The fugitive was glad of it. Amid all the excitement caused by the coming of the royal troops, the unaccustomed manner of his own arrival would pass almost unnoticed. The horde of religious ladies who flitted like bats about the rector's house would have other things on their minds.
All the same, he was glad to find that dusk was falling before his eyes lit on the familiar landscape, the hills that formed a natural amphitheatre round Hennebont, the calm waters of the Blavet with the boats coming in slowly from the sea, the harsh cries of the sea birds and the melancholy chime of evening bells. A sudden surge of happiness filled his heart, as it did every time he came home to the town of his childhood, only that night it was more intense than ever before, almost more than he could bear, because it was mingled with an intoxicating feeling of freedom, a freedom he did not intend to be robbed of ever again, and with the excitement of having burned his boats. For Gilles, that burning had been the theft of the horse. He could never go back to Vannes, where even at that very moment they might be searching for him to hang him. He could forget all about the seminary and think about life and the future – about Judith. And he discovered also that he loved every stone of Hennebont.
The ruddy stones of the curtain walls and ancient towers of the old castle where he had so often hunted the ghost of Jeanne La Flamme, the age-blackened stones of the ramparts where fine trees now made a pleasant promenade for peaceful citizens, the stones of the steep alleys of the Old Town making a blue network around the handsome church of Notre Dame du Paradis, and of the restored houses in the New Town, and finally the mansions of the Ville-Close beneath whose tall gables dwelt a proud nobility to which he himself belonged by blood but which, with few exceptions, turned from him with scorn, that evening all these worn stones took on the fragile, threatened aspect of things one is about to leave for a long time.
After traversing the old walled town, Gilles emerged suddenly into a scene like a Flemish fairground. The two regiments whose traces he had seen on the road were indeed in the town, filling it with the cheerful din of a campaigning army. A host of bright coloured uniforms, white with yellow facings for Turenne's regiment, blue and red for Anhalt's, made Hennebont like a spring meadow in the torchlight. The men were bivouacked around their fires, their muskets stacked within reach, dicing on drumheads after their supper. Groups of officers, their black cocked hats encrusted with gold lace and white cockades, were strolling idly in the direction of the dark mass of the Bro-Erech, the walled town, guarded by its great prison-gate, where their own supper would be awaiting them in the wealthy houses where they were billeted. The air smelled pleasantly of wood smoke, straw, draught cider and cabbage soup. The morning's high wind had given way to a cool, moist breeze that already carried with it a scent of spring.
There was no presbytery at Hennebont. The building known as The Priest's House stood in the Rue Neuve, which, despite its optimistic name, was a good two hundred years old. It was a grey house with tiny windows and an arched doorway, so low that one had to bend to enter it. But Gilles did not go in that way. As a familiar visitor, he made his way down a narrow passage alongside the house into a back yard, where he knew there was a stable. It was a small place, for hitherto its sole occupant had been the abbe's venerable mule, Eglantine, but there would be room for two.
He was about to lift the latch when the door was opened from within and a boy came out. He was surly and unkempt and dressed in a goatskin waistcoat and wide, gathered trousers, so stained that it was impossible to say what their original colour had been, and he was carrying a large lantern which he all but hurled in Gilles' face in panic when he caught sight of the fantastic double silhouette of boy and horse. He uttered a yelp of terror and crossed himself hurriedly before retiring with a moan into the safe darkness of the stable.
'Spered-Glan! An Diaoul! Holy Ghost! The Devil!' Gilles shouted with laughter.
'No, you poor idiot! It's not the devil! It's I, Gilles Goëlo, the rector's godson. Come out of there and let me get in. There's no room for two.'
Still half-afraid, the other stammered something incomprehensible and trembled so that he almost dropped the lantern in the straw.
'Hold it steadier than that!' Gilles protested, grabbing his arm. 'You'll set fire to the stable and roast us all four, you, me, this horse I've brought you to look after, and poor Eglantine here as well.'
Gilles saw no need to enlarge on these orders. Indeed, he knew that he need not have said so much, for Mahé might be dirty, idle and surly, and constitute, in his role as the rector's body servant, an additional penance for that holy man, but however little he might relish brushing his master's wigs he was passionately fond of animals and horses, with him, were almost a religion. This he inherited from his father who had been groom to M. du Bois-Guehenneuc until his death. Mahé took the stolen horse's bridle with a kind of reverence and forgot Gilles altogether as he started crooning softly to soothe the noble animal.
Relieved of his anxieties on that score, Gilles crossed the yard and went through the back door into a flagged passage which divided the ground floor of the house. There was a staircase leading up from it and two doors, one on either side. The young man chose the one from beyond which came a rattle of saucepans. He entered and stopped dead in the doorway, startled by the sight that met his eyes.
An old woman in black petticoats and a white coif was striding up and down in front of the huge hearth where a small, black pot hung over a blazing fire, like a priestess of some obscure cult, addressing a flood of imprecation to an invisible adversary and now and then brandishing an angry fist. From time to time she would pause to aim a kick at the logs, and then resume her pacing with still greater fury. At last she stopped, snatched a whole string of onions from the chimney breast and stuffed them into the pot, without so much as peeling them. Then, as though relieved by the act, she sank down on the hearthstone with her knees drawn up to her chin, laid her arms upon them and her head on her arms and burst into resounding tears.
At this unexpected sign of grief, Gilles cast himself on his knees beside her.
'Katell! What is it? Why are you crying? – Has something dreadful happened?'
The old woman started and cast a streaming glance at him out of a pair of astonishingly bright blue eyes which still managed to convey a great deal of anger.
'Blessed St Anne!' she cried. 'That's all it needed! Where have you sprung from, you wicked rascal? And just look at the state you're in! You look like a tramp and as filthy as a pigsty! Well? Let's hear where you've come from?'
'Let's say I've dropped from heaven. And it's been raining all day. But I still don't know why you are crying?'
'You can blame heaven for that, too! And if you are its latest gift, then the good Lord must have a grudge against me. I'd best go to confession… Come along, up with you! Get those clothes off! Draw some water and wash yourself! You're making my kitchen filthy. And to think you're supposed to be studying to be a priest—A fine priest you'll make! You're as bad as Mahé—'
Forgetting her tears, Katell, who was Rozenn's sister, set about the cleansing of Gilles. She skinned him like a rabbit, tossed his clothes disgustedly into a corner and scrubbed him down before the fire. Then she went to a big chest and pulled out some garments, old but clean, which had belonged to the rector's brother-in-law, the Vicomte de Langle, whose wife had donated them to charity. In this way, Gilles found himself decked in an old bottle green hunting coat with brass buttons and deep cuffs on sleeves and pockets, a pair of maroon plush knee breeches and striped stockings which fitted him well enough. And while she refurbished him, Katell at last consented to explain the cause of her great rage: the rector had taken the supper she had just cooked and given it to a poor fisherman whose wife had just given birth to their eighth child.
'He'll give away even the shirt off his back,' the faithful servant complained wrathfully. 'If it wasn't for my lady his sister, he'd be going about naked, and he must be one of the poorest of all our rectors. And him wit
h his health not good—' With a pang of regret for the vanished supper, for he was hungry enough to have eaten the table it stood on, Gilles asked whimsically: 'And is it for the good of his health that you mean to make him eat his onions with the skin on?'
The effect of these words was astonishing. The hot-tempered Katell swooped upon the little black pot like a hawk and, snatching it from the fire, opened the window and hurled the boiling contents out into the street, without so much as a glance to assure herself that no one was passing. Then she cast the pot into the sink and wiped her hands on her apron, muttering: 'I'm ashamed of myself! But I was so angry.' Gilles started to laugh wholeheartedly. 'I do understand a little,' he said. 'Only now there's no supper at all. And I'm so very hungry. I'm even sorry about the onions.'
'Don't be. I have a – a little put by for times like these. You shall have pancakes, and some oatmeal porridge and perhaps a—' She broke off at the sound of a door closing, pursed her lips as though she had been on the point of giving away a state secret and, seizing her largest pan, began hurling a good bushel of oatmeal into it. Footsteps were approaching, dragging heavily on the flagstones in the passage, as though someone were very tired.
Seeing him enter the kitchen, his big black cloak sodden with rain, Gilles thought that his godfather had changed since Hallowe'en. The Abbé Vincent-Marie de Talhouët-Grationnaye was only forty-three but he looked much older. He walked with a slight stoop and the clear-cut features between the white wig and the black soutane, so open and kindly always, bore the marks of constant toil and great weariness.
'The weather is changing again, my good Katell,' he said with a gentle sigh, shaking his wet shoulders. 'Now the wind is bringing us more rain.'
He broke off as he saw the figure waiting for him, outlined against the glow of the fire. His grey eyes widened for a moment with surprise and a trifle of worry.
'You here? What brings you? Have you had bad news? Your mother is not—?'
Gilles bowed as deeply as to the king himself. 'If I have had bad news, at least it concerns only myself, sir. I've no reason to think my mother is other than well. But forgive me for coming to you thus unannounced.'
'You know you need no announcement. This house is always open to you, especially when, as I think, you have something serious to tell me.'
'You are right, sir. Something very serious, although it will not, I think, come as a surprise to you.'
The abbé shook his head and looked still more worried. 'Well then, let us go into my study and leave Katell to her kitchen.'
They left the big warm room where Katell, still muttering, was beginning to set the table and made their way to the upper floor, where the rooms of the rector and of his three curates in residence opened on to an icy landing. The fourth curate, the Abbé Duparc, had particular charge of the hamlet of Sainte-Gilles and lived in the vicarage there.
M. de Talhouët's was a panelled room, very simply furnished, with neither carpets nor curtains. Its one luxury, in addition to the fire in the hearth, was a small bookcase containing a number of fine books, their bindings, polished with much use, gleaming softly through their tarnished gilding. Most were devotional works, or histories, but among them were several by Voltaire, a legacy from a humorous-minded parishioner out of which the abbé had kept only those least shocking to his devout soul.
He sat his godson down in the one armchair and settled himself on the bed instead of at his desk, so as to avoid any appearance of sitting in judgment.
'I am listening,' he said, 'but am I wrong in thinking that this visit has some connection with the letter you wrote me two months ago?'
'You are not wrong, sir. Will you permit me to ask why I had no answer to it?'
The abbé smiled. 'The young are so impatient! I could not send you any answer until I had reached some conclusion with your mother. And you know quite well that she is not an easy person to argue with where her beliefs are concerned. But I do not despair, in time, of bringing her—'
'No, sir,' Gilles interrupted him. 'She will never change and it is because I have had proof of that today that I have come to you.'
And he described what had passed in the Abbé Grinne's room. He did so with brevity, calmness and a firmness which impressed his companion. Like the vice-principal earlier, M. de Talhouët was suddenly aware that he was dealing with a different person, almost a stranger. He felt no great surprise but a kind of sadness mingled with the curious excitement felt by a spectator in a theatre before the rise of the curtain.
He heard Gilles out to the end without a word. And even when the young man ceased talking, he let the silence prolong itself between them while he rose and poked the fire and threw another log on it. Only he did not return to his place on the bed but remained standing by the hearth, holding his hands out to the warmth.
'I did not know that your mother had written,' he said at last, 'nor do I know all the reasons which prompted her letter. But are you yourself quite certain that you cannot comply with her wishes? Youth is eager and hasty. Even I myself once dreamed of serving the king in the cavalry.'
'I am quite sure of myself,' Gilles exclaimed hotly. 'And you know it, sir, for you have twice prevented me from taking ship. Have you forgotten how desperately I wanted to enlist aboard the Surveillante, under your friend of glorious memory, M. De Couédic? You told me I was too young, that I should finish my schooling—'
'And I was right. If you had gone with poor De Couédic you might be dead, or crippled by now!'
'Or covered with glory, like the helmsman Le Mang whom we all admire at Kervignac. And even if I were dead, that would be better for me than to be rotting slowly in some cloister or sacristy.'
The Abbé de Talhouët frowned.
'Gilles!' he said sternly. 'You forget yourself.'
Crestfallen, the young man accepted the rebuke.
'I'm sorry. I'd rather die than offend you, because I love and respect you. But, as I said, you know my inmost heart and when I wrote to you—'
'Very well. Let us come to that letter. Frankly, it did not surprise me because, between you and me, I had given up expecting Divine Grace to visit you. And I went to see your mother to try and plead your cause—'
'Try?' Gilles broke in in amazement. 'Do you mean to say – she would not listen to you?'
'Shall we say – she listened to me, but she did not understand. She told me these were the passing ambitions of a boy in constant contact with other boys destined for worldly careers. And that living near a seaport was bound to affect a youthful imagination. It will pass, she told me, once Gilles is properly set on the way he must go. And what if it does not, I asked? She merely smiled at me, as though she knew some secret I could not perceive, and then said, with complete conviction: "It will pass. I am absolutely sure of that. Have you forgotten that God can work miracles? It is a simple matter for Him to draw to Himself the stubborn soul of a child who knows Him not as yet." After that, there was nothing to say. I did not persist, thinking that it was not yet time for you to leave St Yves and I could return to the subject later on. But I was mistaken. And I even wonder if it was not my doing that she determined to hurry matters on. Now it appears,' he added with a faint smile, 'that you have been even more precipitate. But what are you going to do now? In your letter, you spoke of a military academy—'
Gilles' eyes blazed.
'Listen to the noises in the town tonight, sir! The king is sending troops to help the rebels! I want to go to America and fight with them! The opportunity is here in front of me. First thing tomorrow, if you give me leave, I shall present myself to the recruiting sergeant of Turenne's regiment and enlist. Or else I might go to Brest and take ship. It would be very nearly as easy.'
The abbé did not doubt it. The recruiting officers of both army and navy would be only too happy to get their hands on a sturdy youth who asked nothing better than to shed his blood. And after a few years – or a few months – he, the abbé, would see him come home again, old before his time, crippled
perhaps—The light would be gone from the eyes now regarding him so straightly and nothing left in that heart but disillusion. Moreover, he had little faith in this American campaign which was being so much talked of. He changed the subject to give himself time to think.
'How did you manage to get here so quickly? Did you run the whole way?'
Gilles flushed brick red in an instant but he answered bravely enough.
'No, sir. I stole a horse.'
The abbé, who had been gazing pensively at the ceiling, started and choked.
'You – it's not true? I cannot have heard you right?'
'You heard me perfectly. I stole a horse. He is downstairs in your stable, with Eglantine. I know I ought not to have done so,' he added coolly, meeting the rector's eye, 'but there was some urgency. They were after me and I had to do something quickly. The horse was tied up outside the Grand Monarque. I jumped on to it and off we went. I hope you won't blame me,' he added, uncomfortable, in spite of everything, at the sight of his godfather's appalled expression.
For a moment the abbé sat speechless and unmoving, hardly able to draw breath. Then a sudden idea struck him and he demanded abruptly: 'Tell me, how much have you had to do with women?'
Gilles stiffened, taken by surprise.
'What do you mean?'
'Just what I say. How much have women to do with your refusal to be a priest? No, don't look so offended. You are quite old enough to discuss the subject. So, let me put my question another way. What do they mean to you?'
Silence. The abbé had the feeling that his godson was closing up like an oyster. And indeed, after a moment's thought, Gilles put up his chin and, looking him straight in the eyes, said with unexpected coolness: 'By your leave, I will not answer that. In fact it is a subject I prefer not to discuss.'
The abbé realized, from the slight huskiness in his voice, that he had touched a sensitive chord and that behind this great longing for freedom and a normal life there lay some tale of love. A tale which Gilles was not ready to confide to him.
Falcon 1 - The Lure of the Falcon Page 8