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?”