CHAPTER XLV

The white and red flag of Jersey was flying half-mast from the Cohue

Royale, and the bell of the parish church was tolling. It was Saturday,

but little business was being done in the Vier Marchi. Chattering people

were gathered at familiar points, and at the foot of La Pyramide a large

group surrounded two sailor-men just come from Gaspe, bringing news of

adventuring Jersiais--Elie Mattingley, Carterette and Ranulph Delagarde.

This audience quickly grew, for word was being passed on from one little

group to another. So keen was interest in the story told by the home-

coming sailors, that the great event which had brought them to the Vier

Marchi was, for the moment, almost neglected.

Presently, however, a cannon-shot, then another, and another, roused the

people to remembrance. The funeral cortege of Admiral Prince Philip

d'Avranche was about to leave the Cohue Royale, and every eye was turned

to the marines and sailors lining the road from the court-house to the

church.

The Isle of Jersey, ever stubbornly loyal to its own--even those whom the

outside world contemned or cast aside--jealous of its dignity even with

the dead, had come to bury Philip d'Avranche with all good ceremony.

There had been abatements to his honour, but he had been a strong man and

he had done strong things, and he was a Jerseyman born, a Norman of the

Normans. The Royal Court had judged between him and Guida, doing tardy

justice to her, but of him they had ever been proud; and where conscience

condemned here, vanity commended there. In any event they reserved the

right, independent of all non-Jersiais, to do what they chose with their

dead.

For what Philip had been as an admiral they would do his body reverence

now; for what he had done as a man, that belonged to another tribunal.

It had been proposed by the Admiral of the station to bury him from his

old ship, the Imperturbable, but the Royal Court made its claim, and so

his body had lain in state in the Cohue Royale. The Admiral joined hands

with the island authorities. In both cases it was a dogged loyalty. The

sailors of England knew Philip d'Avranche as a fighter, even as the Royal

Court knew him as a famous and dominant Jerseyman. A battle-ship is a

world of its own, and Jersey is a world of its own. They neither knew

nor cared for the comment of the world without; or, knowing, refused to

consider it.

When the body of Philip was carried from the Cohue Royale signals were

made to the Imperturbable in the tide-way. From all her ships in company

forty guns were fired funeral-wise and the flags were struck halfmast.

Slowly the cortege uncoiled itself to one long unbroken line from the

steps of the Cohue Royale to the porch of the church. The Jurats in

their red robes, the officers, sailors, and marines, added colour to the

pageant. The coffin was covered by the flag of Jersey with the arms of

William the Conqueror in the canton. Of the crowd some were curious,

some stoical; some wept, some essayed philosophy.

"Et ben," said one, "he was a brave admiral!"

"Bravery was his trade," answered another: "act like a sheep and you'll

be eaten by the wolf."

"It was a bad business about her that was Guida Landresse," remarked a

third.

"Every man knows himself, God knows all men," snuffled the fanatical

barber who had once delivered a sermon from the Pompe des Brigands.

"He made things lively while he lived, ba su!" droned the jailer of the

Vier Prison. "But he has folded sails now."

"Ma fe, yes, he sleeps like a porpoise now, and white as a wax he looked

up there in the Cohue Royale," put in a centenier standing by.

A voice came shrilly over the head of the centenier. "As white as you'll

look yellow one day, bat'd'lagoule! Yellow and green, oui-gia--yellow

like a bad apple, and cowardly green as a leek." This was Manon Moignard

the witch.

"Man doux d'la vie, where's the Master of Burials?" babbled the jailer.

"The apprentice does the obs'quies to-day."

"The Master's sick of a squinzy," grunted the centenier. "So hatchet-

face and bundle-o'-nails there brings dust to dust, amen."

All turned now to the Undertaker's Apprentice, a grim, saturnine figure

with his grey face, protuberant eyes, and obsequious solemnity, in which

lurked a callous smile. The burial of the great, the execution of the

wicked, were alike to him. In him Fate seemed to personify life's

revenges, its futilities, its calculating ironies. The flag-draped

coffin was just about to pass, and the fanatical barber harked back to

Philip. "They say it was all empty honours with him afore he died

abroad."

"A full belly's a full belly if it's only full of straw," snapped Manon

Moignard.

"Who was it brought him home?" asked the jailer. "None that was born on

Jersey, but two that lived here," remarked Maitre Damian, the

schoolmaster from St. Aubins.

"That Chevalier of Champsavoys and the other Duc de Bercy," interposed

the centenier.

Maitre Damian tapped his stick upon the ground, and said oracularly: "It

is not for me to say, but which is the rightful Duke and which is not,

there is the political question!"

"Pardi, that's it," answered the centenier. "Why did Detricand Duke turn

Philip Duke out of duchy, see him killed, then fetch him home to Jersey

like a brother? Ah, man pethe benin, that's beyond me!

"Those great folks does things their own ways; oui-gia," remarked the

jailer.

"Why did Detricand Duke go back to France?" asked Maitre Damian, cocking

his head wisely; "why did he not stay for obsequies--he?"

"That's what I say," answered the jailer, "those great folks does things

their own ways."

"Ma fistre, I believe you," ejaculated the centenier. "But for the

Chevalier there, for a Frenchman, that is a man after God's own heart--

and mine."

"Ah then, look at that," said Manon Moignard, with a sneer, "when one

pleases you and God it is a ticket to heaven, diantre!"

But in truth what Detricand and the Chevalier had done was but of human

pity. The day after the duel, Detricand had arrived in Paris to proceed

thence to Bercy. There he heard of Philip's death and of Damour's

desertion. Sending officers to Bercy to frustrate any possible designs

of Damour, he, with the Chevalier, took Philip's body back to Jersey,

delivering it to those who would do it honour.

Detricand did not see Guida. For all that might be said to her now the

Chevalier should be his mouthpiece. In truth there could be no better

mouthpiece for him. It was Detricand--Detricand--Detricand, like a

child, in admiration and in affection. If Guida did not understand all

now, there should come a time when she would understand. Detricand would

wait. She should find that he was just, that her honour and the honour

of her child were safe with him.

As for Guida, it was not grief she felt in the presence of this tragedy.

No spark of love sprang up, even when remembrance was now brought to its

last vital moment. But a fathomless pity stirred her heart, that

Philip's life had been so futile and that all he had done was come to

naught. His letter, blotched and blotted by his own dead cheek, she read

quietly. Yet her heart ached bitterly--so bitterly that her face became

pinched with pain; for here in this letter was despair, here was the

final agony of a broken life, here were the last words of the father of

her child to herself. She saw with a sudden pang that in writing of

Guilbert he only said your child, not ours. What a measureless distance

there was between them in the hour of his death, and how clearly the

letter showed that he understood at last!

The evening before the burial she went with the Chevalier to the Cohue

Royale. As she looked at Philip's dead face bitterness and aching

compassion were quieted within her. The face was peaceful--strong.

There was on it no record of fret or despair. Its impassive dignity

seemed to say that all accounts had been settled, and in this finality

there was quiet; as though he had paid the price, as though the long

account against him in the markets of life was closed and cancelled,

and the debtor freed from obligation for ever. Poignant impulses in her

stilled, pity lost its wounding acuteness. She shed no tears, but at

last she stretched out her hand and let it rest upon his forehead for a

moment.

"Poor Philip!" she said.

Then she turned and slowly left the room, followed by the Chevalier, and

by the noiseless Dormy Jamais, who had crept in behind them. As Dormy

Jamais closed the door, he looked back to where the coffin lay, and in

the compassion of fools he repeated Guida's words:

"Poor Philip!" he said.

Now, during Philip's burial, Dormy Jamais sat upon the roof of the Cohue

Royale, as he had done on the day of the Battle of Jersey, looking down

on the funeral cortege and the crowd. He watched it all until the ruffle

of drums at the grave told that the body was being lowered--four ruffles

for an admiral.

As the people began to disperse and the church bell ceased tolling, Dormy

turned to another bell at his elbow, and set it ringing to call the Royal

Court together. Sharp, mirthless, and acrid it rang:

Chicane--chicane! Chicane--chicane! Chicane--chicane!

IN JERSEY-A YEAR LATER