The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

(5)

Laurent began by listening with avidity to the story of the coming of M. de Vaubernier that night to the presbytère of Saint-Goazec with the letter, and his interview with Colonel Richard; but as the latter's evidence went on, he listened with inward maledictions also. How was it possible for any one to be such a fool as that old gentleman—not only, in a sense, to have originated the whole situation in his turnip of a brain, but also to have played, in such a preposterous manner, right into the hands of this intelligent colonel of engineers by revealing that the enemy proposed a bargain with him before finding out whether a bargain were called for at all! How could he not have seen from Colonel Richard's manner that night that there was no question of shooting anybody—even though the Imperialist had, as now appeared, been too astute to display his entire ignorance of the lady's presence at the inn! Laurent's disgust got the better of his interest.

He heard, however, at one point, questions eliciting exactly what was in the letter, and also a sharp query as to why it had not been laid before the Court, to which Aymar briefly replied that it had subsequently been destroyed by a third person. He heard, too, the Imperialist being asked what his thoughts were at the moment of the letter's reception, and his frank response, that as it appeared to be genuine he was driven to one of two suppositions: either that L'Oiseleur was a traitor, and was deliberately selling his men for the safety of a woman whom he believed to be in mortal peril, or that the whole thing was a trap. He therefore went over to the Cheval Blanc to find out what possible grounds L'Oiseleur could have for believing the lady to be in such a situation, and got on the track of the truth, though he did not run the culprit to ground till after the fight.

"And what was the truth, Colonel?" asked a voice as he paused.

Laurent put his hands over his ears. But he heard—or seemed to hear—all the same. . . . He certainly heard the sonorous voice of the Chevalier de Margadel exclaiming, with astonishment, "Then do you mean to tell us that the whole question of the lady's danger, and all that hung on it, rested on no more solid basis than a practical joke?"

"I am ashamed to say that it is so," replied Colonel Richard.

Aymar, sitting at his table, had his head on his hand. Laurent knew how bitter this must taste—how the shadow of ridicule, hardest of all to face, must seem to be hovering near him, though really it was engulfed in the shadow of tragedy. None of the Court, at least, appeared to find this revelation amusing, and Laurent was grateful to them. He was not so sure about one or two of the younger officers in the audience. As he scanned in particular one whose demeanour did not please him, he heard Colonel Richard resuming his evidence, and saying how he considered the letter worth acting on—with precautions, as he thought that a leader with the experience and antecedents of M. de la Rocheterie had probably taken steps to nullify the information he had sent; nor, as between one soldier and another, did he consider that unfair . . . merely a move in the game. "So I took every precaution that I could think of," he concluded, "and the result you know; but I desire, gentlemen, to make it very plain that if Colonel de Saint-Etienne's regiment had not been ordered away from Keraven when it was, I, not knowing at the moment of his presence in the neighbourhood, might well have been the victim of disaster instead of M. de la Rocheterie."

Laurent could see that this testimony had made rather a strong impression. The Court conferred together. Then the Marquis de la Boëssière observed, "In fact, you are convinced that M. de la Rocheterie is speaking the truth?"

"I am, absolutely. I should hardly have agreed to come and give evidence at the request of a former adversary if I thought him a traitor. Perhaps," said Colonel Richard, drawing himself up a little, "I may be allowed to say that I think too much of my own reputation for that."

He returned to his place, and Aymar stood up again.

"It seems pretty well proved, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," said M. de la Boëssière, looking at his notes, "that you had sufficient grounds for thinking the lady to be in danger, but do you consider that you were justified in taking such a risk for the sake of any individual, of whatever sex or services?"

"But I have already stated, mon Général," replied Aymar steadily, "for what reasons I considered that there was practically no risk." And he rehearsed them once more.

"You had then no scruples about sending the letter?"

"I had scruples because I disliked the whole idea—but not on the score of risk."

"Your perceptions must have been singularly clouded at the time, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," observed a dry voice. "The risk appears, to me at any rate, to have been more than obvious!"

The shaft drew blood; Laurent saw it. Whose perceptions would not have been clouded at that dizzy moment in the orchard, the meeting-place of rapture and despair? But after a second Aymar recovered himself and said gravely, "I am not speaking of how it appears to me now, Monsieur, but giving evidence as to how it appeared to me then."

"I think we should remember," said the General-in-Chief, suddenly interposing, "that M. de la Rocheterie's whole military career has been one of taking risks, and very successful ones, and that familiarity is apt to breed contempt."

Someone here observed that it would certainly be very hard, too, for a gentleman to leave a lady in such a situation, particularly when he had the means of saving her to his hand.

"Or a man either, if it comes to that," murmured a voice.

And on this M. de Sécillon, who knew the identity of the lady, remarked, presumably with the idea of giving Aymar some support, "Moreover, as it was for M. de la Rocheterie himself that the lady had obtained that military information, it is easy to understand that he felt under a special obligation to her."

("Oh, you fool!" said Laurent to himself.)

The Marquis de la Boëssière looked at the speaker. "Oh, M. de la Rocheterie himself was the leader in question, was he? Then she was personally known to him? Is that so, Monsieur de la Rocheterie? I do not think we had gathered that."

Laurent would not even look at his friend's back here; he looked (against his will) at the deeply interested audience.

"Yes," said Aymar briefly.

"How well? You must pardon the question."

A tiny pause. "She was my cousin."

"Ah, I see," said M. de la Boëssière. He might not have meant his tone to sound significant; it could hardly avoid doing so. Among the audience there was an undoubted and rather pleasurable stir, and on the face which Laurent had already singled out for dislike a grin which made the young man clench his hands.

However, the Court intimated that Aymar should proceed with his narrative. He did so. He recalled the innkeeper to prove that he arrived at three in the morning at Keraven, was greatly distressed at finding the troops gone, and set off at once on a fresh horse. And he had carried his recital as far as the Bois des Fauvettes when an objection occurred from the dark, thin-faced officer who had made the observation about "clouded perceptions." This individual suggested that L'Oiseleur should produce some witness to prove that he really did his best after he left Keraven to arrive in time to prevent a disaster. "Otherwise," he observed, "you might have planned to arrive too late."

"Oh, bosh!" cried Laurent internally, now fixing this objector with a hostile eye.

Aymar replied that he could hardly prove that; the only witness to his haste (failing the dead body of the horse which he had killed by it, and the quarryman whom he had intimidated into selling him another) would again be the innkeeper to whom he had paid the value of the first. "But," he added, "if I had really intended to be too late, should I have rejoined my men at all the same morning?"

"That ought to settle him," thought Laurent. But instead he found that this keen-witted person was landing his friend in a new and unforeseen difficulty, for, having elicited that de Fresne, the next witness, had not appeared in the Bois des Fauvettes till the afternoon of Monday, May 1st, he pointed out that there was no evidence to show that he did rejoin his force the same morning.

For a moment Aymar seemed taken aback. Then he rallied. "I can produce it indirectly, Monsieur," he returned. "If M. du Tremblay will be so obliging, he can tell you that I despatched one of my officers to him early on the morning of April 29th to warn him that I could not now coöperate with him. This officer, M. de Soulanges, no doubt gave him an account of my return; even if he did not, his mission itself was a proof of it." He looked towards his one-time ally.

Now M. du Tremblay was sitting at the extreme left-hand of the table, and round the corner of it. He was not, therefore, directly facing Aymar, like the majority of the Court; and all along, it seemed to Laurent, he had taken advantage of his position not to look at him. All through the business about the "lady," of whose identity and antecedents he certainly knew as much as M. de Sécillon, he had never given a sign. And when he addressed the President now his tone was curt.

"I can perfectly well corroborate that," he said. And indeed he went on to relate how M. de Soulanges had given him a circumstantial account of L'Oiseleur's return, in haste and fatigue, just after the disaster.

Laurent was puzzled by his manner, but it dawned upon him that he was probably deeply distressed at seeing L'Oiseleur at the bar before him. At least, this seemed likely from his next words. "May I take this opportunity of pointing out to the Court," he went on, "though it is not exactly the question at issue now, that a traitor would never have sent that message? He would, on the contrary, have seized the opportunity of letting me blunder into disaster, too, by keeping silence. Through M. de la Rocheterie's timely warning I was able to alter my plans a little, and, as you know, I was fortunate enough to bring off one of the successes of the campaign. Further, if M. de la Rocheterie had had treacherous intentions he would undoubtedly have made use of the intimate knowledge of our joint plans which he possessed—and this, it is clear, he did not do." (No, he most certainly did not, observed Laurent, sotto voce.)

A murmur, almost of applause, went round. Aymar thanked the speaker and resumed his narrative, carrying it up to the unexpected arrival of de Fresne in the wood, at which point he called M. de Fresne himself.

"Please tell the Court, Monsieur de Fresne," he said, turning to him, "how you knew of the step I had taken and how you represented to me the only way out."

So Nicolas de Fresne, standing at the witness-table with an expression of concentrated distaste about his whole person, cleared his throat and began abruptly:

"I was taken prisoner at the bridge—knocked on the head. When I was sufficiently recovered Colonel Richard sent for me—it was at Saint-Goazec—showed me my own letter to M. de la Rocheterie, and told how it had come into his hands. Being rather . . . startled I asked him to let me have it back, and I had it on me when I escaped during the night of April 30th. When I reached the——"

M. de la Boëssière leant forward. "One moment, please. We must go back a little. Colonel Richard presumably told you that M. de la Rocheterie had himself sent your letter to him. Did you immediately believe that?"

"No, certainly not," responded de Fresne.

"But he succeeded in convincing you?"

"No, I was not convinced."

"But you were shaken?"

"Yes," muttered the witness.

"Why?"

De Fresne did not answer for a moment. Then he said slowly, "Because M. de la Rocheterie had written something on the letter, and I knew his hand."

"What was it?"

Since his lieutenant seemed to find a difficulty in replying, Aymar hereupon got up himself and said rather drily, "M. de Fresne had written part of his letter in cipher, so I deciphered that portion before sending it. It was of no use trying to drive a bargain with the letter at all unless the information it contained was quite clear." As he sat down again Laurent reflected, "Of course that is perfectly logical, but it does not sound well, and de Fresne has not done any good by being unable to get it out; it merely puts the dot on the i." Indeed the raising of eyebrows and compressing of lips in the Court showed that he was right.

De Fresne, however, was allowed to resume, and related how, returning, he asked his leader for an explanation, and how the latter told him that he had sent the letter as a ruse, but that the scheme had miscarried, and how.

"And what did you think of this explanation?" asked M. de la Boëssière.

"I must admit that I found it inadequate."

"And yet M. de la Rocheterie has been at such pains to prove that the plan was so complete and void of risk that he very nearly carried it out with no other motive than a desire to trap the Bonapartists!"

De Fresne shifted uneasily.

"Why did you not accept this explanation?"

"It was after the disaster had occurred, and the risk then, naturally, seemed indefensible."

The unknown dark officer whom Laurent had already christened "Fouquier-Tinville" leant forward.

"Your two replies do not tally, Monsieur de Fresne. If you found the explanation inadequate, as you admit, it must be that you had some other reason than that you considered the risk indefensible. The latter would be merely a case of condemning your leader's judgment. Which reply are we to accept?"

"I suppose," replied de Fresne reluctantly, "I must say that I considered the explanation inadequate."

"And why?"

A slight pause. "Because I knew from what Colonel Richard had said that there was a bargain of some sort."

"And had not M. de la Rocheterie told you that?"

"No."

"Did you ask him anything about it, as you knew of its existence?"

"Yes. And he admitted it. But he would not tell me what it was."

"The inference being," remarked "Fouquier-Tinville," "that he was ashamed of it."

"I . . . I did not know what to think," admitted de Fresne unhappily.

M. de Margadel here said in his great voice, "Why on earth should he not have told you what the bargain was, if there was nothing to be ashamed of?"

"Because," said Aymar, suddenly rising to his feet, "seeing what had happened, I was ashamed of it."

There was a sensation. A large, stout, heavy-faced officer at the end of the table said, in an annoyed voice, "I should like to know at this point what M. de la Rocheterie is driving at? His witnesses seem to do nothing but bring out damaging admissions, and then he makes them himself, gratuitously." And his mumble to himself of "There's something behind all this!" was distinctly audible.

Aymar was rather stung; Laurent could see it from the poise of his head. "My object, Monsieur," he retorted, "is merely to tell the exact truth, in the hope of clearing myself; I have no other aim."

Once more de Fresne was requested to proceed. This time he got almost without interruption to the crisis, which he managed to represent as a few of the men leaving the wood in panic, shooting at and wounding their leader, on whom they had previously laid hands. But at that point he was not unnaturally questioned.

"You could not stop all this insubordination?"

"I did my best, but since M. de la Rocheterie himself could not control the men——"

"What was M. de la Rocheterie doing all this time, then?"

"I told you," answered de Fresne hurriedly. "They had disarmed him, and were holding him. He could do nothing."

"Then when the alarm came they let him go?"

"N . . . no."

"But they could hardly have shot him while some of their accomplices were holding him."

De Fresne looked at the floor. "By that time they had tied him to a tree."

It was out at last, pronounced in words . . . and caused a silence—but hardly a merciful one. And the eyes, the eyes on Aymar! If Laurent could only have shielded him from them. . . . The questioner's voice took up again:

"And he was found like that by the Imperialists?"

"Yes," answered de Fresne sullenly. "It could not be helped."

Aymar, horribly pale, got up, as if he feared his subordinate was going to be blamed, and corroborated this, adding that M. de Fresne did his best to free him. He sat down again in the same tingling silence.

It was the stout officer who broke it. "Did M. de la Rocheterie," he asked, addressing the witness, "let his men proceed to such an extremity without any attempt to defend himself? It looks as if his followers were so convinced of something against him that no explanations of his were of any avail. Surely the Chouan, of whom we all have experience, will accept anything so long as his faith in a leader is unshaken?"

But to this de Fresne replied that their faith was badly shaken, both by the disaster and the loss of the jartier; and that in addition Le Bihan, the ringleader, was nursing a grudge.

Now came endless questions about the jartier; how, when, and why lost, and then about Magloire, through all which Laurent's heart was slowly descending to the region of the floor, reaching it completely when the theory was finally evolved between "Fouquier-Tinville," the stout officer, and one other, that something pointing to deliberate treachery must have come out in the unaccounted-for three days, between Aymar's return and de Fresne's escape. And why had M. de la Rocheterie brought no evidence to cover those three days? Was he refraining from producing the only people who could tell why they did shoot him? Aymar, whose voice, to Laurent's ear, was beginning to show the first signs of the strain on him, admitted that he had not thought of it, considering that the testimony of M. de Fresne, who had been present throughout the episode, was sufficient to show on what grounds his men had turned against him.

And then the stout officer said, "We must hear something more about this shooting itself, and how deliberate it was. That is very important. Was it as hurried and casual as you seem to imply, Monsieur de Fresne? It can hardly have been if M. de la Rocheterie was tied to a tree! . . . Did they proceed to do that only just before they shot him?"

"No, not exactly," admitted de Fresne unwillingly.

"How long before, then?"

"It must have been . . . between half an hour and three quarters."

"And in all that time nobody protested?"

"Yes, a good many, but they were not so strong as the other party."

"And did not M. de la Rocheterie himself protest?"

"Once; but when Le Bihan gave him the opportunity of justifying himself he refused to say a word—as I should have done in his place."

"Then they never got the explanation, such as it was?"

"Yes; I gave it them myself in the hope of saving him."

"Without the 'bargain'?"

"Naturally, since I did not know what it was."

"And the 'explanation' was still, presumably, unconvincing to you when you gave it?"

"I was beginning to waver."

"So you were able to tell them that it had convinced you?"

"I could not quite say that."

"How many men precisely took part in shooting M. de la Rocheterie—how many shots were fired?"

De Fresne looked harassed. Once more Aymar came to his assistance.

"As M. de Fresne was trying at considerable risk to cut me free, and had also to rally the men against the Bonapartists, he can hardly have been engaged in computation. I can satisfy the Court, up to a point. I was fired at twice by Le Bihan; his first shot struck me, the second missed; and by another man, who also hit me . . . and by at least one more, as I afterwards discovered. That makes a minimum of three men and four shots; there may have been more. I do not know, because I lost consciousness after the second. But I imagine that they had not much more leisure." He sat down again; it was beyond Laurent how he could have steeled himself to get up.

Sol de Grisolles, intervening here, observed, "Well, I think we can now leave this part of the subject. It is obvious that hasty shots by three or four men cannot be said to constitute an execution."

But the stout officer said stubbornly, "Yes, General, but if he was fastened to a tree the intention at least of an execution seems obvious; and since it was nothing short of murder of a commanding officer, I cannot believe that even irregular troops would be guilty of such an unprecedented act without more reason than the showing of this letter.—And, by the way, who destroyed that letter, and why?"

"I destroyed it," replied de Fresne briefly. "And I did so because I believed M. de la Rocheterie to have died in the hands of the enemy, and I saw no purpose to be served by keeping a piece of evidence which he was not alive to refute."

"In fact," put in "Fouquier-Tinville," "you tried to hush up the whole matter! Was it for the same reason that you never attempted to have any of these men brought to justice? Did you continue to command them, by the way? What happened to them?"

De Fresne told him.

"Then you took no steps to have even Le Bihan brought to trial—you preferred the matter to go by default, even when these rumours began to get about, rather than give the men a chance of stating their case. In fact, you acted then just as M. de la Rocheterie is acting now—either from design or carelessness keeping out the men's evidence."

"I protest against that inference," said de Fresne angrily, "both for myself and M. de la Rocheterie. Monsieur le Président——"

"Yes, I think it is quite unfounded." Sol de Grisolles looked at Fouquier-Tinville."

"Then I withdraw it," said the latter. "But I do submit that, either in those three days in the wood, or in the destroyed letter, there was some more damning proof of treachery than appears."

Aymar was on his feet in an instant. "Will you stand down, Monsieur de Fresne? I call Colonel Richard as a witness that there was nothing extraneous in the letter but my deciphering of a portion of it and his subsequent endorsement."

"There was nothing more—not a syllable," said the Imperialist.

"Then it was the unaccounted-for three days," pronounced the stout officer.

Aymar drew himself up. His temper was roused, but no one save Laurent would have known it. "I can only assure the Court once more," he said, "that nothing was further from my thoughts than to keep back any evidence. But the Court must admit that I could hardly have induced any of the men who shot me to come willingly before this tribunal and confess to what has already been qualified as murder . . . whether justifiable or no."

The President nodded, as if in appreciation of this point, and the Marquis de la Boëssière, addressing him, remarked: "It scarcely seems to me, Monsieur le Président, that we need distress ourselves over the supposition that adverse evidence is being suppressed. What is far more serious, in my view, is of quite an opposite nature—M. de la Rocheterie's entire failure to bring conclusive testimony to support his main contention. We may believe that he is speaking the truth when he says that he acted in good faith—but not because he has proved that he did. If I may put it rather harshly, there has not this afternoon been one shred of real evidence to prove that he did not deliberately sacrifice his troops to save his cousin."

If Aymar did not flush, Laurent did; he almost ground his teeth.

"I think, Monsieur de la Boëssière," said the President, "that that undoubtedly is to put it rather harshly. We must hope that M. de la Rocheterie can bring some more convincing testimony on that point to-morrow, since I think we must now adjourn for to-day."