The Last Hope Part 32

And the rector beamed on Loo through his spectacles with an innocent delight in a Christian charity which he mistook for cunning.

"You see," he went on, "we have spent a little money on the rectory.

To-morrow you will see that we have made good the roof of the church. One could not ask the villagers to contribute, knowing that the children want boots and scarcely know the taste of jam. Yes, John Turner was very kind to me. He found me a buyer for one of my prints."

The rector broke off with a sharp sigh and drank his tea.

"We shall never miss it," he added, with the hopefulness of those who can blind themselves to facts. "Come, tell me your impressions of France."

"I have been there before," replied Loo, with a curtness so unusual as to make Miriam glance at him. "I have been there before, you know. It would be more interesting to hear your own impressions, which must be fresher."

Miriam knew that he did not want to speak of France, and wondered why.

But Marvin, eager to talk of his favourite study, seized the suggestion in all innocence. He had gone to Paris as he had wandered through life, with the mind of a child, eager, receptive, open to impression. Such minds pa.s.s by much that is of value, but to one or two conclusions they bring a perceptive comprehension which is photographic in its accuracy.

"I have followed her history with unflagging interest since boyhood," he said, "but never until now have I understood France. I walked through the streets of Paris and I looked into the faces of the people, and I realised that the astonishing history of France is true. One can see it in those faces. The city is brilliant, beautiful, unreal. The reality is in the faces of the people. Do you remember what Wellington said of them half a century ago? 'They are ripe,' he said, 'for another Napoleon.' But he could not see that Napoleon on the political horizon. And that is what I saw in their faces. They are ripe for something--they know not what."

"Did John Turner tell you that?" asked Loo, in an eager voice. "He who has lived in Paris all his life?"

And Miriam caught the thrill of excitement in the voice that put this question. She glanced at Loo. His eyes were bright and his cheeks colourless. She knew that she was in the presence of some feeling that she did not understand. It was odd that an old scholar, knowing nothing but history, could thus stir a listener whose touch had hitherto only skimmed the surface of life.

"No," answered Marvin, with a.s.surance. "I saw it myself in their faces.

Ah! if another such as Napoleon could only arise--such as he, but different. Not an adventurer, but a King and the descendant of Kings--not allied, as Napoleon was, with a hundred other adventurers."

"Yes," said Loo, in a m.u.f.fled voice, looking away toward the fire.

"A King whose wife should be a Queen," pursued the dreamer.

"Yes," said Loo again, encouragingly.

"They could save France," concluded Marvin, taking off his spectacles and polishing them with a silk handkerchief. Loo turned and looked at him, for the action so characteristic of a mere onlooker indicated that the momentary concentration of a mind so stored with knowledge that confusion reigned there was pa.s.sing away.

"From what?" asked Loo. "Save France from what?"

"From inevitable disaster, my boy," replied Marvin, gravely. "That is what I saw in those gay streets."

Loo glanced at him sharply. He had himself seen the same all through those provinces which must take their cue from Paris whether they will or no.

"What a career!" murmured Marvin. "What a mission for a man to have in life--to save France! One does not like to think of the world without a France to lead it in nearly everything, or with a France, a mere ghost of her former self, exploited, depleted by another Bonaparte. And we must look in vain for that man as did the good Duke years ago."

"I should like to have a shot at it," put in Sep, who had just despatched a large piece of cake.

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed his father, only half in jest.

"Better sit all day under the lee of a boat and make nets, like Sea Andrew," advised Loo, with a laugh.

"Do you think so?" said Miriam, without looking up.

"All the same, I'd like to have a shot at it," persisted Sep. "Pa.s.s the cake, please."

Loo had risen and was looking at the clock. His face was drawn and tired and his eyes grave.

"You will come in and see us as often as you can while you are here?" said the kindly rector, as if vaguely conscious of a change in this visitor. "You will always find a welcome whether you come in a coach-and-four or on foot--you know that."

"Thank you--yes. I know that."

The rector peered at him through his spectacles. "I hope," he said, "that you will soon be successful in getting your own. You are worried about it, I fear. The responsibilities of wealth, perhaps. And yet many rich people are able to do good in the world, and must therefore be happy."

"I do not suppose I shall ever be rich," said Loo, with a careless laugh.

"No, perhaps not. But let us hope that all will be for the best. You must not attach too much importance to what I said about France, you know. I may be wrong. Let us hope I am. For I understand that your heritage is there."

"Yes," answered Loo, who was shaking hands with Sep and Miriam, "my heritage is there."

"And you will go back to France?" inquired Marvin, holding out his hand.

"Yes," was the reply, with a side glance in the direction of Miriam. "I shall go back to France."

CHAPTER XXVIII

BAREBONE'S PRICE

At Farlingford, forgotten of the world, events move slowly and men's minds a.s.similate change without shock. Old people look for death long before it arrives, so that when at last the great change comes it is effected quite calmly. There is no indecent haste, no scrambling to put a semblance of finish to the incomplete, as there is in the hurried death of cities. Young faces grow softly mellow without those lines and anxious crow's-feet that mar the features of the middle-aged, who, to earn their daily bread or to kill the tedium of their lives, find it necessary to dwell in streets.

"Loo's home again," men told each other at "The Black Sailor"; and the women, who discussed the matter in the village street, had little to add to this bare piece of news. There was nothing unusual about it. Indeed, it was customary for Farlingford men to come home again. They always returned, at last, from wide wanderings, which a limited conversational capacity seemed to deprive of all interest. Those that stayed at home learnt a few names, and that was all.

"Where are ye now from, Willum?" the newly returned sailor would be kindly asked, with the sideward jerk of the head.

"A'm now from Va'paraiso."

And that was all that there was to be said about Valparaiso and the experiences of this circ.u.mnavigator. Perhaps it was not considered good form to inquire further into that which was, after all, his own business.

If you ask an East Anglian questions he will tell you nothing; if you do not inquire he will tell you less.

No one, therefore, asked Barebone any questions. More especially is it considered, in seafaring communities, impolite to make inquiry into your neighbour's misfortune. If a man have the ill luck to lose his ship, he may well go through the rest of his life without hearing the mention of her name. It was understood in Farlingford that Loo Barebone had resigned his post on "The Last Hope" in order to claim a heritage in France. He had returned home, and was living quietly at Maidens Grave Farm with Mrs.

Clubbe. It was, therefore, to be presumed that he had failed in his quest. This was hardly a matter for surprise to such as had inherited from their forefathers a profound distrust in Frenchmen.

The brief February days followed each other with that monotony, marked by small events, that quickly lays the years aside. Loo lingered on, with a vague indecision in his mind which increased as the weeks pa.s.sed by and the spell of the wide marsh-lands closed round his soul. He took up again those studies which the necessity of earning a living had interrupted years before, and Septimus Marvin, who had never left off seeking, opened new historical gardens to him and bade him come in and dig.

Nearly every morning Loo went to the rectory to look up an obscure reference or elucidate an uncertain period. Nearly every evening, after the rectory dinner, he returned the books he had borrowed, and lingered until past Sep's bedtime to discuss the day's reading. Septimus Marvin, with an enthusiasm which is the reward of the simple-hearted, led the way down the paths of history while Loo and Miriam followed--the man with the quick perception of his race, the woman with that instinctive and untiring search for the human motive which can put heart into a printed page of history.

Many a whole lifetime has slipped away in such occupations; for history, already inexhaustible, grows in bulk day by day. Marvin was happier than he had ever been, for a great absorption is one of Heaven's kindest gifts.

For Barebone, France and his quest there, the Marquis de Gemosac, Dormer Colville, Juliette, lapsed into a sort of dream, while Farlingford remained a quiet reality. Loo had not written to Dormer Colville. Captain Clubbe was trading between Alexandria and Bristol. "The Last Hope" was not to be expected in England before April. To communicate with Colville would be to turn that past dream, not wholly pleasant, into a grim reality. Loo therefore put off from day to day the evil moment. By nature and by training he was a man of action. He tried to persuade himself that he was made for a scholar and would be happy to pa.s.s the rest of his days in the study of that history which had occupied Septimus Marvin's thoughts during a whole lifetime.

Perhaps he was right. He might have been happy enough to pa.s.s his days thus if life were unchanging; if Septimus Marvin should never age and never die; if Miriam should be always there, with her light touch on the deeper thoughts, her half-French way of understanding the unspoken, with her steady friendship which might change, some day, into something else.

This was, of course, inconsistent. Love itself is the most inconsistent of all human dreams; for it would have some things change and others remain ever as they are. Whereas nothing stays unchanged for a single day: love, least of all. For it must go forward or back.