The Isle of Unrest

by Henry Seton Merriman

  CHAPTER XIII.

  WAR.

  “Since all that I can ever do for thee Is to do nothing, may’st thou never see, Never divine, the all that nothing costeth me!”

  It is for kings to declare war, for nations to fight and pay. NapoleonIII declared war against Russia, and France fought side by side withEngland in the Crimea, not because the gayest and most tragic of nationshad aught to gain, but to ensure an upstart emperor a place among themonarchs of Europe. And that strange alliance was merely one move in along game played by a consummate intriguer--a game which begandisastrously at Boulogne and ended disastrously at Sedan, and yet was themost daring and brilliant feat of European statesmanship that has beencarried out since the adventurer’s great uncle went to St. Helena.

  But no one knows why in July, 1870, Napoleon III declared war againstGermany. The secret of the greatest war of modern times lies buried inthe Imperial mausoleum at Frognal.

  There is a sort of surprise which is caused by the sudden arrival of thelong expected, and Germany experienced it in that hot midsummer, forthere seemed to be no reason why war should break out at the moment.Shortly before, the Spanish Government had offered the crown to thehereditary Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, and France, ever ready to seea grievance, found herself suited. But the hereditary prince declinedthat throne, and the incident seemed about to close. Then quite suddenlyFrance made a demand, with reference to any possible recurrence of thesame question, which Germany could not be expected to grant. It was anodd demand to make, and in a flash of thought the great German chancellorsaw that this meant war. Perhaps he had been waiting for it. At allevents, he was prepared for it, as were the silent soldier, von Roon, andthe gentle tactician, von Moltke. These gentlemen were away for aholiday, but they returned, and, as history tells, had merely to fill ina few dates on already prepared documents.

  If France was not ready she thought herself so, and was at all eventswilling. Nay, she was so eager that she shouted when she should have heldher tongue. And who shall say what the schemer of the Tuileries thoughtof it all behind that pleasant smile, those dull and sphinx-like eyes? Hehad always believed in his star, had always known that he was destined tobe great; and now perhaps he knew that his star was waning--that thegreatness was past. He made his preparations quietly. He was never aflustered man, this nephew of the greatest genius the world has seen. Didhe not sit three months later in front of a cottage at Donchery andimpassively smoke cigarette after cigarette while waiting for Otto vonBismarck? He was a fatalist.

  “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on.”

  And it must be remembered to his credit that he asked no man’s pity--arequest as foolish to make for a fallen emperor as for the ordinary manwho has, for instance, married in haste, and is given the leisure of awhole lifetime in which to repent. For the human heart is incapable ofbestowing unadulterated pity: there must be some contempt in it. If thefall of Napoleon III was great, let it be remembered that few placethemselves by their own exertions in a position to fall at all.

  The declaration of war was, on the whole, acclaimed in France; forFrenchmen are, above all men, soldiers. Does not the whole world useFrench terms in the technicalities of warfare? The majority received thenews as Lory de Vasselot received it. For a time he could only think thatthis was a great and glorious moment in his life. He hurried in to tellhis father, but the count failed to rise to the occasion.

  “War!” he said. “Yes; there have been many in my time. They have notaffected me--or my carnations.”

  “And I go to it to-night,” announced Lory, watching his father with eyessuddenly grave and anxious.

  “Ah!” said the count, and made no farther comment.

  Then, without pausing to consider his own motives, Lory hurried up to theCasa Perucca to tell the ladies there his great news. He must, it seemed,tell somebody, and he knew no one else within reach, except perhaps theAbbé Susini, who did not pretend to be a Frenchman.

  “Is it peace?” asked Mademoiselle Brun, who, having seen him climbing thesteep slope in the glaring sunshine, was waiting for him by the openside-door when he arrived there.

  He took her withered hand, and bowed over it as gallantly as if it hadbeen soft and young.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, looking at her curiously.

  “Well, it seems that the Casa Perucca and the Château de Vasselot are noton visiting terms. We only call on each other with a gun.”

  “It is odd that you should have asked me that,” said Lory, “for it is notpeace, but war.”

  And as he looked at her, her face hardened, her steady eyes wavered foronce.

  “Ah!” she said, her hands dropping sharply against her dingy black dressin a gesture of despair. “Again!”

  “Yes, mademoiselle,” answered Lory, gently; for he had a quick intuition,and knew at a glance that war must have hurt this woman at one time ofher life.

  She stood for a moment tapping the ground with her foot, lookingreflectively across the valley.

  “Assuredly,” she said, “Frenchwomen must be the bravest women in theworld, or else there would never be a light heart in the whole country.Come, let us go in and tell Denise. It is Germany, I suppose?”

  “Yes, mademoiselle. They have long wanted it, and we are obliging them atlast. You look grave. It is not bad news I bring you, but good.”

  “Women like soldiers, but they hate war,” said mademoiselle, and walkedon slowly in silence.

  After a pause, she turned and looked at him as if she were going to askhim a question, but checked herself.

  “I almost did a foolish thing,” she explained, seeing his glance ofsurprise. “I was going to ask you if you were going?”

  “Ah, yes, I am going,” he answered, with a laugh and a keen glance ofexcitement. “War is a necessary evil, mademoiselle, and assistspromotion. Why should you hate it?”

  “Because we cannot interfere in it,” replied Mademoiselle Brun, with asnap of the lips. “We shall find Denise in the garden to the north of thehouse, picking green beans, Monsieur le Comte,” continued MademoiselleBrun, with a glance in his direction.

  “Then I shall have time to help with the beans before I go to the war,” answered Lory; and they walked on in silence.

  The garden was but half cultivated--a luxuriant thicket of fruit andweed, of trailing vine and wild clematis. The air of it was heavy with ahundred scents, and, in the shade, was cool, and of a mossy odour rarelyfound in Southern seas.

  They did not see Denise at first, and then suddenly she emerged at theother end of the weed-grown path where they stood. Lory hurried forward,hat in hand, and perceived that Denise made a movement, as if to go backinto the shadow, which was immediately restrained.

  Mademoiselle Brun did not follow Lory, but turned back towards the house.

  “If they must quarrel,” she said to herself, “they may do it without myassistance.”

  And Denise seemed, indeed, ready to fall out with her neighbour, for shecame towards him with heightened colour and a flash of annoyance in hereyes.

  “I am sorry they put you to the trouble of coming out here,” she said.

  “Why, mademoiselle? Because I find you picking green beans?”

  “No; not that. But one has one’s pride. This is my garden. I keep it!Look at it!” And she waved her hand with a gesture of contempt.

  De Vasselot looked gravely round him. Then, after a pause, he made amovement of the deepest despair.

  “Yes, mademoiselle,” he said, with a great sigh, “it is a wilderness.”

  “And now you are laughing at me.”

  “I, mademoiselle?” And he faced her tragic eyes.

  “You think I am a woman.”

  De Vasselot spread out his hands in deprecation, as if, this time, shehad hit the mark.

  “Yes,” he said slowly.

  “I mean you think we are only capable of wearing pretty clothes andlistening to pretty speeches, and that anything else is beyond our
graspaltogether.”

  “Nothing in the world, mademoiselle, is beyond your grasp, except”--hepaused, and looked round him--“except a spade, perhaps, and that is whatthis garden wants.”

  They were very grave about it, and sat down on a rough seat built byMattei Perucca, who had come there in the hot weather.

  “Then what is to be done?” said Denise, simply.

  For the French--the most intellectually subtle people of the world--havea certain odd simplicity which seems to have survived all the changes andchances of monarchy, republic, and empire.

  “I do not quite know. Have you not a man?”

  “I have nobody, except a decrepit old man, who is half an imbecile,” saidDenise, with a short laugh. “I get my provisions surreptitiously by thehand of Madame Andrei. No one else comes near the Casa. We are in a stateof siege. I dare not go into Olmeta; but I am holding on because youadvised me not to sell.”

  “I, mademoiselle?”

  “Yes; in Paris. Have you forgotten?”

  “No,” answered Lory, slowly--“no; I have not forgotten. But no one takesmy advice--indeed, no one asks it--except about a horse. They think Iknow about a horse.” And Lory smiled to himself at the thought of hisproud position.

  “But you surely meant what you said?” asked Denise.

  “Oh yes. But you honour me too much by taking my opinion thus seriouslywithout question, mademoiselle.”

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

  “I thought--I thought you seemed so decided, so sure of your ownopinion,” she said doubtfully.

  De Vasselot 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 gaycontempt. She had never yet been led.

  “No,” she said, and seemed ready to dispense with reasons. “You will notsell, yourself?” she said, after a pause.

  “No; I cannot sell,” he said quickly; and she remembered his answer longafterwards.

  After a pause he explained farther.

  “I tell you frankly,” he said earnestly, for he was always either veryearnest or very gay--“I tell you frankly, when we both received an offerto buy, I thought there must be some reason why the places are worthbuying, but I have found none.”

  He paused, and, looking round, remembered that this also was his, and didnot belong to Denise at all, who claimed it, and held it with such a highhand.

  “As Corsica at present stands, Perucca and Vasselot are valueless,mademoiselle, I claim the honour of being in the same boat with you. Andif 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 himselfgrievously on the forehead. “I forgot to tell you the very thing that Icame to tell you. Which is odd, for until I came into this garden I couldthink of nothing else. I was ready to shout it to the trees. War has beendeclared, mademoiselle.”

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

  “To-night.”

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

  “Ah!” he said, with a sudden laugh, “if the emperor had only consultedme, he would not have done it just yet. I want to go, of course, for I ama soldier. But I do not want to go now. I should have liked to see thingsmore settled, here in Olmeta. If the empire falls, mademoiselle, you mustreturn to France; remember that. I should have liked to have offered youmy poor assistance; but I cannot--I must go. There are others, however.There is Mademoiselle Brun, with a man’s heart in that little body. Andthere is the Abbé Susini. Yes; you can trust him as you can trust alittle English fighting terrier. Tell him----No; I will tell him. He is aVasselot, 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 beable to get to you.”

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

  “Yes,” she said.

  A few minutes later, Mademoiselle Brun came into the garden. She lookedround but saw no one. Approaching the spot where she had left Denise, shefound 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 tobe discovered could find concealment.

  Mademoiselle Brun took up the basket and continued to pick the Frenchbeans.

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