"HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!"
St. Georges was lodged in an old inn on Tower Hill now, in a large
room that ran from the front to the back of the house and with, on the
latter side, a lookout upon an old churchyard, which in the
swift-coming spring of 1692--for it was now April of that year--was
green and bright with the new shooting buds. Here he worked hard to
earn a living, spending part of his day in translating a book or so
from French into English--at beggar's wages!--another part in giving
lessons in fencing and swordsmanship--he knowing every trick and
_passade_ of the French school--and a third in giving lessons in his
old language. And between them he managed to earn enough to support
existence while waiting for that which through the interest of Admiral
Rooke had been promised him--namely, permission to volunteer into the
first vessel taking detachments of recruits to sea with it.
Meanwhile, there were many about the court who had heard his story and
who knew he was a man who had once worn the red dress of the
_chiourme_--when his back was not bared to the lashings of the
_comites_!--that he had slaved at the galley oar in summer and been
put to road-mending and road-sweeping in the winter, and that he
nourished against France a deep revenge. And among them was the king
himself.
Rooke had told William his history, over long clay pipes and tankards
at Hampton Court, and the astute Dutchman had not hesitated a moment
in promising him employment--would, indeed, have taken a hundred such
into that employ if he could have found them. He had learned how the
exile hated France--as he did himself, his hatred being the mainspring
of his life; moreover, that exile knew more about Louis's regiments
and whole military system than almost any one else whom the English
king could discover. That was sufficient for him.
So St. Georges went on his way, waiting--waiting ever for one of two
things to occur: either that the marine regiment should call for
volunteers and be sent out again to France, or that he should be able
to return disguised to that country and recommence his search for
Dorine.
During the period that had elapsed, however, since he was rescued by
Rooke, one thing had happened that had brought great happiness to his
heart: he had heard more than once from Boussac, now a lieutenant of
the Mousquetaires Noirs, and in so hearing had gained news of his
child, who was still alive, and, as Boussac believed, well treated.
"_Mon pauvre ami_," that gallant officer had written, in reply to a
letter forwarded him by St. Georges and addressed to Paris, where he
imagined the Mousquetaires might be, "how shall I answer yours, since,
when I received it, I had long deemed you dead? Ah! monsieur, I was
desolated when we came into Paris at the tidings I gleaned. I sought
for you at once, inquired at the Bureau Militaire, and learned--what?
That you had threatened to murder the minister--had, indeed, almost
murdered the Marquis de Roquemaure; and that for this you were
condemned to the galley L'Idole, _en perpetuite_. Figure to yourself
my dismay--nay, more, my most touching grief--for, my friend, I had
news for you of the best, the most important. And I could not deliver
it, should never now deliver it to you in this world. Monsieur, I had
the news to give you that I had seen your child--had seen it well,
and, as I think, not unhappy."
It was St. Georges's habit to sit sometimes in the little, old city
churchyard beneath his window, and there to muse on his past and
meditate upon the future. It had an attraction for him, this old
place, more, perhaps, for the reason that scarce any one ever came
into it on week days, except himself and a decrepit gravedigger to
occasionally open old graves or prepare new ones, than for any other;
but also because there was one tombstone that interested him sadly. It
bore upon it a child's name, "Dorothy," and told how she had died,
"aged three," in January, "in the yeare of Oure Lorde" 1688. And below
the scroll of flowers, with an angel's head in their midst, was the
quotation from Kings: "Is it well with the child? And she answered,
It is well."
To his seared and bruised heart some sad yet tender comfort seemed to
be afforded by this stone, which marked and recorded the death of one
whose very name partly resembled the name of her he had lost--whose
little life had been taken from her almost at the very time Dorine was
snatched away from him. And the question of the prophet was the
question that he so often asked in his prayers. The answer was that
which so often he beseeched his Maker to vouchsafe to him.
He was seated opposite to this stone on the day he first received
Boussac's letter, having brought it out with him to peruse in quiet.
He was seated on it now, many months later, as he reread the
mousquetaire's words which told him that Dorine was well, and, he
thought, not unhappy. And he raised his eyes to the words of the
Shunamite woman and murmured, "It is well with the child," and
whispered, "God, I thank thee!" as he had done on the day when first
the letter came to him. Then he continued:
"We passed through Troyes, monsieur, three months after you, and I saw
her. She was a little outside the town, with an elderly _bonne_, hand
in hand. I obtained permission to quit the ranks for a moment--I was
not then promoted, you will understand--and, dismounting and leading
my horse toward them--you remember the good horse, monsieur?--I said
to the woman, 'Whose child is that, madame?' She drew away from me,
gathered the _petite_ to her, and answered, 'Mine,' whereon I smiled;
for I could not be harsh with her--the little creature looked so well
cared for----"
Again St. Georges lifted up his eyes, again he murmured, "I thank
Thee!" and again went on with the letter:
"'And the father,' I demanded, 'where may he be?' 'Dead,' she
answered. 'You know that?' I asked hurriedly, and she replied, 'Ay, I
know it, monsieur.' But," Boussac continued, "I could see that she
repeated a story she had been taught, that she was a paid
_gouvernante_. Yet, what to do? Already the troop was out of sight; I
might not linger. Had I been alone, it may be I would have snatched
the child from her, jumped on my horse, and carried it away as once
you carried it, guarded it as you--as _we_, monsieur--guarded it.
_Helas!_ that could not be. Therefore, on your behalf, I kissed the
little thing, and I emptied my poor purse into the woman's hand. 'Keep
it well,' I said, 'keep it well, and thereby you shall reap a reward
greater by far than any you now receive. I know--I know more than you
think.' Then the _bonne_ replied to me: 'So long as I am able it will
be guarded well. No danger threatens the child at present'--she said
'at present'--I am unhappy that I have to mention those words. But she
spoke them. I knew not what had happened then; I know now from your
letter. But, monsieur, what does it mean? De Roquemaure tried to slay
the child when you had her in your keeping. Now that he has her in his
own--for who can doubt it?--he treats her well. Monsieur, again I say,
what does it mean? And the 'at present'--what, too, does that mean?"
St. Georges was no more able to answer that silent question than the
far-distant writer of it. Instead, he repeated to himself again and
again, as he had often done, the same words, "What did it mean?" And
as a man stumbling in the dark, he could find no way that led him to
the light.
"How can I answer him?" he mused. "What answer find? The villain tried
to slay her, as Boussac says, when we were there to guard her; now
that he has her in his charge, now that his hate is doubled, must be
doubled and intensified by my determination to slay him, as I almost
succeeded in doing, he stays his hand. What does the mystery mean?"
And one answer alone presented itself to him. De Roquemaure might have
discovered that that which he once suspected to be the case was in
reality not so. He might have found that, in truth, he, St. Georges,
was _not_ the Duc de Vannes.
"Thus," he reflected, "he would hesitate to murder the harmless child.
His vengeance on me is glutted; he must have known, even so early as
Boussac's passage through Troyes, that I was as good as dead in that
vile galley; if he knew, too, that I am not really De Vannes's heir,
the child no longer stands in his light. And devil though he is, even
his tigerish nature may have halted at the murder of so helpless a
thing."
Also he knew, by now, that both De Roquemaure and Louvois must be
perfectly confident that not only was he practically dead but actually
so. The galley was gone--sunk; and of the few saved none had gone back
to France. And the other galleys--those which had chased the Dutch
merchantman--would take the news back; none would suppose that he and
a few more were still alive.
As he reflected on this month by month--while often his eyes would
rest now on the words before him, "It is well with the child"--another
light came at last to his mind: he saw that, almost without any
danger, he might return to Troyes. He was a dead man; none would be on
the watch for him.
"Return to Troyes!" he repeated. "Return to Troyes!" And starting
from his seat he walked hurriedly away after one more glance at the
consoling words. He would go at once, find the child, and then return
to England forever. Yes, he thought, he would do that. He had money
enough now to reach that city.
Excited by this determination, he strode toward his lodging,
determined to set out directly. Months had passed, no fresh volunteers
had been called for, and although he knew that Louis was massing
together a large number of troops in the north of France--with the
intention of once more attempting to put James II on the throne he had
fled from--nothing had yet been done. It seemed as if nothing would be
done beyond endeavouring to guard the shores of England from a French
invasion and securing suspected persons and sending forces to the
seacoast. But for himself he heard nothing from any source. Perhaps,
he mused, he was forgotten.
Yet as he entered his room he learned that the time had not yet come
for him to take that solitary and dangerous journey to France. There
was something else to be done first.
Lying on his table were two letters: one, with a great seal upon it,
from Admiral Rooke; the other, addressed to a firm of merchants in the
city, but with--since its arrival in London--St. Georges's name
written over theirs, from Boussac. He read the latter first; before
all else it was the child he thought of--then threw it down almost
with impatience. He looked eagerly for these letters; they were indeed
the anxiety of his life, and now that this had come it told him
nothing that he cared to hear.
Yet there was one piece of intelligence in the letter that once would
have interested him. The mousquetaire had seen Aurelie de Roquemaure,
had spoken with her.
"I met her, _mon ami_," he wrote, "entering the gallery of audience at
Versailles where I was in attendance, and she looked, although pale,
for she wears no paint like the other _grandes dames_--I know not why,
since his Christian Majesty expects it----"
"She wore enough when I saw her last!" St. Georges muttered.
"--most beautiful. _Mon Dieu!_ what eyes, what a figure! I knew her
only from seeing her pass in to audience before, while as for me she
had never deigned so much as a glance. Yet now, _figurez vous, mon
ami_, she spoke to me while waiting for the others to pass before her.
'I have heard,' she said, speaking very low, 'that you are Monsieur
Boussac.' I answered that that was my name. Then, after a glance
around to see that no eyes were upon us, she went on: 'You did a
service once to an unhappy gentleman--a _chevau-leger_--now dead?'
What she was going to say further I know not, since I interrupted her
so by the slight start I gave that she paused in her intention,
whatever it may have been, raised her eyes to mine and regarded me
fixedly. Then she approached her face nearer to mine and whispered:
'Why do you start? He _is_ dead--is he not?' _Mon ami_, what could I
reply? She is the sister, by marriage, of your foe; if I told her you
lived, who knows what evil I might work? Therefore, I answered
briefly, 'Madame, the _galere_ L'Idole was sunk, and he was in it.'
Still she regarded me, however--_mon Dieu!_ it seemed as though her
eyes would tear the secret from out of my brains. Then--for now the
throng was moving on and she had to go with it--she whispered again:
'If--if by any hazard--he was not sunk with the galley--if he still
lives, there is news for him that would make him happy.' Then she
passed on with the others, and so out by the main gallery, and I have
not seen her since."
There was more in the letter, but at that time St. Georges read no
further. Once this news would have stirred every fibre in him, for
once he had believed that Aurelie de Roquemaure was his friend--was on
his side! He had long ceased, however, to do so; had, instead, come to
believe that she and her mother were as inimical to him as their
cowardly brother. And long months of meditation had brought him to the
belief also that the marquise's scorn against the man who had attacked
him and Boussac, and endeavoured to slay the child, was simulated;
that they regarded his and Dorine's existence with as much hatred as
did De Roquemaure himself. And now, now he felt sure that she knew he
was alive and was only eager to discover if he was anywhere near
them--near enough to work vengeance on them. As for the news which
would "make him happy!"--well, any scheming intriguer might endeavour
to hoodwink so simple a soldier as Boussac with such a tale as that!
He was only too thankful Boussac had had sufficient discretion not to
betray his existence to her. To have done that would be to have put
her and De Roquemaure on their guard against that return to France
which should yet be made, against that revenge which should yet be
taken.
He opened Sir George's letter now, quietly and without excitement, for
he had grown used to occasional communications at long intervals from
that gallant sailor, telling him that at present it was not in his
power to be of service to him; but as he hastily ran his eye over the
lines he uttered an exclamation of delight. They ran:
"Namesake, if you are still of the mind you were, the time
has come. There is a big muster at St. Helens, for Tourville
puts to sea to invade us. A place shall be found for you,
though maybe not in my ship. Hurry, hurry, hurry!"