Part 7 (1/2)

Angelot reflected as he walked down the quiet lane. ”Well! the Prefect and my father would have been vexed, and he had his little punishment.

Some day we shall meet independently, and then we shall see, Monsieur Ratoneau, we shall see! But what a somersault the creature made! If the bushes had not broken his fall, he would have been hurt, or killed, perhaps.”

He laughed at the remembrance of the scene, and thought how he would describe it to his mother. Then he became grave, remembering all that had gone before. The Prefect was a friend, and a gentleman, neither of which the General could ever be. But it was a serious thought that the Prefect was at present by far the most dangerous person of the two.

Uncle Joseph's life and liberty were in his hands, at his mercy.

Angelot frowned and whistled as he strode along. How did the Prefect find out all that? Why, of course, those men of his were not mere gendarmes; they were police spies. Especially that one with the villanous face who was lurking round the woods!

”We are all in their hands; they are the devil's own regiment,” Angelot said to himself. ”How can Monsieur de Mauves bring himself to do such work among his old friends, in his old country! It is inconceivable.”

Another rough lane brought Angelot into the rough road that led past the Manor of La Mariniere to the church and village lying beneath it, and so on into the valley and across the bridge to Lancilly.

The home of his family was one of those large homesteads, half farm, half castle, which are entirely Angevin in character; and it had not yet crumbled down into picturesque decay. Its white walls, once capable of defence, covered a large s.p.a.ce on the eastern slope of the valley; it was much shaded all about by oak, beech, and fir trees, and a tall row of poplars bordered the road between its gateway and the church spire.

The high white arch of the gateway, where a gate had once been, opened on a paved road crossing the lower end of a farmyard, and up to the right were lines of low buildings where the cows, General Ratoneau's enemies, were now being safely housed for the night, and a dove-cote tower, round which a few late pigeons were flapping. To the left another archway led into a square garden with lines of tall box hedges, where flowers and vegetables grew all together wildly, and straight on, through yet a third gate, Angelot came into a stone court in front of the house, white, tall, and very ancient, with a quaint porch opening straight upon its wide staircase, which seemed a continuation of the broad outside steps where Madame de la Mariniere was now giving her chickens their evening meal.

In spite of the large cap and ap.r.o.n that smothered her, it was plain to see where Angelot got his singular beauty. His little mother, once upon a time, had been the loveliest girl in Brittany. Her small, fine, delicate features, clear dark skin, beautiful velvet eyes and cloud of dusky hair that curled naturally,--all this still remained, though youth and freshness and early happiness were gone. Her cheeks were thin, her eyes and mouth were sad, and yet there was hardly a grey hair in that soft ma.s.s which she covered and hid so puritanically. She had been married as almost a child, and was still under forty. Her family, very old but very poor, had married her to Urbain de la Mariniere, quite without consulting any wishes of hers. He was well off and well connected, though his old name had never belonged exactly to the _grande n.o.blesse_. The Pontvieux were too anxious to dispose of their daughter to consider his free opinions, which, after all, were the fas.h.i.+on in France before 1789, though never in Brittany. And probably Madame de la Mariniere's life was saved by her marriage, for she was and remained just as ardently Catholic and Royalist as her relations who died one by one upon the scaffold.

She lived at La Mariniere through the Revolution, in outward obedience to a husband whose opinions she detested, and most of whose actions she cordially disapproved, though it was impossible not to love him personally. Grat.i.tude, too, there might very well have been; for Urbain's popularity had not only guarded his wife and son; it had enabled her to keep the old Cure of the village safe at La Mariniere till some little liberty was restored to the Church and he was able to return to his post without danger. When madame used hard words of the Empire--and she was frank in her judgments--monsieur would point to the Cure with a smile. And the old man, come back from ma.s.s to breakfast at the manor, and resting in the chimney corner, would say, ”Not so bad--not so bad!” rubbing his thin hands gently.

”Little mother!” Angelot said, and stepped up into the porch among the chickens.

His eyes, quick to read her face, saw a shadow on it, and he wondered who had done wrong, himself or his father.

”Enfin, te voila!” said Madame de la Mariniere. ”Have you brought us any game? Ah, I am glad--” as he showed her his well-filled bag. ”Your father came home two hours ago; he expected to find you here; he wanted you to do some service or other for these cousins.”

”I am sorry,” said Angelot. ”I could not leave Uncle Joseph. I have a hundred things to tell you. Some rather serious, and some will make you die of laughing, as they did me.”

”Mon Dieu! I should be glad to laugh,” said his mother.

Angelot had taken the basket from her hand, and was throwing the chickens their last grain. She stood on the highest step, with a little sigh which might have been of fatigue or of disgust, and her eyes, as she gazed across the valley, were half angry, half melancholy. The sun had gone down behind the opposite hills, and the broad front of the Chateau de Lancilly, in full view of La Mariniere, looked grey and cold against the woods, even in the warm twilight of that rosy evening.

”Strange, that it should be inhabited again!” Angelot had emptied the basket, and stood beside his mother; the chickens bustled and scrambled about the foot of the steps.

”Yes, and as I hear, by all the perfections,” said Madame de la Mariniere. ”Herve de Sainfoy is more friendly than ever--and well he may be--his wife is supremely pretty and agreeable, his younger girls are most amiable, and as for Helene, nothing so enchantingly beautiful has ever set foot in Anjou. Take care, my poor Ange, I beseech you.”

Angelot laughed. ”Then I suppose my father's next duty will be to find a husband for her. I hear she is difficult--or her parents for her, perhaps.”

”Who told you so?”

”Monsieur de Mauves.”

”What? the Prefect?”

”Yes. He sent his respectful compliments to you. I have been spending the day at Les Chouettes with him and the new General. He--oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!”

Angelot burst into a violent fit of laughing, and leaned, almost helpless, against a pillar of the porch.

”Are you mad?” said his mother.