The cost of keeping these three ships was considerable, and Lady Atkyns had great difficulty in providing the money. She was in the hands of agents whose services, indispensable to her, could be depended upon only so long as the sums they demanded were forthcoming. We can imagine the feelings of anxiety and despondency with which she must have read the following letter from Cormier. What answer was she to make to him? (The person to whom she had applied for financial help appears on several occasions in their correspondence under the designation of “le diable noir.”)
“Your diable noir’s reply is very little consolation to me,” writes Cormier; “he has promised and postponed so often. For Heaven’s sake, see to it that he does not promise us this time also to no purpose!... I gather that you were to have two definite replies to-day—I shall be in Purgatory until five o’clock. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! I wonder what you will send me, or rather what you will be able to send me? Our own courage alone does not suffice—we have to keep up the courage of others, and they are losing heart. Worst of all, there is that avaricious Jew of a captain! We are absolutely dependent upon him. If we lost him where should we get another to take his place? I beg of you, in the name of the one you know, to do all you possibly can, to exert all your resources, to prevent his having to leave me empty-handed.”
And to excuse the ultimatum-like tone of his letter, Cormier adds—
“Forgive the urgent persistent style in which I write! But when one is writing about business matters and matters of this importance, one has to forget one is writing to a woman—especially when it is a question of a Lady Atkyns, who is different from the rest of her sex.”
The occasions for entering into communication with their agents on the Continent are more propitious now than ever, but many efforts are frustrated owing to the sharp watch which is kept along the coast.
“They have tried eleven times to land since Saturday last,” writes Cormier, “and failed every time. There were always either people in sight or else there were transports sailing from Havre to Dieppe or from Dieppe to Saint-Valery, etc., etc. There has been a lot going on evidently, for signals have been given on fifteen or twenty different occasions. That shows how important it is to effect a landing. They returned simply to make this fact known to me, and went back again without coming on shore—except the captain, who came for an hour and who is positive they have something to hand over to him. I believe this myself, for I learn also this morning that the Government boat which plies along the coast of Brittany has made thirty vain attempts during the last three weeks.”
We can imagine the mental condition of poor Lady Atkyns on receiving letter after letter in this strain. She no longer goes away from London at this period, feeling too remote in the country from the centre of news. She stays either at the Royal Hotel or else with friends at 17, Park Lane. Here it is that she receives Cormier, Frotté, Peltier. When there is a long interval between their visits her fears grow apace. What would she not give to take an active part herself in the enterprise! “No messenger arrived—no news, therefore, from France,” that is the message that comes to her only too often. And Cormier writes, full of excuses for his persistent appeals—
“Forgive my tone,” he writes. “I apologize a thousand times for being such a worry to you, but I can’t help it in regard to so important a matter, calling for so much energy and hurry. You have voluntarily abandoned the position ensured you by your sex and great advantages in order to play the rôle of a great and high-minded statesman. There are discomforts and disadvantages attached to this new estate, and it is my misfortune to have to bring this home to you. I can but console myself with the thought of your goodness and of the great cause which we have embraced and which is the subject of all our anxieties. May God prosper it, and may it bring you glory and me happiness!”
In the mouth of any one but Cormier these protestations would arouse one’s distrust; but what we already know of him, and what we are to learn presently of his later conduct, serve to reassure us in regard to him.
In spite of all his good will, however, Cormier is constantly being interrupted in his work. Now it is the health of his son, Achille, which disquiets him, now he is a prey to terrible attacks of gout which will give him no rest.