The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
Benoit, and in her imperious fashion constituted herself Andre’s advocate against that harsh dismissal which she had overheard.
“Uncle,” she said, leaving Andre and crossing to M. de Kercadiou, “you make me ashamed of you! To allow a feeling of peevishness to overwhelm all your affection for Andre!”
“I have no affection for him. I had once. He chose to extinguish it. He can go to the devil; and please observe that I don’t permit you to interfere.”
“But if he confesses that he has done wrong . . . ”
“He confesses nothing of the kind. He comes here to argue with me about these infernal Rights of Man. He proclaims himself unrepentant. He announces himself with pride to have been, as all Brittany says, the scoundrel who hid himself under the sobriquet of Omnes Omnibus. Is that to be condoned?”
She turned to look at Andre across the wide space that now separated them.
“But is this really so? Don’t you repent, Andre — now that you see all the harm that has come?”
It was a clear invitation to him, a pleading to him to say that he repented, to make his peace with his godfather. For a moment it almost moved him. Then, considering the subterfuge unworthy, he answered truthfully, though the pain he was suffering rang in his voice.
“To confess repentance,” he said slowly, “would be to confess to a monstrous crime. Don’t you see that? Oh, monsieur, have patience with me; let me explain myself a little. You say that I am in part responsible for something of all this that has happened. My exhortations of the people at Rennes and twice afterwards at Nantes are said to have had their share in what followed there. It may be so. It would be beyond my power positively to deny it. Revolution followed and bloodshed. More may yet come. To repent implies a recognition that I have done wrong. How shall I say that I have done wrong, and thus take a share of the responsibility for all that blood upon my soul? I will be quite frank with you to show you how far, indeed, I am from repentance. What I did, I actually did against all my convictions at the time. Because there was no justice in France to move against the murderer of Philippe de Vilmorin, I moved in the only way that I imagined could make the evil done recoil upon the hand that did it, and those other hands that had the power but not the spirit to punish. Since then I have come to see that I was wrong, and that Philippe de Vilmorin and those who thought with him were in the right.
“You must realize, monsieur, that it is with sincerest thankfulness that I find I have done nothing calling for repentance; that, on the contrary, when France is given the inestimable boon of a constitution, as will shortly happen, I may take pride in having played my part in bringing about the conditions that have made this possible.”
There was a pause. M. de Kercadiou’s face turned from pink to purple.
“You have quite finished?” he said harshly.
“If you have understood me, monsieur.”
“Oh, I have understood you, and . . . and I beg that you will go.”
Andre–Louis shrugged his shoulders and hung his head. He had come there so joyously, in such yearning, merely to receive a final dismissal. He looked at Aline. Her face was pale and troubled; but her wit failed to show her how she could come to his assistance. His excessive honesty had burnt all his boats.
“Very well, monsieur. Yet this I would ask you to remember after I am gone. I have not come to you as one seeking assistance, as one driven to you by need. I am no returning prodigal, as I have said. I am one who, needing nothing, asking nothing, master of his own destinies, has come to you driven by affection only, urged by the love and gratitude he bears you and will continue to bear you.”
“Ah, yes!” cried Aline, turning now to her uncle. Here at least was an argument in Andre’s favour, thought she. “That is true. Surely that . . . ”
Inarticulately he hissed her into silence, exasperated.
“Hereafter perhaps that will help you to think of me more kindly, monsieur.”
“I see no occasion, sir, to think of you at all. Again, I beg that you will go.”
Andre–Louis looked at Aline an instant, as if still hesitating.
She answered him by a glance at her furious uncle, a faint shrug, and a lift of the eyebrows, dejection the while in her countenance.
It was as if she said: “You see his mood. There is nothing to be done.”
He bowed with that singular grace the fencing-room had given him and went out by the door.
“Oh, it is cruel!” cried Aline, in a stifled voice, her hands clenched, and she sprang to the window.
“Aline!” her uncle’s voice arrested her. “Where are you going?”
“But we do not know where he is to be found.”
“Who wants to find the scoundrel?”
“We may never see him again.”
“That is most fervently to be desired.”
Aline said “Ouf!” and went out by the window.
He called after her, imperiously commanding her return. But Aline — dutiful child — closed her ears lest she must disobey him, and sped light-footed across the lawn to the avenue there to intercept the departing Andre–Louis.
As he came forth wrapped in gloom, she stepped from the bordering trees into his path.
“Aline!” he cried, joyously almost.
“I did not want you to go like this. I couldn’t let you,” she explained herself. “I know him better than you do, and I know that his great soft heart will presently melt. He will be filled with regret. He will want to send for you, and he will not know where to send.”
“You think that?”
“Oh, I know it! You arrive in a bad moment. He is peevish and cross-grained, poor man, since he came here. These soft surroundings are all so strange to him. He wearies himself away from his beloved Gavrillac, his hunting and tillage, and the truth is that in his mind he very largely blames you for what has happened — for the necessity, or at least, the wisdom, of this change. Brittany, you must know, was becoming too unsafe. The chateau of La Tour d’Azyr, amongst others, was burnt to the ground some months ago. At any moment, given a fresh excitement, it may be the turn of Gavrillac. And for this and his present discomfort he blames you and your friends. But he will come round presently. He will be sorry that he sent you away like this — for I know that he loves you, Andre, in spite of all. I shall reason with him when the time comes. And then we shall want to know where to find you.”
“At number 13, Rue du Hasard. The number is unlucky, the name of the street appropriate. Therefore both are easy to remember.”
She nodded. “I will walk with you to the gates.” And side by side now they proceeded at a leisurely pace down the long avenue in the June sunshine dappled by the shadows of the bordering trees. “You are looking well, Andre; and do you know that you have changed a deal? I am glad that you have prospered.” And then, abruptly changing the subject before he had time to answer her, she came to the matter uppermost in her mind.
“I have so wanted to see you in all these months, Andre. You were the only one who could help me; the only one who could tell me the truth, and I was angry with you for never having written to say where you were to be found.”
“Of course you encouraged me to do so when last we met in Nantes.”
“What? Still resentful?”
“I am never resentful. You should know that.” He expressed one of his vanities. He loved to think himself a Stoic. “But I still bear the scar of a wound that would be the better for the balm of your retraction.”
“Why, then, I retract, Andre. And now tell me.”
“Yes, a self-seeking retraction,” said he. “You give me something that