Sir Jasper Carew Part 46

"But I ought, perhaps, to hear something of him that questions me," said I, affecting an amount of circ.u.mspection that was far from natural to me.

"Then go out upon the quay yonder, and ask who is Pierre Dubos. My character and my name are well known in Havre; you 'll not have to ask often without an answer."

"Well, then, citizen, tell me what more you wish to learn about me. I 'll tell you whatever you like, if I only know it."

"Have you dined yet, lad?" asked he, quietly.

"No; I have not had time."

"Come, then, and partake of mine;" and, without waiting for an answer, he let down the shutter that closed the entrance to his shop, and led me by the arm into a room behind it.

Pierre Dubos, though nearer to sixty than fifty, was only a short time married to a very pretty and young woman who, as he entered the room, was arranging the table for dinner. She received me with much courtesy, scarcely heeding, if she even heard, the explanation her husband gave to account for my presence.

The meal was an excellent one, and pa.s.sed off with all that easy conviviality that every cla.s.s of Frenchmen know how to display. Monsieur Dubos seemed somewhat of a character, and rather piqued himself on doing things that others might never have thought of. His marriage appeared to have been one of these; his invitation to myself was another.

"You know, Jeanette," said he, "we might never have met if it had not been for the ferry being delayed at Honfleur. We made acquaintance on the steps of the pier; and see what has come of it! Now, I have come to know Bernard here by a similar accident. Who knows what may arise out of that?"

Madame smiled benignly in a.s.sent to the theory, the happy results of which she seemed to acknowledge.

Coffee came after dinner; and then I began to think how I should take my leave. Ere I could solve the problem to my satisfaction, Dubos said,--

"Shall we all go to the comedy this evening? They play a grand piece, one of Beaumanhui's,--and it will amuse us."

Madame hailed the proposition with delight; and I really felt sorry as I said,--

"But this will never bring me to England."

"What need to go there? Why not stay in France? Was it not a pleasanter country and a better climate? At all events, what urgent haste was there? Would not to-morrow serve as well as to-day?"

These and such-like arguments were showered upon me, and not a little aided by many little coquetries of look and gesture.

"One thing is quite certain," said Dubos: "it is now three,--the bureau closes at four o'clock; and if you know of any one in Havre who will be your sponsor, the sooner you find him the better."

This speech was uttered with so much gravity that it completely mystified me; nor did the next remark serve greatly to elucidate matters, as his wife said she hoped "I 'd have a pleasant voyage." After enjoying my astonished and puzzled look for a second or two, they both burst into a roar of laughter.

"Don't you see, Bernard," said the man, "that you have no other acquaintance in the city than ourselves; and if we have a fancy for your company, and do not care to part with it, the option is with us?"

"But if you really do feel an interest for me, you would befriend me,"

said I. "Is not that so?"

"And so I 'm ready to do," said he, rising. "Say the word, and I 'll go with you this moment to the commissary."

I arose too. Already the syllables were on my lips, when the sudden thought flashed across me: Whither am I hurrying, and for what? Was I returning to home and family and country? Was I going back to kind and loving friends, whose hearts were yearning for my coming? I paused, and at the same instant the laughing eyes of the young Frenchwoman seemed to read my embarra.s.sment.

"Well," cried Dubos, "how is it to be?"

"Sit down, Pierre, and take your coffee," said she, smiling. "Citizen Bernard has not the slightest intention of leaving us. He knows, besides, that you will be just as ready to serve him any other day, and not the less so when you will have been better acquainted."

"She is right," said he, pressing me down into my seat again. "Let's have a _cha.s.se_ in ease, and quick."

I did not stop to reason the question. If I had, perhaps I should only have seen stronger cause to concur with my kind hosts. The world was a wide and trackless ocean before me, and even the humblest haven was a welcome harbor to me for a day or two.

I stayed accordingly, and went to the theatre with them. The following day was Sunday, and we went over to Honneur, and dined at the "Trois Pigeons;" and Pierre showed me the spot where he first saw his pretty wife, and said,--

"Who knows but some day or other I may be telling of the day and the hour and the way I became acquainted with you?"

As I parted with them each night, some little plan or project was always struck out for the morrow; and so I lingered on from day to day, half listless, and half pleased. At length, as I was proceeding one morning towards the house, I saw a crowd in front of a cafe all busily engaged in reading a large placard which had just been affixed to the wall. It was an account of the seizure by the English of the very vessel I had intended to have taken my pa.s.sage in; for, strangely enough, though the countries were at war, a species of half intercourse was kept up between them for some time, and travellers often pa.s.sed from one sh.o.r.e to the other. This system was now, it seemed, to have an end; and it was curious to remark how bitter were the commentaries the change excited.

Pierre had learned the news by the time I reached his house, and laughingly remarked on the good luck that always attended his inspirations.

"But for me," said he, "and my wise counsels, you had been a prisoner now, and all your claims to nationality would only have got you hanged for a traitor. From the first moment I saw you, something whispered me that we were destined to know more of each other; and now I perceive that the impression was-well founded."

"How do you infer that?" asked I, smiling.

"Because my instincts have never betrayed me yet."

"And what is to be the upshot of our acquaintance, then?"

"Do you ask this seriously, Bernard, or are you only jesting at my presentiments?"

"In all seriousness and in all trustfulness," replied I.

"You 'll stay here in Havre--join me in my business--make money--be a rich man--and--" he paused.

"Go on; I like the prophecy," said I, laughing.

"And I was going to say, just as likely to lose it all, some fine morning, as easily as you earned it."

"But I have not a single requisite for the part you a.s.sign me. I am ignorant of every branch of trade and traffic; nor, if I know myself, do I possess one single quality that insures success in them."

"I'll teach you, Bernard! There are few secrets in my craft. We deal with smugglers,--we buy from them, and sell to them! For the pedler that comes to us in our shop in the 'Rue des Sol,' we care little; for our customers who drop in after nightfall, we have a sincere affection. You have hitherto regarded them in the light of visitors and friends. You little suspected that through them we carried on all our business; and just as little did it ever occur to you that you yourself are already a great favorite with them. Your stories, your remarks, the views you take of life, all your observations, are quite novel and amusing to poor fellows whose whole experience of the world is picked up in stormy nights in the Channel, or still more perilous adventures on sh.o.r.e. Many have already asked me when you would be with me of an evening, that they might come; others have begged they might bring friends along with them; and, in short, they like you; and they are fellows who, when they have fancies, don't grudge the price they pay for them."

I laughed heartily as I heard this. a.s.suredly it had never occurred to myself to observe the circ.u.mstance, still less to make it a matter of profit or speculation; but, somehow, the coa.r.s.e flattery of even such admiration was not without a certain charm for my mind.

Still, it was a part I could not have condescended to practise for gain, nor, perhaps, had such been my intention, could I have been equally successful.

Dubos, however, a.s.signed me a duty which made a happy compromise between my self-esteem and my desire for employment. This was to make acquaintance with all of that adventurous race comprised between the buccaneer and the smuggler; to learn their various wants, when they voyaged, and for what, became my province. They were a wild, wasteful, and reckless cla.s.s, who loved far better to deal with one who should stand to them in the relation of a companion than as a chapman or a dealer.

If I am free to own that my occupation was not very dignified, I am equally able to a.s.sert that I never prost.i.tuted any influence I obtained in this way to personal objects of profit. On the contrary, I have repeatedly been able to aid, by good counsel and advice, men whose knowledge of adventurous life was far greater than my own; and oftentimes has it occurred to me to obtain for them quadruple the value they had themselves set upon objects they possessed.

I can scarcely account to myself for the extraordinary interest the pursuit engendered,--the characters, the places they frequented, the habits, were all of the strangest, and might reasonably have amused one ardently fond of adventure; but there was, besides all this, a degree of danger in the intercourse that imparted a most intense degree of interest to it.

Many of these men were great criminals. Many of the valuables confided to my keeping were obtained by the most questionable means. They trafficked not alone in articles of contraband, but they dealt in the still more dangerous wares of secret information to governments; some were far less smugglers than spies. All these curious traits became revealed to me in our intercourse; and I learned to see by what low and base agencies are often moved the very greatest and most momentous incidents of the world. It was not alone that many of these men were employed by persons high in station, but they were really often intrusted with functions very disproportionate to their own claim for either character or fitness. At one time it would be a state secret; at another, some dark piece of treacherous vengeance, or some scarcely less dark incident of what fas.h.i.+on calls "gallantry;" while occasionally a figure would cross the scene of a very different order, and men of unquestionable station be met with in the garb and among the haunts of the freebooter.

There was scarcely a leader of the republican party with whom some member of the exiled family had not attempted the arts of seduction.

With many of them, it was said, they really succeeded; and others only waited their opportunity to become their partisans. Whether the English Government actually adopted the same policy or not, they a.s.suredly had the credit of doing so; and the sudden accession to wealth and affluence of men who had no visible road to fortune, greatly favored this impression. My friend Pierre Dubos troubled his head very little about these things. So long as his "brandies could be run" upon the sh.o.r.es of England, and his bales of silk find their way to London without encountering a custom-house, he cared nothing for the world of politics and statecraft; and it is not impossible that his well-known indifference to these matters contributed something to the confidence with which they were freely imparted to myself. Whatever the cause, I soon became the trusted depositary of much that was valuable, not alone in actual wealth, but in secret information. Jewels, sums of money, securities to a great amount, papers and doc.u.ments of consequence, all found their way to my hands; and few went forth upon any expedition of hazard without first committing to my keeping whatever he possessed of worth.

I was now living in privacy and simplicity, it is true, but in the enjoyment of every comfort; but, still, with all the sense of a precarious and even a perilous existence. More than once had I been warned that the authorities entertained suspicion of me; and although the police, even to its highest grades, was in our pay, it was yet possible that they should find it their interest to betray us. It was just at this time that a secret envoy arrived from Paris at Havre, en route for England, and was arrested on entering the town. His papers were all seized, except one small packet which was conveyed by a safe hand to myself, and my advice and counsel requested on the subject of it. The address was simply "W. P.," and marked, "with the greatest speed." There was an enclosure that felt like a locket-case or a medallion, inside, and three large seals without.