Gilles did not look up.
'If it is Mademoiselle de Saint-Mélaine you mean, sir,' he said bitterly, 'I don't know her. You are forgetting what I am A bastard cannot claim acquaintance with a noble young lady. I have – met her, let us say, twice. And those two occasions were enough to show me where she puts a boy like me: beyond the pale! Outside with the servants! And in her eyes they at least have the good fortune to be born in wedlock. I have not.'
The abbé made an impatient movement.
'Don't exaggerate. Your mother and grandfather have not deserved such scorn. Before his misfortune, he was a man of property, even a worthy man. As for her, she can be stern, even ruthless, perhaps, but at heart she is nobler than many.'
'And my father? Why do you say nothing of my father? Why do you never speak of him?'
'My poor child! For the very simple reason that I have never known his name. But when I hear you talk so bitterly, reducing yourself to the level of a servant, although they, too, are also God's creatures like other men, I think that you are abusing yourself and your family. Illegitimate birth is a misfortune but it is not a crime.'
'Go and tell that to the people who live in the Ville-Close, to the parents of the boys at school – and to Mademoiselle de Saint-Mélaine! They'll tell you what they think of bastards. We are nothing and we have no rights – except to accept humbly whatever fate may allow us. The good old days in the middle ages when a bastard could live the same life as his half-brothers are long gone.'
'God's ways are inscrutable. As for Judith, well-born she may be, but she has no more power to choose her own future than you have. Less, perhaps, for she is poor. She is no more cut out for the religious life than you are, yet a nun she will be, for I can see no other course open to her now that her father is dead.'
'A convent? But why? They say she has brothers—'
The abbé got up and, fetching a long pipe and a tobacco jar from the chimney breast, brought them back to the table.
'That is true. She has brothers – unfortunately. You have never seen Tudal and Morvan de Saint-Mélaine, or you would know what I mean. They are coarse creatures with dark, unfathomable minds. As to their hearts, I do not think they have any. The way they turned their father and sister out of doors after their mother's death was truly scandalous. And the way they live now – well, no one knows for sure. But strange tales are circulating about their estate at Fresne. The people of La Bourdonnaye, whose lands march with theirs, say that none of the local peasants will go near Fresne after dark for love nor money.'
'What do they do, then?'
'I don't know. And none of it is anything but rumour. But the story is that no man's purse nor woman's honour is safe with them. But, as I said, it is all rumour, of course, and there may be nothing in it. Yet Judith begged Guillevic and myself this evening not to let her brothers know of their father's death.'
'But – how can you?'
'We can't. They must be told. Unhappily, they are all the family their sister has now. Tudal, the elder, will automatically become her guardian and no one can do anything about it, for it is the law. Only Judith is afraid of them. That is why I said that the convent is the only way out for her.'
'Afraid of them—'
Remembering the almost terrified anguish in the girl's eyes earlier that evening, Gilles knew now what it had meant. Men capable of turning their own father out into the street, could make their sister's life a veritable hell.
'But we – you? Can't you do anything?'
The abbé took a brand from the fire, lit his pipe and puffed at it.
'No. No one can do anything – except herself. If Judith wishes to take the veil, I do not think they will dare to oppose her. Especially as they wanted nothing better to begin with, so as to prevent the poor child from claiming her share of their inheritance. There is no reason why they should have changed their minds. As for Madame de La Bourdonnaye, she is determined to keep her as long as she cares to stay.'
'And – she?'
The abbe's eyes, through the pipe smoke, gazed into his godson's with a curious persistence. Then, idly, as though it were a matter of no great importance, he said: 'I left her resigned. She knows that there is no alternative for a girl with no dowry. After the funeral, she will return to Notre Dame de Joie – quite certainly for ever.' He rose with a sigh. 'Now go and sleep,' he said. 'You need it. And so do I. And tomorrow we shall both see more clearly. But I think you will have to go to Kervignac'
Gilles started and felt his face grow pale.
'Please, don't ask me to do that! My mother will never give way. And who can tell what she might do if I defy her openly.'
'What are you afraid of? That she will give you up to the law?'
Gilles was silent for a moment. Then: 'N-no,' he said. 'Not really. I think, sir, that what I am afraid of is myself. I am afraid of what might be said, and that I may not be able to control myself. Most of all, I – I am afraid of proving that she has never loved me. Oh, it's not that I still have many illusions about that, only she has never said it and I am afraid that, if she is angry, she will give free rein to her real feelings. I would rather be wrong all along the line and still able to keep some tender feelings for her.'
There were tears in his eyes, but the abbé would not see them, even though it was the first time he had ever known this reserved boy to cry.
'Still you must go. You will not be able to respect yourself if you do not. You have no right to sneak away like a thief. Go and see her and, since you are determined to be a man, behave like one. Dare to face her, whatever the consequences. Who knows, in her anger she may tell you the one thing you are burning to know – your father's name.'
The Abbé Vincent knew his godson well and indeed the boy's eyes were sparkling now, although the tears had gone. He looked up and his light blue eyes met the old priest's.
'You insist?'
'Yes. That is the price of my help. Go and sleep now. You must leave tomorrow at dawn.'
When the door had closed behind the boy, he made the sign of the cross and then went to shake Katell who was fast asleep in the chimney corner, her knitting in her lap.
Gilles slept like a log but he was used to rising at cockcrow and dawn found him running across the heath towards Kervignac. His long legs made nothing of the level ground and he was scarcely out of breath by the time the grey granite finger of the village spire rose above the horizon. Veering to the right, he plunged down a sunken lane hedged in with giant gorse bushes, at the end of which lay his mother's house.
He leaped the fence, raced through the paddock without loss of speed and came to the low door, which opened under his impatient thrust. A tall black figure turned towards him. He was looking at his mother, but the startled cry that went up from the far end of the room had not come from her.
They stared at one another for a moment without speaking, he surprised to find her so much paler and smaller than in his memory of the previous autumn, she with a kind of stunned concentration, as though she could banish the unwelcome vision by a simple act of will. At last she spoke, in a dull, cold voice that was infinitely more striking than a cry of anger.
'What are you doing here?'
'I've come to speak to you, Mother.'
'I have nothing to say to you, and no time to listen. Go back to the seminary. They ought never to have let you out.'
'They didn't let me. I ran away before they could take me there. And I ask you to listen to me, even if what I have to say seems to you a waste of time.'
The words were polite enough but the tone was so uncompromising that Marie-Jeanne frowned.
'You ran away, do you say? How dare you! Well, you can just run back again and take the punishment you deserve, that's all. Now, let me pass. I must go to the church and say farewell to Rector Séveno before I leave.'
But instead of making way for her, Gilles put out both arms to bar her passage. At the same time, his eyes travelled round the big, familiar room, where everything surely
looked unusually tidy, took in Rozenn, in her outdoor clothes, backed up against one of the cupboard beds, and then returned to his mother's narrow face, framed in her dark hooded cloak, as if it was carved from ivory. The face was so ageless that it cost him an effort to remember that it belonged to a woman not thirty-four years old. Only the beautiful dark eyes with their thick lashes still had a look of youth. Everything else had the dead tinge of things kept too long shut up.
'So, you are going away?' he said at last. 'May I ask where – and for how long?'
'For ever. I am going to Locmaria, to the Benedictine convent. They are expecting me. I wish to have nothing more to do with this world or with men. Now that you know, are you going?'
He shook his head and then, before she could resist, he took her by the arm and led her to the table, where he made her sit down. She obeyed him mechanically, subdued in spite of herself by this new authority in her son. Gilles, however, did not sit. Conscious of the advantage given him by his height at least, he folded his arms across his chest and considered his mother.
'So,' he said quietly, yet with a sadness he could not control, 'you were going to part from me, your son, for ever, without a word of farewell, with no regrets, without even seeing me? What kind of a mother are you, after all?'
'I did not ask to be a mother. It was forced on me. No prisoner loves his ball and chain!' she retorted harshly.
The brutality of the words struck the young man like a blow. A ball and chain! So that was all he meant to this woman whom he himself could not help loving in spite of everything. Never before had he felt so much alone, so wretchedly forsaken. A lump formed in his throat and he fought against it, knowing that it could break in tears, and he did not mean to cry.
Marie-Jeanne, meanwhile, had lowered her eyes and was studying the tips of her fingers as they emerged from her black crocheted mittens. Her foot, protruding from the hem of her gown, was tapping impatiently. Gilles sighed, trying to loosen the vice that had tightened about his chest.
'Well – thank you for telling me. That being so – since you seem to be telling me that you have never regarded me as your child, then I have no further need to abide by your decisions concerning my future.'
The dark eyes lifted suddenly, with a flash of anger.
'What do you mean by that?'
'That you have made things easier for me, Mother. You sent me to the seminary as a way of getting rid of an unwanted object. Only I do not wish to go to the seminary. That is what I came to tell you. I shall never be a priest!'
'What? How dare you—'
'Let me speak, Mother, while I can still call you so. You have never forgiven me for being born, as though it were my fault, and you made up your mind to punish me, unjustly, by burying me for life in a priest's habit. Well, I am not going to do what you want.'
Marie-Jeanne sprang up with the speed of a striking snake. Two ugly red patches burned on her cheeks. Her mouth twisted as though it hurt her to speak.
'Sacrilege! You miserable boy! What are you saying! Punish you! You dare to call it punishment, the noblest and happiest state a man could ever aspire to—'
'For you, perhaps. Not for me.'
'Then I am right and you are no son of mine, nor ever have been. And I knew it. Are you going to have the courage to tell me how you do wish to live, what you mean to do with yourself? Speak, then! Speak, if you dare to avow your shame.'
'There is no need for you to insist, Mother. I am not ashamed to admit it. I want to serve the king. I want to be a soldier.'
'A soldier!'
Marie-Jeanne literally spat the word out, like poison. It was a cry of rage. Then, abruptly, the violence left her. There was a moment's silence before she went on in a low toneless voice: 'A soldier – like the other! A creature of destruction and misery. A destroyer. A limb of Satan – like him.'
Gilles held his breath. His mother seemed to have forgotten altogether where she was. She was gazing at something very far away, far beyond the enclosing walls of the house. Perhaps she was going to divulge the secret he so longed to know.
'Like him?' he echoed softly. 'The man who fathered me was a soldier?'
'They are all soldiers. In that accursed family they always have been. All through the centuries they have never known how to do anything but kill. And plunder and ravish and rob and burn—Accursed, damned, they have defied God for too long. They are all alike – all the same, ever since their famous Gyrfalcon! All of them! And you, the last, the bastard – you are like them too, you want to follow their bloody road—'
She was on the edge of hysteria. With her white face and the great dark rings under her eyes, the hint of froth at the corner of her mouth, she looked like some antique sybil at the moment of revelation, as though she were suddenly reliving the tragedy which had destroyed her. Gilles, frightened, tried to put his arms round her but she pushed him away with unexpected strength, so violently that he almost fell and had to clutch at the table to save himself. As he did so, he noticed Rozenn. She was kneeling by the hearth, her beads in her hand, her head was bowed and she was praying with all her heart.
'Please—' he gasped, 'before we part for ever – at least tell me his name—'
'Never! Do you hear? I shall never speak that name again. I swore it by Jesus Christ. You can go to the devil, if that is what you want – what is it to me, after all? But you shall not know whence comes your damnation.'
'Do you hate him so much, that man—Did he maltreat you, force you—?'
'Hate him? Oh, yes, I hate him – I hate him all right—' Suddenly she rounded on her son, clutching at his coat and breathing a scorching breath into his face.
'Do you want to know why I hate him, why I curse his name, why I can never forgive him? It is because he stole my heart, my mind, my life away from me. Forced me, do you say? Yes, he forced me, but not in the way you think. He forced me to love him, he made me dote on him. He did not ravish me, you see. He only took my hand – and I gave myself to him, like the wretched bewitched creature I was. He was the Devil, I was his handmaid and I renounced everything for him. That is why I cannot forgive him, or myself, or you – you least of all because you are like him. Now, my son, do you understand why I never want to set eyes on you again?'
'And I—' Gilles cried. 'I loved you! I love you still! I so longed to give you the happiness that you have never had—'
She released him then and turned away. She walked a few steps and then turned again and looked at him. In a voice grown suddenly very tired, she murmured: 'Then do as I say. Go back to the seminary and take orders. There is no other way you can make me happy.'
He met her look for a moment and then looked away.
'Forgive me. I cannot.'
'Then go! I curse you – as I cursed him! You are no longer my son. You can go to the devil if you like. I do not care, for I shall never see you again in this life.'
She ran to the door and opened it and fled away to where the church bell was striking mournfully in the distance. Unable to make a move to stop her or to go after her, Gilles watched the black cloak billowing in the wind until she was out of sight. His heart was so heavy, so poisoned with bitterness and grief that he no longer knew even what he really wanted.
A warm, dry hand was laid on his.
'Come away, child,' Rozenn's voice said brokenly. 'We no longer exist for her.'
'I, yes – but you, who have cared for her for so long?'
The old woman shrugged her shoulders resignedly.
'I am like you. I belong to a time which she would rather forget. Young Glénic's gig is to come for her in a little while to take her to the coach. It was to have set me down at the rector's in Hennebont, so that he could tell me what I ought to do. I would rather not wait for it now, but go with you.'
Rozenn was wearing her best Sunday gown and her most decorative cap but she looked all at once so old and so wretched that the young man's heart went out to her, for she had been a true mother to him. For all those years of de
voted care, she was being repaid with indifference, the cruellest of all ingratitude. It seemed that there was no room in Marie-Jeanne's heart for anything but her own, very private God.
Overflowing with pity, he put his arms round his old nurse's shoulders and kissed her cheek. Still holding her, he said: 'You are right. There is nothing left for us here. Let us go where we are loved—'
Possibly because he had discovered someone to protect, someone worse off than himself, Gilles suddenly felt less wretched. More than that, as he walked beside Rozenn, her bundle on his shoulder, through the misty morning, he felt a strange sense of freedom welling up inside him, as if he were emerging from a thick, dark forest, full of wicked thorns and brambles. He was bleeding, but his wounds would heal quickly with the balm of a new life. And the mist-shrouded heath seemed all at once aglow with light. The sun was breaking through.
Chapter Five
Blood of the Gyrfalcon
'She said she would never see me again as long as she lived – and then she cursed me.'
Gilles launched into his woes on the doorstep, without so much as troubling to lower his voice. The vestry smelled of beeswax, burnt-out candles, incense and starch. It was so dark, on this grey, lowering day, that the Abbé Vincent looked like a ghost in his white vestments.
As though his godson's tragic utterance were a matter of no great importance, he went on peacefully setting out the ornaments that he would need when they brought in the body of the dead Baron de Saint-Mélaine, merely remarking: 'I imagine you can scarcely be surprised? It was the only thing she could do. Here, get this incense burner ready for me. The verger has the influenza and the choirboys are all thumbs. And while you are doing that, you may tell me all about it, since we are alone.'
As he set out the little scented sticks, Gilles tried to remember as faithfully as possible all that his mother had said. Her words were too fresh in his mind for him to forget a single one. He was repeating her violent outburst against his father's family when the abbé interrupted suddenly, with great excitement.
Falcon 1 - The Lure of the Falcon Page 10