Читать книгу Clash of Arms - John Bloundelle-Burton - Страница 2

"Tell me all, Philip," Andrew Vause said to his brother some two or three evenings later, as he sat in the sick man's room, "tell me all. I must know what has brought you to this." While, as he spoke, there came a frown upon his face that did not pass off for a while-not, indeed, until he had taken two deep draughts from a tankard that stood by his side, and which old Bridget ever brought in and placed near to his hand when he went to spend an hour or so with Philip.

Full of excitement as this man's life had been for years-since the soldier of fortune had fought at Candia, and at Choczim with Sobieski, and taken part in many other frays, to say nothing of countless skirmishes-he was now as gentle a companion as Philip could have desired. Nay, sometimes, old Bridget would almost grow jealous as she observed how softly he could turn and smooth a pillow, or sit patiently by his brother listening to many of the querulous complaints usual to some invalids, or, to while away the dreary hours of that poor invalid, would tell him of courts and camps and strange doings in other lands. So jealous, indeed, did the old woman grow-or think she had grown-that she would forbid Andrew the sick room except at stated hours, and, pretending that it was not good for him to pass his days there, bid him go off and ride upon the downs, or attend the hawking parties of a neighbouring squire, or take a rod and catch a dish of trout in the stream.

And Andrew would obey the old nurse, who had brought him and his brother up from boyhood and domineered over them, as meekly as though he had never roared orders to squadrons and troops in the face of hordes of Turks and Imperialists, or taken the word of command from Condé and Turenne; and would wander idly forth until the hours came round when he might go and sit by Philip's side.

Yet he found those hours pass slowly and leaden-footedly along, being unable to take much pleasure from the simple country amusements he was surrounded by. His horse was his chief companion, and, since he saw always to its food and litter and its careful grooming, found him some occupation, while he had made friends with two old half-bred watchdogs who roamed about the place, and, at last, attached themselves so to him that they ever attended at his heels when he went on foot.

One day, too, he nearly frightened the sexton of the village church to death by suddenly bursting through the half-open door and tramping down the aisle to a large yawning pew beneath the pulpit, and entering therein.

"Good sir," the old man quavered, looking almost in fear and trembling at the swarthy cavalier before him, "this is the pew of the Vause family from the Grange hard by; none enter it-"

"Ay, 'tis, James," the intruder answered the astonished old man. "Wherefore I am here." Then he thrust his hands through his thick matted hair and put it aside from his brow, and went on: "Because I, too, am a Vause. Hast forgotten me, James?"

"Lord sakes!" the old man piped through his toothless gums, while he regarded the brown face and noticed the scar that ran adown his cheek, "'tis Master Andrew. And so it is. I mind me I did hear that you were back from foreign lands." Then, because some cheery, pleasant memory rose to his mind, his wrinkled old face broke into a smile, and he put out a gnarled hand and placed it on the buckskin sleeve of the adventurer, and said, "You take me back a twenty year and more, Master Andrew, and I recall how, when I looked not, or was a-digging of some grave, you pelted me with mine own windfalls. And how brave you look, and great and strong. Hast none of thy great strength to spare for Master Philip?"

"I would I had," said Andrew, "in very truth I do. He is sore pressed." Then he took the old hand in his own and shook it-leaving in it a shining new silver crown-and said:

"Leave me here awhile, James. It comes not oft that I can sit beneath my mother's monument-may never come again. Leave me awhile."

The windows of the church were open this bright May day, and through them he heard the dronings of the bees, the bleat of growing lambs and all the sweet country sounds, as he gazed above upon the quaint monument which his brother had had put up to their parents, Philip and Alice Vause. And back to his memory there came again his boyish days, his own turbulent youth and the gentle boyhood of his brother, and how the latter had ever interceded 'twixt him and their father-a stern, disappointed cavalier-saving him many a welting from the paternal cane. And again he thought of the mother he had loved so dear, recalled how she, too, had protected him from many a chastisement, and, as he did so, bent his head forward to the pew rail and said some kind of prayer. Perhaps he prayed for Philip's life to be spared, perhaps-

Yet the days passed very slowly with him; he grew sick and weary of the trout stream and old Squire Giles's hawkings, and the village greens to which he would wander and take a part in quarter-staff with the yokels, or, stripping off his jacket, would, with their simple foils, show them some passes which set them gaping wide with wonder and musing on where Master Andrew had learnt such tricks of fence.

Sick and weary, yet he knew he must not go away. Not yet, at least. Philip grew weaker day by day; the warm end of May and the coming of the leafy June brought no access of strength, but rather greater lassitude. And Andrew, though used to seeing sudden death only-death dealt out by shot and fire and ball, death swift and instantaneous-knew that, when the great summer heats had come, Philip would be no more. The village chirurgeon had told him this, had said that the end drew very near; the lungs were growing weaker day by day, the heart-beats becoming more feeble. Yet he needed no telling-he could see for himself.

But still he did not know who it was who had treated his loved brother so cruelly-and the time was slipping by! Then, at last, on this night, when he said, "tell me all, Philip. I must know what has brought you to this pass," the other seemed disposed to begin his story; perhaps because he, too, knew the hour was near at hand when there would be no more opportunity for the telling thereof. It was so warm that the lattice was open, and Philip, lying on the couch, was opposite to his brother sitting by the open window and inhaling the perfume of the swift-flowering woodbine, and watching the laburnum branches as the soft south wind beat them gently against the casement.

Then suddenly, as though nerved all at once to confide in him he loved, the sick man began:

"I was in London when I met her first: attending the Court, seeking to get from the restored King some recognition of our father's services to his father and his cause. Enough of that-you understand the reward of the Cavalier and the Cavalier's children! A well-bred bow, acquired in courts and cities such as you have seen and know, a winning smile, a gracious greeting, and a blessing-from his lips! a promise-never fulfilled."

"Put not your trust in princes," muttered Andrew, who had not forgotten the regularity with which his mother had taken him to the village church in days gone by.

"Ay; in him least of all. But you know him, you saw him a while ago; perhaps he gave you a promise too-if so, believe it not. Unless it be for his own purpose it will not be fulfilled."

Andrew shrugged his shoulders, and the other went on.

"She was there, fresh come from Dorsetshire, attached to the Duchess of York. Andrew," and he raised himself a little on his elbow as he spoke, "even now, sometimes, by day and night, as I think of it, it seems impossible she could have been so false to me. For, that falsehood should lurk behind her pure innocent eyes, be hidden under her gentle manner, appears incredible. Yet-yet-she was as false as hell."

Andrew shifted his seat a little, crossed the other leg, and said, "Go on."

"Not much to tell. I loved her; she said that she loved me. So-we were engaged to be married. She came here on a visit-she and a friend of hers-and I was very frank with her; told her this must be her home, that our life would be easy, but not luxurious, and she answered, 'It was enough. She cared nothing for Courts, and was only in the suite of the Duchess at her father's desire.'" He paused a moment, then he repeated, "We were engaged to be married."

"Humph!" said Andrew.

"Engaged to be married-the day was fixed. Then-then-oh! Andrew, I never heard from her nor saw her again."

"What had befallen?" asked his brother, gazing, as it seemed, almost listlessly out at the laburnum branches swaying against the diamond panes. "What?"

"Treachery of the deepest, blackest kind. I could have borne very well that she should not love me, but that she should treat me thus-flout and despise me, leave me without a word of regret-that I cannot bear. It has broken my heart."

"Did it do that?" and Andrew's voice was low-thick-as he asked the question.

"Ay, it did. I learnt afterwards from the friend who came with her here, also from her father-who cursed her name as I stood before him in his Dorsetshire home, to which I had gone to seek for her-that for some time, some weeks, she had been much with a Frenchman, a man who had come over with the woman now made Duchess of Portsmouth; that soon 'twas thought they were lovers. And then, one day, they were gone-to France."

"Her name?" asked Andrew, briefly.

"Marion Wyatt."

"And his-this Frenchman's?"

"De Bois-Vallée. He was termed the Vicomte de Bois-Vallée. They said of him that he was a discarded lover of the Frenchwoman, who threw him over when she learned that she was to be the favourite of a King-also that he had fought many duels and was so good a swordsman that he might have been a maître d'armes."

"So, so!" muttered Andrew, nodding his head gently. Then he muttered inwardly, "Perhaps some day we will see for this. Make trial of the Vicomte's skill." Aloud he said:

"You knew that they had gone to France? For sure you knew it?"

"Beyond all doubt. De Bois-Vallée was a bully, it seems, cared for none, vaunted himself as a Frenchman. There was a scene 'twixt him and the woman, De Kéroualle-it was overheard and brought to me-they say even that Charles broke in on him-was insulted, too. And he told the Frenchwoman that, though an Englishman had deprived him of her, he was yet about to be revenged, he would not return to France alone. Tit for tat was fair play-an Englishwoman should replace her. And they say, too, that the King and the Duchess laughed at him, the former telling him he was very welcome, so that he left De Kéroualle behind."

"He kept his word?"

"Ay, he kept his word. The night he left for France she was missing. She had gone out to walk in the garden that gave on the Mall; she came back no more. And he had been seen, this Vicomte, up and down the Mall for some time ere night fell, a coach waiting for him. Seen peering over into the garden, and with some of his countrymen near at hand-ready, no doubt, to interfere if any came to prevent her going with him."

"Has he married her, think you?"

"Heaven knows! Yet almost I think it must be so. She jilted me, but, but-'tis hard to believe she was a wicked, wanton woman. She would not have gone with him unless they were married-or, at least, were soon to be married."

"And this was-when?"

"Three years ago, soon after the Frenchwoman came first to England, brought over in the suite of the Duchess of Orleans."

"'Tis pity you never told me all," said Andrew, "specially since I might have made my way to Paris after Candia!"

"Andrew, I was ashamed, ashamed that even you should know it. And-and-what could you have done?"

"What!" exclaimed his brother. "What! Well! tested the skill of this maître d'armes-perhaps avenged you."

"It might have made a widow of her, left her alone and defenceless in a strange land."

"Possibly!" Andrew replied to this, with the careless shrug of the shoulders which he had learnt unconsciously in his foreign travel. "Possibly!" And again he spoke inwardly to himself, saying, "As I shall do yet-if he has married her."

There was silence after this for some time as they sat in the now gathering darkness, a silence only interrupted by Bridget bringing in the lamps. But when she had left them alone once more, after telling Andrew he was sitting too long with his brother, who by now should be abed, and that she would be back to assist him to it, the former spoke again.

"Bridget hinted a word," he said, "when first I came here, made suggestion that you yourself nourished hopes of punishing this man-this Vicomte de Bois-Vallée," and he pronounced the name clearly, as though to make sure he had learnt it aright-"would have done so had your health been stronger, and you more fit to cope with him."

"I-I would have done so then," poor Philip said, "had I been able to discover he had wronged her as well as me. I was mad, furious, at first. Poor swordsman as I am, I would have tried to find him out; have hurled myself against him; have, even though he had run me through and through, striven to kill him."

"So, so!" said Andrew, "you would have done that had you kept well and strong?"

"God help me! I fear I should."