Angelot.

by Eleanor Price.

CHAPTER I

IN THE DEPTHS OF OLD FRANCE

"Drink, Monsieur Angelot," said the farmer.

His wife had brought a bottle of the sparkling white wine of the country, and two tall old treasures of cut gla.s.s. The wine slipped out in a merry foam. Angelot lifted his gla.s.s with a smile and bow to the mistress.

"The best wine in the country," he said as he set it down.

The hard lines of her face, so dark, so worn with perpetual grief and toil, softened suddenly as she looked at him, and the farmer from his solemn height broke into a laugh.

"Martin's wine," he said. "That was before they took him, the last boy.

But it is still rather new, Monsieur Angelot, though you are so amiable.

Ah, but it is the last good wine I shall ever have here at La Joubardiere. I am growing old--see my white hair--I cannot work or make other men work as the boys did. Our vintage used to be one of the sights of the country--I needn't tell you, for you know--but now the vines don't get half the care and labour they did ten years ago; and they feel it, like children, they feel it. Still, there they remain, and give us what fruit they can--but the real children, Monsieur Angelot, their life-blood runs to waste in far-away lands. It does not enrich France.

Ah, the vines of Spain will grow the better for it, perhaps--"

"Hush, hush, master!" muttered the wife, for the old man was not laughing now; his last words were half a sob, and tears ran suddenly down. "I tell you always," she said, "Martin will come back. The good G.o.d cannot let our five boys die, one after the other. Madame your mother thinks so too," she said, nodding at Angelot. "I spoke to her very plainly. I said, '_They_ cannot be unjust--and surely, to take all the five children of a poor little farmer, and to leave not one, not even the youngest, to do the work of the farm--come, what sort of justice is that!' And she said: 'Listen, maitresse: the good G.o.d will bring your Martin back to you. He cannot be unjust, as you say. If my Angelot had to go to the war--and I always fear it--I should expect him back as surely as I expect my husband back from Lancilly at this moment.'"

Angelot smiled at her. "Yes, yes, Martin will come back," he said. But he shrugged his shoulders, for he could not himself see much comfort for these poor people in his mother's argument. If you have lost four, it is surely more logical to expect to lose a fifth. His father, a philosopher, would not have said so much as this to the Joubards, but would have gone on another tack altogether. He would have pointed out to them that the glory of France depended on their sons; that this conscription, which seemed to them so cruel, which now, in 1811, was becoming really oppressive, was the means of making France, under her brilliant leader, the most powerful and magnificent nation in the world.

He would have waved the tricolour before those sad eyes, would have counted over lists of victories; and so catching was his enthusiasm that Joubard's back would have straightened under it, and he would have gone home--it happened more than once--feeling like a hero and the father of heroes. But the old fellow's sudden flame of faith in his landlord and Napoleon was not so lasting as his wife's faith in Madame and the justice of G.o.d.

Angelot wished the maitresse good-day, left a brace of birds on the table, and stepped out from the grimy darkness of the farm kitchen into the dazzling sunshine of that September morning. The old white farm, with crumbling walls about it, remnants of attempts at fortification long ago, looked fairly prosperous in its untidiness. The fresh stacks of corn were golden still; poultry made a great clatter, a flock of geese on their way out charging at the two men as they left the house.

An old peasant was hammering at barrels, in preparation for the vintage; a wild girl with a stick and a savage-looking brindled dog was starting off to fetch the cows in from their morning graze.

All the place was bathed in crystal air and golden light, fresh and life-giving. It stood high on the edge of the moors, the ground falling away to the south and east into a wild yet fertile valley; vineyards, cornfields not long reaped, small woods, deep and narrow lanes, then tall hedges studded with trees, green rich meadows by the streams far below. On the slope, a mile or two away, there was a church spire with a few grey roofs near it, and the larger roofs, half-hidden by trees, of the old manor of La Mariniere, Angelot's home. On the opposite slope of the valley, rising from the stream, another spire, another and larger village; and above it, commanding the whole country side, with great towers and shining roofs, solid lengths of wall gleaming in newly restored whiteness, lines of windows still gold in the morning sun, stood the old chateau of Lancilly, backed by the dark screen of forest that came up close about it and in old days had surrounded it altogether. Twenty years of emptiness; twenty years, first of revolution and emigration, then of efforts to restore an old family, which the powerful aid of a faithful cousin and friend had made successful; and now the Comte de Sainfoy and his family were at last able to live again at Lancilly in their old position, though there was much yet to be done by way of restoration and buying back lost bits of property. But all this could not be in better hands than those of Urbain de la Mariniere, the cousin, the friend, somewhat despised among the old splendours of a former regime, and thought the less of because of the opinions which kept him safe and sound on French soil all through the Revolution, enabling him both to save Lancilly for its rightful owners, and to keep a place in the old and loved country for his own elder brother Joseph, a far more consistent Royalist than Herve de Sainfoy with all his grand traditions. For the favour of the Emperor had been made one great step to the restoration of these n.o.ble emigrants. Therefore in this small square of Angevin earth there were great divisions of opinion: but Monsieur Urbain, the unprejudiced, the lover of both liberty and of glory, and of poetry and philosophy beyond either, who had pa.s.sed on with France herself from the Committee of Public Safety to the Directory, and then into the arms of First Consul and Emperor--Monsieur Urbain, the cousin, the brother, whose wife was an ardent Royalist and devout Catholic, whose young son was the favourite companion of his uncle Joseph, a more than suspected Chouan--Monsieur Urbain, Angelot's father, was everybody's friend, everybody's protector, everybody's adviser, and the one peacemaker among them all. And naturally, in such a case, Monsieur Urbain's hardest task was the management of his own wife--but of this more hereafter.

"Your father's work, Monsieur Angelot," said old Joubard, pointing across the valley to Lancilly, there in the blaze of the sun.

Angelot lifted his sleepy eyelids, his long lashes like a girl's, and the glance that shot from beneath them was half careless, half uneasy.

"We have done without them pretty well for twenty years," the farmer went on, "but I suppose we must be glad to see them back. Is it true that they are coming to-day?"

"I believe so."

"Your uncle Joseph won't be glad to see them. The Emperor's people: they may disturb certain quiet little games at Les Chouettes."

"That is my uncle's affair, Maitre Joubard."

"I know. Well, a still tongue is best for me. Monsieur Urbain is a good landlord--and I've paid for my place in the Empire, _dame_, yes, five times over. Yet, if I could choose my flag at this time of day, I should not care for a variety of colours. Mind you, your father is a wise man and knows best, I dare say. I am only a poor peasant. But taking men and their opinions all round, Monsieur Angelot, and though some who think themselves wise call him a fool,--with respect I say it,--your dear little uncle is the man for me. Yes--I would back Monsieur Joseph against all his brother's wisdom and his cousin's fine airs, and I am sorry these Sainfoy people are coming back to trouble him and to spoil his pretty little plots, which do no harm to any one."

Angelot laughed outright. "My uncle would not care to hear that," he said.

"Nevertheless, you may tell him old Joubard said it. And what's more, monsieur, your father thinks the same, or he would not let you live half your life at Les Chouettes."

"He has other things to think of."

"Ah, I know--and Madame your mother to reckon with."

"You are too clever," said Angelot, laughing again. "Well, I must go, for my uncle is expecting me to breakfast."

"Ah! and he has other guests. I saw them riding over from the south, half an hour ago."

"You have a watch-tower here. You command the country."

"And my sight is a hawk's sight," said the old man. "Good-day, dear boy.

Give my duty to Monsieur Joseph."

Angelot started lightly on his way over the rough moorland road. The high ridge of tableland extended far to the north; the _landes_, purple and gold with the low heather and furze which covered them, unsheltered by any tree, except where crossed in even lines by pollard oaks of immense age, their great round heads so thick with leaves that a man might well hide in them. These _truisses_, cut every few years, were the peasants' store of firewood. Their long processions gave a curious look of human life to the lonely moor, only inhabited by game, of which Angelot saw plenty. But he did not shoot, his game-bag being already stuffed with birds, but marched along with gun on shoulder and dog at heel over the yellow sandy track, loudly whistling a country tune. There was not a lighter heart than Angelot's in all his native province, nor a handsomer face. He only wanted height to be a splendid fellow. His daring mouth and chin seemed to contradict the lazy softness of his dark eyes. With a clear, brown skin and straight figure, and dressed in brown linen and heavy shooting boots, he was the picture of a healthy sportsman.

A walk of a mile or two across the _landes_ brought him into a green lane with tall wild hedges, full of enormous blackberries, behind which were the vineyards, rather weedy as to soil, but loaded with the small black and white grapes which made the good pure wine of the country.

Angelot turned in and looked at the grapes and ate a few; this was one of his father's vineyards. The yellow grapes tasted of sunshine and the south. Angelot went on eating them all the way down the lane; he was thirsty, in spite of Joubard's sparkling wine, after tramping with dog and gun since six o'clock in the morning. The green lane led to another, very steep, rough, and stony. Corners of red and white rock stood out in it; such a surface would have jolted a strong cart to pieces, but Les Chouettes had no better approach on this side.

"I want no fine ladies to visit me," Monsieur Joseph would say, with his sweet smile. "My friends will travel over any road."

Down plunged the lane, with a thick low wood on one side and a sloping stubble field edged by woods on the other; here again stood a row of old pollard oaks, like giant guards of the solitude. Then the deep barking of many dogs, Monsieur Joseph's real protectors, and a group of Spanish chestnuts sending their branches over the road, announced the strange hermitage that its master called by the fanciful name of Les Chouettes.

There had indeed been a time, not long before, when owls had been its chief inhabitants. Now, if report was to be believed, night-birds of a different species were apt to congregate there.

The lane opened suddenly on Monsieur Joseph's out-buildings, with no gates or barriers, things unknown in Anjou. Tall oaks and birches, delicate and grey, leaned across the cream-coloured walls and the high grey stone roofs where orange moss grew thickly. Low arched doorways with a sandy court between them led into the kitchen on one side, the stables on the other. Beyond these again, in the broad still sunshine, standing squarely alone in a broad s.p.a.ce of yellow sand, was Monsieur Joseph's house, not very old, for the kitchens and stables had belonged to a little chateau long since pulled down. It also was built of cream-coloured stone, with a little tower to the west of it, with playful ironwork and high mansard windows. An odd feature was that it had no actual door. All the lower windows opened down to the ground, with nothing but a stone step between them and the sandy soil, so that the house could be entered or left at any point, through any room.

Two rough roads or country tracks, continuing the lane, pa.s.sed the house to the north and south, the northern road wandering away westward under a wild avenue of old oaks on the edge of a wood into high fields beyond, the southern crossing broad green slopes that descended gradually into the valley towards Lancilly, past low copses and br.i.m.m.i.n.g streams, leaving to the east the high moors and La Mariniere with its small village and spire.

Thus Les Chouettes had a view of its own to the west and south, but could be seen far off from the south only; woods covering the upper slope against the sunset. Woods and high land sheltered it again from the north and east, and the only roads near it were little better than cart-tracks.

There were long hours at Les Chouettes when no sound was to be heard but the hooting of owls or screaming of curlews or the odd little squeak of the squirrels as they darted up and down and about the oak trees.

"He mews like a cat, the little _fouquet_," Monsieur Joseph used to say; and pa.s.sionate sportsman as he was, he would never shoot the squirrels or allow them to be shot by his man, who lamented loudly. Angelot had caught his uncle's liking for that swift red spirit of the woods, and so the squirrels had a fine time all over the lands of La Mariniere.

Evidently there was a good deal going on at Les Chouettes, when Angelot came down from the moors that morning. He was not surprised, after old Joubard's report, to see his uncle's outdoor factotum, a bullet-headed creature with scarcely anything on but his shirt, leading the last of several horses into the shadowy depths of the stable. Opposite, the cook looked out smiling from the kitchen, where she lived with her solemn husband, the valet-de-chambre. He, in ap.r.o.n and sabots, was now in the act of carrying the first dishes across to the dining-room window.

"Just in time, Monsieur Angelot!" cried the cook.

Four large black dogs came barking and leaping to meet the young man and his dog, an intimate friend of theirs. Then a small slender figure, with a cropped head and a clinging dark blue frock, flashed across from the wood, ordered the dogs back in a voice that they obeyed, and clinging to Angelot's arm, led him on towards the corner of the house.

"Ah, my Ange! I began to think you were not coming," she said. "There are four of them in the salon with papa, and I was afraid to go in till you came."

"What! Mademoiselle Riette afraid of anything on earth--and especially of four old gentlemen!"

"They are not very old, and they look so fierce and secret this morning.

But come, come, you must put down your game-bag and wash your hands, and then we will go in together."