The castle of the Prince d’Avranche, Duc de Bercy, was set upon a vast
rock, and the town of Bercy huddled round the foot of it and on great
granite ledges some distance up. With fifty defenders the castle, on its
lofty pedestal, might have resisted as many thousands; and, indeed,
it had done so more times than there were rubies in the rings of
the present Duke, who had rescued Captain Philip d’Avranche from the
clutches of the Red Government.
Upon the castle, with the flag of the duchy, waved the republican
tricolour, where for a thousand years had floated a royal banner. When
France’s great trouble came to her, and the nobles fled, or went
to fight for the King in the Vendee, the old Duke, with a dreamy
indifference to the opinion of Europe, had proclaimed alliance with the
new Government. He felt himself privileged in being thus selfish; and he
had made the alliance that he might pursue, unchecked, the one remaining
object of his life.
This object had now grown from a habit into a passion. It was now his
one ambition to arrange a new succession excluding the Vaufontaines,
a detested branch of the Bercy family. There had been an ancient feud
between his family and the Vaufontaines, whose rights to the succession,
after his eldest son, were to this time paramount. For three years past
he had had a whole monastery of Benedictine monks at work to find some
collateral branch from which he might take a successor to Leopold John,
his imbecile heir--but to no purpose.
In more than a little the Duke was superstitious, and on the day when he
met Philip d’Avranche in the chamber of M. Dalbarade he had twice turned
back after starting to make the visit, so great was his dislike to
pay homage to the revolutionary Minister. He had nerved himself to the
distasteful duty, however, and had gone. When he saw the name of the
young English prisoner--his own name--staring him in the face, he had
had such a thrill as a miracle might have sent through the veins of a
doubting Christian.
Since that minute he, like Philip, had been in a kind of dream; on his
part, to find in the young man, if possible, an heir and successor; on
Philip’s to make real exalted possibilities. There had slipped past
two months, wherein Philip had seen a new and brilliant avenue of life
opening out before him. Most like a dream indeed it seemed. He had been
shut out from the world, cut off from all connection with England and
his past, for M. Dalbarade made it a condition of release that he should
send no message or correspond with any one outside Castle Bercy. He
had not therefore written to Guida. She seemed an interminable distance
away. He was as completely in a new world as though he had been
transplanted; he was as wholly in the air of fresh ambitions as though
he were beginning the world again--ambitions as gorgeous as bewildering.
For, almost from the first, the old nobleman treated him like a son.
He spoke freely to him of the most private family matters, of the most
important State affairs. He consulted with him, he seemed to lean upon
him. He alluded often, in oblique phrase, to adoption and succession. In
the castle Philip was treated as though he were in truth a high kinsman
of the Duke. Royal ceremony and state were on every hand. He who had
never had a servant of his own, now had a score at his disposal. He had
spent his early days in a small Jersey manor-house; here he was walking
the halls of a palace with the step of assurance, the most honoured
figure in a principality next to the sovereign himself. “Adoption and
succession” were words that rang in his ears day and night. The wild
dream had laid feverish hands upon him. Jersey, England, the Navy,
seemed very far away.
Ambition was the deepest passion in him, even as defeating the hopes of
the Vaufontaines was more than a religion with the Duke. By no trickery,
but by a persistent good-nature, alertness of speech, avoidance of
dangerous topics, and aptness in anecdote, he had hourly made his
position stronger, himself more honoured at the Castle Bercy. He had
also tactfully declined an offer of money from the Prince--none the less
decidedly because he was nearly penniless. The Duke’s hospitality he was
ready to accept, but not his purse--not yet.
Yet he was not in all acting a part. He was sincere in his liking
for the soured, bereaved sovereign, forced to endure alliance with
a Government he loathed. He even admired the Duke for his vexing
idiosyncrasies, for they came of a strong individuality which, in
happier case, should have made him a contented and beloved monarch. As
it was, the people of his duchy were loyal to him beyond telling, doing
his bidding without cavil: standing for the King of France at his will,
declaring for the Republic at his command; for, whatever the Duke was
to the world outside, within his duchy he was just and benevolent, if
imperious.
All these things Philip had come to know in his short sojourn. He had,
with the Duke, mingled freely, yet with great natural dignity, among the
people of the duchy, and was introduced everywhere, and at all times, as
the sovereign’s kinsman--“in a direct line from an ancient branch,” as
his Highness declared. He had been received gladly, and had made himself
an agreeable figure in the duchy, to the delight of the Duke, who
watched his every motion, every word, and their effect. He came to know
the gossip gone abroad that the Duke had already chosen him for heir. A
fantastic rumour, maybe, yet who could tell?
One day the Duke arranged a conference of the civil and military
officers of his duchy. He chuckled to see how reluctant they all were at
first to concede their homage to his favourite, and how soon they fell
under that favourite’s influence--all save one man, the Intendant of
the duchy. Philip himself was quick to see that this man, Count Carignan
Damour, apprehensive for his own selfish ends, was bitterly opposed to
him. But Damour was one among many, and the Duke was entirely satisfied,
for the common people received Philip with applause.
On this very day was laid before the Duke the result of the long
researches of the monks into the genealogy of the d’Avranches, and
there, clearly enough, was confirmation of all Philip had said about
his ancestors and their relation to the ancient house of d’Avranche.
The Duke was overjoyed, and thereupon secretly made ready for Philip’s
formal adoption and succession. It never occurred to him that Philip
might refuse.
On the same afternoon he sent for Philip to come to him in the highest
room of the great tower. It was in this room that, many years ago, the
Duke’s young and noble wife, from the province of Aquitaine, had given
birth to the second son of the house of Bercy, and had died a year
later, happy that she should at last leave behind a healthy, beautiful
child, to do her honour in her lord’s eyes.
In this same room the Duke and the brave second son had spent unnumbered
hours; and here it had come home to him that the young wife was
faultless as to the elder, else she had not borne him this perfect
younger son. Thus her memory came to be adored; and thus, when the
noble second son, the glory of his house and of his heart, was killed
in Macedonia, the Duke still came to the little upper room for his
communion of remembrance. Hour after hour he would sit looking from
the great window out over the wide green valley, mourning bitterly, and
feeling his heart shrivel up within him, his body grow crabbed and cold,
and his face sour and scornful.
When Philip now entered this sanctuary, the Duke nodded and motioned him
to a chair. In silence he accepted, and in silence they sat for a time.
Philip knew the history of this little room--he had learned it first
from Frange Pergot, the porter at the castle gates with whom he had made
friends. The silence gave him opportunity to recall the whole story.
At length the motionless brown figure huddled in the great chair, not
looking at Philip but out over the wide green valley, began to speak in
a low, measured tone, as a dreamer might tell his dream, or a priest his
vision:
“A breath of life has come again to me through you. Centuries ago our
ancestors were brothers--far back in the direct line, brothers--the
monks have proved it.
“Now I shall have my spite of the Vaufoutaines, and now shall I have
another son--strong, and with good blood in him to beget good blood.”
A strange, lean sort of smile passed over his lips, his eyebrows
twitched, his hands clinched the arm of the chair wherein he sat, and he
made a motion of his jaws as though enjoying a toothsome morsel.
“H’m, Henri Vaufontaine shall see--and all his tribe! They shall not
feed upon these lands of the d’Avranches, they shall not carouse at my
table when I am gone and the fool I begot has returned to his Maker. The
fault of him was never mine, but God’s--does the Almighty think we can
forget that? I was ever sound and strong. When I was twenty I killed two
men with my own sword at a blow; when I was thirty, to serve the King
I rode a hundred and forty miles in one day--from Paris to Dracourt
it was. We d’Avranches have been men of power always. We fought
for Christ’s sepulchre in the Holy Land, and three bishops and two
archbishops have gone from us to speak God’s cause to the world. And my
wife, she came of the purest stock of Aquitaine, and she was constant,
in her prayers. What discourtesy was it then, for God, who hath been
served well by us, to serve me in return with such mockery: to send me a
bloodless zany, whom his wife left ere the wedding meats were cold.”
His foot tapped the floor in anger, his eyes wandered restlessly out
over the green expanse. Suddenly a dove perched upon the window-sill
before him. His quick, shifting gaze settled on it and stayed, softening
and quieting.
After a slight pause, he turned to Philip and spoke in a still lower
tone. “Last night in the chapel I spake to God and I said: ‘Lord God,
let there be fair speech between us. Wherefore hast Thou nailed me like
a malefactor to the tree? Why didst Thou send me a fool to lead our
house, and afterwards a lad as fine and strong as Absalom, and then lay
him low like a wisp of corn in the wind, leaving me wifeless--with a
prince to follow me, the by-word of men, the scorn of women--and of the
Vaufontaines?”’
He paused again, and his eyes seemed to pierce Philip’s, as though he
would read if each word was burning its way into his brain.
“As I stood there alone, a voice spoke to me as plainly as now I speak
to you, and it said: ‘Have done with railing. That which was the elder’s
shall be given to the younger. The tree hath grown crabbed and old, it
beareth no longer. Behold the young sapling by thy door--I have planted
it there. The seed is the seed of the old tree. Cherish it, lest a
grafted tree flourish in thy house.’”.... His words rose triumphantly.
“Yes, yes, I heard it with my own ears, the Voice. The crabbed tree,
that is the main line, dying in me; the grafted tree is the Vaufontaine,
the interloper and the mongrel; and the sapling from the same seed as
the crabbed old tree”--he reached out as though to clutch Philip’s arm,
but drew back, sat erect in his chair, and said with ringing decision:
“the sapling is Philip d’Avranche, of the Jersey Isle.”
For a moment there was silence between the two. A strong wind came
rushing up the valley through the clear sunlight, the great trees
beneath the castle swayed, and the flapping of the tricolour could be
heard within. From the window-sill the dove, caught up on the wave of
wind, sailed away down the widening glade.
Philip’s first motion was to stand up and say: “I dare not think your
Highness means in very truth to make me your kinsman in the succession.”
“And why not, why not?” testily answered the Duke, who liked not to be
imperfectly apprehended. Then he added more kindly: “Why not--come, tell
me that, cousin? Is it then distasteful?”
Philip’s heart gave a leap and his face flushed. “I have no other
kinsman,” he answered in a low tone of feeling. “I knew I had your
august friendship--else all the tokens of your goodness to me were
mockery; but I had scarce let myself count on the higher, more intimate
honour--I, a poor captain in the English navy.”
He said the last words slowly, for, whatever else he was, he was a loyal
English sailor, and he wished the Duc de Bercy to know it, the more
convincingly the better for the part he was going to play in this duchy,
if all things favoured.
“Tut, tut, what has that to do with it?” answered the Duke. “What has
poverty to do with blood? Younger sons are always poor, younger cousins
poorer. As for the captaincy of an English warship, that’s of no
consequence where greater games are playing--eh?”
He eyed Philip keenly, yet too there was an unasked question in his
look. He was a critic of human nature, he understood the code of honour,
none better; his was a mind that might be wilfully but never crassly
blind. He was selfish where this young gentleman was concerned, yet he
knew well how the same gentleman ought to think, speak, and act.
The moment of the great test was come.
Philip could not read behind the strange, shrivelled face. Instinct
could help him much, but it could not interpret that parchment. He did
not know whether his intended reply would alienate the Duke or not, but
if it did, then he must bear it. He had come, as he thought, to the crux
of this adventure. All in a moment he was recalled again to his real
position. The practical facts of his life possessed him. He was standing
between a garish dream and commonplace realities. Old feelings came
back--the old life. The ingrain loyalty of all his years was his again.
Whatever he might be, he was still an English officer, and he was not
the man to break the code of professional honour lightly. If the Duke’s
favour and adoption must depend on the answer he must now give, well,
let it be; his last state could not be worse than his first.
So, still standing, he answered the Duke boldly, yet quietly, his new
kinsman watching him with a grim curiosity.
“Monsieur le prince,” said Philip, “I am used to poverty, that matters
little; but whatever you intend towards me--and I am persuaded it is to
my great honour and happiness--I am, and must still remain, an officer
of the English navy.”
The Duke’s brow contracted, and his answer came cold and incisive: “The
navy--that is a bagatelle; I had hoped to offer you heritage. Pooh,
pooh, commanding a frigate is a trade--a mere trade!”
Philip’s face did not stir a muscle. He was in spirit the born
adventurer, the gamester who could play for life’s largest stakes, lose
all, draw a long breath--and begin the world again.
“It’s a busy time in my trade now, as Monsieur Dalbarade would tell you,
Duke.”
The Duke’s lips compressed as though in anger. “You mean to say,
monsieur, that you would let this wretched war between France and
England stand before our own kinship and alliance? What are you and I in
this great shuffle of events? Have less egotism, less vanity, monsieur.
You are no more than a million others--and I--I am nothing. Come, come,
there is more than one duty in the life of every man, and sometime he
must choose between one and the other. England does not need you”--his
voice and manner softened, he leaned towards Philip, the eyes almost
closing as he peered into his face--“but you are needed by the House of
Bercy.”
“I was commissioned to a warship in time of war,” answered Philip
quietly, “and I lost that warship. When I can, it is my duty to go
back to the powers that sent me forth. I am still an officer in full
commission. Your Highness knows well what honour claims of me.”
“There are hundreds of officers to take your place; in the duchy of
Bercy there is none to stand for you. You must choose between your trade
and the claims of name and blood, older than the English navy, older
than Norman England.”
Philip’s colour was as good, his manner as easy as if nothing were at
stake; but in his heart he felt that the game was lost--he saw a storm
gathering in the Duke’s eyes, the disappointment presently to break out
into wrath, the injured vanity to burst into snarling disdain. But he
spoke boldly nevertheless, for he was resolved that, even if he had to
return from this duchy to prison, he would go with colours flying.
“The proudest moment of my life was when the Duc de Bercy called me
kinsman,” he responded; “the best” (had he then so utterly forgotten the
little church of St. Michael’s?) “was when he showed me friendship. Yet,
if my trade may not be reconciled with what he may intend for me, I must
ask to be sent back to Monsieur Dalbarade.” He smiled hopelessly, yet
with stoical disregard of consequences, and went on: “For my trade is
in full swing these days, and I stand my chance of being exchanged and
earning my daily bread again. At the Admiralty I am a master workman on
full pay, but I’m not earning my salt here. With Monsieur Dalbarade my
conscience would be easier.”
He had played his last card. Now he was prepared for the fury of a
jaundiced, self-willed old man, who could ill brook being thwarted.
He had quickly imagined it all, and not without reason, for surely a
furious disdain was at the grey lips, lines of anger were corrugating
the forehead, the rugose parchment face was fiery with distemper.
But what Philip expected did not come to pass. Rising quickly to his
feet, the Duke took him by the shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks, and
said:
“My mind is made up--is made up. Nothing can change it. You have no
father, cousin--well, I will be your father. You shall retain your post
in the English navy-officer and patriot you shall be if you choose. A
brave man makes a better ruler. But now there is much to do. There
is the concurrence of the English King to secure; that shall be--has
already been--my business. There is the assent of Leopold John to
achieve; that I shall command. There are the grave formalities of
adoption to arrange; these I shall expedite. You shall see, Master
Insolence--you, who’d throw me and my duchy over for your trade; you
shall see how the Vaufontaines will gnash their teeth!”
In his heart Philip was exultant, though outwardly he was calm. He was,
however, unprepared for what followed. Suddenly the Duke, putting a hand
on his shoulder, said:
“One thing, cousin, one thing: you must marry in our order, and at once.
There shall be no delay. Succession must be made sure. I know the very
woman--the Comtesse Chantavoine--young, rich, amiable. You shall meet
her to-morrow-to-morrow.”