On that long quay over which the coach had passed but just now, Bevill
Bracton, as he rode by its side, had observed an ancient inn, as all
things were ancient in this old-world land--one that bore on its front
the name, "Gouden Leeuw," and testified as to what its Walloon
significance might be by having beneath it a fierce-looking gilt
monster, that might be intended for a lion, as sign.
"That should be the house for me," Bevill thought, as now he rode back
towards it. "A front room here, on the lower floor, if it may be
obtained; the river almost at its feet, boats tied to old posts and
stanchions. All is well. If danger threatens, as well it may, then
have I the way open to me."
For Bevill had not been a soldier for nothing, nor had he forgotten
that he who attempts daring deeds should ever have a retreat open in
case of need.
That the business he was now about was, in absolute truth, of almost
foolhardy daring he had known and recognised from the moment he
decided to undertake it as he stood before the Earl of Peterborough at
Fulham; while, as he advanced farther and farther through a land
which, though not itself hostile to England, was in the clutches of
England's greatest enemy, he had more and more recognised this to be
the case. But now that he was here, in a city surrounded by those who
had possessed themselves of it during a peace that had never been a
complete one, a city whose heights and strong places were full of the
enemy, he allowed no delusions to prevent him from acknowledging the
perils by which he was surrounded. If he should be suspected, watched,
and either denounced or arrested, there would be no hope for him. He
was neither a soldier who would be saved by his calling nor a
political agent who could be saved by any mission that might have been
entrusted to him. He was merely a subject of the greatest enemy of
France, disguised under a French name; a man who could have no
ostensible reason for being here except as a spy.
[Illustration: "Impressed it with a ring he wore."]
As, however, he reflected on all this, while forgetting no point that
would tell deeply against him--there was not one that would tell in
his favour!--he felt no qualm of apprehension, and fear itself was
utterly absent. He had set his life upon this cast; the hazard of the
die must bring him either a restitution of all that he desired, or
total oblivion of all things in this world. He had elected to make the
throw, even as the soldier stakes his life against either Fortune's
buffets or rewards; fear had no part or parcel in the attempt. Yet, as
with the soldier, it behoved him to be wary, to fling no chance away,
to risk no more than every brave attempt requires to make it a
successful one.
What Bevill hoped to find at the "Gouden Leeuw" was, happily,
obtainable. A room was put at his disposal which, while looking across
the quay on to the river, had also, since it was at an angle of the
house, another window giving on to an alley that ran along the side of
the inn.
"Therefore," Bevill said to himself, "all is very well. Should I be
sought for when I am in this room I still have two other modes of
egress beside the door. Should they attempt to get at me from either
window, still I have the door. Short of surrounding the house, I can
hardly be trapped, and not at all without making a good fight of it."
"Yet," he continued to muse, as now he endeavoured to make himself
presentable and, at the least, well washed and brushed and combed,
since he intended at sunset to make his way to Sylvia according to the
directions on the letter he bore; "yet it may never come to this. I
obtained entrance easily to this city; I have but the brains of a bird
if, after I have made myself well acquainted with the place, I do not
discover some way of getting Mistress Thorne and myself out of it."
By this time the sun was beginning to dip towards where the North Sea
lay afar off; already its rays were slanting across the Meuse and into
the windows of his room. The air was becoming cooler; soon the evening
would be at hand; and then he would make his way towards the "Weiss
Haus," as he knew the abode of the late Mr. Thorne was termed; and, if
it might be, present his credentials to the young mistress of that
house.
But first he must make a meal, since he had eaten nothing since he set
out from St. Trond. Therefore he went now to the usual description of
room where travellers ate, and, ordering a good substantial repast, at
down to do justice to it. While he was waiting for his supper to be
brought to him, he drew from the pocket in his vest the letter which
Lord Peterborough had given him, and regarded it again.
It was addressed in the Earl's own hand to "Mistress Sylvia Thorne, of
the Weiss Haus, Liége, in the Bishoprick of Liége," and tied with
silk, but unsealed, his lordship having either adopted the ancient
courteous custom of leaving all letters of presentation open, or
perhaps desiring that the bearer of it should read the credentials he
bore.
Needless to say that Bevill was not one who would have availed himself
of the chance he had possessed for days of discovering what those
credentials were. He would not have been here as the accredited agent
of the Earl, and on such a mission as this, had it not been certain
that the recommendation was all that was necessary to induce Sylvia
Thorne to entrust herself to his hands. The confidence of Lord
Peterborough told him plainly enough what the contents of that letter
must be; while, even if it had not been so, Bevill would no more have
thought of untying the silk bow and reading those contents than of
breaking the seal had there been one.
But his astute lordship had made one slip in what he had written. In
one corner of the folds, where the superscription was, he had written,
"To present my cousin, Bevill Bracton, heretofore known to
you.--P. & M."
"My lord must have supposed this letter would leave my hand only to be
taken into the lady's," Bevill said to himself; "otherwise he would
never have written my name thus. He should have put in its place,
'Monsieur André de Belleville,' since it must pass through the hands
of some servitor or waiting maid to reach hers." Then, smiling to
himself, he went on, "He warned me of the danger I must encounter
should this letter fall into the hands of others than Mistress Thorne.
Those dangers might well have been added to by this forgetfulness.
However, it matters not now. 'Tis easily made safe."
He bade the serving man, who had not yet brought him his supper, fetch
a sheet of papers a white wax candle, and some Spanish wax, and, when
this was done, bade him bring also an inkhorn and pen. Then, folding
Lord Peterborough's letter in the fresh sheet, he lit the wax and
impressed it with a ring he wore, and, when the horn came, addressed
it in French to "Mistress Thorne, at the Weiss Haus." Adding also,
"The bearer waits."
"The house," he thought as now he ate his supper, "should be on this
or some other quay. My lord said that great was the merchandise in
which her father dealt, and also that he owned many vessels. He would
be near the water's edge, since the river is navigable to the sea."
For precaution--the precaution of not doing aught that might in
any way, if danger should arise, be inimical to Sylvia Thorne's
security--Bevill had resolved that he would ask no questions in the
"Gouden Leeuw" as to the situation of her house. He would give no
intimation whatever that could connect his appearance in this city
with the Englishwoman who, though not a captive, was at least not free
from the environment of her country's foes. He had resolved that the
man supposed to be a Frenchman named André de Belleville, residing at
this inn, should not be known, in it at least, to be a visitor to the
young Englishwoman at the Weiss Haus.
He went out shortly on to the quay and walked slowly along under the
row of trees planted on it and on a similar one across the river, and
observed that many of the burghers were taking the evening air with
their wives and children. In their aspect there was little to be
perceived that would have told a stranger that, either in their strong
places or outside their walls, there lay the hostile army of the most
dreaded monarch in Europe, which, at this time, meant almost the whole
world. Neither did he see any French about, and certainly no soldiers
of any rank; and he did not know that strict orders had been given in
the Duke of Burgundy's name that all of them were to keep apart from,
and, above all, not to molest, the inhabitants of any towns or cities
they either held or surrounded.
He saw, however, many monks and priests, which did not astonish him,
since he knew well that, though the Reformed Faith had been long since
adopted here by the inhabitants, the Bishopric of Liége was in the
Spanish interests, which meant the Romish, and always had been. Nay,
had he not heard that here was a college of English Jesuits, as well
as another of French?
Even, however, a Bevill continued his way, while thinking that, at
last, he would have to ask some honest burgher to direct him to where
the Weiss Haus might be, he passed a group of men, one or two of whom
were clad in the garb of a priest, while the others were
undistinguishable by their attire.
One of the latter, a young man of almost his own age, had fixed his
eyes on Bevill as he drew near--as, indeed, many other eyes had been
fixed on his erect figure and comely face before--while, as the group
passed him, this young man not only stared hard at him, but, as Bevill
could observe by a side glance, turned round to look again as he went
by.
"I' fags!" Bevill said to himself, walking on slowly, "the man seems
to know me, though never have I consorted with any of his seeming
friends to my knowledge or recollection. And yet--and yet--those dark
eyes that glinted at me under the trees do not appear strange, any
more than did his other features. Where have I seen him before, or
have I ever seen him? Tush! if 'twas ever, it must have been when I
was in the last campaign. We were much given to running against these
gentry."
He had reached the end of the most frequented part of the quay by now,
and had, indeed, come to a part of it where the high houses, built in
many cases of dark blue marble, no longer presented an unbroken array.
Instead, they were detached from one another, and stood in large
gardens having walls round them; while on the front, towards the quay,
were openings in which were enormous iron gates. In many cases great
warehouses close by lifted their heads high into the air, so that here
they alternated with the residences and spoilt the latter (whose
appearance was handsome) by their own unlovely though businesslike
aspect. But, farther away still, there stood another mansion deeply
embowered in trees and, at some considerable distance beyond it, an
enormous warehouse, yet one that was such a distance off that, since
the house itself was surrounded by the trees, it would in no way
disturb the peace of the latter or the views from it. And the mansion
itself now gleamed out white in the evening sun.
"It may well be her abode," Bevill thought to himself. "Very well it
may; and if it is not, then must I ask the whereabouts of the Weiss
Haus; or, maybe, it is across the river. Yet that matters not. I
passed a ferry but now."
When, however, he stood in front of that great white mansion he learnt
that he had found the house of her whom he had come from England to
seek.
Through the bars of the great iron gate which this mansion possessed
in common with the others hard by, Bevill could see the gardens laid
out in the stiff Dutch fashion he had so often seen before, though
still, it seemed to him as if some attempt had been made to give to
them an English appearance. Beyond the straight beds of tulips, the
flowers of which were now almost all gone, there was a lawn, or grass
plot, green as any lawn in England, smooth and well kept, and having
at its edges beds of roses placed in front of formal statues and
summer-houses.
"There is some touch of our land here," Bevill said to himself. "In
good truth, I do believe that I have found the lady."
Seeing through the bars an old man weeding 'twixt the rows of tulip
plants, though he seemed to do his work in a half-hearted way as
though indifferent to what success his efforts might produce, Bevill,
addressing him in the best Dutch he could summon up, asked, "Is this
the house of Mistress Thorne?"
"_Ja; Ja wohl_," the old man said, looking up from his work. "What do
you desire?"
"To see her. It is for that I am here."
The gardener let his eyes rove over Bevill as he received this answer,
and observed that he was well and handsomely dressed, although his
dress, and breast and neck lace, showed signs of travel in spite of
the brushing they had received; then he said:
"The Juffrouw sees little company now--none but old friends, and
specially none of those who lie out there or there," waving his hands
with a sweep which included, as Bevill very well understood, those who
lay outside the town and in the citadel and Chartreuse.
"It may be she will see me," Bevill said. "At least, I will make trial
of it. Take this," he continued, while drawing from his breast the
letter he had so recently furnished with a further wrapper and giving
it to the man; "and this for your labour," putting a rix-dollar into
his hand. "Now, go and do my bidding."
The coin did for Bevill that which, perhaps, neither the packet nor
his own tone of command might have been able to accomplish, and,
thrusting his hoe into one of the flower beds, the gardener went off
towards the white house, while muttering:
"I can take it as far as the stoop, but no farther. There it must be
given to a house servant, who may deliver it into the hands of the
Juffrouw. I can answer for no more."
"Do that, and it will serve. Make haste, the night falls; it is
growing late."
When the old man had shambled off, Bevill, standing by a thicket at
one side of the garden, let his eyes roam over the great white front
of the old, solid house while observing how firmly it had been built,
and how strong and handsome it was.
In front of the ground floor, to which three stone steps led up, there
ran a long verandah, also of stone: above, on the first floor, where,
Bevill supposed, the saloons were, there projected huge, bulging stone
balconies leading out from the windows, and on one of these there was
a great table placed, with chairs by it, so that he supposed people
sat out here in the cool of the evening when the sun was gone. Also,
there were flowers in china tubs everywhere, and orange trees and
shrubs all about, and awnings too, whereby the great house presented
not only a look of great solidity, but also one of comfort.
But now he saw the old gardener coming back towards him, and observed
that his hand no longer held the letter. And next he remarked
something else.
He saw a great striped curtain drawn back from behind the window, and
from behind a lace curtain also, and, a moment later, there stepped on
to the balcony a young woman clad all in black, though her long robe
was broidered with white lace--a woman who, he saw at one glance, was
tall and slight; while--also in the same glance--he perceived that she
was beautiful.
After which, as he advanced hat in hand, until he was almost directly
under that balcony where now the lady, her hands upon the edge, stood
looking down at him bowing before her, he saw that she waved a sign of
salutation to him, and, as she leant further over, said:
"Sir, for this visit I thank you. It is long since we have met. You
are vastly welcome. Enter my house, I beg. One of the domestics will
bring you to me."
With a bow, accompanied by a courteous acknowledgment of her words,
Bevill proceeded towards the house, when to his astonishment he heard
the old gardener, who had reached his side before this, mutter some
words in an angry voice--the words, "He here again! He! No matter.
To-night he shall not enter."
Attracted by these mutterings and also by the old man's glances
directed towards the great gate, Bevill could not refrain from
following those glances, and, as he did so, saw that a man's eyes were
staring in through the wrought-iron bars.
The eyes he recognised as those belonging to the same man who had
stared so inquiringly at him on the quay less than half an hour
before.