CHAPTER I
A WILFUL MAID ARRIVES FROM FRANCE
"I'll tell thee, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition."--_As You Like It._
Jacqueline was a gentlewoman of France. But there was usually mischiefin her handsome head, for all its queenly poise. Just now, she wasrunning away from the ship. Captain and officers of the _ImperatriceEugenie_, Imperial red pantaloons, gilt Imperial eagles, such tokensof awe were yet not awful enough to hold Jacqueline. So, with thehumility of limp things in that sticky air, the sailors shoved closer inthe small boat and made place for the adjustment of crisp skirts. Withthe lady went her gentle little Breton maid, who trembled with thetrembling of every plank in those norther-rocked waters. The high sun,just showing himself after the late gale, was sucking a gummy moistureout upon all surfaces, and the perspiring men felt mean and base beforethe starchy freshness of the two girls.
No one was pleased that Jacqueline was going, except Jacqueline herself.But she was keen for it. She had been impervious to their flusteredanxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. Invain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meantto have a walk on the shore and--a demure Parisian shrug settled it.
Jacqueline rested a high-heeled boot on a coil of rope and blithelyhummed an old song--"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!" Oh, how she hadwearied of bumping, heaving, bumping! At first she had enjoyed thestorm. It was a new kind of play, and the mise-en-scene was quiteadequate. But ennui had surged in again long before danger had surgedout. And now she considered that some later sensation was due her, justas supper after an evening of fasting. In such a way, her life long,Jacqueline had sustained existence. Her nourishment was ever the latest"frisson," to use her own word. She craved thrills of emotion, ecstaticthrills. Naturally, then, three weeks of ocean had fretted the restlesslass as intolerable, tyrannical.
During the norther's blinding fury, the liner of the CompagnieTrans-Atlantique had groped widely out of her course, to find herselfoff Tampico when the storm abated. But the skipper saw in his ill-luck achance for fresh meat, and he decided to communicate with the portbefore going on to Vera Cruz. And when Jacqueline found that out, shedecided to communicate with the port too.
Little enough harm in that, truly; if only it were any one else butJacqueline. In her case, though, all concerned would have felt easier tokeep her on board. Then, when the ship sailed, they were sure to haveher there. Otherwise, they assuredly were not. For they knew well herstartling capacity for whims. But never, never, could they know thestartling next way a whim of hers might jump. Yet did she give herselfthe small pains of wheedling? Not she. The mystery of her augustguardianship, of no less than two emperors, and the responsibilityfalling on captain, crew, red trousers, and gilt eagles--He bien, whatthen? Neither were they cunning with their dark warnings of outlawry andviolence. Dreadfulest horrors might lurk in the motley Gulf town held byforce against bloodthirsty Mexicans. But croaking like that only gavebrighter promise of the ecstatic shiver. So, parbleu, she went!
The brunt of anxiety fell on poor Sergeant Ney. Here was a young soldierwhom a month before Louis Napoleon had summoned to the Tuileries, tocharge him with the lady's safe return to Maximilian's court in the Cityof Mexico, where she was First Dame of Honor about the EmpressCharlotte. The order was not a military one, else it must have fallen toan officer of rank. It was not even official. But no doubt it enfoldedmore of weight for that very reason. Napoleon III. believed that in theunofficial, in littleness and dark gliding, lay the way to govern astate. Michel Ney regarded his task as a complete enigma. He had only tosee a girl to the end of her journey. He was a slow-thinking, even anon-thinking agent, but in a contingency he could fight, still withoutthinking.
The girl under his escort, however, was another sort of agent entirely.She was the spirit of the enigma, the very personification of theNapoleonic sphinx. She was the Imperial Secret flung a thousand leagues,there to work itself out alone in a new land of empire. Two months agoLouis Napoleon had recalled her from the Mexican court to her oldcircle, to the Tuileries, to St. Cloud, to Compiegne, and almost at oncehe had sent her back again. This time she came with the sphinx'spurpose.
Getting himself into the small boat, Ney stole a glance at the gray eyesopposite him--for the moment they were gray, as well as treacherouslyinnocent and pensive--and he reflected woefully that she had quite toomuch spirit altogether for an Egyptian dame of stone. She was making itvery hard for him. What caprice might not possess her while on shore,and the ship to sail within a few hours? It was not a predicament forsabre play. And he made the mistake of trying to wield his wits alittle.
"I should take it as an honor, mademoiselle," he faltered, "I should,truly, if you'd only believe that I would impose my escort for thepleasure it gives me, as well as--as well as----"
But she did not seem to notice that he stumbled. Her eyes were intent onthe green water, which the oars transmuted into eddying crystals. Hewould go on, she knew, and lay more exposed the place where she meant tostrike. She had coquetted with him, old play fellow that he was, forjust a little during the voyage, as with others too, for that matter.But she had tired of it, as she had also of the chagrin of wives andsweethearts on board, or as she had of Hugo's "Napoleon le Petit," whichshe read purely out of contrariness to the censorship laid on the exiledpoet. Michel Ney, however, and this she noted carefully, now kept closewithin his soldier's shell. He had that unofficial duty to think on,which was enough and over.
"----as well as," he finished desperately, "as a duty to an authorityover us both. If you would believe that, mademoiselle?"
Then she struck. A word sufficed. "Oh, Monsieur the Sergeant!" sheexclaimed. Her tone was deprecating, but she lingered wickedly on thetitle. The young Frenchman looked down on his natty uniform. No othercut or cloth in the whole imperial army of France was more dashing thanthe sky-blue of a Chasseur d'Afrique, but none of that filled Michel'seyes. For him there were only the worsted stripes. He colored andwinced.
"Forgive me," she said meekly, "I should have said, 'Monsieur theDuke.'"
The Chasseur flushed like a boy. "Why _will_ you harp on what agrandfather made me?" he blurted out. "And what's a duke----?"
"And a prince?--the Prince of Moskowa!" She courtesied from her slenderwaist.
"Alas for my blunders," she sighed, "for it _was_ more delicateafter all to call you sergeant. In that I congratulate you yourself,Michel, and never a grandfather."
Ney frowned unhappily. "The first prince of Moskowa was once asergeant," he murmured, "and why shouldn't I, in this new country----"
"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine," she sang, and smiled on him.
His eyes flashed, and because of the voice his heart quickened. He hadheard of "this new country." It was "a gold mine in a bed of roses," butwith a thorn, to say nothing of a bayonet, for every bud, and like manyanother young Frenchman he hoped to win renown in the romantic MexicanEmpire, sprung like Minerva from the brain of his own emperor. And nowhere was a girl humming the war song of his fathers and of his race, andflaunting his warrior's ambition in it.
"My Sergeant has gone to the wars, Far off to war in Flanders. He's a bold prince of commanders, With a fame like Alexander's-- Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
"Mon Sergot s'en va t-en guerre-- Ne sais quand reviendra. Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!"
Having thus ousted the crusading hero of the song, and put the slang for"sergeant" in his stead, Jacqueline leaned back on the gunwale quitecontented. She fell to gazing on the transparent emerald of the inshore,and plunged in her hand. The soft, plump wrist turned baby pink underthe riffles. Of a sudden Berthe her maid half screamed, whereat with adelighted little gasp of fright, she jerked out the hand. But she put itback again, to tempt the watchful shark out there.
"_My_ grandfather was only a duke," she mused aloud, very humbly.But she peeped up at Ney in the most exasperating manner. He could justsee the gray eyes behi
nd the edge of lace that fell from the slantingbrim of her hat. He would not, though, meet the challenge. He kept tosincerity as the safer ground.
"Like mine, mademoiselle, yours made himself one, under Napoleon."
"The _great_ Napoleon," she corrected him gently.
Michel assented with a sad little nod. Then he raised his head bravely."And why not do things _without_ a _great_ Napoleon, and,after all, isn't he _a_ Napoleon, and one who----"
"Is lucky enough to bear a name that means seven million votes. _I_should rather be a 'sergeant' and congratulate none but myself on it,Monsieur the--Duke."
Again, with the wisdom of a slow intelligence, the Chasseur held backfrom her subtleties. If only he might betray her into frankness--acompliment she paid to few men and to a woman never--then, justpossibly, he might make her tractable as to their prompt return to theship.
"Still, it _is_ a name to rally to," he persisted, acknowledging inspite of himself the magic that had swayed the Old Guard.
For once she left the poor shark in peace.
"A name, a name?" she repeated.
"Isn't 'France' enough of a name for your rallying, monsieur?"
But the honest mood could not last. In the same breath she hastened on,"Yes, yes, France, the beloved of us proud grandchildren of originaldukes. Of myself, sir, with a chateau in the Bourbonnais, whose floorsare as well watered as the vineyards outside. And your France too,Michel, giving you only your clean linen to disguise the sergeant andremind us of the marshal of the First Empire. Of course," she addedkindly, "there is the bravery. I had forgotten that, O grandson of the'brave des braves.' But then?--Bonte divine, there's no rank in courage,mon ami! It's not the epaulette of a French uniform--it's the merestlining."
"And that," the youth cried doggedly, "is still enough to----"
"To do things for France, eh petit piou-piou?"
"Helas! our France can't expect much from me. But you, mademoiselle, youwill do things for her!" It was a spontaneous tribute, just that,without thought of prying into the secret of her mission, "While I," heended dismally, "can only fight."
"But you forget," she answered gravely, "that after all a woman can onlygive."
That cynicism of life which had become a part of the young girl was yetgaiety itself. Youth and health and beauty would not have even cynicismotherwise. But now, as she spoke, the irony was bitter, and worn, as ofage. And behind it was a woman's reluctance before some abhorredsacrifice, a sacrifice which would entail the woman's power to give.
Ney stared at her uncomprehendingly. Here lay a clue to her mysteriouserrand in Mexico. But he was not thinking of her as the Napoleonicenigma personified. It was of herself he thought, an enigma apart. Shewas a flower of France. Yet many, many flowers blossom there. She mightbe a grande dame, of nobility of womanhood as well as of family. Oragain, she might be only an alluring, heartless witch, that helped tomake tempting, and damnable, the brilliant Second Empire. But in anycase, Jacqueline was truly as dainty as a flower.
"It has already cost us enough to gain this New World," ventured theChasseur, waving a hand toward the desolate shore, "and we madeMaximilian emperor, but now they say that, that he would--they say so inParis, mademoiselle--that he would rob us of it."
"Indeed, monsieur?" There was warning in the look she gave him.
"But," he plunged on boldly, "our soldiers still hold it, that is,until, until someone shall win it for us for our very own, absolutely.Ducal grandfathers never did more than that for France."
"Where _are_ you leading, Michel? Please take me with you."
"To a question. Don't you think 'someone' is risking a great deal for alittle walk on shore?"
Before she answered he knew that she had seen through all his blunderingwiles.
"Are there guerrillas there?" she asked pensively.
"_You_ should know. But they say, that out of Tampicoespecially----"
She was gazing toward the land, sandy and flat. Once she looked backwith lively distaste at the rocking ship. Now she interrupted.
"It would be fun traveling overland--and _such_ excitement!"
Ney's shoulders went up in despair.
"Oh, my poor guardian!" she exclaimed contritely. "But why aren't you areader of the poets? Then you would find something to say to make mefeel--sorry."
"_You_ say it then."
"Why, for example, you might call all the stored vengeance of heavenright down on my ungrateful top."
The soldier gazed at the ungrateful top. It was of burnished copper. Arebellious lock was then blowing in the wind, and there was a wide,rakish crown of rice-white straw. There was also a soft skin of creamysatin, lips blood red, a velvet patch near a dimple, and two gray eyesthat danced behind the hat's filmy curtain. An ungrateful top, out ofall mercy!
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