St. Ives, Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England Part 3

'Ah!' said he, 'I thought it was you, Champdivers. So he's gone?'

I nodded.

'Come, come,' said he, 'you must cheer up. Of course it's very distressing, very painful and all that. But do you know, it ain't such a bad thing either for you or me? What with his death and your visit to him I am entirely rea.s.sured.'

So I was to owe my life to Goguelat at every point.

'I had rather not discuss it,' said I.

'Well,' said he, 'one word more, and I'll agree to bury the subject. What did you fight about?'

'Oh, what do men ever fight about?' I cried.

'A lady?' said he.

I shrugged my shoulders.

'Deuce you did!' said he. 'I should scarce have thought it of him.'

And at this my ill-humour broke fairly out in words. 'He!' I cried. 'He never dared to address her-only to look at her and vomit his vile insults! She may have given him sixpence: if she did, it may take him to heaven yet!'

At this I became aware of his eyes set upon me with a considering look, and brought up sharply.

'Well, well,' said he. 'Good night to you, Champdivers. Come to me at breakfast-time to-morrow, and we'll talk of other subjects.'

I fully admit the man's conduct was not bad: in writing it down so long after the events I can even see that it was good.

CHAPTER IV-ST. IVES GETS A BUNDLE OF BANK NOTES

I was surprised one morning, shortly after, to find myself the object of marked consideration by a civilian and a stranger. This was a man of the middle age; he had a face of a mulberry colour, round black eyes, comical tufted eyebrows, and a protuberant forehead; and was dressed in clothes of a Quakerish cut. In spite of his plainness, he had that inscrutable air of a man well-to-do in his affairs. I conceived he had been some while observing me from a distance, for a sparrow sat betwixt us quite unalarmed on the breech of a piece of cannon. So soon as our eyes met, he drew near and addressed me in the French language, which he spoke with a good fluency but an abominable accent.

'I have the pleasure of addressing Monsieur le Vicomte Anne de Keroual de Saint-Yves?' said he.

'Well,' said I, 'I do not call myself all that; but I have a right to, if I chose. In the meanwhile I call myself plain Champdivers, at your disposal. It was my mother's name, and good to go soldiering with.'

'I think not quite,' said he; 'for if I remember rightly, your mother also had the particle. Her name was Florimonde de Champdivers.'

'Right again!' said I, 'and I am extremely pleased to meet a gentleman so well informed in my quarterings. Is monsieur Born himself?' This I said with a great air of a.s.sumption, partly to conceal the degree of curiosity with which my visitor had inspired me, and in part because it struck me as highly incongruous and comical in my prison garb and on the lips of a private soldier.

He seemed to think so too, for he laughed.

'No, sir,' he returned, speaking this time in English; 'I am not "born," as you call it, and must content myself with dying, of which I am equally susceptible with the best of you. My name is Mr. Romaine-Daniel Romaine-a solicitor of London City, at your service; and, what will perhaps interest you more, I am here at the request of your great-uncle, the Count.'

'What!' I cried, 'does M. de Keroual de St.-Yves remember the existence of such a person as myself, and will he deign to count kinship with a soldier of Napoleon?'

'You speak English well,' observed my visitor.

'It has been a second language to me from a child,' said I. 'I had an English nurse; my father spoke English with me; and I was finished by a countryman of yours and a dear friend of mine, a Mr. Vicary.'

A strong expression of interest came into the lawyer's face.

'What!' he cried, 'you knew poor Vicary?'

'For more than a year,' said I; 'and shared his hiding-place for many months.'

'And I was his clerk, and have succeeded him in business,' said he. 'Excellent man! It was on the affairs of M. de Keroual that he went to that accursed country, from which he was never destined to return. Do you chance to know his end, sir?'

'I am sorry,' said I, 'I do. He perished miserably at the hands of a gang of banditti, such as we call chauffeurs. In a word, he was tortured, and died of it. See,' I added, kicking off one shoe, for I had no stockings; 'I was no more than a child, and see how they had begun to treat myself.'

He looked at the mark of my old burn with a certain shrinking. 'Beastly people!' I heard him mutter to himself.

'The English may say so with a good grace,' I observed politely.

Such speeches were the coin in which I paid my way among this credulous race. Ninety per cent. of our visitors would have accepted the remark as natural in itself and creditable to my powers of judgment, but it appeared my lawyer was more acute.

'You are not entirely a fool, I perceive,' said he.

'No,' said I; 'not wholly.'

'And yet it is well to beware of the ironical mood,' he continued. 'It is a dangerous instrument. Your great-uncle has, I believe, practised it very much, until it is now become a problem what he means.'

'And that brings me back to what you will admit is a most natural inquiry,' said I. 'To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? how did you recognise me? and how did you know I was here?'

Carefull separating his coat skirts, the lawyer took a seat beside me on the edge of the flags.

'It is rather an odd story,' says he, 'and, with your leave, I'll answer the second question first. It was from a certain resemblance you bear to your cousin, M. le Vicomte.'

'I trust, sir, that I resemble him advantageously?' said I.

'I hasten to rea.s.sure you,' was the reply: 'you do. To my eyes, M. Alain de St.-Yves has scarce a pleasing exterior. And yet, when I knew you were here, and was actually looking for you-why, the likeness helped. As for how I came to know your whereabouts, by an odd enough chance, it is again M. Alain we have to thank. I should tell you, he has for some time made it his business to keep M. de Keroual informed of your career; with what purpose I leave you to judge. When he first brought the news of your-that you were serving Buonaparte, it seemed it might be the death of the old gentleman, so hot was his resentment. But from one thing to another, matters have a little changed. Or I should rather say, not a little. We learned you were under orders for the Peninsula, to fight the English; then that you had been commissioned for a piece of bravery, and were again reduced to the ranks. And from one thing to another (as I say), M. de Keroual became used to the idea that you were his kinsman and yet served with Buonaparte, and filled instead with wonder that he should have another kinsman who was so remarkably well informed of events in France. And it now became a very disagreeable question, whether the young gentleman was not a spy? In short, sir, in seeking to disserve you, he had acc.u.mulated against himself a load of suspicions.'

My visitor now paused, took snuff, and looked at me with an air of benevolence.

'Good G.o.d, sir!' says I, 'this is a curious story.'

'You will say so before I have done,' said he. 'For there have two events followed. The first of these was an encounter of M. de Keroual and M. de Mauseant.'

'I know the man to my cost,' said I: 'it was through him I lost my commission.'

'Do you tell me so?' he cried. 'Why, here is news!'

'Oh, I cannot complain!' said I. 'I was in the wrong. I did it with my eyes open. If a man gets a prisoner to guard and lets him go, the least he can expect is to be degraded.'

'You will be paid for it,' said he. 'You did well for yourself and better for your king.'

'If I had thought I was injuring my emperor,' said I, 'I would have let M. de Mauseant burn in h.e.l.l ere I had helped him, and be sure of that! I saw in him only a private person in a difficulty: I let him go in private charity; not even to profit myself will I suffer it to be misunderstood.'