The Isle of Unrest Part 17

"No," answered Lory, slowly--"no; I have not forgotten. But no one takes my advice--indeed, no one asks it--except about a horse. They think I know about a horse." And Lory smiled to himself at the thought of his proud position.

"But you surely meant what you said?" asked Denise.

"Oh yes. But you honour me too much by taking my opinion thus seriously without question, mademoiselle."

Denise was looking at him with her clear, searching eyes, rather veiled by a suggestion of disappointment.

"I thought--I thought you seemed so decided, so sure of your own opinion," she said doubtfully.

De Va.s.selot was silent for a moment, then he turned to her quickly, impulsively, confidentially.

"Listen," he said. "I will tell you the truth. I said 'Don't sell.' I say 'Don't sell' still. And I have not a shred of reason for doing so.

There!"

Denise was not a person who was easily led. She laughed at the stern, strong Mademoiselle Brun to her face, and treated her opinion with a gay contempt. She had never yet been led.

"No," she said, and seemed ready to dispense with reasons. "You will not sell, yourself?" she said, after a pause.

"No; I cannot sell," he said quickly; and she remembered his answer long afterwards.

After a pause he explained farther.

"I tell you frankly," he said earnestly, for he was always either very earnest or very gay--"I tell you frankly, when we both received an offer to buy, I thought there must be some reason why the places are worth buying, but I have found none."

He paused, and, looking round, remembered that this also was his, and did not belong to Denise at all, who claimed it, and held it with such a high hand.

"As Corsica at present stands, Perucca and Va.s.selot are valueless, mademoiselle, I claim the honour of being in the same boat with you. And if the empire falls--_bonjour la paix!_"

And he sketched a grand upheaval with a wave of his two hands in the air.

"But why should the empire fall?" asked Denise, sharply.

"Ah, but I have the head of a sparrow!" cried Lory, and he smote himself grievously on the forehead. "I forgot to tell you the very thing that I came to tell you. Which is odd, for until I came into this garden I could think of nothing else. I was ready to shout it to the trees. War has been declared, mademoiselle."

"War!" said Denise; and she drew in one whistling breath through her teeth, as one may who has been burnt by contact with heated metal, and sat looking straight in front of her. "When do you go, Monsieur le Comte?" she asked, in a steady voice, after a moment.

"To-night."

He rose, and stood before her, looking at the tangled garden with a frown.

"Ah!" he said, with a sudden laugh, "if the emperor had only consulted me, he would not have done it just yet. I want to go, of course, for I am a soldier. But I do not want to go now. I should have liked to see things more settled, here in Olmeta. If the empire falls, mademoiselle, you must return to France; remember that. I should have liked to have offered you my poor a.s.sistance; but I cannot--I must go. There are others, however.

There is Mademoiselle Brun, with a man's heart in that little body. And there is the Abbe Susini. Yes; you can trust him as you can trust a little English fighting terrier. Tell him----No; I will tell him. He is a Va.s.selot, mademoiselle, but I shall make him a Perucca."

He held out his hand gaily to say good-bye.

"And--stay! Will you write to me if you want me, mademoiselle? I may be able to get to you."

Denise did not answer for a moment. Then she looked him straight in the eyes, as was her wont with men and women alike.

"Yes," she said.

A few minutes later, Mademoiselle Brun came into the garden. She looked round but saw no one. Approaching the spot where she had left Denise, she found the basket with a few beans in it, and Denise's gloves lying there.

She knew that Lory had gone, but still she could see Denise nowhere.

There were a hundred places in the garden where any who did not wish to be discovered could find concealment.

Mademoiselle Brun took up the basket and continued to pick the French beans.

"My poor child! my poor child!" she muttered twice, with a hard face.

CHAPTER XIV.

GOSSIP.

"Cupid is a casuist, A mystic, and a cabalist.

Can your lurking thought surprise, And interpret your device?"

That which has been taken by the sword must be held by the sword. In Corsica the blade is sheathed, but it has never yet been laid aside. The quick events of July thrust this sheathed weapon into the hand of Colonel Gilbert, who, as he himself had predicted, was left behind in the general exodus.

"If you are placed in command at Bastia, how many, or how few men will suffice?" asked the civil authority, who was laid on the shelf by the outbreak of war.

And Colonel Gilbert named what appeared to be an absurd minimum.

"We must think of every event; things may go badly, the fortune of war may turn against us."

"Still I can do it," answered the colonel.

"The empire may fall, and then Corsica will blaze up like tow."

"Still I can do it," repeated the colonel.

It is the natural instinct of man to strike while his blood is up, and the national spirit on either side of the Rhine was all for immediate action. The leaders themselves were anxious to begin, so that they might finish before the winter. So the preparations were pushed forward in Germany with a methodical haste, a sane and deliberate foresight. In France it was more a question of sentiment--the invincibility of French arms, the heroism of French soldiers, the Napoleonic legend. But while these abstract aids to warfare may make a good individual soldier of that untidy little man in the red trousers, who has, in his time, overrun all Europe, it will not move great armies or organize a successful campaign.

For the French soldier must have some one to fight for--some one towering man in whom he trusts, who can turn to good account some of the best fighting material the human race has yet produced. And Napoleon III was not such a man.

It is almost certain that he counted on receiving a.s.sistance from Austria or Italy, and when this was withheld, the disease-stricken, suffering man must a.s.suredly have realized that his star was sinking. He had made the mistake of putting off this great war too long. He should have fought it years earlier, before the Prussians had made sure of those steady, grumbling Bavarians, who bore the brunt of all the fighting, before his own hand was faltering at the helm, and the face of G.o.d was turned away from the Napoleonic dynasty.

The emperor was no tactician, but he knew the human heart. He knew that at any cost France must lead off with a victory, not only for the sake of the little man in the red trousers, but to impress watching Europe, and perhaps s.n.a.t.c.h an ally from among the hesitating powers. And the result was Saarbruck. The news of it filtered through to Colonel Gilbert, who was now quartered in the grey, picturesque Watrin barracks at Bastia, which jut out between the old harbour and the plain of Biguglia. The colonel did not believe half of it. It is always safe to subtract from good news. But he sat down at once and wrote to Denise Lange. He had not seen her, had not communicated with her, since he had asked her to marry him, and she had refused. He was old enough to be her father. He had asked her to marry him because she would not sell Perucca, and he wanted that estate; which was not the right motive, but it is the usual one with men who are past the foolishness of youth--that foolishness which is better than all the wisdom of the ages.

From having had nothing to do, Colonel Gilbert found himself thrown into a whirl of work, or what would have been a whirl with a man less calm and placid. Very much at ease, in white linen clothes, he sat in his room in the bastion, and transacted the affairs of his command with a leisurely good nature which showed his complete grasp of the situation.

With regard to Denise, this middle-aged, cynical Frenchman grasped the situation also. He was slowly and surely falling in love with her. And she herself had given him the first push down that facile descent when she had refused to be his wife.

"Mademoiselle," he wrote, "to quarrel is, I suppose, in the air of Corsica, and when we parted at your gate some time ago, I am afraid I left you harbouring a feeling of resentment against me. At this time, and in the adverse days that I foresee must inevitably be in store for France, none can afford to part with friends who by any means can preserve them. In our respective positions, you and I must rise above small differences of opinion; and I place myself unreservedly at your service. I write to tell you that I have this morning good news from France. We have won a small victory at Saarbruck. So far, so good. But, in case of a reverse, there is only too much reason to fear that internal disturbances will arise in France, and consequently in this unfortunate island. It is, therefore, my duty to urge upon you the necessity of quitting Perucca without delay. If you will not consent to leave the island, come at all events into Bastia, where, at a few minutes' notice, I shall be able to place you in a position of safety. I trust I am not one who is given to exaggerating danger. Ask Mademoiselle Brun, who has known me since, as a young man, I had the privilege of serving under your father, a general who had the gift of drawing out from those about him such few soldierly qualities as they might possess."

Denise received this letter by post the next morning, and, after reading it twice, handed it to Mademoiselle Brun, who was much too wise a woman to ask for an explanation of those parts of it which she did not comprehend. Indeed, she was manlike enough to pa.s.s on with an unimpaired understanding to the second part of the letter, whereas most women would have been so consumed by curiosity as to be unable to give more than half their mind to the colonel's further news.