Jacquetta. Baring-Gould Sabine

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      Chapter II

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      Mrs. Fairbrother was not an observant person; she did not suspect in the least the little play that was going on about her, whilst she talked. Both of the young men found Jacquetta more agreeable to converse with than the old lady, and each tried to involve his companion in conversation with the latter so as to retain the society of the young girl for himself. Asheton proved restive when the good woman linked herself on to him. Through the corner of his eye he could see the baron ingratiating himself with Jacquetta. Therefore he took pains to refer the mother to his friend for information on the necessary formalities attached to a death and burial and the proving of wills; and no sooner did he find the baron engaged in the explanation than he spread an umbrella to inclose himself with the girl from the other group, under the plea of cutting off from her the glare from the sun and water, but in reality to raise a stumbling-block in the way of his friend joining them. However, M. de Montcontour was quite sensible of his friend’s intentions, and he extricated himself abruptly from his discussion with Mrs. Fairbrother by starting to his feet and calling on Mademoiselle to cross with him to the other side of the boat where porpoises were tumbling in the water.

      Asheton at once insisted on bringing Mrs. Fairbrother over to the same bulwarks, to look at the porpoises, and he sat himself on the other side of Jacquetta to that occupied by the baron. The move was not absolutely successful, as he had the old lady on his left, and was obliged to talk to and listen, or pretend to listen to her. But he waited his opportunity to shunt her on the baron.

      ‘Alphonse,’ said he, when he saw his friend talking in a low tone to the girl, about something that seemed to interest her, ‘Alphonse, Madame asks which hotel you recommend at Saint Malo.’

      ‘Oh,’ said the baron, completely concealing his disgust at the interruption, ‘of course l’Hotel de France—Chateaubriand’s native house. The hostess English, excellent wines, and a table d’ hote famous everywhere.’ Then to Miss Fairbrother, ‘As I was telling you, the Guernsey lilies are not natives of the island, they were bulbs of African plants washed up from a wreck.’

      ‘What about natives?’ asked Mrs. Fairbrother.

      ‘The baron,’ explained Asheton sulkily, ‘was merely telling you that Chateaubriand was born in the house now a hotel. Chateaubriand, you know, who wrote Atala.’

      ‘I know the march out of it,’ said the old lady. ‘It goes something like this, Tum—tiddletee—tum—ti!’ and she hummed, and with her fingers drummed on the bulwarks. ‘Do you know Chanticleer? I am afraid the drainage is bad, and that is what has brought my Aunt Betsy to an early grave.’

      ‘Is she so very young?’

      ‘Oh, well about seventy. What sort of a place, now, is Chanticleer?’

      ‘My dear madam,’ said Asheton with eagerness, ‘the baron alone can tell you. I have never seen it. I do not know where it is. I have not the smallest idea as to how the drains are carried. He knows all about it, has the map of the place in his head.’

      That answered. The old lady let go the bulwarks and went behind Asheton and Jacquetta, and ‘caught the bulwarks again beside Montcontour, on his right, and entangled him at once. Now was Asheton’s turn with the young lady and he availed himself of it; he could be very agreeable when he chose, and he made an effort now and succeeded. The baron writhed in the meshes of the mother’s talk, and it was some time before the chance presented itself to him of flinging her off on Asheton; but it came and he grasped it with eagerness.

      ‘Come here, Jacques,’ he called. ‘Madame is asking if there is an English church service at Nantes, and wants to know the views of the chaplain. I cannot help her.’

      ‘I am at Madame’s orders,’ said James Asheton stiffly, without showing annoyance, more than he could help.

      ‘Ah, mademoiselle,’ said the Baron, ‘I was telling you, or about to tell you, that whilst on the Loire you should try to make an excursion up the river to Angers and Saumur. At the latter place you will see human habitations scooped in the rock, and families living in subterrains—what is the word?—caverns. Then, at Fontevrault you will see the monuments of Richard Sans Peur, and his Queen Berengaria. Mademoiselle will be staying some months at Nantes?’

      ‘I do not know. Nothing is settled. We do not know whether my poor great-aunt is alive or dead.’

      On arriving at St. Malo all four passengers agreed that the time had passed with marvellous rapidity since they had left Guernsey, and that the passage had been an agreeable one. There was but one drawback to it, thought each of the gentlemen, and that was that the other did not wholly engross the old lady, and leave to him an uninterrupted tête-á-tète with Jacquetta. Mrs. Fairbrother liked both gentlemen, she hardly knew which she preferred. Miss Fairbrother did not say what she thought or felt, but she smiled and seemed happy, and not too depressed by the mourning for Aunt Betsy, whom, indeed, she hardly knew. The gentlemen passed the ladies’ goods through the douane, and escorted them to the hotel, and insisted on carrying their umbrellas, parasols, and bundles of wraps and novels. Then they requested permission to call later in the evening and take Madame and Mademoiselle out on the ramparts to see the tide, which rises to a phenomenal height at St. Malo. The permission was readily granted, and three-quarters of an hour before the tide would reach its height the gentlemen appeared in the courtyard of the hotel, for the ladies.

      St. Malo is a quaint old town built on an island and inclosed within walls. The houses are very high, rising five or six stories, and the streets are so narrow as to deserve no better designation than lanes. Indeed the town looks as though the builders had striven for a wager to crowd upon one little rocky platform above the waves, the greatest possible number of houses it could be forced to sustain. When the tide ebbs, the harbour that separates it from St. Servan is dry, but when it is in, that harbour has in it four fathoms of water.

      Seaward the view from the ramparts is varied by an archipelago of white rocks bristling out of the sea, the larger masses crowned with forts and batteries. The sun was setting in the north-west, and sent a blaze over the rolling ocean, that seemed about irresistibly to swallow up the little town huddled on the rock with its feet in the water. The wind had freshened as the day declined, and drove the waves against the rocks, and lashed them into eddies of spray and jets of foam.

      ‘The tide don’t come in quite so strong in England,’ said Mrs. Fairbrother. ‘I suppose the walls are built so high to keep it out of the town.’

      ‘And as a defence against the English, madame,’ said the baron. ‘The town has twice been besieged by your gallant nation. To-day it surrenders at the feet of two fascinating invaders.’

      ‘Oh, get along,’ said Mrs. Fairbrother, laughing. ‘That’s all blarney, my lord. But—by the way—was not this the town that Queen Mary said would be found written on her heart after death?’

      ‘No,’ СКАЧАТЬ