Outside Mynheer Van Ryck's house, a month or so later, there stood a
coach upon which was placed a small amount of baggage. By its side,
held by a groom who had some considerable difficulty in restraining
its restlessness, a bright bay mare emitted great gusts from her
nostrils and pawed the stones impatiently--a mare on the corners of
whose saddle-cloth were stamped a crown, the letters "A.R." and a pair
of cross swords, as was also the case with the holsters and the
bridle-plate.
After the fall of the Citadel, and before the French were allowed to
march out on condition that they returned at once into France and
separated, the whole place had been ransacked by the English troops,
and amongst the horses found was one that, later, a mousquetaire said
belonged to the English prisoner who should have been shot the day the
Citadel fell. That prisoner, being now at liberty, was sent for by
orders of General Ingoldsby, and, when the meeting between him and the
animal was witnessed, there was no need for him to confirm the
statement.
For La Rose, on hearing Bevill's voice, created such a stampede among
the other horses and rushed at him with such endearments--testified by
nearly knocking him down with her head and then by rubbing her soft,
velvet muzzle all over him as she whinnied loudly--that there and then
before the English victors and French captives he vowed that never
would he part from her.
Now, therefore, she waited for him to come forth and mount her, so
that he might ride by the coach that conveyed his wife to England.
For, a fortnight since, in one of those churches of the Reformed Faith
that had sprung up in every part of the Netherlands since the days of
William the Liberator, Sylvia and Bevill had been made man and wife,
my lord Marlborough's chaplain having performed the ceremony. And,
though there were not many present to witness the bridal, they were
mostly those amongst whom Bevill's lot had been cast since first he
made the attempt to assist Sylvia to escape from Liége--an attempt
that again and again he told himself had resulted only in failure, yet
a failure that brought so fair and welcome a success in its train as
that which now he experienced.
From Van Ryck's hands he received his bride; close by them stood the
Comtesse de Valorme, her face calm and tranquil, but revealing nothing
of whatever might be within. Also there were present Captain Barringer
and Sir George Saxby, as well as one or two officers of the
Cuirassiers who had been junior to Bevill in the regiment but were now
captains. Yet there was one other person present, clad as before in
the blue coat and still wearing across his breast the blue ribbon of
the Garter; still tranquil, too, as became a man able to read and
forecast his destiny and the splendour of a near future. He who was
now, in the space of a month or so, to attain the highest rank an
English subject can hold; he who, two years hence, was to crush beyond
all power of recovery the armies of the most superb despot Europe had
ever known.
Bevill's kiss--the first kiss as her husband--on Sylvia's brow, her
hand upon his arm, they left the altar, and, when the after
formalities had been concluded, made their way from out the church.
But ere they left it the Earl of Marlborough, taking from his breast a
paper, said:
"For wedding-gifts there is no opportunity, yet one I would
proffer to you. Mr. Bracton, I know the hopes with which you set
out from England. It is in my power to gratify them, since I, as
Captain-General, stand here for the Queen. Our late ruler removed you
from the service you loved; I, in the name of our present one, restore
you to it. Some years of opportunity, of promotion, you must lose of
necessity; your brother officers of the Cuirassers who were your
juniors will now be your seniors. Yet, take heart. You possess two
things that should go far to spur you on to gallant efforts: a fair, a
noble bride--and youth."
Then, without giving Bevill time to utter the thanks that, though his
breast was full of them, his lips might have found difficulty in
uttering, the Earl left the church, after kissing the hands of Sylvia
and the Comtesse, and giving his own to Bevill.
The absence of that one whom Bevill would fain have seen present in
the church, his late custodian, the gallant De Violaine, was felt
regretfully by him. Yet it was not to be. As the breach was made soon
after the siege began, De Violaine, rushing from the roof to where the
English grenadiers were pouring through it, received a thrust from one
of the officers' swords. Later, as Bevill and Sylvia passed from the
_salle d'armes_, they saw him lying in the covered way and being
ministered to by one of the regimental surgeons. This sad sight
produced in the tender heart of Radegonde de Valorme a feeling, a
recollection of past years and of the fortitude with which this man
had borne the blighting of the one great hope that had filled his
heart during those years. As she saw him stretched now upon the coarse
sacking on which he had been laid; as she recognised that, from first
to last, he had had no companion but his duty to cheer his lonely
life, her memory flew swiftly back to earlier days--the days when he,
young, elated with the promise of his career, favoured by fortune, had
craved only one other thing, a woman's--her own love--and had failed
to obtain his heart's desire.
Swiftly she advanced now towards him; a moment later she was kneeling
by his side; still a moment later she was murmuring. "André! André!
Ah! say this is not the end. Ah, no! it cannot, cannot be. You are
still young--oh!" And she wept.
"He may live," the surgeon who had been told off to watch by De
Violaine's side said. "If the fever from his wound abates to-night he
may do so."
"I pray God," the Comtesse said, then whispered again to the wounded
man, "André, I will not leave Liége until I see you restored. You
shall be removed to Van Ryck's house. I alone will nurse you back to
recovery."
But De Violaine, understanding her words, murmured:
"As well leave me. What matters now my life or death!"
The impatience of La Rose grew greater as still the rider whom the
wayward creature had loved to carry on her back, the rider for whom
she had pined and fretted during their long separation, did not come.
Yet soon, though she did not know it, that impatience would be at an
end. Inside the old Dutch house the last partings were being made; the
two who were going forth from it, never perhaps to cross its threshold
again, were bidding farewell to those left behind. Even now Bevill was
standing by the couch on which De Violaine lay through the long days,
while from his lips fell the last words that he supposed he would ever
utter to him whose prisoner he had been, to him who had been so humane
a custodian.
"I pray," he was saying now, "that your recovery may be swift and
assured; I pray that between your land and mine peace may exist at
last. Above all, I pray that we may never meet as opposing soldiers;
that, where'er the tide of war shall roll, it shall not bring us face
to face. But, as friends--ah, yes! For, Monsieur de Violaine, be my
life long or short as best it pleases God, I shall ever hold dear the
memory of him who, when he had me in his hand, treated me neither as
spy nor foreign foe, but with a gentleness such as a noble heart alone
could prompt."
"Farewell. Heaven bless you!" De Violaine said. "You should be very
happy. I, too, will pray for that happiness. And, should we ever meet
again it shall be as brothers, an' you will. For brothers we are in
our faith and in our calling. Farewell."
And now all were parted with, excepting only one--Radegonde. Madame
Van Ryck could not leave her bed, so Bevill and Sylvia had gone in to
her. There remained no more than the parting with that true friend and
the last handshake with Van Ryck, himself true to the core.
"Ah how can I leave you!" Sylvia sobbed, as now the two women were
locked in each other's arms. "You--you whom I have always loved; you
without whom I could have done nought for him. Oh! Radegonde, shall we
never meet again?"
"God He knows," the other answered reverently. "I pray so. Ah, Sylvia!
Sweet Sylvia."
But at last they forced themselves apart; at last Bevill stood face to
face with her who, from almost the first moment they met at Louvain,
had been staunch and firm to him--face to face for the last time,
Sylvia standing back by the door open to the great porch. Then, ere he
could find his voice, which, indeed, it seemed to him was impossible,
he heard her saying even as her hand held his:
"Farewell. If ever in happy days to come for you your memory should
chance to wander back to that night in Louvain when first our
knowledge of each other arose; to the woman who was to play some
little part in your existence--for--a time, spare her a--a--one
moment's thought. Think of her as--as one----" But now her voice
failed her, too, and she was silent.
Neither could Bevill speak yet, and still stood there holding her hand
in his even as he observed the trembling of her lips, the tears
standing in her soft blue, eyes--even as he heard the word "Bevill"
murmured through those lips.
But, also, he observed something else as his troubled glance fell now
upon his wife. He saw Sylvia's own lips move though no sound issued
from them; he saw some suggestion, some prompting in Sylvia's own
clear, grey eyes; and, seeing, grasped what they conveyed. Bending
therefore to her who stood before him, he parted the hair that grew
low down upon her forehead; bending still lower, he kissed her
once--even as a brother might have kissed a loved sister. "Farewell,
Radegonde;" he whispered, "Farewell," and saw by one swift glance at
Sylvia's face that he had comprehended her meaning.
Yet never through the long life that was to be his did he know what
Sylvia's womanly heart had told her, nor understand that which she
understood.
* * * * * * *
Embosomed in the woods of Surrey there stands a house once white, now
grey, on the face of which the lichen and the ivy picturesquely
mingle. In front of it sweeps down a lawn to where a little river
bubbles over the pebbles of its bed; round it are arbours and bosquets
of quaint shape over which grows clematis many-hued--white, purple,
flame-coloured. Round that lawn, too, grow trees that are ancient now,
and that, when young, drew their existence from other lands than ours.
Against the pilasters of the great porch, which gives entrance to a
vast hall and supports a balcony on to which all the windows of the
first floor open, trails a passion flower, old--perhaps, indeed,
oft-times renewed in memory of him who planted the first one; of him
who may have whispered as he did so: "'Twas by such flowers as these
you were embowered, enshrined, on that night when first we met; so
long as may be shall that flower grow against our home, the White
House." For if from Holland, in those far-off days, some had wandered
here who had ever gazed on a white house standing on the outskirts of
Liége, they must have seen, and, seeing, recognised another house so
like to it that its resemblance could be no fanciful one, but, in
truth, a resemblance carefully studied and wrought.
In the great hall whose vast stairs at the farther end curve up on
either side, many pictures hang and tell of what the originals must
have been in life. Bevill, first Lord Bracton, is there, mounted on a
bay horse, his uniform that of the Cuirassiers, or 4th Horse, his
ribbons and orders showing that he held general's rank. On one side of
this picture the painter has placed in a vertical line the words,
"Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet," to testify that he who
looks down took part in those glorious victories.
Yet if, as in truth, he does thus look down, either the limner's art,
or the light cast at certain times from the great roof above, appears
to make those eyes rest on one whose full-length portrait hangs by the
side of his. On her! On his wife--some few years older in the picture
than when first she learnt to love him and when, through rain and
mire, she rushed as fast as might be to gain the help of Marlborough.
A little older, yes; but not less fair and sweet. Stately as ever in
her grace of matronhood; noble in her height, beautiful in feature,
and with her clear, pure eyes undimmed, though in her rich brown hair
some silver threads are seen. In each hand the woman holds the hand of
a child.
[Illustration: "Now the two were locked in each other's arms."]
On Lord Bracton's left there is another portrait, the picture of a
woman no longer young, her almost grey hair massed above her head, but
her eyes clear and bright as when first they gazed on Bevill Bracton
in Louvain, while over all her features there is a look of content. By
her side stands a youth still in his teens, one so like this woman
that none can doubt he is her son.
Facing the entrance hangs a larger picture than all--
that of a handsome man in scarlet and covered with orders and
decorations; one whose tranquil features and soft lineaments bespeak
calm self-reliance; confidence. On a medallion beneath this are the
words: "John, first Duke of Marlborough and Marquess of Blandford,
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and Prince of Mindelheim in Suabia."
Around the house are copses and thickets, and outside them the woods,
in all of which have played five or six generations of children, some
of them Bractons, some of them named De Violaine. Also, in the dead
and gone days that Time has powdered for ever with its dust, these
children have grown up and intermarried in the old church near by, the
living of which has been held perpetually for over a hundred and fifty
years by De Violaines, all of whom are descended from a French refugee
officer who settled here. It must be, therefore--since that refugee
would never have taken any but one woman for his wife--that, at last,
Radegonde de Valorme was enabled to forget the sufferings of him who
died at the galleys for his religion's sake, to reconcile herself to
seeing Sylvia wedded to the Englishman who came once into her life and
troubled her thoughts; that she was contented to eventually make happy
the gallant soldier who had loved her so long.
There is one little copse to which those children of different
generations have always loved to resort, and, after playing, to sit
there and talk of its associations with old days--a little copse of
nut-trees and red may, in which they find the earliest white violets
and where, they say, the robins always build their nests and the
nightingales love to sit and sing on summer nights. Yet, as they tell
their little stories to each other and weave not only fancies of the
past, but, it may be, of the future as well, their eyes rest upon a
great stone slab that lies along the ground embedded in grass and
overgrown with moss--moss that, however, many tiny hands have often
scraped and brushed away so that they might once more read the two
words cut into that stone by some old graver of bygone days--the
words, "La Rose."
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: The pistole at this period was worth £3 6s. 6d.]
[Footnote 2: Brantôme, who lived shortly after Charles V.'s time, says
all the other monarchs called him this because he never kept a treaty,
and cheated everybody.]
[Footnote 3: Now the 1st (Royal) Dragoons.]
[Footnote 4: The Mousquetaires Noirs and Gris were thus described from
the colour of their horses. They were the _corps d'élite_ of France.
The one had been established by Louis XIV., the other by Mazarin.]
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Sword of Gideon, by John Bloundelle-Burton