Had there been any onlooker or any listener at that interview now
taking place in the old house at Parson's Green, either the eyes of
the one or the ears of the other could not have failed to be impressed
by what they saw or heard.
Above all, no observer could have failed to be impressed by the
character of the elder man, Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough and
Monmouth, who, although so outwardly calm, was in truth all fire
within.
For this man, who was now forty-seven years of age, had led--and was
still to lead for another thirty years--a life more wild and stirring
than are the dreams of ordinary men. As a boy he had seen service at
sea against the Tripoli corsairs, he had next fought at Tangiers, and,
on the death of Charles II., had been the most violent antagonist of
the Papist King James. An exile next in Holland, he had proposed to
the Prince of Orange the very scheme which, when eventually adopted,
placed that ungracious personage on the English throne, yet, at the
time, he had received nothing but snubs for his pains. He had, after
this, escaped shipwreck by a miracle, and, later, lay a political
prisoner in the Tower, from which he emerged to become not long
afterwards Governor of Jamaica. In days still to come he was to
capture Barcelona by a scheme which his allies considered to be, when
it was first proposed to them, the dream of a maniac; he was to rescue
beautiful duchesses and interesting nuns and other _religieuses_ from
the violence of the people, to be then sent back to England as a man
haunted by chimeras, next to be given the command of a regiment, to be
made a Knight of the Garter, and to be appointed an Ambassador. Nor
was this all. He flew from capital to capital as other men made trips
from Middlesex to Surrey; one of his principal amusements was planting
the seeds and pruning the trees in his garden with his own hands; he
would buy his own provisions and cook them himself in his beautiful
villa, and he was for many years married to a young and lovely wife,
who had been a public singer, and whom he never acknowledged until his
death was close at hand.
As still Lord Peterborough foraged among the mass of papers on the
table, turning over one after the other, and sometimes half a dozen
together, Bevill Bracton recognised that he was seeking for some
particular scroll or document amidst the confused heap.
"What is it, my lord?" the young man asked. "Can I assist you?"
"Nay. If I cannot find what I want for myself, 'tis very certain none
can do it for me. Ah!" he suddenly exclaimed, pouncing down like an
eagle on a large, square piece of paper which was undoubtedly a
letter. "Ah! here 'tis. A letter from the woman who is to give you
your chance."
"I protest I do not comprehend----"
"You will do so in time. Bevill," his lordship went on, "do you
remember some ten years ago, before you got your colours in the
Cuirassiers and, consequently, before you lost them, a little child
who played about out there?" and the Earl's eyes were directed towards
the great tulip tree on the lawn.
"Why, yes, in very truth I do. I played with her oft, though being
several years older than she. A child with large, grey eyes fringed
with dark lashes; a girl who promised to be more than ordinary tall
some day; one well-favoured too. I do recall her very well. She was
the child of a friend of yours, and her name was--was--Sophia, was it
now?--or Susan? Or----"
"Neither; her name was Sylvia, and is so still--Sylvia Thorne."
"Sylvia Thorne--ay, that is it. She promised to become passing fair."
"She is passing fair--or was, when I saw her last, two years ago. She
is not vastly altered if I may judge by this," and Lord Peterborough
went to a cabinet standing by one of the windows and, after opening a
drawer, came back holding in his hand a miniature.
"Regard her," he said to Bracton, as he handed him the miniature;
"learn to know what Sylvia Thorne is like. Learn to know the form and
features of the woman who may lead to restoring you to all you would
have, or--you are brave, so I may say it--send you to your doom."
"Why," Bracton exclaimed while looking at the miniature and, in actual
fact, scarce hearing Lord Peterborough's words, so occupied was he,
"she is beautiful. Tall, stately, queen-like, lovely. Can that little
child have grown to this in ten years?"
In absolute fact the encomiums the young man passed upon the form and
features that met his eye were well deserved.
The miniature, a large one, displayed a full, or almost full length
portrait of a young woman of striking beauty. It depicted a young
woman whose head was not yet disfigured by any wig, so that the dark
chestnut hair, in which there was now and again a glint of that ruddy
gold such as the old Venetians loved to paint, waved free and
unconfined above her forehead. And the eyes were as Bevill Bracton
recalled them, grey, and shrouded with long dark lashes. Only, now,
they were the eyes of a woman, or one who was close on the threshold
of womanhood, and not those of a little child; while a straight, small
nose and a small mouth on which there lurked a smile that had in it
something of gravity, if not of sadness, completed the picture. As for
her form, she was indeed "more than common tall," and, since there was
no suspicion of hoop beneath the rich black velvet dress she wore,
Bracton supposed that it was donned for some ball or festival.
"She is beautiful!" he exclaimed again. "Beautiful!"
"Ay, and good and true," Lord Peterborough said. "Look deep into those
eyes and see if any lie is hidden therein; look on those lips and
ponder if they are highroads through which falsehood is like to pass."
"It is impossible. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, as poets
say, then truth, and naught but truth, shelters behind them. And this
is Sylvia Thorne But still--still--I do not comprehend. How shall she
bring me before my Lord Marlborough? How advance my hopes and desires?
Stands she so high that she has power with him?"
"She is a prisoner of France."
"What? She, this beautiful girl, she a prisoner of France, of
chivalrous France, for chivalrous France is, though our eternal foe?"
"Yes, in company with some thousands of others, mostly Walloons--muddy
Hollanders all--and mighty few English, if any. She is shut up in
Liége, and the whole bishopric of Liége is in the hands of France
under the command of De Boufflers."
"What does she there--she, this handsome English girl, in a town of
Flanders now possessed by the French--she whom, I take it, since now I
begin to comprehend--and very well I do!--I am to rescue?"
"One question is best answered at a time. Martin Thorne, her father,
was my oldest friend. When James mounted the throne of England he,
like your father and myself, was one of those honest adherents of the
Stuarts who could not abide the practices James put in motion. He
himself had been in exile with Charles and James while Cromwell lived,
and he, again like your father, went into exile when James became a
Papist."
"My father never returned from abroad," Bevill remarked.
"I know--I know. But Thorne returned only to go abroad again. Your
father was, however, well to do. Thorne was not so. When a young exile
during Cromwell's rule he had been in Liége, in a great merchant's
house, since it was necessary he should find the means whereby to
live. When he returned to Liége twenty-six years afterwards he had
some means, and he became on this second occasion a merchant himself."
"I begin to understand."
"He thrived exceedingly. 'Tis true England was almost always at war
with France, but war is good for commerce. Thorne profited by this
state of affairs, and so grew rich. Sylvia is rich now, but the French
hold Liége. She would escape from that city."
"Will they not let her go? She is a woman. What harm can she do either
by going or staying?"
"They will let none go now who are strangers. Ere long this war, which
the claims of Louis to the Spanish succession on behalf of his
grandson have aroused, will have two principal seats--Flanders and
Spain. There are such things as hostages; there are such things as
rich people buying their liberty dearly. And Sylvia is rich, and they
know it. Much of her wealth is placed in England, 'tis true, but much
also is there, in Liége. Short of one chance, the chance that, in the
course of this campaign Liége should fall into the hands of one of our
allies, she may have to remain there until peace is made--and that
will not be yet. Not for months--perhaps years."
"But if she should escape--what of her wealth then?"
"She will be free, and still she will be rich; while if, as I say,
Liége falls into the allies' hands she will not even lose her property
there. But, at the moment, she desires only one thing; and that
desire, being a rich woman, she is anxious to gratify. She is anxious
to return to England."
"And I--I am to be the man to help her to do so--to aid her to escape
from Liége. I'll do it if 'tis to be done."
"Well spoken; especially those last words. 'If 'tis to be done.' Yet
pause--reflect."
"I have reflected."
Though, however, Bevill had said, "I have reflected," it would
scarcely seem as if Lord Peterborough placed much confidence in his
statement, since, either ignoring what his young kinsman had said or
regarding his words as of little worth, he now proceeded to tell the
latter what difficulties, what dangers, would lie in his path.
"I would not send you to that which may, in truth, lead to your doom
without giving you fair warning of what lies before you," his lordship
commenced, while, as he spoke, his eyes were fixed on Bevill
Bracton--fixed thus, perhaps, because he who, in this world, had never
been known to flinch at or fear aught, was now anxious to see if the
solemn speech he had just uttered could cause the other to blench.
Observing, however, that, far from such being the case, Bracton simply
received that speech with an indifferent smile, Peterborough went on.
"From the very instant you set foot on foreign ground, every step your
feet take will be environed with difficulty and danger. For, since you
could by no possibility go as an Englishman, it follows that you must
be a Frenchman."
"Am I not already half a Frenchman?" the young man asked. "From the
day my father took me to France until I got my colours, I spoke, I
read--almost thought--in French. I learnt my lessons in French; I had
French comrades, as every follower of the Stuarts had, since we were
welcome enough in France; I was French in everything except my
religion and my heart. They were always English."
"Therefore," Lord Peterborough continued, for all the world as though
Bracton had not interrupted him or uttered one word, "if you, passing
as a Frenchman, fell into the hands of the French and were discovered
to be an Englishman, your shrift would be short."
"I shall never be discovered."
"While," his lordship continued imperturbably, "if the English, or
the Dutch, or the Austrians, or the Hanoverians, or the troops of
Hesse-Cassel--for all are in this Grand Alliance, as well as the
Prussians and the Danes, who do not count for much, though even they
will be powerful enough to string a supposed spy up to the branch of a
tree--if any of these get hold of you, thinking you a spy of one or
t'other side, well! your life will not be worth many hours' purchase."
"I shall soon prove to the English that I am not a Frenchman, and to
the others that I am not a spy. I presume your lordship can provide me
with a passport?"
"I can do so, but it will be that of a Frenchman. Bolingbroke,
who is now, as you know, Secretary-of-War--oh! la-la! he
Secretary-of-War!--has some already prepared. His French hangers-on
have provided him with those. All Frenchmen are not loyalists. You
will not be the first or only English spy abroad."
"Yet I shall not be a spy."
"Not on the passport, but if you are limed you will be treated as one.
I disguise nothing from you."
"And terrify me not at all. As soon as I have that passport I am gone.
I shall not return until I bring Mistress Sylvia Thorne with me."
"Fore 'gad, you are a bold fellow! I am proud to have you of my kith
and kin. Yet you will want something else. What money have you?"
"I had forgotten that. Money, of course, I have, yet--yet----"
"Not enough. Is that it? Hey? Well, you shall have enough--enough to
help you bravely; to bring you, if Providence watches over you, safely
to Liége and before the glances of Sylvia's grey eyes. And, then,
Heaven grant you may both get back safely."
"I have no fear. What a man may do I will do. Yet, my lord, one thing
alone stands not clearly before my eyes. God, He knows, I go willingly
enough to obey your behests, your desires; to, if it may be, help a
young maiden to quit a town which may soon be ravaged by war; a town
to be, perhaps, held by our enemies for months or even years. From my
heart I do so. Yet--ah!--how shall I by this do that on which I have
set my heart? How get back again to the calling I have loved and
forfeited--though forfeited unjustly? How will this commend me to my
Lord Marlborough?"
"What! How? Why, heart alive! if Marlborough but hears you have done
such a thing as this, your new commission will be as good as signed by
Queen Anne. He hath ever an eye for a quick brain, a ready hand. 'Tis
thus that great men rise or, being risen, help to maintain their
eminence. The workman who chooses good tools does ever the best of
work."
"Therefore I need not fear?"
"Fear! Fear nothing; above all, fear not that you shall go unrewarded.
Moreover, remember Jack Churchill has ever been a valiant cavalier of
_le beau sexe, un preux chevalier_; remember his devotion to his wife,
handsome shrew though she be. Great commander though he is, he is not
above advancing those soldiers who can help beauty in distress.
"Now," Lord Peterborough concluded, "go and hold yourself in
readiness, remembering always that she whom you go to succour is the
child of a man I loved--of my dearest, my dead, friend. Remember, too,
that she is young and good and pure and honest. Now go, remembering
this; and when I send for you--'twill not be long--return. Then, when
you have my last instructions, as also the money and the passport,
with, too, a letter for Sylvia Thorne, I will bid you God speed.
Go--farewell!"