Page 58 of A Castaway in Cornwall
For a moment, Alexander watched him pawing through the postbox, pocketing the coins kept there to pay messengers who arrived at the door. He then said dryly, “Come to steal from your own family?”
Alan turned to glare at him. “I need to buy food for our people, some who are severely wounded. Is it stealing to keep men from starving? To keep myself from starving?”
“It is still wrong. LaRoche must have put you up to this.”
“He has nothing to do with it. Not ... anymore.”
Their father emerged from the servants’ area, a burlap sack of apples in one hand, potatoes in the other.
Indignation shook Alexander. “You are aiding him? Knowing the penalty?”
Alan scowled. “Will you report your own father? Your own flesh and blood?”
“You endanger your own family by coming here!” Alex shouted, then turned to his father. “Don’t you know the longer you support these brigands, the longer the bloodshed will last?”
He gestured toward Alan. “They have degenerated into a band of vandals, thieves, and killers. Did the Vendée teach you nothing? The failed assassination attempts? The death of theChouannerieleaders?”
“We are not dead,” Alan insisted. “La petite Chouannerielives on.”
“For how long?” Alexander asked. “Until you are dead too?”
Alan shook his head. “TheRoyalisteswill prevail. But I agree the old methods are no longer effective. That is why I am considering a new course.”
Fear tightened their father’s face. “What course?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Because you are ashamed?” Alexander challenged.
“Because my brother would report me to the usurper or at least his henchmen.”
“Alan, what are you involving yourself in?” their father asked again.
Wariness gripped Alexander’s gut. He had heard rumors of local men aidingles rosbifs.“Tell me you are not helping the British.”
“I am not. But since when is our mother’s country the enemy?”
Angered by this justification, Alexander thundered, “Alan!”
His brother raised his hand. “I will do nothing she would disapprove of. Nothing my conscience would disapprove of. That should be enough for you.”
“It’s not. You seem determined to destroy yourself and this family. And what of Léonie? What has she to say to all this?”
Eyes hot with fury, Alan grabbed Alex’s lapel. “You leaveher out of this. You had your chance with her and gave it up. Your right to say anything about her, about us, is gone too.”
“Alan, let him go,” their father pleaded. “He is your brother. He loves you and is concerned for you. We both are.”
Alan scoffed but released his hold. “Ha. He has chosen his allegiance, and I have chosen mine. He doesn’t love me. If he did, he would support me.”
Alexander shook his head. “That is not how love works. It is not blind to faults, nor must it accept the wrongdoing of those dear to us.”
“Nor do I accept your wrongdoing,” Alan retorted. “Off conquering foreign lands while our countrymen bleed and die and tear each other apart?”
“You forget how bad things were under the monarchy you dream of restoring. You were too young. We both were. The nobles lived in luxury, the common man starved.”
“And this regime is better? Executing all who speak against them, who resist their conscriptions and tyranny?”
“My sons, please,” their father begged. “Do not fight. Alexander must return to duty soon, and...”
