Читать книгу In the Day of Adversity - John Bloundelle-Burton - Страница 12

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The wine was good! Worthy of whatever clos it had ripened on! A glass of it went far to repay St. Georges for any discomfort he had suffered during the wretched meal just concluded, and made amends for all that had passed hitherto. As for the Bishop of Lodève, he drank two glasses rapidly in succession, smacked his lips, and peered at the ruby liquid held between the guttering candle and his eye in the most approved fashion, and seemed to be making or receiving amends for the miserable meal he had also partaken of, though so sparingly that the soldier thought he must either have made a better one recently or be about to make one later on.

Then, after he had put three of the logs together—which seemed at last as though about to burn with some effect—by the summary method of kicking them close to each other with his foot, he said quietly, though quite unexpectedly on the part of the other:

"His Most Christian Majesty—or rather Louvois for him—wrote me that I might expect a visit from you on your way from Franche-Comté to Paris."

"Indeed!" said St. Georges, looking, as he felt, astonished. After which he added: "Truly, for a poor lieutenant of horse, such as I am, the king seems much interested in my doings. I marvel much that he should be so."

"Family interest, perhaps?" said the bishop, glinting an eye at him from behind the glass which he was again holding up to the light of the guttering candle. "Family interest is useful at court."

"Family interest!" exclaimed the other, pushing his glass away from him. "Monseigneur, it is evident you know nothing of Georges St. Georges, or you would not mention that. Still, how should you know my affairs?"

"How, indeed!" replied Phélypeaux, though again there was a flash from the eye—"how, indeed! I—I never heard of you until his Majesty said you would honour me with a visit. Yet, Captain—I mean Monsieur—St. Georges, there must be something which guides Louis in sending for you—in removing you from the miserable garrison in the Jura to Paris. Ah, Paris!" he interjected with an upward glance. "Paris! Paris!" But having recovered from this fervent ecstasy, he continued: "And if not family interest—I am a believer in family interest myself—what can it be? Unless, of course, you have been selected because of your military promise."

"Nor can it be that either," replied the guest. "I have been in garrison at Pontarlier for a year, and as for my service, why I have done nothing to distinguish myself. No more than thousands of his Majesty's troops have done—nay, not half so much."

"How old are you, may I ask?"

"Thirty-three."

"Ah," replied monseigneur, "and this is the third day of '88. So you were born in 1655. Ah!" and he leaned back in his chair and muttered to himself, though once he said quite audibly: "Yes, yes. That would do very well."

"What would do very well, monseigneur?" asked the other, looking at him.

"Pardon me," replied the bishop, and St. Georges could not help remarking how much more courtly his manner had become by degrees, so that, while heretofore it was quite in keeping with what he had originally imagined him to be—a servitor—it was now thoroughly suitable to his position—the position of a member of an old French family and of a father of the Church; "pardon me, my mind rambles sometimes when—when I throw it back. I was reflecting that—that—it was in that year I was made bishop. So you were born in 1655? And how—since you say you have none of that valuable family interest—did you become a chevau-léger?"

"It is somewhat of a story, and a long one. Hark! surely that is the cathedral clock striking. It is too late to pester you with my affairs."

"Not a jot," exclaimed Phélypeaux—"not a jot. Nay, tell the story, and—shall we crack another bottle of the clos? It is good wine."

"It is, indeed," replied St. Georges, "excellent. Yet I will drink no more. Three glasses are all I allow myself after supper at the best of times. And, after all, my history will not take long in telling. At least such portions of it as I need tell you."

"Tell me all. I love to hear the history of the young and adventurous, as you are—as you must be. The chevaux-légers encounter adventure even in garrison," and he leered at him.

"I have encountered none, or very few. A few indecisive campaigns against Holland in the year the king gave me my commission—namely, fourteen years ago—then the Peace of Nimeguen, and since then stagnation in various garrisons. Yet they say the time is coming for war. Holland seeks allies everywhere against France; soon a great campaign should occur."

"Without doubt, when his Most Christian Majesty will triumph as he has done before. But why—how—did you obtain your commission? You do not tell me that."

"No, I had forgotten. Yet 'tis not much to tell. My mother—an English woman—excuse me, Monseigneur l'Évêque, but you have spilt your wine."

"So, indeed, I have," said the bishop, sopping up the wine which his elbow had overturned by a sudden jerk while the other was speaking, "so, indeed, I have. But 'tis not much. And there is still that other bottle uncorked." Then with a sidelong glance he said: "So your mother was an English woman. Ah! mon Dieu, elles sont belles, ces Anglaises! An English woman. Well, well!"

"Yes, an English woman. Daughter of a Protestant cavalier who left England when the Commonwealth was declared. He had done his best for the king, but with his death he could do no more. So he quitted his country forever."

"Most interesting," exclaimed the bishop, "but your father, Monsieur St. Georges. Who was he? Of the St. Georges's family, perhaps, of Auvergne! Or another branch, of Dauphiné! A noble family is that of St. Georges!"

"He was of the branch in Auvergne. A humble member, but still of it. I know no more."

"No more?"

"No."

"Humph! Strange! Pardon me, monsieur, I would not ask a delicate question—but—but—did not the family recognise the marriage of Monsieur St. Georges?"

"They did not recognise it for the simple reason that they were never told of it. It did not please my father to divulge the marriage to his family, so they were left in ignorance that it had ever taken place."

"And was Monsieur St. Georges—your father—a soldier like yourself?"

"He was a soldier like myself. And served against Condé."

"Against Condé. Under Turenne, doubtless?" and once more he cast a sidelong glance at his visitor.

"Yes. Under Turenne. They were, I have heard, more than commander and subordinate. They were friends."

"A great friendship!" exclaimed the bishop. "A great friendship! To his influence you doubtless owe your commission, obtained, I think you said, in '74, the year before Turenne's death."

"Doubtless. So my father said. He died in the same year as the marshal."

"In battle, too, no doubt?" Then, seeing a look upon the other's face which seemed to express a desire for no more questioning—though, indeed, he bowed gravely at the question if his father had died in battle—monseigneur with a polite bow said he would ask him no more impertinent questions, and turned the conversation by exclaiming:

"But you must be weary, monsieur. You would rest, I am sure. I will call Pierre to show you to your room. Your child will sleep better at the 'Ours' than you will do here, since my accommodation is not of the first order, owing to my being able to inhabit the house so little. But we have done our best. We have done our best."

"I thank you," the soldier said, rising from his chair. "Now, monseigneur, let me pay my farewells to you at the same time I say 'Good-night.' I propose to ride to-morrow at daybreak, and if possible to reach Bar by night. Though much I doubt doing so; my horse is jaded already, and can scarce compass a league an hour. And 'tis more than twenty leagues from here, I take it."

"Ay, 'tis. More like twenty-five. And you have, you know, a burden. You carry weight. There is the little child."

"Yes, there is the child."

"You guard it carefully, Monsieur St. Georges. By the way, you have not told me. Where is its mother, your wife?"

Again the soldier answered as he had before answered to the watchman's wife—yet, he knew not why, he felt more repugnance in speaking of his dead wife to this strange bishop than he had when addressing either that simple woman or the landlady of the "Ours." But it had to be done—he could not make a secret of what was, in fact, no secret. So he answered, speaking rapidly, as though desirous of getting his answer over:

"She is dead. Our existence together was short. We loved each other dearly, but it pleased God to take her from me. She died a year after our marriage, in giving birth to the babe."

Phélypeaux bowed his head gravely, as though, perhaps, intending thereby to express sympathy with the other, and said, "It was sad, very sad." Then he continued:

"And madame—pauvre dame!—was she, too, English, or of some French family?"

"She was, monseigneur, a simple French girl. Of no family—such as you, monseigneur, would know of. A girl of the people, of the bourgeoisie. Yet I loved her; she became my wife, and now—now"—and he looked meditatively down into the ashes of the (by this time) charred and burnt-out logs—"I have no wife. That is all. Monseigneur, permit me to wish you good-night."

The bishop rang the bell, and while they waited for Pierre to come, he said:

"You asked me, Monsieur St. Georges, this evening, why his Most Christian Majesty should have thought fit through Louvois to direct you to stay at my house in Dijon? I shall not see you to-morrow ere you depart; let me therefore be frank. The king—and Louvois also—are in correspondence with me on a political matter, which must not even be trusted to the post, nor to courier, nor messenger. Nay, we do not even write what we have to say, but, instead, correspond by words and signs. Now, you are a trusty man—you will go far—already I see your captaincy of a troop looming up before you. Therefore I will send by you one word and one alone. You cannot forget it, for it is perhaps the simplest in our or any language. You will convey it?"

"I am the king's servant. What is the word, monseigneur?"

"The word 'Yes.'"

"The word 'Yes,'" the chevau-léger repeated. "The word 'Yes.' That is it? No more?"

"Nothing more. Simply the word 'Yes.' Yet stay, remember my instructions. The word is sent as much to Louvois as to the king. It is a common message to both. And there is one other thing. The Marquise de Roquemaure is also concerned in this matter; she will without doubt ask you what the word is I have sent. And, monsieur, there is no need of secrecy with her. You may frankly tell her."

Again with military precision the other made sure of his instructions.

"I may say that the word you send is 'Yes'?"

"Precisely."

"I shall remember."

And now, Pierre coming in, the bishop bade him farewell and good-night.

"The bed, I trust," he said, addressing the servant, "is as comfortable as may be under the circumstances. Also properly aired. For Monsieur St. Georges must sleep well to-night. He rides to Troyes to-morrow or as far upon his road as he can get. He must sleep well."

"So! he rides to Troyes to-morrow," repeated the domestic, surlily—"to Troyes, eh? And at what hour does Monsieur St. Georges set forth? I must know, so that he shall be called."

"At daybreak," St. Georges replied.

The man led him after this up some great stairs, evidently the principal ones of the mansion, and past what were the chief salons, holding the lantern he carried above his head all the way and casting thereby weird shadows on to walls and corners. Then up another flight they went—their feet echoing now on the bare, uncarpeted stairs, and so along a corridor until at the end the man opened a door and ushered the guest into a moderately sized room very sparsely furnished in all except the bed, which was large enough for three men to have slept in side by side. Next, lighting a taper which looked as though it might burn ten minutes but not longer, he gruffly bade St. Georges "Good-night," and, saying that he should be called before daybreak, he strode away, while the other heard his heavy footfall gradually grow fainter and fainter until, at last, there was no further sound in the house except the banging of a door now and again.

"Nom d'un chien!" exclaimed the soldier, as he unbuckled his spurs, drew off his long riding boots, and, unsheathing his sword, laid it along the side of the bed nearest the wall, "this is a pleasant hole for a man to find himself in." And throwing himself on the bed, and discovering that, as he drew the counterpane up about his shoulders, it was so short that it did not reach below his knees, he wrapped up the lower part of his body in the great cloak in which he had carried the child all day, and so, shivering with cold, went at last to sleep.

Down below, while this had been going on, Pierre had rejoined his master, and, standing before him, was answering several questions put with great rapidity.

"Your horse is sound?" the bishop asked, as now he partook of a glass out of the second bottle.

"Ay, it is sound," replied the other. "It has not left the stable for three days."

"You can, therefore, ride forth to-morrow."

"Further than he can, weather permitting."

"Good. Therefore ride ahead of him until you meet the Marquis de Roquemaure. Then you can deliver to him a message somewhat similar to the one he will deliver to the mother of the noble marquis."

"What is the message?"

"The message he will deliver to madame la marquise—if he is fortunate enough to see her—is the word 'Yes.' The message you will deliver to her son, whom you must see, is also 'Yes.' And, if you can remember, you may also say to the marquis, 'It is the man.' Can you remember?"

"Without doubt I can. The words are: 'Yes. It is the man.'"

"Those are the words."