CHAPTER XHO! FOR ORLAMUNDE
AT five o’clock, Roger found Berwick waiting for him at the Porte St. Martin, and then taking the road briskly, they arrived at St. Germains before eight o’clock.
In the guard-room, they were told that the company of gentlemen-at-arms had got marching orders, and on the next morning would be reviewed by the King for the last time. All of these men had strange and mixed feelings. They were to descend outwardly from their estate of gentlemen, and become common soldiers, as far as their pay and duty were concerned. But they were to rank with the musketeers of the French King, of whom both rank and file were gentlemen; nor could any except a gentleman be of this picked corps, and the Duke of Berwick was to command them. These Jacobite gentlemen regarded themselves naturally as both heroes and martyrs, and being bold and adventurous spirits, the thought of the coming campaign, under the great Maréchal de Luxembourg, gave them rather relief as a blessed change from the tedium of St. Germains, and the piteous sight of their royal master, whom they were unable to help. And so, with pain and joy, with hope and with sad retrospection they performed their last guard duty.
On the morrow, the commandant of the guard, General Buchan, paraded it under arms for the lasttime as the household troops of James Stuart. It was a sombre February morning, the snow flying, and a bitter wind cutting the keen air. They were formed in the courtyard of the château, facing the main entrance. General Buchan was at their head. They remained motionless for a few minutes,—a soldierly body of men, each man an exile for conscience’ sake.
Then, walking down the stairway, came the poor King, leaning on the arm of Berwick, and holding by the other hand the little Prince of Wales. Leaving the child to Berwick, the King came into the courtyard, and beginning with the commandant passed down the line, and wrote down in his pocket-book the name and rank of every one of them, thanking each man particularly for his loyalty. The last name the king wrote down was that of Roger Egremont, Gentleman, of Egremont in Devonshire. To Roger he said,—
“You have given up a noble heritage to follow your king, Mr. Egremont.”
“Sir,” replied Roger. “I durst not do otherwise, as I am a true man.”
The King then addressed them, speaking not without a certain majesty,—for James Stuart bore his sorrows manfully, without complaint or repining. He said,—
THEN, WALKING DOWN THE STAIRWAY, CAME THE POOR KINGTHEN, WALKING DOWN THE STAIRWAY, CAME THE POOR KING
THEN, WALKING DOWN THE STAIRWAY, CAME THE POOR KING
THEN, WALKING DOWN THE STAIRWAY, CAME THE POOR KING
“Gentlemen, my own misfortunes are not so nigh my heart as yours. It grieves me beyond what I can express to see so many brave and worthy gentlemen who had once the prospect of being the chief officers in my army reduced to the stations of private soldiers. The sense of what all of you have done and undergone for your loyalty hath made so deep an impression on my heart that if it please God to restore me, it is impossible I can be forgetful of your services and sufferings. Neithercan there be any posts in my armies but what you may have just pretensions to. As for my son, your Prince, he is of your own blood; and as his education will be from you it is not supposable he can ever forget your merits. At your own desire you are now going a long march, far distant from me. I have taken care to provide you with money, shoes and stockings, and other necessaries. Fear God and love one another. Write all your wants particularly to me, and depend upon it always to find in me your father and King.”[1]
To this, General Buchan replied for the corps; speaking briefly and strongly, as men in their sad and desperate case should speak.
“For the sake of your Majesty we will submit to the meanest circumstances and undergo the greatest hardships and fatigues that reason can imagine or misfortune can inflict until God shall please to restore you and us to our own.”
The King at this took off his hat and bowed his gray head low to them. Then he turned and walked a few steps away, up the stairway, where stood the little Prince of Wales, silent and wondering, and clinging to Berwick. And having gone a little way, the King returned, still carrying his hat in his hand, and bowed low again to the corps—and then burst into a passion of tears.
At this the guard as one man kneeled and bent their eyes on the ground, and presently rising, passed the King, the tears streaming down his furrowed cheeks, and gave him all the royal honors.
When the parade was dismissed Roger Egremont went back to the palace. Outside, in the gardens, he met Berwick walking with the little Prince of Walesand his governor. The lad, his hand within that of his half-brother, was pleading,—
“Ask the Queen, my mother, if you may take me into the forest to play.”
“Not to-day, my Prince,” replied Berwick, gently trying to loosen his hand.
Roger kneeled, and the little fellow was compelled to let go Berwick’s hand in order to receive upon his own hand Roger’s loyal kiss.
The child went off discontentedly, looking back at Berwick who was smiling at him, and Roger whose face was grave.
“When do we start for Orlamunde?” asked Roger, after a while.
“In a couple of days, perhaps, or possibly not for a week. I await word from Marly.”
Roger reflected; he could not go to Clermont to see Dicky, but he knew of a messenger going there, and Dicky might get permission from his superiors to come to St. Germains; there was little difficulty in the English seminarists going to and fro. So Roger hastened to his garret at Madame Michot’s and scratched a hasty line to Dicky; then finding his man in the village sent off the note, and began making his preparations to start at an hour’s notice.
He had not much to do; your man whose purse is light and his wardrobe scanty, can make ready in a little while to go to the ends of the earth. He looked around his great, bare room with the affection one feels for a place where one has been well treated. Yes, it was in that garret, on that narrow, hard bed, that he had dreamed his first dreams about Michelle. He had thought it a palace after Newgate gaol. He went down to the common room, which was quite deserted at thathour, asked Madame Michot for his score, and paid it like a gentleman, without looking at it, saying,—
“I am leaving shortly for the campaign in the Low Countries, and wish to settle my affairs before the last hour before departure comes.”
Madame Michot expressed her regret at his going. Mr. Egremont had been so pleasant always, but so were all of the gentlemen who frequented her house.
“And madam,” said Roger, with an elaborate affectation of carelessness, “I hope you will continue to bestow your friendship on Miss Lukens.”
“I will; never fear,” replied Madame Michot; and Roger, floundering awkwardly, being at a loss for ideas as well as words, added,—
“If you would keep an eye upon her—”
Madame Michot’s mouth came open in a broad smile.
“It is hardly worth while for me to promise that, Mr. Egremont,” she said. “I know of no one better able to take care of herself than Miss Lukens; and if she takes it into her head to misbehave, I know of no one strong enough to stop her.”
At which Roger laughed and went his way. He reckoned Madame Michot as one of Bess Lukens’s most powerful friends.
On the third day Roger had an intimation that they would start on the following morning at sunrise. He had heard no word from Dicky, and feared he could not come to St. Germains. That day he spent strolling through the places grown dear to him in that past year. He walked through the forest. Spring was at hand, and the trees knew it. The brown earth was soft under his feet, and there was a faint blue haze over all the woods and fields and thickets. He had thought, when he first came to St. Germains, that he would not set forth fromit until he should take the highroad for Calais, and thence to England. He had no more forgotten his own land and Egremont than the Jewish captives had forgotten their country when they wept by the waters of Babylon. Every time he looked upon the fair face of Nature, or heard her voice, it spoke to him of his home. For so long it had been all he had to love! When the wind blew softly, it brought him recollections of the wind that wandered through the laurel copse and sported upon the wide, green lawn at the south corner of Egremont. When it rained he could shut his eyes and dream he was in the little tower room where he slept as a boy, and that the pattering drops were coming down upon the tiled roof of the buttery hatch below his window. Sunshine and starshine, night and day, morning and evening, in France, were transformed in his eyes to England, and this dream of his home seemed real, and the foreign country round about him unreal. And with every thought of Egremont came the fixed determination to make Hugo Stein pay dearly for every hour that he had kept the rightful master out of his own.
Thinking these and other poignant thoughts, he descended from the heights into the lovely valley of the Seine. He passed the lodge gates of the place where dwelt Michelle—he could not see the château for the trees. He walked to the place where he had first seen her,—the little retired strip of meadow, with the old rose trees scattered about it. The spring had been farther advanced then,—it was not quite a year,—yet he had lived so much more in that time than in any other year of his life that it seemed a vast space of time. It occurred to him that he had already lived an eternity, although he was not six and twenty years old. Fewmen had known such outward vicissitudes; none that he knew had experienced those inner changes. He had gone into Newgate prison one man—he had come out of it another man. He was by nature and birth a country gentleman—he was about to become a soldier of fortune. Yet, such was the true, adventurous nature of the man that he thrilled with joy at the thought of the chances and changes, the delights and the dangers of the life upon which he was to enter.
He could see the terrace from the valley, as he strolled along. The sun was shining, and coaches were driving slowly up and down, and people were leaning over the parapet. He did not go near them,—he was in no mood for people then. He climbed the vast stone stairs which lead from the meadow to the terrace, and sat on the stone benches by the way, and looking about him, asked himself, as all men do on leaving a place for a new life, “Shall ever I see this place again?”
He returned to the inn in the afternoon. On the way he passed Berwick on horseback, riding fast, with his servant behind him.
He stopped, leaned over in his saddle, and said in Roger’s ear, “We ride to-morrow at sunrise.”
Roger literally ran back to the inn. There were a few of his modest preparations to be finished. He would not give up hope of seeing Dicky until the last, and so would not write him a last letter. At eight o’clock he dressed himself,notin his new suit of green and silver, and went to the palace. He had not the heart to flaunt his peach-colored waistcoat in the face of the King and Queen. He had heard the ladies say that the Queen had dressed quite shabbily of late,—although to him she ever appeared majestic in dress as in everything else; but he had no eyes for frayed brocades and mendedlace. The King always dressed plainly, and fine clothes were so rare at the palace that a new gala suit was sure to cause something like a panic.
He stopped for a half-hour in the Hall of Guards—for although there were no longer any guards, yet these gentlemen frequented their old quarters.
There were numbers of the late corps present, all eager for the coming campaign, and all bearing their melancholy fortune with cheerfulness and even gayety—especially the Irish gentlemen, whose spirits rose mightily at the prospect of fighting.
In the great saloon above, the King and Queen were, not sitting in state as the French princes and princesses did, but walking about, and motioning those to whom they talked to sit at ease. The King, beckoning to Roger, said to him,—
“Mr. Egremont, I was gratified to give your services, with those of the Duke of Berwick, to my brother the French King, for the temporary service he intends, before you join the Maréchal de Luxembourg. Yet in you I have lost the best penman I ever had.”
“I thank your Majesty for that word,” replied Roger, inwardly congratulating himself on having exchanged the pen for the sword.
And then the Queen called him to her, and told him smilingly that the little Prince of Wales had asked that Mr. Roger Egremont be made his governor, because he told such beautiful stories of bears and lions. Roger had sometimes amused the child with tales.
He was looking all the time for Michelle, with small hope of seeing her. But presently he heard Madame de Beaumanoir cackling in the distance, and in another minute she appeared, with Mademoiselle d’Orantia, and François in attendance.
Madame de Beaumanoir always made a flutter at her entrance, even into the presence of royalty. She chose a way of praising her ever adored King Charles before King James, which made that now strait-laced and deeply religious monarch writhe in his chair. It was—“One day, at the Duchess of Portsmouth’s—he! he! your Majesty, what gay days we had at Louisa Kéroualle’s!” Or—“I never could abide that Mistress Eleanor Gwyn, with her orange-girl ways. Your Majesty never approved of Nell Gwyn, that I know;” at which King James, who had been no Puritan himself in those days, but who had repented, hummed and ha’d, and glanced uneasily around him, and fancied a lurking smile on every face. And so the King, after speaking to her, usually made haste to get out of her company. To-night he pleaded pressing business in his closet, and retired from the face of his tormentor. The Queen remained, and a certain Scotch gentleman, who played a good fiddle offered to play for the dancing of those present. A recruit was found in the person of another gentleman, who played the viol da gamba; so they had an impromptu little ball, the Queen looking on smilingly from her chair at the top of the room. There were jigs and reels and rigadoons, the Scotch and Irish gentlemen excelling in these merry dances. Roger, who was a fine dancer, fairly rivalled them and altogether distanced even the Scotch and Irish in theminuet de la cour. He had never seen Mademoiselle d’Orantia dance any of these informal dances, but to-night she did jig and reel, rigadoon and strathspey with an incomparable merriment and grace. Roger had the anguish to see General Buchan take her hand for the minuet, and in consequence he retired and sulked in a corner.
It was known that Madame de Beaumanoir andMichelle were leaving the next morning for Orlamunde, and that Berwick and Roger Egremont were to go Rhinewards with them. There was keen curiosity to know why the ladies should go to Orlamunde, but beyond the fact that they went at the request of the French King, no information was to be had. Mademoiselle d’Orantia simply declined to be pumped. Madame de Beaumanoir frankly admitted she knew nothing about it, except that all her expenses were paid, and she should not stay a day at Orlamunde longer than she pleased—if she had to risk alettre de cachetby returning home.
All last things are sad; Roger could not but think Michelle’s merriment put on, with her peach-colored satin gown, and pearl chain. At last, however, it was time to go home; the gentlemen fiddlers grew tired of fiddling. The King sent for Roger Egremont into the royal closet, where he found Berwick and the Queen.
“I have sent for you to say good-bye and God-speed to you, Mr. Egremont,” he said. “The Duke of Berwick has my instructions. If I should never see you more, remember I am your King and father, and have ever found in you a good and dutiful subject and son.”
And Roger, on his knee, kissed the hands of the King and Queen, and sent his duty to the Prince of Wales, and professed himself ready to die for the rights of his master, if dying could help them. The Queen too thanked him, bending upon him those glorious Italian eyes of hers, once so proud and laughing, and now so serene and full of sorrow majestically borne. Roger rose and backed out of the royal presence, leaving Berwick behind, who made him an unseen motion with his thumb, which was the magic signal for a night at the inn of Michot.
Roger left the palace, and walked fast through thetown, under the white moon and stars, toward the inn,—the last evening there too. As usual at that hour, there was great commotion in the common room; and as Roger entered the great door and passed Madame Michot, on her platform, a boyish figure ran forward and clasped him—it was Dicky.
“Ah, my lad, I thought you would not let me get away without seeing me,” cried Roger, delightedly.
“For sure, I would not, Roger,” replied Dicky, “but you know I can’t come and go like you gentlemen of the sword. I have to get permission from my superiors.”
“So do we,” said Roger, laughing, and drawing Dicky toward the punch bowl, which Ogilvie the Irish gentleman, was stirring something in, vigorously; “I know of monstrous few men who don’t have to ask some one’s consent for all they do. But now that you are here, Dicky boy, you shall make a night of it, and you can have from now until Christmas to do penance.”
The gentleman with the fiddle entered then, and then began one of the great joys of the Jacobites, the singing of songs to the confusion of their enemies. The weaker party must have its revenge, sure; and the revenge of the Jacobites was to make the finest songs ever sung, some of them full of wild longings for their country, and trolled forth with moist eyes, and choking of the throats of men; others, shouted out, proclaiming everlasting constancy to their King, and a willingness to do and die for him; others again, a roar of vengeance against traitors and ingrates, robbers and despoilers,—no epithet was vile enough for William of Orange, no scathing contempt bitter enough for the ungrateful daughters of the King,—and sung with a fervor that came from the souls of all who sang, and went to the souls of all who listened. At the choruses every manjoined in, whether he could sing musically or not; at least he could stand upon his legs, and shout out the sentiments which filled his heart. Poor souls; it was all the revenge they had, unless it was to see William of Orange having his own troubles with his English parliament; Mary, his wife, wretched and jealous, dying prematurely, and at enmity with all of the same blood as herself; poor foolish Anne, mourning the loss of her many children, and of her husband, and on her death-bed vainly crying out, begging that the justice she refused her brother should be done him. The Stuarts, too, were an unhappy race, but it is remarkable that they all knew how to make their exit, and had always some one to weep for them as they lay a-dying.
The evening was exactly like many those same men had spent in that same place, but it was the last. When, at the end, they all stood up and roared out their last song, it was to dub their company “the Devil’s Own,”—a name not wholly inappropriate; and then, in the midst of the carousing and shouting, it came over them that it was their last evening in that hospitable place; they grew suddenly quiet as they drank to the King, and afterward went soberly off.
Roger and Dicky went up to the garret, where a rude pallet was spread on the floor for Dicky.
They sat late, talking, looking out upon the river and the valley, until the moon, faint and pallid, sank out of sight, and the earth grew dark, while the heavens were bright with stars.
Roger told all of his affairs to Dicky, even of the journey all the way to Orlamunde,—all, that is, except the most important; and that was his deep and hopeless passion for Mademoiselle d’Orantia; but this, Dicky guessed for himself.
“And, Roger, do you know it is quite possible that I may be ordained and go to England before you come back?” said Dicky. This meant that he might face imprisonment and death before they should meet again.
“I cannot gainsay thee, boy,” said Roger, kindly; “you ever had an adventurous spirit,—’tis too much like my own for me to rebuke it, although you wear a gown and I a sword. And, Dicky, forget not poor Bess Lukens; though why should I call her poor? She hath now more pounds than we have shillings, I dare say, and seems singularly happy and content. She values our friendship, and I think she likes to say the Egremonts are her friends. She does not realize how little our service is worth, poor and exiled as we are. Pray, when you can get leave, go and see her.”
“Indeed I will; I never saw an honester creature in all my life than that girl.”
Dicky knew nothing of man’s love for woman, except by observation, but he saw that Roger Egremont was not in the least in love with Red Bess. Then they lay down to rest; Roger’s last conscious sight was of Dicky kneeling and praying very earnestly by the unshuttered window.
“Pray for me, Dicky,” he said sleepily, and in another moment he was walking in the forest with Michelle, who put her hand in his and told him she was going to Orlamunde to marry him, and kissed him with great delight.
At daylight he was awakened by Dicky, fully dressed in his seminarist’s gown.
“Get up, Roger. I am now going to have Merrylegs fed, and your breakfast will be waiting,—you have less than an hour to sunrise.”
The sun was just tipping the tops of the half-baretrees with golden light, when Roger and Dicky reached the edge of the forest, where they were to meet Berwick and Madame de Beaumanoir’s party. They walked, Dicky with his black robe tucked up, and his light-blue, laughing, honest eyes shining under his beretta, Roger leading Merrylegs, on whom was strapped a small portmanteau, which contained all the worldly possessions of the head of the house of Egremont. This included the little bag of earth from Egremont, without which Roger had never slept a single night since that last night at his home, nearly four years before. They soon reached the appointed place of meeting, on the forest’s edge, and Berwick, ever the most punctual of men, was on the spot as soon as they were. He rode a fine gray gelding, and his servant was riding another horse, and leading a packhorse, upon which he nimbly strapped Roger’s little portmanteau. And in another minute there was a great rattling of wheels and trampling of hoofs heard on the road from the château, where it touched the highroad and Madame de Beaumanoir’s equipage came in sight.
It was a cavalcade. First came the berline of the Duchess. She had fought hard to travel in her great gilt coach, but the impossibility of getting it through the passes of the Vosges daunted even her high spirit. The berline was horsed with only a pair, but behind the baggage wagon which followed, were led two other horses. The baggage wagon contained the maître d’hôtel, a footman who acted as coachman, and a couple of lady’s-maids. Behind all rode François Delaunay, glad to escape from the berline and the company of his benefactors; and Mademoiselle d’Orantia rode beside him.
She wore a black riding-suit with a black hat, under which her dark eyes were lustrous. She rode with incomparablegrace, and as her delicate figure was outlined against the bright sky of sunrise, Roger thought he had never seen her look so handsome. He remembered that she was not always handsome, but when she bloomed, as it were, she shone with a dazzling and brilliant beauty which was a charming surprise.
Madame de Beaumanoir, sitting in solitary state in the berline had a long cane with a jewelled head to it in her hand, with which she prodded the bewigged coachman and footman who sat upon the box. As soon as the party drew up she began to screech,—
“Here I am, my lads. This dull court was dull enough at best; but after you, Berwick, and Mr. Egremont and I go away, ’twill be like a dissenters’ meeting,—the sort my nephew François would frequent if I would let him.”
François bore this gibe with meekness, and Berwick engaging the old lady in conversation, Roger had a chance to speak with Michelle, who had drawn up her horse by the roadside.
“Do you contemplate making much of the journey a-horseback, mademoiselle?” asked Roger.
“All of it, Mr. Egremont,” replied Michelle, promptly. “You may remember, the second time we met, I told you that I longed to ride by night and day, and to know how it feels to sleep with the earth for a bed and the sky for a roof.”
When a woman recollects, a year after, what she said to a man the second time she met him, that man may count on her having a singular regard for him. And Roger Egremont, who was not unlearned in women, felt his pulses tingle when she spoke. He suspected it was an inadvertence, but it was not less delicious on that account.
Michelle spoke kindly to Dicky, who had seen her many times before, but whose youth and profession and lack of consequence had made him keep his distance.
“I wish you good fortune,” she said smilingly. “I know not when I shall see France again, but I shall hope to see you then.”
“I rather hope, madam,” replied Dicky, blushing very much, “that we shall meet again in England.”
Madame de Beaumanoir, catching sight of Dicky, called out,—
“So that’s the young Egremont who is to be a Jesuit, and to go to England to be hanged for it.”
“A man can die but once,” answered Dicky, very readily, but blushing still more; “and if I am to be hanged, I feel sure an English hangman would do the job better, in less time, and in a manner more becoming a gentleman, than a hangman of any other country whatever.”
“Why, boy,” cried the old Duchess, “I did not dream your black beretta had so much wit under it; and you are comely too, like the Egremonts—too comely for a priest. Cast off that black robe, and be a cavalier, and marry some charming girl with a fortune.”
To which Dicky had enough of the ineffable impudence of the Egremonts to reply,—
“Alas, madam, the lady who might win me from my vocation is far above me, being a Duchess, and, although still young, is older than I—” at which Madame de Beaumanoir screeched with delight, and Roger made a note in his pocket-book.
“Mem.: To write to Mr. Richard Egremont’s superior at Clermont and say that Mr. Egremont shows signs of abandoning his profession.”
“You should hear him fiddle, and hear him sing; no lark ever had a sweeter note,” said Berwick. At this the old lady declared she must and should take Dicky by force to Orlamunde.
It was, however, time then to start. Dicky bowed low to the ladies, and François wrung Berwick’s hand, and Dicky and Roger hugged each other like a couple of schoolboys. Roger sprung on Merrylegs, and Dicky disappeared into the forest. By running fast he could reach a point where the highroad was visible and he could see his more than brother once more.
There seemed nothing to delay the moving of the cavalcade, but yet no move was made. Madame de Beaumanoir explained the hitch in a manner very unlike her usual careless merriment. She said, quite grimly,—
“I must await the letter containing the precious secret of the King of France. A secret forsooth! As if all the kings of France could keep me from finding it out! Your politicians are ever as blind as bats. They never dream that any one can find out anything!”
Just then a great dust was seen on the highroad from Marly, and a gentleman on a briskly galloping horse rode up to them. It was Monsieur de Sennécy, one of the gentlemen in attendance on the French King. He dismounted, and taking from his pocket two letters, addressed and sealed by the French King, he handed one to Madame de Beaumanoir, and the other to the Princess Michelle. Madame de Beaumanoir received hers singularly for a person to receive a letter from the Grand Monarque. She turned the letter over slowly, her usually merry, keen old face quite grave, and looking full at Michelle broke the seal. There were only a few lines, which she read at a glance andthen, turning to Michelle and then to Berwick, said, meaningly,—
“As if I did not know it! Well—may no harm come of it.”
Michelle held her letter in her hand, and grew ashy pale, fingering it instead of opening it.
“You know the contents, mademoiselle?” said Monsieur de Sennécy, in a surprised voice. Michelle’s pallor and agitation could not be overlooked.
“Certainly, monsieur,” replied Michelle, with an effort; and then, with a supreme struggle, she regained her composure, opened the letter, which was a long one, read it through steadily, kissed the King’s signature at the end, and then looking up, fixed her eyes on Roger Egremont, although she spoke to Monsieur de Sennécy.
“Say to the King that all his commands shall be strictly fulfilled—and I am his dutiful subject.”
As Michelle’s eyes sought him, Roger Egremont had a strange sensation, and moreover, he was vexed and uncomfortable at being the only person in the party who was not in the secret. Berwick’s face was inscrutable; the French gentleman looked a little surprised at the way his communications had been received, and somewhat haughtily bowed as he remounted, wishing them a pleasant journey. The old Duchess screamed after him, “Tell your master that I am going to Orlamunde for my own pleasure, and I shall not stay a day longer than it pleases me, if I am put in the Bastille for it. I know he will never dare to deliver my message,” she added to her listeners; and then they set out upon their journey.