“A generous friendship no cold medium knows.”—PoPE.
SOME days later, in the city of Toulouse, a man of no great stature, but with a great head and forehead, sat in his comfortable study, writing a letter. His dress marked him as a physician; and that he was also a surgeon and a chemist was shown by his surroundings, which comprised cases of instruments, bottles of mysterious appearance, retorts, crucibles, and other things of which no uninitiated person could tell either the names or the uses.
But at present he was engaged in a matter quite extra-professional; and, like most men whose profession is also their passion, he resented its intrusion upon the serious business of life. Why had he, for his sins and in an evil hour, consented to become one of the guardians of the child of a distant relative? In heaven’s name, was there no other relative nearer than himself to take up the burden—for a heavy burden it was like to be? And he a physician! A good avocat would have been far better, for there was sure to be lawyer’s work—and plenty of it. Such a tangle as it was! The father dead, and a Protestant; the mother living and of the same Faith, and the child the nominal heir to a fair estate! If he were taken from his mother and brought up a Catholic, he would inherit, of course. But if he died “en bas age” (as the French phrase is), then the estate would go to his cousin, the next heir. And that cousin was the other guardian. Monsieur Berbier stopped to meditate, and bit his quill. His thoughts began to crystallize into a kind of soliloquy. “Verdun is a bad man, and to be trusted—just as far as one can see him. But then he has influence. He will work heaven and earth to get the charge of the child, who is still a babe in arms. Why not? one might say, he being a Catholic. Yet I do not like it, and that for good reason. The air of De Verdun’s house will not be good for the little Alphonse de Fressinieres. I don’t say he will murder the boy outright, like the devil-worshipper De Rignac, —but there are ways and means. At best, if he lets him grow up, he will marry him to a daughter of his own, or in some way or other make merchandise of him. Personally, however, I doubt he will grow up. And Verdun will get his way; for he is hand and glove with Monsieur de Broglie, the Intendant’s scapegrace of a nephew. Is there anything I can do to stop him? If now I knew some able advocate, some man of brains and principle, like, like—” The pen dropped from his hand. Over his keen, intellectual face there passed a sudden, softening change. Presently he murmured, almost audibly, “Old friend, if but I had thee here beside me—with thy strong, virile eloquence, thine adamantine sense of right, thy clear, piercing intellect. Truly, thou hast not left thy like behind thee. Shall I ever forget those scenes in you crowded hall at the Parliament, when thou didst defend thy Faith in the presence of the Archbishop and the Intendant, and all the clergy and noblesse of the province? Ah, Claude, Claude, what a wrong thou hast done to thy profession in abandoning it thus!”
Then once more his thoughts grew inarticulate, wandering vaguely in the maze of bygone years. He went back to the time of his first great trouble—before he got that professorship at Montpellier—when, just as he was rising into notice, the jealousy of a rival physician had involved him in a lawsuit which threatened the ruin of his career. Then it was that the eminent advocate, lately come from Castelnaudary to Toulouse, had taken up his cause and won it, winning something else to his lifelong gratitude and friendship.
As he pondered thus, the twilight deepened. His servant, an old woman, entered with a lamp. “Monsieur,” she said, as she placed it on the table, “there are two men here—or rather a man and a young lad—who want to have speech with you at once. The lad says they have letters for you.”
“Bid them give them to you. I am busy,” said Monsieur Berbier, who was the more unwilling to be disturbed because he was doing nothing.
“I did, monsieur, but the boy says he has one which he must give into no hands but yours.”
“Well, bring him in,” the doctor said, testily. He added to himself, “A plague on this day! It has brought me nothing but worries. And it ends as it began. I suppose these varlets want to be doctored for nothing, and bring me letters they have begged from some bishop or seigneur.”
Two persons entered—Tardif, with strong muscular form and hairy face, and Gaspard, slight and graceful, with handsome features and dark brown wavy hair.
“Who are you?” the professor asked.
Tardif spoke first. “My name is Tardif,” he said.
“I bring a letter to monsieur from his servitor Jacques Fredon, now at Montpellier. Here it is.”
Berbier, as he took it, glanced at Gaspard. “And who is thy comrade?”
“That, monsieur, he will tell you himself. He also has a letter for you.”
Berbier opened Philippe’s communication and read it carefully to himself. After a pause he said, “My servitor says thou art a clever fellow and without scruples, ready for any work that offers. Is that so?”
“Monsieur may believe it, especially as it comes from a clever fellow, and one very certainly without scruples.”
Berbier smiled. “Thou art not without wit, at all events,” he said. “Though what Fredon thinks I want with thee, I know not. I trow thou hast had more to do with the fighter’s craft than the healer’s. Hast been in the army?”
“No, monsieur. The fact is, we have come all the way from Montpellier because of the letter this boy has for monsieur. He is under promise to give it into no other hand.”
“Here waits mine to receive it,” said the doctor, turning to Gaspard.
Gaspard gave up the treasured note with a pang. It had seemed like a friend to him all these months. But he had still the written prayer. Nothing should rob him of that—nothing.
As the lamplight fell upon the paper, a sudden joy lit up the doctor’s face. “Ah, Claude!—just as I was thinking of thee,” he murmured.
Gaspard’s quick ear caught the murmur. “It is from Monsieur Paul Beauclaise,” he said, thinking, “He will be greatly disappointed. He thinks it is from some old friend—some Monsieur Claude.”
But there was no disappointment in the eager look with which Berbier devoured the few words within. His face transfigured by a keen and vivid interest, he turned again to the travelers. His eyes were for Gaspard, but with a glance at Tardif, he asked, “How did you come?”
“By the new canal, monsieur. An easy journey.”
“Still, it is late, and you must want food and rest. Go to—” He took out a silver crown, and gave it to Tardif. “Go to the ‘Dancing Bear,’ which is hard by. Anyone will show you. Get supper and a bed, and come back to me in the morning.”
“That will we,” said Tardif, bowing low, “with our best thanks to monsieur” (the “tip” was, for those times, a magnificent one). “Come, Gaspard.”
“No,” said the doctor, “the boy stays here.” Then to Gaspard, “Sit down, my lad.”
As the door closed behind Tardif, Berbier placed the lamp so that he could see the face of Gaspard. “What is thy name?” he began, but interrupted himself to say, “But thou too must be hungry. Wilt have supper ere we talk?”
“Monsieur, if you really know Monsieur Beauclaise, I had rather talk with you about him than sup with the king.”
“I really know him you call Monsieur Beauclaise. And if I understand what he writes to me, I think thou wouldst not greatly care to sup with his majesty, ‘le Roi Soleil.’ So then, thy name?”
“Gaspard Louis Charles de Montausier.”
Berbier started. “Montausier? I know the name” (“and for a very noble one,” he might have added). Then, answering the boy’s eager look, “No, I did not know thy father. But I knew his greatest friend, whose mother was a kinswoman of my own. It was thought, for his father, a mesalliance.”
“Do you mean Monsieur de Fressinieres?”
“The same. He is dead now. But tell me when and where you saw Monsieur Beauclaise.”
“Last autumn—in the forest.”
“What forest?”
“A forest of Auvergne. It is called the wood of Besogne. The truth is, monsieur, we were smuggling the salt.”
“That counts for nothing. Though I rather wonder at you, a Huguenot, taking to the work: the smuggling of yourselves out of the country is your kind of contraband traffic.”
“Which is just what I was doing, monsieur. Or rather, what was being done with me, I being but a ten years’ child. But the servant to whom my father gave me in charge having died on the journey, I ran away, for fear of being given up to the priests, and falling in with smugglers, had to join them to save my life. I stayed with them and carried the salt until lately, when I left them on pretense of going to the Easter Fair at Mende.”
“But it was not there you saw him? You said, last autumn.”
“Yes, monsieur, last autumn. I had gone as usual to get the salt from—well, monsieur, you will understand—from those who were in league with us, and used to bring it to us from the people who made it.”
“What? Had he fallen into such hands?”
“He might have fallen into worse,” said Gaspard, with a smile. “When I came up, the chief of the band—a man as hard as a stone, and with more murders than one upon his soul—was just handing back to him—yes, I saw it with my eyes—handing back to him the gold and the silver his men had taken from him. I heard him say to him, ‘Dog does not eat dog’—as if they and he were the same!”
“In a sense they are,” said Berbier. “Both are outlaws. But go on. Tell me how he looked.”
Gaspard struggled with the difficulty of describing what had so profoundly impressed him, and gave it up. He only said, “His face is more worn and suffering than any man’s I ever saw. And yet his dark eyes shine—with a kind look in them, but very, very tired. I can’t tell anymore,” he finished awkwardly.
“You have told,” said Berbier. “But how did you get to speak with him?”
“After supper he went away into the wood with the young man—his servant, I suppose. I—well, he drew me, I don’t know how. From the first moment I saw him, I was not myself His voice brought me back to my home, my father, my mother, and all the rest, and his look—in spite of the weariness and the sorrow in it—was even happy, somehow. I could not stay with the band—I was not fit for their company; and so—we got together at night, and he talked to me. He told me my parents had left the country and got safely to England, and he hoped I would one day do the same. Then I said I wanted to go to Montpellier.”
“Why Montpellier, of all places?”
“Because I wanted to find the son of the people I lived with, Philippe Darcheau, for Babette, his sister. She loves him, longs for him day and night.”
“Never mind that,” said Berbier, impatiently. “Go on about Monsieur Beauclaise.”
“It was not that only made me long to go away,” Gaspard explained. “I hated the work, hated my life, hated everything—except Babette and the woods. I thought that if I got to Montpellier, I could surely find the way to get farther still. So I asked Monsieur Beauclaise about it; and he, thinking you still lived in Montpellier, gave me that note for you. But he also said good words to me, words that I cannot tell again to anyone, about God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. He said he thought the Good Shepherd had found me. That was the last word I had from him.”
“When he gave you the note, what did he tell you about me?”
“That you did not belong to the Religion, but that you were a very good friend of his, and would do anything in your power for him, or anyone he commended to you.”
“You shall find that he said the truth. What is it you want?”
“Monsieur, I thank your good will. One thing I wanted is done already, and no good has come of it. We have found Babette’s brother, and he refuses to go back. He does not care about her anymore.” Here Gaspard stopped, remembering he must not betray that Philippe was Jacques Fredon, Monsieur Berbier’s servitor. An oath was an oath, even if given to a rascal.
“‘Twas odd enough that you found him. But your other wish, Gaspard?”
“How can I but wish with all my heart to go too, England, where Monsieur Beauclaise tells me my parents are? Oh, monsieur, can you help me?”
“I must think about it. But who is this Tardif who is with you? How does he come to have part or lot in the matter?”
“He is a friend, one of the band I spoke of He met me in Mende, at the Fair, where I was wandering forlorn and perplexed, not knowing what to do next. They call him a desperate fellow, but he has always been good and kind to me. He says more money is to be made now by helping Protestants out of the country than by smuggling salt, or robbing on the highway, and that he has a mind to try it. He spent his youth somewhere near the sea coast—I know not where, for he never speaks of it—but he knows a great deal about ships and seafaring men. Also, the way to get to Switzerland.”
“Humph! Does he know that, if he is taken in the act, he will be hanged, as sure as Haman?”
“He knows it right well. But he trusts to his skill, his daring, and his luck.”
“And what have you covenanted to pay him, if he brings you safe out of France?”
“Me, monsieur? I have not a cent to give him.”
“But of course he will make his count of you some way. Not, I hope, by betraying you and getting the reward. Then how?”
“He says he looks to find a few others anxious to get away, and able and willing to pay for his services; and that I will be of use in introducing him to our people, who will know me for one of their own, and telling them what he is doing for me, and that he can be trusted. He says he is like a craftsman who does one man’s work for nothing that he may get the custom of many more.”
“Ah, a clever rogue! But what if he be a rogue after all. Can you really trust him?”
“With my life.” And Berbier saw he was speaking from the depths of his heart. It was some moments before he answered him. Thoughts were rising in him which might lead to important issues. But he must have time to work them out.
“Excuse me, monsieur, I am forgetting how hungry you must be,” he said, suddenly. Having heard Gaspard’s name he spoke to him as one gentleman does to another, using, when he thought of it, the courteous ‘vous’ instead of the familiar ‘to.’ “Have the goodness to ring that silver bell beside you.”
Gaspard rang the bell, then stood up to go away.
“Pray sit down again,” said Berbier. When the servant appeared, she was told to bring supper for two, and a bottle of St. Peray.
Thus, after nearly seven years, young Gaspard de Montausier sat down once more at a well-appointed table, and ate and drank with a companion who, although in the estimation of the world as it then was far inferior in rank to himself, was a man of cultivation and refinement.
Much refreshed in body, and greatly cheered and comforted in mind, he at last suggested timidly that he ought to join Tardif at the inn. But Berbier said to him, “You are my guest now, Monsieur Gaspard. There is a bed here very much at your disposal.”
Nothing that he had was too good for the boy to whom “Claude” had asked him to be kind.