Richard, are they not?"

enquired Aymar.

"Is it impossible?

How strong are they?"

"Too strong for me, and sure to be well disposed round Saint-Goazec, which is easily defended country.

But it is deuced tempting, because I am pretty sure that they do not yet know I am here.

But why indulge in these dreams?

I could not bring off an attack."

"However, you ought to be able to dispose neatly of any parties that they send out in this direction," observed Aymar.

"I drink to your luck in that respect."

"Why leave it to luck, gentlemen?"

interposed M. du Parc suddenly.

"Put a bit of cheese on the end of a string, and draw it along in front of the mouse's hole, and the mouse will come out .

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.

especially if he doesn't know that there is a cat in the neighbourhood."

"But we haven't got a bit of cheese, sir," replied Saint-Etienne, laughing rather ruefully, "and, moreover, if the whole mouse came out, this cat alone is not strong enough to deal with him, as I have said."

Aymar had fixed his eyes on M. du Parc.

What wisdom and daring there was in that smiling, rather inscrutable visage!

He turned them on his friend.

"But if you had another cat to help you?"

"Whom do you mean?"

"Myself," replied L'Oiseleur, a gleam in his eyes.

"My men are in the Bois des Fauvettes."

"But you could not move them over here rapidly enough, nor without the Imperialists getting wind of it!"

"No," agreed the young Chouan, "but I did not mean that.

I meant that if one could only get Richard to march out in that direction, we could both leap on him simultaneously from our respective positions."

"Yes," said his friend, "but to march out in that direction is, I fancy, the last thing he is likely to do."

Aymar propped his chin on his fists.

"Then he ought to have some inducement provided to make him march out--as M. du Parc has said, a bit of cheese.

--Have you got a map here?"

Studying the two young men bent over it, M. du Parc himself here remarked serenely, "Your little problem, gentlemen, reminds me of an episode in the fighting in '95, when two Royalists of my acquaintance, commanding bodies of volunteers, were in exactly the same situation as you.

They solved the problem rather neatly."

"How?"

enquired the couple eagerly.

"By making one of the cats the cheese.

My friend contrived to let the Blues know that he and his men would be passing a certain point at a certain time, meaning the Republicans in consequence to ambush him there----" "And what happened?"

asked Saint-Etienne.

"The Blues were ambushed themselves by the other party," responded M. du Parc, with a smile, "and the two Royalist bodies together accounted for them completely."

The light in L'Oiseleur's eyes grew, but Saint-Etienne said, "It was a very risky move, though, sir--since it depended, I suppose, upon the most exact cooperation."

"Certainly--but twenty years ago one had to take those risks, so I have been told."

To which M. de Saint-Etienne, looking at the older man with a little smile, said, "Yes, those were days of giants."

Meanwhile, Aymar de la Rocheterie, returned to his study of the map, observed thoughtfully, "When I get my supplies of ammunition I shall be moving my men over the Aven.

The bridge they call Pont-aux-Rochers, between these wooded heights here--the bridge which I shall in fact cross--would be an excellent spot for an ambush; but that ammunition, I am sorry to say, will not reach me before the end of the week, and I cannot leave the forest until I have it."

"What a pity!"

commented Saint-Etienne regretfully.

"The bridge is ideally situated for me, since, owing to this road here, I could actually start some hours after the Imperialists and still get there before them.

And, as a matter of fact, an ambush would not be essential.

Your men and mine together would be able to account for Colonel Richard, if only we could tempt him to come between us."

L'Oiseleur took his head in his hands and thought.

The plan appealed to him very strongly.

Could he not go back to the forest now and move his men without waiting for the supplies?

But the probability was that he would then never receive these at all, and he was pledged to cooperation with du Tremblay in eight or nine days, and would need all the ammunition he could lay hands on.

No, the idea must be abandoned.

He explained to Saint-Etienne why.

"Besides," M. du Parc reminded them, "an indispensable part of the scheme is that one of you must inform the enemy of your intended movements, or of your ally's movements, if you will.

And it is not, in practice, a very easy thing to send information purporting to come treacherously from your side in such a way that the enemy is ready to believe it.

The best plan," he added with a fine smile, "is to appear to sell it."

Aymar de la Rocheterie made a movement.

"I think I would rather forego a coup than do--or seem to do--a thing like that!"

The smile grew.

"Oh, _you_ don't do it, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," explained this astute old country gentleman.

"That would be a trifle too suspicious; the enemy might not swallow the bait.

One of your men who has a grudge against you 'sells' the information."

They all laughed, and the conversation passed to other matters; indeed, not long afterwards Aymar was again in the saddle, wishing Saint-Etienne, and being wished, good luck.

And he rode off, thinking no more of that half-forged scheme for luring out the enemy, save with a moment's regret that it could not be.

The same sun shone, he had before his eyes the same face--the only face in the world for him--and nothing warned him that in the _Abeille d'Or_ at Keraven Fate had sat at table with him.

(2) The road went for a while under larches, absorbed in their enchanted dream of spring; and L'Oiseleur rode beneath their green mist absorbed in his own dream.

He was thinking neither of the "Eperviers" nor of the Emperor, but of the meeting full of pain and self-repression and happiness towards which he was riding.

Avoye de la Rocheterie--Avoye de Villecresne as she had been for the last six years--was Aymar's first cousin.

Her father had gone to the guillotine with his parents; her mother, widowed at twenty-three, had adopted the little orphaned boy of five, and for two years had given him such care as her broken heart and delicate health could compass.

Then she, too, died, and the two children passed into the guardianship of their paternal grandmother, the dowager Vicomtesse de la Rocheterie, and by that redoubtable lady they had been brought up as brother and sister.

When Avoye was eighteen Mme de la Rocheterie, who was determined that Aymar should not marry her, brought about for her granddaughter what she considered a suitable match with a fashionable and wealthy man much older than herself, the Comte Frédéric de Villecresne.

The inexperienced girl felt no objections to the marriage, was even rather flattered by the attentions of this man of the world, while Aymar, her almost brother, constituted so natural a part of her life that she hardly figured to herself how little he would fill it in the future.

As for Aymar himself, the final arrangements were concluded when he was away, and without his knowledge.

Moreover, he was still a minor.

The marriage took place.

Four months later Avoye left her husband and went to live with relatives of her mother's in Paris.

Over this outcome of Mme de la Rocheterie's schemes there took place at Sessignes a combat as fierce as any which the château could have witnessed since its foundation.

Aymar, now of age, insisted that his cousin should be invited to make Sessignes once more her home if she wished.

She had no other, and she refused to take her husband's money.

His grandmother pointed out that M. de Villecresne's house was still open to her; on which the young man asked her whether even in the crusading days of their ancient race any lady of the line had consented to enter a harem.

Plain speech was a luxury from which the Vicomtesse never shrank, and she joined battle.

It was most undesirable that Avoye should return to live under the same roof as a young unmarried kinsman.

Aymar replied that part of her objection was mere hypocrisy, and twofold at that; he knew that while, on the one hand, she cared not a snap of the fingers for other people's opinion, on the other she considered that no breath of scandal dare attach itself to a menage over which she ruled.

The rest was an insult to Mme de Villecresne and to himself.

Even apart from the fact, of which he professed himself fully aware, that Avoye had no feelings for him other than for a brother, as a Catholic she would never divorce her husband and marry again--for Mme de la Rocheterie, though herself at heart a free-thinker, was far too aristocratic not to have had her grand-children reared in the strict tenets of the Church.

And if his grandmother placed so little reliance on his self-control, he would contrive to absent himself a good deal, to travel, as much as his means permitted, to go and fight abroad, perhaps.

But Avoye should come back.

And Avoye, not being to her knowledge in love with her cousin, did come back, and in the end made Sessignes once more her home.

Aymar carried out his programme; but perhaps it was his very absences from the house which was so full of the memories of their joint childhood which showed her at last her own heart.

Yet, however much now in name only, she was still the wife of Frédéric de Villecresne, and as such she knew quite well that her cousin regarded her.

She had made the mistake of her life; she must pay for it.

But she did not realize how heavily Aymar was paying, too.

And no doubt it was only because of the tenacious, self-denying Northern blood which the cousins shared that they were either of them able to stand the strain of a position which made such difficult demands, to go on waiting year after year, to face the prospect of waiting, most likely, for years longer, until death should remove the barrier to their happiness.

At times, indeed, it did seem as if they might not have to wait much longer.

Last year, when Aymar had undertaken his self-imposed and repugnant mission to Bath, to interview M. de Villecresne on a money matter connected with his wife, he had found the profligate very much of an invalid.

He had recovered, it was true, and returned to France, but he was ill again now--how seriously Aymar was not sure.

Avoye would tell him when he got to Sessignes.

He had something to tell her, too--this new plan which he had just made with M. du Tremblay, for (except his love, of which he was very chary in speaking to her) there was little in his life that she did not share.

She was, in thought, the comrade of all his hopes and enterprises--had once been a comrade in deed also.

But for that he had scolded her.

(3) The towers of Sessignes came at last into view--Sessignes, Sept-Cygnes, the castle of the Seven Swans emblazoned on the La Rocheterie shield.

Little remained now of the feudal stronghold which the first Aymar de la Rocheterie had built in the days of Philip Augustus, yet the château's very position hinted at a warrior's eye.

A later and softer generation would have planted it, not on the scarp, but lower down where the pastures sloped to the Aven, loitering here by banks of meadowsweet.

"Madame is well, Monsieur Aymar; but Mme la Comtesse was summoned away about four days ago to M. de Villecresne, who is very ill," said the old, tremulously smiling man-servant in response to his master's enquiries about the family.

Summoned away!

She was not here!

But the shock of that disappointment was succeeded by the thought, "De Villecresne must be at the point of death; she would never have gone to him else."

Aymar's heart beat so fast that for the moment he hardly heard what the old man was saying further.

But he mechanically took the letter which he was holding out, and saw that it was addressed in the hand of his second-in-command, M. de Fresne.

"How did this come here, Célestin?"

he asked in some surprise.

"One of your _gars_ brought it, Monsieur le Vicomte, this morning, from the Bois des Fauvettes."

"He is still here?"

"No, Monsieur Aymar.

He went back at once."

L'Oiseleur tore open the missive all the more hastily that he was expecting nothing from that quarter.

It contained a few words to say that as the looked-for ammunition had arrived earlier than was anticipated M. de Fresne was, in accordance with his leader's known intentions, going to move the "Eperviers" over the river at once, leaving their encampment in the Bois des Fauvettes at sunrise on Friday.

He should expect in that case to be across the Pont-aux-Rochers by eight in the morning.

It did not, he concluded, seem necessary or even prudent (having regard to the reinforcements just received by the Bonapartists at Arbelles) to wait for La Rocheterie's return in person, especially as its exact hour was uncertain; but, knowing that he intended to pass by Sessignes, he was sending this information there, so that his leader should not attempt to go all the way back to the Bois des Fauvettes, but could rejoin his force at some nearer point.

Portions of this brief epistle were in cipher, but Aymar knew his own cipher so well that he could read it off.

The result rather annoyed him.

To-morrow was Friday; why could not de Fresne wait for his return?

.

.

He was just going to put the letter in his pocket, when he stopped, and, frugal of gestures though he was, smote his forehead.

"Dieu!

why had I not this letter at noon at Keraven?"

If only he had known then that the ammunition had arrived, and that he could, in consequence, safely move his men across the river, he would certainly have concluded that tempting arrangement with Saint-Etienne.

There seemed a sort of grin of Fortune in sending the news now--just too late.

But was it too late?

Letter in hand, he sat down under his young father's portrait and thought rapidly.

He would have to ride back instantly to the _Abeille d'Or_, arrange with Saint-Etienne, send one of Saint-Etienne's men to warn de Fresne--or better still, go himself--and then somehow despatch information of de Fresne's movements to the Bonapartists at Saint-Goazec.

Yes, but how was he going to do that plausibly?

There lay the difficulty as that shrewd old M. du Parc had pointed out.

One of Saint-Etienne's men would have to play the supposed traitor.

He might pretend, for instance, to have stolen this very letter, and to be desirous of selling it to the enemy .

.

.

as M. du Parc had advised.

Sarrasin, the great wolfhound, stared up at him anxiously as he leant forward, his elbows on his knees.

No, it would not do.

The Imperialists could not be lured to Pont-aux-Rochers in the time.

There would be two cats at the bridge, but no mouse.

Because, even if he started this instant to ride back to Keraven he could not get there much before eleven at night, and, allowing an hour to thrash out the matter thoroughly with his friend, and to coach up the supposedly traitorous emissary, the latter could not reach Colonel Richard at Saint-Goazec before six in the morning, which would be too late.

L'Oiseleur got up rather sadly .

.

.

and then stood still.

For suppose the letter was sent to the enemy, not from Keraven at all, but directly and now from Sessignes itself, which was so much nearer--though he had small idea to whom to entrust it.

It would reach the Imperialist commander this evening, in about two hours, in fact.

Meanwhile, he himself would be halfway back to Saint-Etienne, who had ample time in any event to get to Pont-aux-Rochers before the enemy.

And by this plan Aymar was really tempted.

It had just that spice of daring which appealed to him, and he began to walk up and down the hall considering it.

But in a moment he saw that it would be difficult to make such a sending plausible--doubly, trebly so as in this case the letter _must_ come directly from himself.

And it was exactly that coming from himself which his keen sense of personal honour could not stomach.

He had an innate aversion to even the semblance of treachery--to even the appearance of such a horrible thing as the betrayal of his own men.

He thrust de Fresne's letter resolutely into his pocket and went to find his grandmother.

Had Avoye gone to her husband because release was near?

The silver swans of La Rocheterie, with the golden crowns round their necks, sailed without progress on the azure of the shield above his grandmother's head, where she sat by the hearth in the salon, slim and upright, a book on her knee.

She had been a very pretty girl--and not, it really seemed, so long ago.

She exclaimed with surprise and pleasure as her grandson appeared at the door, since, though she had sometimes a very captious method of showing--or cloaking--her affection for him, and often took a malicious joy in combating him; at bottom she adored him--fiercely.

For the victory which, at one-and-twenty, his will had won over hers in the matter of his cousin, she bore him no grudge.

The grudge was against Avoye, who had "spoilt his life," keeping him, the last of his line, unmarried, when (especially since the Moulin Brûlé and the rest had added a romantic prestige to his personal attractions and the fact of his ancient lineage) he might, she felt, have carried off any heiress in France.

"So you have left your beloved Eperviers to see an old woman!"

she said, as he kissed her unwrinkled and still delicately coloured cheek.

"But more probably it was to see a young one.

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She is away, though--as you have doubtless ascertained already."

"Célestin told me," replied Aymar, a trifle stonily.

"He also told me where she had gone."

Mme de la Rocheterie looked at him, and then dropped her expressive eyes.

"But, since he did not know it himself, he could not calm your agitation by telling you that I expect her back to-night.

I almost thought she would have been here by now."

A flush rose in Aymar's cheek.

Conscious of it, he turned away and rested his spurred foot on the hearthstone, his hand above him on the mantel.

"And .

.

.

de Villecresne?"

he asked after a moment.

Mme de la Rocheterie breathed a decorous sigh.

"Poor Avoye, poor child!

She writes sad news."

"What, is he better?"

exclaimed the young man.

"Aymar, think what you are saying!"

But her mouth twitched with appreciation.

"On the contrary, she was too late.

The Comte de Villecresne died about three hours before she got there."

L'Oiseleur drew a sharp breath, and, putting his other hand on the high mantel, bowed his head between his arms.

His face was quite invisible, but there was no superfluity of colour in it now.

After a moment's complete silence he gave a sound which might or might not have been a laugh.

"What did you say?"

demanded Mme de la Rocheterie.

"I?

Nothing," he responded, without moving.

"But what I should like to say is, For whom in the world is the news of de Villecresne's death bad news?"

"Possibly for his creditors," said his grandmother drily.

"I suppose that you have some idea of their number, since your visit to him.

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We sup in a quarter of an hour, Aymar."

No meal in his life had seemed so interminable to the young man as that of which he partook that evening with the old woman who had brought him up, whose jealous, half-tormenting affection was perfectly aware that his whole soul was full of the news she had just given him, the news he had waited years to hear, and that his ears were straining all the time for the sound of wheels .

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and who would not so much as glance at the subject of Avoye's release, nor make even the slightest further reference to her return.

But she talked of politics--and he had to attend and reply: of the coming struggle in the west--and he had to give his opinion of the small movements which had already taken place; of the shock given to the countryside by the Bonapartists' summary execution of a woman spy, a peasant, a few days ago.

"A foolish shock," was Mme de la Rocheterie's comment.

"Marie Lasserre knew what she was risking.

And I do not approve, in any case, of women aping men and usurping their roles.

If they do, they should at least be prepared to pay the same penalty."

No doubt she was hoping to get up an argument on the subject of Avoye's exploit at Chalais, which had been so much talked about since the Restoration.

But Aymar did not accept the challenge.

And, having endured various thrusts at his want of appetite (which he hoped he had disguised) he was able at last to escape from the table and the candles and the necessity of answering coherently, to the place where a lover should carry his rapture--under the open sky and the stars.

And he went across the grass of the rose-garden where, late as it was, a peacock was parading, past the sundial and into the orchard, and leant against a tree there.

Truly his happiness was almost more than he could bear.

And he had waited so long for it--it seemed a lifetime.

It _was_ his lifetime.

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