Czytaj książkę: «The Scourge of God»

CHAPTER I
AWAITING THE TRAVELLER

With all the pomp and ceremony that should accompany the dying hours of a great lady of France, the Princesse de Rochebazon-Marquise du Gast d'Ançilly, Comtesse de Montrachet, Baronne de Beauvilliers, and possessor of many other titles, as well as the right to the tabouret-drew near her end.

A great lady of France, yet a woman against whom scandal had never breathed a word; a woman whose name had never been coupled with that of any courtier in a manner disadvantageous to her fame, but who instead, since first she came into the family a bride, had always been spoken highly of. As a saint by some-nay, by many; as a Christian by all; as a good servant of the Church. Now, the priests said, she was about to reap her reward in another existence, where her exalted rank would count as nothing and the good deeds of her life as everything.

Below, in the courtyard of her great hotel-which was situated in the Rue Champfleury, still called by many La Rue Honteuse because of what had gone on in that street hundreds of years before-the huge Suisse stood at the open gateway, leaning on his silver-headed cane, which he no longer dared to thump vigorously on the ground for fear of disturbing his dying mistress, stood and gazed forth into the long though narrow street. Perhaps to see that none intruded within the crimson cord set in front of the porte-cochère of the Hôtel de Rochebazon; perhaps to observe-with that pride which the menial takes in the greatness of his employers-how all the noble and illustrious callers on his mistress had to leave their coaches and their chairs outside of that barrier, and advance on foot for some yards along the filthy chaussée ere they could enter the courtyard; also, perhaps, to tell himself, with a warm glow of satisfaction, that none below royalty who had ever approached their end in Paris had been inquired after by more illustrious visitors.

Above, in the room where the princess lay dying-yet with all her faculties about her, and with, though maybe she hardly thought so, a great deal of vitality still left in her body-everything presented the appearance of belonging to one of wealth and position. The apartment was the bed chamber in which none but the chiefs of the house of de Rochebazon were ever permitted to lie; the bed, of great splendour and vast antiquity, was the bed in which countless de Beauvilliers and Montrachets and du Gast d'Ançillys and de Rochebazons had been born and died. A bed with a ruelle around it as handsome in its velvet and gold lace and gilt pilasters as the ruelle of Le Dieudonné himself-for the de Rochebazons assumed, and were allowed to assume without protest, many of the royal attributes and peculiarities-a bed standing upon a raised platform, or rostrum, as though the parquet floor was not exalted enough to come into contact with the legs of the couch on which the rulers of the house stretched their illustrious limbs.

In the room itself all was done that could be done to make it a fitting apartment for those heads of this great family. Arras and tapestry hung on the walls, representing religious scenes, battle scenes, hawking and hunting scenes; upon the uncovered portions of the wainscot were paintings of members who had borne at different times the different names of the family; on plaques in other places were miniatures and pictures by Bordier and Petitot, Mignard and Le Brun. Also, although 'twas autumn now, all about the great chamber were placed bowls of flowers and ferns and grasses. These brightened not only the room, but sweetened it as well, and mingled their pure perfume with the less pure Pulvilio and Bouquet du Roi with which the air was impregnated.

In silvery tones a masterpiece of Fromantil's struck far down the room, over the mantelshelf of the huge fireplace, by the side of which a monk sat reading his breviary, and as it did so the princess, lying on her bed, opened her eyes-large, blue-gray eyes, the brightness of which age had no power to quench, nor would have till she was dead-and spoke to a girl seated outside the ruelle.

"What hour was that, Manon? Three or four?"

"Three, Madame la Princesse," the other answered, rising and passing under the bar to her mistress.

"The day is fair," the dying aristocrat said, letting her eyes glance toward the windows, through the heavy lace curtains of which the sun's rays strayed. "Fair. There is nothing to impede his journey. He should be here to-night. He must have crossed from England yesterday, must he not?"

"I should suppose so, madame. This is Friday. Your courier left for London last Sunday. It is certain Monsieur Ashurst must be very near Paris now."

"Ah, Manon! Monsieur Ashurst! Monsieur Ashurst! I would, instead, he were Monsieur de Beauvilliers. Then-then-" She broke off in what she had been about to say and bade the girl go tell the holy father he might leave the room, might walk in the garden if he chose, and see if there were any roses left. His services were not now required; if she could judge by her feelings, her death was not to be yet. Send him away, she gave order.

Obedient to her commands-was she not a patroness of all the religious foundations in and around Paris, as well as a magnificent benefactress? – the monk departed. Then the Princesse de Rochebazon continued:

"If he were not Monsieur Ashurst, but were instead of my husband's side, the de Rochebazons would not have come to an end-to an end. My God! why is he not a de Beauvilliers? Yet, had he been, I might not have loved him as I do."

"'Tis pity, madame," the girl said. "Yet even as it is-" then paused, breaking off.

"'Even as it is,' you would say, 'he will inherit much-much of the de Rochebazon fortune.' Yes, 'tis true. He will be well provided for. After the Church-that first. Also you, Manon, are remembered."

"Madame!" the girl exclaimed softly, gratefully. Then went on, while as she spoke the tears stood in her eyes. "You have been always very good to me, oh! so good, so good, as ever and to all. What shall we do? What shall we do?"

"Nay, weep not. And-and-'Good!' Never say that. I-"

A tap, gentle as became the sick room, was heard at the door, whereupon the girl, drying her eyes, went down to where it opened, and after a whispered word with some domestic outside, returned to the bed and, standing outside the ruelle, said, "Madame is here."

"Again! To-day! She is very thoughtful. Let her be brought to me at once. And, Manon, we will be alone."

"Yes, Madame la Princesse," whereupon, bowing, she left her mistress, going once more toward the door, at which she waited until steps were heard outside, when she opened it wide and courtesied lowly and reverently before the woman who had been spoken of as "Madame," and who now came in.

A lady well advanced in years, having the appearance of being about seventy, yet looking almost more, since the sumptuous black in which she was arrayed seemed by its fashion to be suitable to an older woman than even she was-a lady stately enough, though not tall, with a white complexion and worn features, eyes that were piercing though not dark, a mouth in which there were few teeth left, those that still remained being black and discoloured.

"Aurore," she said, advancing to the bedside and passing within the ruelle, a bar of which had been lifted by the attendant ere she went out, "Aurore, I thank our Heavenly Father that he has not yet thought fit to take you to himself. I-I-was very desirous of seeing you again before we meet in Heaven-as I pray we shall ere long."

"Madame," the princess said, her voice calm and, for one reaching her end, marvellously clear and distinct, "to see you must always be a gratification to me, even in my extremity. Madame-"

"Cease this form of address," the other said, seating herself as she did so in a low chair by the side of the great bed. "There is no necessity for ceremony. We have always been friends, going hand in hand in God's work since-long ago-since you were wife to the Baron de Beauvilliers and with a greater position still to come; since I was Madame Scarron only, with little thought of ever being a-"

"Queen!"

"Nay! Never that. A king's wife-but no queen."

"It rested with you. The acknowledgment might have been forthcoming had you desired it."

"Even so. Only it was best to-to-let matters remain as they are."

So far as one so feeble as the princess now was could do so, she bent her head acquiescingly; doubtless she knew also that it was best that this woman should never be an acknowledged queen. She had not been a brilliant figure of the court of France for fifty years without being aware of all that was said, all that was whispered of Françoise d'Aubigné ere she found religion-as well as favour in the eyes of the king! Also, all that was whispered after that favour was found. There were a thousand tongues for ever wagging, as well as innumerable pens-the pen of De Sevignés to hint, the pens of Rabutins and Tallement des Réaux to speak plainly. Also her first lover was remembered and spoken of with many a courtier's tongue thrust in his, or her, cheek.

But now-now! she posed as God's vicegerent in France. Religion, even God himself, as some said bitterly, had been taken under her patronage; the king trembled for his soul as she worked on the fears of his mind, and Jansenists, Calvinists, Huguenots had been driven forth by hundreds of thousands to other lands, or, remaining in France, had been dragooned, sent to the galleys, the wheel, and the flames. The "femme fameuse et funeste" was the greatest living saint in Europe.

And as a saint, a patroness of the Holy Roman Church, she came now to visit the Princesse de Rochebazon once more ere she died.

"Aurore," she said, a moment later, "I have come to you again, hoping to find you not yet gone before me; because-because-oh, Aurore! to-to plead once more for the sacred cause of our Church; to beseech you to consider what you are about to do. Think! Think! You have worked so much good for that Church-yet you may do more."

"More!" the dying woman said, her clear, bright eyes fixed full blaze upon the other. "Madame-well, Françoise, since you insist-what more can I do? There is no de Rochebazon succeeding to title or estate, the power to will the latter, and-and all the movables, the argent comptant, is mine. And it is done. Beyond a few gifts to those who have served me, beyond what I have saved from that which is not justly mine, the Church will have all-all! Can it demand further?"

"'Tis that, 'tis that, Aurore! What you have saved from that which is most justly yours? 'Tis that! You told me," and now her voice, never loud, sank almost to a whisper, as though she feared that even in this vast room there might still be some who could overhear her, "that to this young man, this Martin Ashurst-this Anglais-you have left those savings. A noble heritage, five hundred thousand pistoles. Oh, Aurore! Aurore! think, think! it is French money, and he is-English-"

"He is my own flesh and blood," the other interjected. "My brother's child! And he is of our Church!"

"That alone redeems it. Yet think of all our Church, here in this France of ours, needs. Money to extirpate the heretics-some can even be bought with money, they say; in the Midi there are those who will adopt our religion for a handful of Louis d'ors-"

"They must have changed since their grandfather's days! – since La Rochelle!"

"They have changed, though-Vengeance confound and crush them! – some are still obstinate. But, Aurore, listen. This young man, this nephew, needs not the money. He is provided for, will be provided for in his own land. He will do well-go far under the heretic, Anne. Oh, Aurore, he is your flesh and blood, I know. 'Tis but nature that you should benefit him-yet not so much, not so much. God is before man-before all earthly relations."

"He is my brother's child," the Princesse de Rochebazon repeated. "And I loved that brother. Also this one has been my care-"

"I know, I know! Supported, educated by you, given money hourly to squander in waste. Yet I speak not against that; he is of your race. But now you will give him all this-so great a sum! And France needs money. Aurore," she cried, "do you know that our-that Louis'-coffers are empty? The wars, the buildings, the pomps and vanities, the awful prodigalities of the court have left those coffers bare. And money is needed so, needed so-especially for the work of the Church-needed so much!"

And she almost wrung her hands as thus she pleaded. Yet again the dying aristocrat murmured: "My own flesh and blood. Also of our faith."

Exhausted by her own efforts, the De Maintenon-the Curse of France! as many had termed her-seemed now to desist, to be beaten back by the words of the princess. Then suddenly seemed also roused to fresh excitement as the other spoke again-excitement mixed this time with anger, as testified by the glances her eyes shot forth. For the dying woman had continued: "Though I provide for him I must tell him the truth-tell all. I can not die with a lie on my lips-in my heart."

"Aurore!" she exclaimed-had she not been a king's wife, had this not been a sick-room, it might almost have seemed that she screamed at the other-"Aurore, your brain is gone. You are mad. Tell him all, and lead to further evil to our Church. Aurore, for God's sake say this is a fantasy of your mind. Why," she exclaimed, her passion mounting with her thoughts, "why should you, a stranger to France, a woman raised by marriage to your high position, bring scandal on the name of a noble family-reveal secrets that have slumbered for years?"

"I can not die," the other repeated, "with the truth hidden."

"The truth," Madame de Maintenon muttered through her discoloured teeth, "the truth! What has the truth to do with-what account is it when set against our faith! Aurore, in the name of that faith, recall your words, your resolve."

But the dying woman was unshaken. Even the other, whose influence terrified all France, could not affright her-perhaps because the princess knew that henceforth she had to answer to a greater than she.

"I must confess it to him-I must-I must!" she murmured faintly. "I must. I can not die with such a secret in my heart."

CHAPTER II
THE TRAVELLER FROM ENGLAND

A great Berline à quatre chevaux halted at the North Gate outside Paris, and the young man seated within the carriage let down the window and prepared to once more answer all the questions that would be put to him. Yet he also thanked Heaven, in a somewhat wearied manner, that this must be the last of it. After that he would be in Paris, with nothing before him but to drive as fast as might be to the Rue Champfleury, known long ago as La Rue Honteuse.

Then the formula began once more, was repeated and gone through with, precisely in the same manner as it had been gone through with at Boulogne, where he had landed, at Amiens, Abbeville, and half a dozen other towns and villages.

"Monsieur's name?" asked the guet, respectfully enough, while as each answer was made he glanced at the passport handed to him and countersigned by the Ambassador to England from "Louis, Roi de France et de Navarre, etc."

"Martin Ashurst."

"Country?"

"England."

"Position?"

"Gentleman. Also-"

But here he found that no more explanation whatever was required from him. Precisely as he had found it all along the road, whenever the inquiring eyes of warders or guets or gatekeepers (in some cases soldiers) had lit upon one of the many statements appended to his passport-the statement that Monsieur Ashurst was nephew to "Madame la Princesse de Rochebazon."

"Passez, monsieur," said the man, as all the other men had said on seeing this, and saluting as all the other men had saluted; after which, with a direction to the coachman to proceed, he retired into his room in the gatehouse.

"The last, thank God," the occupant of the Berline muttered, "the last. It has been wearisome, but, well, it is over. Now for my aunt."

In spite of his weariness incurred by an unhalting journey from London, in which sleep could only be obtained by snatches here and there, in spite of the dust along the highroads both of England and France having discoloured his scarlet coat and tarnished his gold lacings and rendered dirty his Valenciennes cravat, as well as having turned the whiteness of his wig to a dirty yellowish brown, Martin Ashurst presented an attractive appearance. His features were handsome and manly, clear-cut and aristocratic-Madame la Princesse de Rochebazon, once Aurora Ashurst, had herself possessed the same features when young-his figure was slight, yet strong and well knit, his whole appearance satisfactory. Also he bore about him those indefinable traits which mark the gentleman, which, perhaps, it may be said without offence to others, mark and distinguish the English gentleman particularly. A certain calm, a self-contained air, a lack of perception of the existence of those who were unknown to him, and thereby without his ken, distinguished Martin Ashurst as it has always distinguished so many of the well-bred of our land.

Yet his life had not been all passed in England, the first fifteen years of it being, indeed, spent in France under the patronage of the aunt to whom the Berline à quatre chevaux was now bearing him as fast as four heavy Flanders roadsters could drag it.

Gabriel Ashurst, his father, and Gabriel's sister Aurora, had been two among the hundreds of Royalists who, in the year 1647, were taken by their parents to France as soon as it was possible to escape out of England and from the clutches of the Parliamentarians. Then, in France, in Paris, had begun for them that long career of exile against which so many of the followers of the Stuarts had repined so much at first, and which, in due course, so many had come to like and, in some cases, to appreciate. Also there had come to this exiled family a splendid piece of good fortune, the like of which did not fall often in the way of English exiles. Aurora Ashurst, a girl of twenty, had won the heart of Henri de Beauvilliers, then Baron de Beauvilliers, but with, before him in the near future, the titles and wealth and great positions of Comte de Montrachet, Marquis du Gast d'Ançilly, and Prince de Rochebazon, for the head of the house who held them all was near his end; they were almost within the grasp of Henri, as he stood at the altar with his English bride. Three months after their marriage they were his.

Time passed. Gabriel married, as well as his sister, his wife being a countrywoman of his own, also in exile with her family. Cromwell died, the Stuarts were restored. Then Gabriel and his wife returned to England, but the lad, Martin, was left in charge of the Princesse de Rochebazon, who had become by now a childless widow-was, indeed, almost adopted by her. It was true she could not make him heir to the great titles-those must die out! – but at least she could provide for him, and she set about doing it. The whole control of the de Rochebazon wealth was hers to do what she pleased with; she might, if she had desired, have left their châteaux, their woods and forests in half a dozen provinces, their hotel in the Rue Champfleury-everything, to him. Only, because she was a just woman and a religious, she would not do that, recognising that the wealth accumulated by generations of French nobles ought not in common honesty to go to one who had no tie of blood with them and who belonged to a land which was almost always at war with France. Therefore, urged partly by the promptings of her own heart and deep Catholic feelings, partly by the promptings of a priest, and partly by those of the De Maintenon, as well as by a whispered hint in the soft courtly tones of le Roi Soleil, now cowering under the awful terrors that too often assail the self-righteous, she left all the wealth of the heirless De Rochebazons to the Church, reserving only for Martin Ashurst the fortune she had saved out of her private purse.

Yet 'twas a fortune which would make him rich for life, place him on a high pinnacle in either France or England, cause women either at St. James's or Versailles to angle for him, and throw aside forever, as commodities too expensive to be indulged in, the men whom they loved; a fortune that would buy him a peerage in England, obtain for him the justaucorps à brevet in France, and orders and decorations, the command of regiments, the governorships of provinces, embassies, stars and ribbons, surround him with parasites and flatterers! Half a million pistoles! In English money nigh upon five hundred thousand guineas!

As the berline rolled through St. Ouen and Aubervilliers, the wheels sometimes sticking in a rut of the ill-kept roads-whereby the great, cumbersome vehicle lurched so heavily that the young man expected to be overturned at every moment-sometimes, too, scattering a flock of ducks and fowls before it as they sought for subsistence amid the dust and filth, while the coachman and postillion hurled curses at all and everything that came in their way, and the English man servant in the banquette roared with laughter, Martin Ashurst thought of what lay before him in the future. For he knew well enough to what he went-the princess had long since apprised him of the inheritance that was to be his-he knew that future. Yet he was not particularly enamoured of it.

"The conditions," he muttered more than once to himself, "are irksome. To live in France, yet with my thoughts ever cast back to England, to London, to St. James's and the suppers at Locket's and Pontac's, the merry nights at Chaves's and White's. And-and-to be banished from England! Faugh! whatever my aunt has to leave me can scarce be worth that."

In sober truth, although he knew he was heir to Madame la Princesse, he did not know how great the inheritance was to be. In thinking it all over, in talking it all over, too, with his father and mother, he had imagined with them that there might be some thirty or forty thousand pounds which would be his, and that, owning this sum of money, he would thereby be a rich man. But that any such sum as that which his aunt had really put aside was ever likely to come to him had never entered his thoughts.

"Also," he mused, "how serve Louis, be subject to him when my own country may require me? And though we are at peace, how long shall we be so? Marlborough, the Dutch, are restless; they itch to fly at this French king's throat. It will come again. It must. No treaty ever yet put an end to our wars for any considerable time. Also-also-there is the other thing. In honour I must tell her that, even though by doing so I cause her to renounce me, to disinherit me. To leave me not so much as will pay the score at Locket's for suppers. She must know it."

Down the Rue de la Boucherie the berline rumbled, the dry fetid smell of the blood of slaughtered beasts being perceptible to the young man's nostrils as he passed through it, since it was still the shambles of Paris; down the Rue des Chants Poulets and past the Rue des Mauvais Garçons it went, with still the driver hurling curses at all who got in his way, at children playing in the road and at a cordelier telling his beads as he walked, yet glinting an evil eye at the coachman and muttering maledictions at him under his breath, and with the English servant still laughing as now he donned his drugget coat and put on his puff wig. For the driver, in between his curses and howls and whoops at the animals, had found time to mutter that the next street was La Rue Champfleury, though, diantre! few flowers grew there now, except in the gardens of the great Princesse de Rochebazon.

"Sir," said the man servant, glancing down through the open window in the back of the great vehicle, "we are nearly there."

"I know it," Martin Ashurst replied. Then asked suddenly, as they passed under the Beau Dieu stuck in a corner house of the street, "Why does he roar afresh, and why pull up with such a jerk?"

"There are red cords stretched all about the street, sir, in front of a great house; also the road is half a foot deep in tan to deaden sounds. And a fellow with a three-cornered hat as big as a table waves a gilt stick to him to stop. What shall we do?"

"Why, stop to be sure. Also I will alight. We have arrived."

Whereon he descended out of the berline, bidding the man follow with his sword, as well as pay the driver and see to the necessaries being taken off the roof. After which he passed through the cords, and addressing the Suisse, said:

"How is it with Madame la Princesse?"

"Madame la Princesse still lives, monsieur," the man replied, his eye roving over the scarlet coat and richly laced hat of the traveller; noticing, too, the rings upon his fingers and the silver-hilted rapier carried by the servant. "Doubtless monsieur is the nephew of Madame la Princesse, expected to-day."

"I am he."

With a bow the man invited Martin Ashurst to follow him, and led him through a cool vestibule to where some footmen stood about, then ordered them to conduct monsieur to his apartment, saying that possibly he would desire to make his toilet.

"The rooms prepared for monsieur are those he has occupied often before, I hear," this man of importance said. "Upon this étage, giving on the garden, if monsieur pleases."

And now, left alone with only his servant to attend upon him, monsieur made a hasty toilet, washing from off his hands and face the dust and dirt of the journey, discarding, too, his scarlet coat and waistcoat for others of a more suitable colour, changing his wig and shoes and stockings. Then bade the man go say that if the princess would receive him he was ready to attend upon her.

Sitting there waiting to be summoned to her presence, his eyes glancing out through the long open windows on to the fresh, green garden with its banks of roses, now drooping with the advent of autumn, he thought of all that she had done for him since first he could remember. Of how, as a child, when he lived in this great house, or went with her in the summer heats to fair Touraine-where was a castle of the de Rochebazon's embowered in woods-or to that other great château in Perche, or to still a third one which hung over the golden sands of La Gironde, she seemed to live almost to shower gentle kindnesses upon him, her brother's child. To do all for him that she would have done had he been her own; to surround him with luxuries far too good and dainty for one so young as he; to provide him with tutors and keepers, with horses and carriages and rich silks and satins, and gold pieces in his pockets to fling to beggars as other men flung sols and deniers, because she loved him, and in her love had but one regret-that he was not a de Rochebazon to succeed to all they owned.

Also, when they were separated, he in England, she at Versailles, how much she had done for him as he grew to manhood! How much! How much! Money sent over for his pleasures because she desired that, in all things, he should have the best, should be able to hold his own with those who were in the court circle and the fashion. That his early years should never know any narrowness of means which in after life might cramp him as he recalled it; also that, as he stepped over the threshold of youth and reached manhood, he should do so with ease and comfort.

"I owe her all, everything," he mused to himself as still his eyes gazed out upon the trim-kept and still luxurious parterres of the great gardens. "All, all! My father, beggared as he was by his loyalty, could have done naught beyond equipping me for some simple, unambitious calling, beyond, perhaps, obtaining me a pair of colours in some marching regiment. I owe her all-the clothes upon my back, the food I eat, the very knowledge of how to wield a sword! And-and-God forgive me! I have deceived her for years, kept back for years a secret that should not have existed for one hour. Still, she shall know now. She shall not go to her grave without knowing that I have no right to own one single livre that she has put aside for me."

As he finished his reflections the door was rapped at, and the footman, entering at his command, told him that the Demoiselle Manon was without and waiting to escort him to the bedside of Madame la Princesse.