Immediately I opened the packet. As Doltaire had said, the two books
of poems I had lent Alixe were there, and between the pages of one
lay a letter addressed to me. It was, indeed, a daring thing to make
Doltaire her messenger. But she trusted to his habits of courtesy;
he had no small meannesses--he was no spy or thief.
DEAR ROBERT (the letter ran): I know not if this will ever reach
you, for I am about to try a perilous thing, even to make Monsieur
Doltaire my letter-carrier. Bold as it is, I hope to bring it
through safely.
You must know that my mother now makes Monsieur Doltaire welcome to
our home, for his great talents and persuasion have so worked upon
her that she believes him not so black as he is painted. My father,
too, is not unmoved by his amazing address and complaisance. I do
not think he often cares to use his arts--he is too indolent; but
with my father, my mother, and my sister he has set in motion all
his resources.
Robert, all Versailles is here. This Monsieur Doltaire speaks for
it. I know not if all courts in the world are the same, but if so,
I am at heart no courtier; though I love the sparkle, the sharp
play of wit and word, the very touch-and-go of weapons. I am in
love with life, and I wish to live to be old, very old, that I will
have known it all, from helplessness to helplessness again, missing
nothing, even though much be sad to feel and bear. Robert, I should
have gone on many years, seeing little, knowing little, I think, if
it had not been for you and for your troubles, which are mine, and
for this love of ours, builded in the midst of sorrows. Georgette
is now as old as when I first came to love you, and you were thrown
into the citadel, and yet in feeling and experience, I am ten years
older than she; and necessity has made me wiser. Ah, if necessity
would but make me happy too, by giving you your liberty, that on
these many miseries endured we might set up a sure home. I wonder
if you think--if you think of that: a little home away from all
these wars, aloof from vexing things.
But there! all too plainly I am showing you my heart. Yet it is
so great a comfort to speak on paper to you, in this silence here.
Can you guess where is that HERE, Robert? It is not the Chateau
St. Louis--no. It is not the Manor. It is the chateau, dear Chateau
Alixe--my father has called it that--on the Island of Orleans.
Three days ago I was sick at heart, tired of all the junketings
and feastings, and I begged my mother to fetch me here, though it
is yet but early spring, and snow is on the ground.
First, you must know that this new chateau is built upon, and is
joined to, the ruins of an old one, owned long years ago by the
Baron of Beaugard, whose strange history you must learn some day,
out of the papers we have found here. I begged my father not to
tear the old portions of the manor down, but, using the first
foundations, put up a house half castle and half manor. Pictures
of the old manor were found, and so we have a place that is no
patchwork, but a renewal. I made my father give me the old
surviving part of the building for my own, and so it is.
It is all set on high ground abutting on the water almost at the
point where I am, and I have the river in my sight all day. Now,
think yourself in the new building. You come out of a dining-hall,
hung all about with horns and weapons and shields and such bravery,
go through a dark, narrow passage, and then down a step or two.
You open a door, bright light breaks on your eyes, then two steps
lower, and you are here with me. You might have gone outside the
dining-hall upon a stone terrace, and so have come along to the
deep window where I sit so often. You may think of me hiding in the
curtains, watching you, though you knew it not till you touched the
window and I came out quietly, startling you, so that your heart
would beat beyond counting.
As I look up towards the window, the thing first in sight is the
cage, with the little bird which came to me in the cathedral the
morning my brother got lease of life again: you DO remember--is it
not so? It never goes from my room, and though I have come here
but for a week I muffled the cage well and brought it over; and
there the bird swings and sings the long day through. I have heaped
the window-seats with soft furs, and one of these I prize most
rarely. It was a gift--and whose, think you? Even a poor soldier's.
You see I have not all friends among the great folk. I often lie
upon that soft robe of sable--ay, sable, Master Robert--and think
of him who gave it to me. Now I know you are jealous, and I can see
your eyes flash up. But you shall at once be soothed. It is no other
than Gabord's gift. He is now of the Governor's body-guard, and
I think is by no means happy, and would prefer service with the
Marquis de Montcalm, who goes not comfortably with the Intendant
and the Governor.
One day Gabord came to our house on the ramparts, and, asking
for me, blundered out, "Aho, what shall a soldier do with sables?
They are for gentles and for wrens to snuggle in. Here comes a
Russian count oversea, and goes mad in tavern. Here comes Gabord,
and saves count from ruddy crest for kissing the wrong wench. Then
count falls on Gabord's neck, and kisses both his ears, and gives
him sables, and crosses oversea again; and so good-bye to count and
his foolery. And sables shall be ma'm'selle's, if she will have
them." He might have sold the thing for many louis, and yet he
brought it to me; and he would not go till he had seen me sitting
on it, muffling my hands and face in the soft fur.
Just now, as I am writing, I glance at the table where I sit--a
small brown table of oak, carved with the name of Felise,
Baroness of Beaugard. She sat here; and some day, when you hear
her story, you will know why I begged Madame Lotbiniere to give
it to me in exchange for another, once the King's. Carved, too,
beneath her name, are the words, "Oh, tarry thou the Lord's
leisure."
And now you shall laugh with me at a droll thing Georgette has
given me to wipe my pen upon. There are three little circles of
deerskin and one of ruby velvet, stitched together in the centre.
Then, standing on the velvet is a yellow wooden chick, with little
eyes of beads, and a little wooden bill stuck in most quaintly,
and a head that twists like a weathercock. It has such a piquant
silliness of look that I laugh at it most heartily, and I have an
almost elfish fun in smearing its downy feathers. I am sure you
did not think I could be amused so easily. You shall see this silly
chick one day, humorously ugly and all daubed with ink.
There is a low couch in one corner of the room, and just above
hangs a picture of my mother. In another corner is a little shelf
of books, among them two which I have studied constantly since you
were put in prison--your great Shakespeare, and the writings of one
Mr. Addison. I had few means of studying at first, so difficult
it seemed, and all the words sounded hard; but there is your
countryman, one Lieutenant Stevens of Rogers' Rangers, a prisoner,
and he has helped me, and is ready to help you when the time comes
for stirring. I teach him French; and though I do not talk of you,
he tells me in what esteem you are held in Virginia and in England,
and is not slow to praise you on his own account, which makes me
more forgiving when he would come to sentiment!
In another corner is my spinning-wheel, and there stands a
harpsichord, just where the soft sun sends in a ribbon of light;
and I will presently play for you a pretty song. I wonder if you
can hear it? Where I shall sit at the harpsichord the belt of
sunlight will fall across my shoulder, and, looking through the
window, I shall see your prison there on the Heights; the silver
flag with its gold lilies on the Chateau St. Louis; the great
guns of the citadel; and far off at Beauport the Manor House and
garden which you and I know so well, and the Falls of Montmorenci,
falling like white flowing hair from the tall cliff.
You will care to know of how these months have been spent, and
what news of note there is of the fighting between our countries.
No matters of great consequence have come to our ears, save that
it is thought your navy may descend on Louisburg; that Ticonderoga
is also to be set upon, and Quebec to be besieged in the coming
summer. From France the news is various. Now, Frederick of Prussia
and England defeat the allies, France, Russia, and Austria; now,
they, as Monsieur Doltaire says, "send the great Prussian to
verses and the megrims." For my own part, I am ever glad to hear
that our cause is victorious, and letters that my brother writes
me rouse all my ardour for my country. Juste has grown in place
and favour, and in his latest letter he says that Monsieur
Doltaire's voice has got him much advancement. He also remarks
that Monsieur Doltaire has reputation for being one of the most
reckless, clever, and cynical men in France. Things that he has
said are quoted at ball and rout. Yet the King is angry with him,
and La Pompadour's caprice may send him again to the Bastile.
These things Juste heard from D'Argenson, Minister of War, through
his secretary, with whom he is friendly.
I will now do what I never thought to do: I will send you here
some extracts from my journal, which will disclose to you the
secrets of a girl's troubled heart. Some folk might say that I am
unmaidenly in this. But I care not, I fear not.
December 24. I was with Robert to-day. I let him see what trials I
had had with Monsieur Doltaire, and what were like to come. It hurt
me to tell him, yet it would have hurt me more to withhold them. I
am hurt whichever way it goes. Monsieur Doltaire rouses the worst
parts of me. On the one hand I detest him for his hatred of Robert
and for his evil life, yet on the other I must needs admire him for
his many graces--why are not the graces of the wicked horrible?--for
his singular abilities, and because, gamester though he may be, he
is no public robber. Then, too, the melancholy of his birth and
history claims some sympathy. Sometimes when I listen to him speak,
hear the almost piquant sadness of his words, watch the spirit of
isolation which, by design or otherwise, shows in him, for the
moment I am conscious of a pity or an interest which I flout in
wiser hours. This is his art, the potent danger of his personality.
To-night he came, and with many fine phrases wished us a happy
day to-morrow, and most deftly worked upon my mother and Georgette
by looking round and speaking with a quaint sort of raillery--half
pensive, it was--of the peace of this home-life of ours; and indeed,
he did it so inimitably that I was not sure how much was false
and how much true. I tried to avoid him to-day, but my mother as
constantly made private speech between us easy. At last he had
his way, and then I was not sorry; for Georgette was listening to
him with more colour than she is wont to wear. I would rather see
her in her grave than with her hand in his, her sweet life in his
power. She is unschooled in the ways of the world, and she never
will know it as I now do. How am I sounding all the depths! Can a
woman walk the dance with evil, and be no worse for it by-and-bye?
Yet for a cause, for a cause! What can I do? I can not say,
"Monsieur Doltaire, you must not speak with me, or talk with me;
you are a plague-spot." No, I must even follow this path, so it
but lead at last to Robert and his safety.
Monsieur, having me alone at last, said to me, "I have kept my
word as to the little boast: this Captain Moray still lives."
"You are not greater than I thought," said I.
He professed to see but one meaning in my words, and answered,
"It was then mere whim to see me do this thing, a lady's curious
mind, eh? My faith, I think your sex are the true scientists:
you try experiment for no other reason than to see effect."
"You forget my deep interest in Captain Moray," said I, with airy
boldness.
He laughed. He was disarmed. How could he think I meant it! "My
imagination halts," he rejoined. "Millennium comes when you are
interested. And yet," he continued, "it is my one ambition to
interest you, and I will do it, or I will say my prayers no more."
"But how can that be done no more,
Which ne'er was done before?"