The Last Hope

by Henry Seton Merriman

The enceinte of the castle of Gemosac is three-sided, with four towers jutting out at the corners, from which to throw a flanking fire upon any who should raise a ladder against the great curtains, built of that smooth, white stone which is quarried at Brantôme and on the banks of the Dordogne. The fourth side of the enceinte stands on a solid rock, above the little river that loses itself in the flatlands bordering the Gironde, so that it can scarce be called a tributary of that wide water. A moss-grown path round the walls will give a quick walker ten minutes’ exercise to make the round from one tower of the gateway to the other.

Within the enciente are the remains of the old castle, still solid and upright; erected, it is recorded, by the English during their long occupation of this country. A more modern château, built after the final expulsion of the invader, adjoins the ancient structure, and in the centre of the vast enclosure, raised above the walls, stands a square house, in the Italian style, built in the time of Marie de Medici, and never yet completed. There are, also, gardens and shaded walks and vast stables, a chapel, two crypts, and many crumbling remains inside the walls, that offered a passive resistance to the foe in olden time, and as successfully hold their own to-day against the prying eye of a democratic curiosity.

Above the stables, quite close to the gate, half a dozen rooms were in the occupation of the Marquis de Gemosac; but it was not to these that the Abbé Touvent directed his tremulous steps.

Instead, he went toward the square, isolated house, standing in the middle of that which had once been the great court, and was now half garden, half hayfield. The hay had been cut, and the scent of the new stack, standing against the walls of the oldest château and under its leaking roof, came warm and aromatic to mix with the breath of the evening primrose and rosemary clustering in disorder on the ill-defined borders. The grim walls, that had defended the Gemosacs against franker enemies in other days, served now to hide from the eyes of the villagers the fact—which must, however, have been known to them—that the Marquis de Gemosac, in gloves, kept this garden himself, and had made the hay with no other help than that of his old coachman and Marie, that capable, brown-faced bonne-à-tout-faire, who is assuredly the best man in France to-day.

In this clear, southern atmosphere the moon has twice the strength of that to which we are accustomed in mistier lands, and the Abbè looked about him with more confidence as he crossed the great court. There were frogs in a rainwater tank constructed many years ago, when some enterprising foe had been known to cut off the water-supply of a besieged château, and their friendly croak brought a sense of company and comfort to the Abbè's timid soul.

The door of the Italian house stood open, for the interior had never been completed, and only one apartment, a lofty banqueting-hall, had ever been furnished. Within the doorway, the Abbè fumbled in the pocket of his soutane and rattled a box of matches. He carried a parcel in his hand, which he now unfolded, and laid out on the lid of a mouldy chest half a dozen candles. When he struck a match a flight of bats whirred out of the doorway, and the Abbè's breath whistled through his teeth.

He lighted two candles, and carrying them, alight, in one hand—not without dexterity, for candles played an important part in his life—he went forward. The flickering light showed his face to be a fat one, kind enough, gleaming now with perspiration and fear, but shiny at other times with that Christian tolerance which makes men kind to their own failings. It was very dark within the house, for all the shutters were closed.

The Abbé lighted a third candle and fixed it, with a drop of its own wax, on the high mantel of the great banqueting-hall. There were four or five candlesticks on side-tables, and a candelabra stood in the centre of a long table, running the length of the room. In a few minutes the Abbé had illuminated the apartment, which smelt of dust and the days of a dead monarchy. Above his head, the bats were describing complicated figures against a ceiling which had once been painted in the Italian style, to represent a trellis roof, with roses and vines entwined. Half a dozen portraits of men, in armour and wigs, looked down from the walls. One or two of them were rotting from their frames, and dangled a despondent corner out into the room.

There were chairs round the table, set as if for a phantom banquet amid these mouldering environments, and their high carved backs threw fantastic shadows on the wall.

While the Abbé was still employed with the candles, he heard a heavy step and loud breathing in the hall without, where he had carefully left a light.