“On the contrary,” said Pierre, “he writes to them very regularly, and sees them too, or did until he was conscripted. It was part of the arrangement I made for him when I became his guardian. I understand that when the old Fiats die everything they have will go to Jacques. It may not amount to much—the house in Paris and the old man’s savings—but it will certainly be something, and a pleasant addition to a conscript’s pay.”
Robert was silent. After a while he said, “I hardly think the Fiats have any great opinion of me.”
“Would you expect otherwise?” asked Pierre.
“No, no, very naturally not. Is it possible they may have poisoned Jacques’s mind against me?”
“Possible,” answered Pierre, “but improbable. They are a good old couple, and more likely left your name alone. The word émigré would hardly be used in front of Jacques.”
Robert’s face set in hard lines, unlike his usual expression. It was strange that he should learn from Pierre what he had not heard from Michel.
“Were we so much despised?” he asked.
“Frankly, yes,” said Pierre, “and don’t forget you were one of the first to go. In your case there was no persecution.”
“Only the threat of a prison sentence,” answered Robert.
“Which again is hardly likely to win admiration from your son,” said Pierre.
Pierre, himself the most compassionate and forgiving of men, had the faculty of seeing straight where this whole question of emigration was concerned, and he wished to spare his brother humiliation. He did not reckon with Robert’s powers of fantasy, nor suspect, as I did, with my knowledge of the London years, that Robert could fabricate whole images to quieten his conscience.
The test came sooner than we had expected. We were in the last days of our visit when Pierre-François, aged sixteen, Pierre’s third boy and namesake to my own son, came running into the house, breathless and excited, to say that the 4th battalion of the 93rd regiment of foot had been reported in Tours.
“They’ve halted there, on their way north to the coast,” he said, “and likely to be in the garrison three days. Without a doubt Jacques will ask permission to come and see us, if only for an hour or two.”
Jacques was attached to the 5th company of this battalion, and if the report was true, if they were indeed in Tours, it was likely that he would be granted leave of absence.
“We must set out for Tours immediately,” said Robert, in a fever to see his son. “What is the sense of waiting here?”
“Let us first discover if the report is correct,” answered Pierre. “It is doubtless the 93rd regiment, but not necessarily the 4th battalion.”
He went off to track the rumor to its source, while Robert, more restless and impatient than he had ever been since his return from England, and reminding me of old days, paced up and down the untidy living room of Pierre’s house, littered as it always was with puppies, kittens, pet hedgehogs in homemade cages, books—too many for the bursting shelves—heaped in corners, and the startling, very lifelike drawings by Pierre’s daughter, the enchanting, seven-year-old Pivione Belle-de-Nuit, already a favorite with her uncle.
“If Pierre causes me to miss Jacques now I shall never forgive him,” said Robert. “Tours is barely an hour and a half from here. It is now two. We could hire a conveyance and be there by four o’clock.”
I sympathized with his agony, but with Pierre’s caution too. We none of us wanted the disappointment of a fruitless journey, nor, on arriving in Tours, the possibility of Robert’s entering into heated argument with Jacques’s officers.
“You can trust Pierre to do what is right,” I said. “You must know that by now.”
For answer he pointed at the disorder of the room. “I’m not so sure,” he answered. “What is all this due to but muddled thinking? Those lads of his may be fine fellows, able to put a kitten’s paw in splints, but they can barely write their own language. I suppose my son has suffered the same lack of education because of Pierre’s theories.”
I let him rave. Anxiety was the reason for it. He knew as well as I did that Pierre’s ideas on the upbringing of children mattered not at all, his integrity was what counted. But for Pierre’s foresight, Robert himself would now be penniless.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a while, “I’m not blaming Pierre. I don’t think he understands what this meeting means to me.”
“He understands very well,” I told him. “That’s why he is taking such pains about it.”
Pierre returned within the hour. The report was true all right. The 4th battalion had arrived in Tours.
“I suggest,” said Pierre, looking at his watch, “that we wait to see if Jacques travels on the diligence from Tours to Château-du-Loir, which is due here at five o’clock. If he is upon it, and I think he very well may be, then we shall see him in two hours. One thing I beg of you. Let me meet the boy alone, and tell him you are here.”
“For the love of God, why?” Robert, at the end of his patience, shouted his question, to the alarm of little Belle-de-Nuit, scribbling by the window.
“Because,” said Pierre patiently, “this will be an emotional moment for you both. You don’t want people watching you in the street.”
The next two hours were a strain upon us all. If Jacques was not on the diligence Robert’s disappointment would be intense, and a fresh plan must be made. If Jacques was upon it… I was not sure of the answer, nor was Pierre.
Five minutes before the hour Pierre walked to the mairie, where the diligence was due to unload its passengers. He went alone. Pierre-François and the other boy, Joseph, remained in the house with their mother and Belle-de-Nuit, at Pierre’s express orders. The children ran upstairs to watch the expected arrival from the upper windows. Robert and I sat in the living room, or rather I sat, while my brother paced the floor. My sister-in-law, from discretion, kept to the kitchen.
Presently I was aware of Belle-de-Nuit standing in the doorway, a puppy under either arm.
“Papa and Jacques are walking up and down outside,” she said. “They’ve been doing so for ten minutes or more. I don’t think Jacques wants to come inside the house.”
Robert was making for the entrance immediately, but I seized his arm.
“Wait,” I said, “perhaps Pierre will explain.”
A moment later Pierre came into the room. His eyes sought mine and I understood the message. Then he turned to Robert.
“Jacques is here,” he said briefly. “He has only an hour, and must take the returning diligence to Tours. I have broken the news to him that you are with us.”
“Well?” My eldest brother’s anxiety was pitiful to watch.
“It’s as I feared. He was very much shaken, and only consents to see you for my sake.”
Pierre went out into the entrance hall and called for Jacques. Robert himself moved forward, hesitated, then waited, uncertain what to do. His son came into the room and stood beside his uncle at the door. Jacques had grown no taller since I saw him last, but was broader, more thickset; no doubt he had filled out with army rations. He looked well in his uniform, if a trifle overburdened with it, and a little clumsy. I thought what a different figure he cut from his father in old days as an officer in the Arquebusiers, who took greater interest in the fit of his coat than he ever did in soldierly activities.
He stood there staring at his father, pale and unsmiling. I wondered which of the two suffered the most—Jacques, at the sight of his elderly father, nervously twisting his spectacles in his right hand, or Robert, at the sight of his hostile son.
“You’ve not forgotten me, have you?” Robert said at last, summoning a smile.
“No,” said Jacques, his young voice harsh and abrupt. “It might be better if I had.”
Pierre beckoned to me from the door.
“Come, Sophie,” he called, “let’s leave them together.”
I was about to cross the room, but Jacques held up his hand.
“No, uncle,” he s
aid, “stay where you are, and tante Sophie too. I should prefer it. I have nothing to say to this man.”
It would have been kinder had he walked up to his father and hit him across the face. I saw the agony of disbelief in Robert’s eyes, then the recognition of defeat. Undaunted, he made a final effort to overcome the situation with bravado.
“Oh, come, my boy,” he said, “it’s too late for drama. Life’s too short for that. You’re a fine man, and I’m proud of you. Come and shake hands with your old father, who’s loved you devotedly all these years.”
Pierre laid his hand on the boy’s arm, but Jacques shook it off.
“I’m sorry, uncle,” he said, “I’ve done what you asked. I’ve come into the room. He sees that I exist. That is enough. Now I would like to go and see tante Marie and my cousins.”
He turned on his heel, but Pierre still barred the way.
“Jacques,” he said softly, “have you no pity?”
Jacques swung round and looked at all of us in turn.
“Pity?” he asked. “Why should I have pity? He didn’t have any pity for me nearly fourteen years ago, when he deserted me. All he could think of was getting out of the country as quickly as possible, fearful for his own skin. Now, because of the amnesty, he thinks it’s safe to return. Well, that’s his affair, but I wonder he had the face to do so. You can pity him if you like. I can only despise him.”
It is a disadvantage to see the past as clearly as the present, and to carry a picture in the forefront of one’s mind which is as vivid today as on the day it happened. For my part, I was sitting in the carriole leaving l’Antinière, and Jacques was a sunburned little lad in a blue smock, kissing his father goodbye.
“That’s enough, then,” said Robert quietly. “Let him go.”
Pierre stood aside, and Jacques went out of the room. I heard little Belle-de-Nuit call him from the stairs, and her brothers too, and one of the puppies began barking excitedly. They took him into their world, and the three of our generation were left alone.
“I was afraid of it,” said Pierre, whether to Robert or to me I do not know. Deep in thought, he repeated it once more. “I was afraid of it.”
Presently Robert went upstairs to his room and shut the door. He stayed there until the time came for Jacques to mount the diligence for Tours. Then he stood on the landing, in the hope that his son might relent and come up to bid him goodbye. We pleaded with Jacques, but he was firm. Neither Pierre, nor Marie, nor I could make him change his mind. He had spent his hour of absence sitting with his cousins in the old playroom above, telling them, so we learned afterwards, of his experiences as a conscript, and, judging by their laughter, making a joke of it. Never once did he speak about his father, and they, taking their lead from him, let it alone.
As he set forth for the diligence accompanied by Pierre-François and Joseph, having kissed us all, and we heard the door into the street slam behind him, the sound echoed from above. It was Robert, who had waited until the last moment, shutting his bedroom door.
That night I spilled his secret, and told Pierre about the family left in England. He heard the whole wretched tale through without comment, and, when I had finished, thanked me for having told him.
“There’s only one thing to do now,” he said, “and that is to bring his wife and children over here. Whether he goes to fetch them, or I go, is immaterial. Without them he will become a broken man, because of what Jacques has done to him today.”
The relief of having unburdened myself to Pierre was very great. We talked at length about the procedure necessary to bring Robert’s wife and children from London across the Channel. She believed herself a widow, and would be receiving assistance from the authorities in England. No one must know in that country that Robert was not dead, for the penalty, as I had imagined, would be severe. Pierre, for all his knowledge of the law, was uncertain how it would be applied. The fraud was a peculiar one, and he would have to take counsel, discreetly, among his legal friends.
“Surely the best way to set about it,” I said, “is for you, or for me, to write to Marie-Françoise, offering her a home over here, and saying that we have Robert’s inheritance to offer her?”
“And if she doesn’t want to come?” replied Pierre. “What then? She may prefer to live in London among those émigrés who have no wish to return. It would be better for one of us to go in person and persuade her. If she once knows Robert is alive, there will be no question but that she will come.”
I remembered how Robert had told me that his wife had turned very religious during his term of imprisonment. It might be that she would have scruples about keeping the fraud secret, and would want to tell the Abbé Carron, who had been so good to them.
There seemed no end to all these problems, but I knew Pierre was right. The only way for Robert to make restoration for the past, and for what he had done to Jacques, was to become reunited once more with his second family. He had committed the same crime twice. There was no other word to describe it. It was only a matter of time before guilt for the first crime would merge into guilt for the second, and when that happened… Pierre looked at me expressively.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked him.
“I’m afraid he might kill himself,” answered Pierre.
He went upstairs to his brother, and stayed with him for a long time. When he came down again Pierre told me that Robert had agreed to do anything that was suggested. Jacques was lost to him, doubtless forever. He realized now the irreparable damage he had done to a sensitive boy. The idea that it was still possible to become reunited with the children left in England would prove his salvation.
“Can you delay your return home for a few days?” asked Pierre.
I told him I could. Charlotte, niece of dear old Madame Verdelet who used to cook for us at le Chesne-Bidault, was quite capable of looking after my family for a little longer.
“In that case,” answered Pierre, “I shall go to Paris tomorrow. I shall learn there what are the possibilities of one or other of us traveling to England. Meanwhile, stay here with Robert. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
He was away the next morning before Robert had even risen, and during the days that followed I did as Pierre told me, and, with the boys and Belle-de-Nuit, kept Robert company.
He was strangely quiet and contrite, and had become, during the twenty-four hours since Jacques had departed, a much older man.
The shock had been profound, not only to his emotions but to his self-esteem. During those long hours alone in his bedroom, after Pierre had spoken with him, I think he must have realized, at last, just what had happened in the years between. The stigma of having been an émigré, and all that it must have meant to Jacques, the son of an émigré, brought up in a household of patriots, was now made clear. We—Pierre, Michel, and I, and Edmé to a lesser degree—had been able to accept him; our middle years made it easier for us. The young are less forgiving.
While we waited for Pierre’s return from Paris Robert talked, at first with some hesitation, later with eagerness, of the possibility of seeing Marie-Françoise and the children once again.
“She will soon get over the deception,” he said. “I can make up some story or other of the papers becoming mixed, it’s of no great consequence. And once here, with the money from the inheritance, we can find a place to settle. The children, anyway, will speak both languages, always an advantage for their future careers. My little girl Louise is almost the same age as Belle-de-Nuit. They will be great companions.”
He took his niece on his knee as he said this, and she, being an affectionate child, clung closely to him.
“Yes,” he said, “yes, I see now I was mad to do what I did. It would have been so simple to come to you, as I planned first, and make arrangements to bring them over. At the time, of course, I knew nothing of the inheritance, I did not even know that I should find any of you alive. I acted on impulse. I’ve done so all my life.”
I encouraged him to
think and to plan for the future. It seemed the only way to pass the time, and it prevented him from brooding over Jacques.
After five or six days he had almost recovered his spirits, and was becoming restless for Pierre’s return. At last, just a week after he had left us, and we were in the dining room, about to sit down to dinner, Belle-de-Nuit called out, “I can hear my Papa in the hall.” She struggled to get down from her chair, but Robert was there before her. I heard him greet Pierre, there was a quick exchange of questions and answers, and then silence. I felt that something was wrong. I got up and left the table, and went into the hall.
Pierre was standing with his hand on Robert’s shoulder.
“There is nothing to be done,” he was saying. “Hostilities have broken out again between the English and ourselves, and the Channel ports are closed to traffic. I understand now why Jacques’s battalion was marching north. They say Bonaparte is preparing to invade England.”
The truce that had lasted for fourteen months had ended, and the war, which had started up anew, was to continue for another thirteen years. Pierre’s plan had been formed too late. Robert had lost not only his eldest son, but all chance of reunion with his second wife and family. He was never to see them, or to hear of them, again.
21
We had become so used to Bonaparte’s success that we looked upon the renewal of war between France and England as a temporary setback to our personal hopes and plans. It would all be over in a few months. Bonaparte would invade England, march upon London, and force the English government to accede to his terms, whatever they should be. As to the émigrés living under English protection, they would very naturally be sent home to their own country; therefore Robert’s desire to be reunited with Marie-Françoise and the children could not be long deferred. Since we reasoned thus, the outbreak of war was less of a shock than a frustration, or so I argued, supported by Pierre. It was Robert himself, calmer and more resigned than we expected, who warned us not to expect an early victory.
“You forget,” he said. “I’ve lived among these people for thirteen years. A continental war may not rouse them, but if you threaten their own shores they’ll turn tenacious. Do not count on any quick result, and if Bonaparte launches an invasion, it may misfire.”