The Yellow Poppy

by D. K. Broster

They had been here—planted by whom, and why?—long, long before the overturned order of yesterday; long before its pillars had been laid, long before Clovis and Charlemagne; they would still be here when the name of the last King of France was forgotten. As she stood among them she knew that she was in the oldest place of this old land of Armorica. They were the more living in semblance, the more individual, these grey shapes, because their slope was not alike, any more than their forms. Some leant this way, some that; some were grotesque, some more than grotesque; yet whatever were the purpose that possessed them, it possessed them even terribly. Valentine wondered which was the “hunchback” of the evil legend . . . She was afraid of them; and yet they fascinated her.

And as she walked between their ranks she wondered how much longer she would have to wait before she saw the Marquis de Kersaint. How calmly, at the Ferme des Vieilles, they took this fighting—all the men away with M. le Marquis as a matter of course. Was it true, she had asked, that Cadoudal in the Morbihan had ordered all his young men not to marry for the present? Quite true. And they were not marrying? No. What a people to lead, and what a leader!

What should she do after she had talked with the Marquis? It depended on what he told her. In any case she was come to the beginning of a new chapter in what was left to her of the book of her life. Would Gaston’s name be on those pages—and in what characters would it be written?

It had been a grey day, austere, not unbeautiful. Now, at the approach of sunset, it was warming into a certain splendour. The shadows of the watchers began to slant across the avenue like scores of pointing fingers, and at the other end the pine trees on the rise grew darker against what would soon be a battlemented glory of cloud. And after sundown it was sinister here, they said; Valentine could believe it, but the watchers had some spell to make one linger. . . .

It was as she turned from looking at the distant pines and the sunset that she became aware she was not alone in the Allée des Vieilles. Some way off a man was standing by one of the tallest menhirs; indeed, she almost thought that he was leaning against it. It gave her a start at first to find that, when she had thought she was alone, she was being observed. He must have ridden up unheard on the heather, for outside the double avenue a black horse was bending its head towards that arid nourishment. All she could see of its rider at this distance was that he was tall, that he wore a long close-fitting dark redingote, that he had a white sash round his middle, and a sword.

All at once she thought, “How stupid of me; it is a Royalist, one of M. de Kersaint’s officers, probably, back from the fighting. Perhaps it is even M. de Kersaint himself, ridden over from his headquarters, on hearing that I am here, to wait on me. That is very courteous of him. But why, since he must see me, does he not move, or come to meet me? . . . Perhaps, if he is from the fighting, he is hurt.” And then indeed she saw that he carried his right arm in a sling.

She began in her turn to go towards him. Still she could not see his face; he had his hat rammed low over his eyes. In the hat, as she now noticed for the first time, was a white plume. That feather showed her that it must be M. de Kersaint himself, and her heart beat a little faster. Yet how strange of him to remain covered when, plainly, he must see her advancing, and not to move a step to meet her. But she went on nevertheless, till only ten yards or so separated them.

And the Royalist still stood motionless, the sunset glow falling on him, watching her so intently that he gave the effect of holding his breath. Valentine began to be a little frightened; his behaviour was so unaccountable. And suddenly the old Breton woman’s warning came back to her. Was the wish of her heart, then, going to be reft from her here among Les Vieilles; was she to learn from this man, among the covetous old stones, that Gaston was dead—to learn it this time without possibility of doubt? Was that why he was so still—because he knew her errand? She stopped.

Her stopping seemed to galvanise the watcher into life. He moved a little forward from the menhir which had been supporting him, and put up his left hand to his hat as though to remove it. But still he did not take it off.

“Madame de Trélan!”