War Zone

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Lord Morden threw back his head and laughed. "A cynic!" he ejaculated. "And at twenty-six! My poor Armand!"

"It's the truth, nevertheless," Lord Sheringham pro tested. "Perhaps it's my French blood, Sir, which makes me so restless. I have to find new excitements, new ways to keep myself amused even at the risk of offend ing Ambassadors!"

"You will not forget that matter," Lord Morden said. "Indeed I have not forgotten it," Lord Sheringham replied. "Can't you see, Sir, that in a way it is provi dential? Obviously you are extremely annoyed with me, and the whole fashionable world will agree that you are entirely justified in the course you have taken in sending me to the country and closing Morden House for a few months."

"Yes, I see," Lord Morden said softly. "We shall have to have an explanation of your absence from England."

"From London, Sir," Lord Sheringham corrected. "You have estates in Norfolk. As far as the gossips are concerned, I have been sent there to rusticate. No women, no cards-the shooting of the partridges when they come into season to be my only entertain ment.

"Excellent," Lord Morden approved. "If I may make a suggestion, Sir," Lord Sheringham continued, "I think it would be wiser if no one save yourself, Mr. Canning and the Members of the Cabinet who were here this afternoon, know where I have gone. I would rather that you do not even tell my step mother. I am devoted, as you know, to Lady Morden, but women gossip for they have so little else to do."

"Her ladyship shall be told that you are in Norfolk," Lord Morden said. "But what of your own friends, my boy, especially the female ones?"

"They will be told the same. Tonight the whole of London will know of your harshness and severity. I shall abuse you over the port and even weep a tear or two, I dare say, against some white shoulder. Then tomorrow I can be on my way. 22 Lord Morden put out his hand.

"Thank you, Armand." "On the contrary, my dear Father, it is for me to thank you. For the first time for months I have some thing to do which really interests me."

"Are you trying to tell me," Lord Morden asked in mock severity, "that you have not been interested in all those lovely ladies with whom your name has been coupled with such repugnant and regrettable publicity?" "They interest me to a point," Lord Sheringham an swered, "but that point, Sir, has always been very fine edged about the hour of dawn." Lord Morden laughed, but his eyes as they rested on his son's handsome face were sad.

It was nearly dawn three days later when Monsieur Armand de Ségury landed on the shores of France. The sailors who rowed him ashore according to instructions did not speak as he waved his hand in farewell. They watched him spring lightly from the bow of the boat on to the sand, and waited until his tall figure dis appeared into the shadow of the cliffs.

Then they rowed quickly away back to their ship. Armand made his way slowly and without hurry to a small hamlet situated about one mile from the coast. He strolled into the Inn about breakfast time, ordered himself a good meal and told the landlord a long and complicated story.

His coach had broken down some ten miles away, he had managed to get a lift in a farm cart as far as the village, but that a horse must be procured for him immediately as he had urgent business in Rouen. His story was accepted without suspicion and the country-side was combed for a suitable mount. Fortunately it was easy to purchase an animal with a quite passable pedigree, The local Châtelain, im poverished by the Revolution, had turned horse-breeder and was finding it difficult to dispose of the animals he bred at any reasonable price.

He could, of course, sell them to the Army, but there he was beaten down to the very last sou. In fact he often lost on the sale of a horse rather than gained by it.

When he realised that Armand was rich enough to pay a decent price he was almost pathetically eager to accommodate him.

After some negotations which ended pleasantly in a bottle of wine Armand continued his journey, riding a spirited black stallion which had a touch of Arab in its blood.

He was not surprised to see the country-side well cultivated, the people in the villages looking happy, the children rosy-cheeked and well fed. The villainous sans culottes and bloodstained scenes of Gilray's car toons which had made all England shudder had been replaced by clean streets and orderly citizens.

In the villages the women in their red camlet jack ets and high aprons with long flying lappets to their white caps had a friendly word for anyone who visited the markets to purchase their brightly painted eggs.

Their wooden sabots with scarlet tufts clattered gaily over the cobbles and in the inns they served fragrant coffee, frothy yellow omelettes and long crisp rolls with all their accustomed skill.

But in the provincial towns there was a very different story to be told. Napoleon was already feeling the se verity of the economic war he had begun. It spelt ruin to thousands of French subjects. There was no outlet for surplus production, taxation rising on a declining consumption was crushing, the hordes of starving beggers increased day by day. As an appropriate background for this were the castles and châteaux ruined during the Revolution, the churches sacked and desolate, the tombs desecrated, the pews and altars used for firewood.

Only in the fields, from where all the young men had been taken by conscription, was there full employ ment. Here if nowhere else the years of neglect and de struction were being speedily rectified.

Armand was in no hurry to get to Paris. He was well aware of the dangers and difficulties which lay ahead of him and that the part he would play would be fraught with danger.

He remembered the story one of the Dons at the University used to tell of how he had tried to get to Mecca by pretending to be an Arab pilgrim. "The first art of disguise," he told the attentive un dergraduates, "is to think in the language you are speaking." Armand had never forgotten his words, and now as he rode through France he was training himself to think only in French. 

It was not as difficult for him as it would have been for anyone else. His mother had talked to him in French when he was a tiny boy: in fact his very first words had been a mixture of French and English. Always when they were together they had talked only in French, and often she had said to him affectionately:

"You must be my son as well as your father's. He can give you so much-your position, your title, the great wealth which will come to you one day-but I too can give you something valuable. I can give you the secret of living fully, I can teach you the art of being able to laugh at yourself and I can tell you of the joy and pain of being in love." He remembered then how she would throw back her head, her whole body arched a little as if with yearn ing, as she exclaimed: "Teins! but these English! They do not know how to love! When you are older, Armand, I will tell you so much about it."