"She is no schemer, or, if she is, it is against her own land," Bevill exclaimed. "Oh! if I knew, if I could divine what reason there may be for any French, in such times as these, to look to the English for help and support! Gentlemen, you have been long on this foreign service. Have you heard no word? Can any French, any portion of France, be hoping for help from us against their own selves?"
But the officers could tell him nothing. They had, indeed, been abroad some time, but that time had been passed only in the Netherlands. They did not know-it was impossible they should know-that far away in the South, whose shores and golden sands were laved by the soft waters of the Mediterranean, things were being done that were turning honest, faithful subjects into rebels. They did not know that homes were being rendered desolate, children made orphans, and parents childless; that the nobles were escaping, where possible, to other lands; that the working classes were being succoured in Clerkenwell and Spitalfields, beneath the Swiss snows and on the burning shores of Africa. Therefore, they could neither think nor dream of what might be the cause-if there were any such! – which could make this woman of the French aristocracy false to France.
But now the trooper came back to where they sat with Bevill, and stated that a great travelling coach was coming slowly along, it having evidently issued from out St. Trond, which lay round a bend of the road. Upon which Bevill, wishing them a hasty farewell and exchanging swift handshakes with them, mounted La Rose.
"God speed!" they all cried out to him. "God speed" and "Fortune de la guerre!" while the youngest exclaimed, in boyish enthusiasm, "If you creep into Liége and cannot find your way forth again, keep ever a brave heart. We shall be near; we, or some of us, will have you out."
"And, 'ware les beaux yeux of Madame la Comtesse," the captain called.
"And those of the ward of my Lord Peterborough," said the lieutenant.
"'There is more danger,'" cried the youngest, misquoting, "'in one look of theirs than twenty of our foemen's swords,' as Betterton says as Romeo."
"So, monsieur le Mousquetaire-monsieur mon cousin, Le Blond," the Comtesse with emphasis said, as now Bevill rode back to the carriage and took up his usual position by the window, "you can speak English when you desire."
"Yes, madame, when I desire. I hope the sound of that tongue is not offensive to madame."
"An Englishman," the Comtesse replied, her calm, clear eyes upon him, "should ever speak the tongue he loves best-even as a valiant knight is ever knightly, no matter what his land may be."
CHAPTER X
Liége was before them. From a slight eminence in this land, in most cases so utterly without eminence at all, they could look onward and see its walls, especially those on the left bank of the Meuse. Also, they could see upon what they saw was the citadel a great banner streaming out to the soft south-west wind-a banner on which was emblazoned the gold sun that was the emblem of him who gloried in the name of "Le Roi Soleil." So, too, on the right side there floated out that ostentatious, braggart flag from the roof of the Chartreuse.
Lying outside the city, as they were easily able to observe from the eminence on which they had halted, were several regiments, their colours displayed from the larger tents amongst the lines; and some of these Bevill Bracton was able to recognise, since he had seen them before, when in Holland and Flanders under William III.
"Those," he exclaimed, pointing towards a large blue banner that streamed out above a great tent-a blue banner on which was a heraldic emblazonment that, had they been nearer, they would have recognised as a leopard couchant, "are the arms of a fierce, cruel general. The pennon to the right is that of the cavalry of Orléans; that to the left is the pennon of the dragoons of Piémont-Royal. We have met-I should say I have seen them-before."
Remembering, however, that much as the Comtesse might suspect or, indeed, actually know with regard to his being neither Frenchman nor mousquetaire, she did not know all, Bevill refrained from adding, "I have charged them in the past, and should know their colours."
"And this general you speak of-this man who is fierce and cruel? Who is he?"
"Montrével," Bevill replied.
As he did so he heard the Comtesse give a slight gasp, or, if it were so slight as to be unheard, at least he saw her lips part, while into her eyes there came a strange look, one that expressed half fear and half hate.
"Madame knows him?" he exclaimed.
"I know of him. He is, as monsieur says, fierce and cruel. He-he comes from a part of France I know very well-from Orange. And, worse than all, he is a-a-renegade."
"A renegade? He! One of Louis' most trusted leaders! He who has received the bâton of a Field-Marshal but recently! He a renegade?"
"One may be a renegade to others than king and country. To-"
"Yes! To what? To whom?"
"To God!"
After which the Comtesse seemed undesirous of saying more and sat gazing down towards the army lying outside the walls of Liége, while occasionally asking Bevill if he could tell her what other persons or regiments were represented by the various colours flying from tents and staffs.
But he, while doing his best to explain all that she had desired to know, and while pointing out to her the regiments of Poitou and Royal Roussillon-both of which he had also encountered-recognised that his mind was far away from a subject that, in other circumstances, would have occupied it to its fullest extent.
For now he could not keep his attention fixed on banners and bannerols and regiments, deep as might be the import they must bear towards England and his own safety. He could not even reflect upon how he, an Englishman passing as a Frenchman, would in the next hour or so have to make his way through the lines of those regiments while every word he uttered might betray him to sudden death. Sudden death! as must, indeed, be his only portion if, among those masses of troops below, one word mispronounced, one accent to arouse suspicion, should be observed. Sudden death! Yes, after a moment's interview with one of the generals or marshals-such a marshal, to wit, as the fierce cruel Montrével! Sudden death after another moment, and that but a short one, allowed for a hasty prayer.
And still he could not force his mind to think upon these things, since those words of the Comtesse de Valorme had driven all other thoughts away.
"Why?" he asked himself again and again as he sat his horse by her side. "Why does she speak thus of that truculent soldier? Why, among so many other matters that must have possession of her thoughts now, does this man's apostasy, for such it must be that she refers to, affect her so deeply. Ah! if I could but know!" And, as he thought thus, he let his eyes fall on those of the comtesse, and saw that hers were resting on him.
Suddenly, as he did this, he saw in them something that seemed almost as clear and distinct as spoken words would themselves have been; some pleading in them which, unlike spoken words, he could not understand, while still recognising that in her look there was a request. But yet he could not understand. He could not comprehend what it was that she desired of him, and so held his peace.
Now, however, the Comtesse spoke. She spoke as she leant forward, in the same way she had done before since they had first travelled in company, her gloved hand on the sash of the lowered window, her glance full of earnestness.
"We are close to Liége, monsieur," she said. "Little more than an hour will take us to the lines of that army lying outside the city. In two hours, by Heaven's grace, we may be inside. Monsieur, shall we not be frank with each other?"
"Frank, madame. How so? How frank?"
"Ah, monsieur, do not let us trifle further. Each of us has an object in entering that city. Yours I can partly divine, as I think; but mine I doubt your ever divining. Yet-yet-I know what you are, and I would that you should know who and what I am. If-if it pleases you, can we not confide in each other?"
Bevill bowed over his horse's mane as the Comtesse said these words; then, in a low tone, he replied:
"Any confidence madame may honour me with shall be deeply respected. Meanwhile, I have perceived that madame knows or suspects that I am not what I seem to be. So be it. I am in her hands and I do not fear. Let her tell me what she believes me to be and, if she has judged aright, I will answer truly. A frank admission can harm me no more than suspicion can do."
"I shall not harm you," the Comtesse said. "I have not forgotten your succour when those boors had attacked me." Then, glancing round to observe whether the servants were out of earshot, as was, indeed, the case, since they had gone some little distance ahead of the coach the better to gaze upon the troops environing the city, as well as on the city itself, she said:
"You are, as I have said, an Englishman."
"Yes," Bevill replied calmly, fearing nothing from this avowal which, made to any other French subject, would have been fraught with destruction to him. "I am an Englishman."
"A soldier, doubtless, endeavouring to make his way to his own forces."
"No; I am no soldier-now. I have been one. But my mission is far different from that. I go, if it may be so, to escort a young countrywoman of mine out of Liége, and to take her back in safety to England."
"Alas! you will never succeed. That she may be permitted to leave Liége is possible, though by no means probable. Those in the city who are not French will scarcely obtain permission to depart, since they would be able to convey far too much intelligence to the enemy of what prevails within. While as for you-"
"Yes, madame?" Bevill said, still speaking quite calmly.
"You may very well stay in Liége unharmed since no Walloon would betray you to his conquerors, and the French troops are in the citadel, the Chartreuse, at the gates, and elsewhere. But you will never get out with your charge."
"Not as a Frenchman?"
"No. Not with an Englishwoman. That is, unless she can transform herself into a Frenchwoman as easily as you have transformed yourself into a Frenchman."
"Yet you have discovered me to be none."
"I discovered you by some of your expressions, the turn of your phrases, simply because-and this may astonish you-your French was too good. You used some phrases that were those of a scholar and not the idiom of daily life. It is often so." Then, with almost a smile on the face that was generally so preternaturally grave, the Comtesse de Valorme said:
"Captain Le Blond, as you call yourself, would you discover that I am a Frenchwoman?"
And to Bevill's astonishment she spoke these words in perfect English-so perfect, indeed, that they might have issued from the lips of one of his own countrywomen.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, forgetting for the moment the perfect courtesy and deference which had marked his manner to her from the first. "What are you? Speak. Are you English or French? Yet, no," he continued. "No. There is the faintest intonation, though it has to be sought for; the faintest suspicion of an accent that betrays you. Madame," he exclaimed, not rudely, but only in a tone born of extreme surprise, "what are you-English or French?"
"French," she replied, while still speaking in perfect English; "but I have lived much in England, and-it may be that I shall die there."
"I cannot understand."
"You shall not be left long without doing so. Monsieur, as I must still address you, it is more than twenty years since I first went to England with my father, though I have returned to France more than once during those years. Now I have returned yet again. And-you have confided in me; I will be equally frank with you-listen. I am a Protestant."
"A Protestant!" Bevill exclaimed. "A Protestant? Ah! I begin to understand. A Protestant opposed to this war; linked with us against Spain and France; desirous of seeing these two great Catholic Powers subdued-"
"Alas!" the Comtesse said, "I cannot claim so noble an excuse for being here in the midst of this war. My presence here is more selfish, more personal. I-I-have suffered. God, He knows, how all of mine have suffered in the South-"
"You are from the South?"
"I am. From Tarascon. You saw me start when you spoke of that unutterable villain, Montrével. Montrével," she repeated, with bitter scorn; "Field-marshal and swashbuckler! Montrével, born a Protestant, but now of the Romish faith. A man who has persecuted us cruelly-one who even now desires to be sent to the Cevennes to persecute us still further."
Then, suddenly, the Comtesse ceased what she was saying, and, changing from the subject, exclaimed:
"But come-come. We have tarried here too long. We should be once more on our road to Liége. How do you propose to present yourself at the gates and gain admission to the city? You will run deep risks if you appear under the guise of a mousquetaire; for" – and now she took out a scroll of paper from the huge pocket let into the leather padding of her coach and looked at it, "there are two troops of the Mousquetaires Noirs at the Chartreuse."
"You know that? You have a paper of the disposition of the French forces?"
"I have, though with no view of betraying them to-the Allies. My disloyalty to my country is not so deep as that, nor even is it to the King who persecutes my people so evilly. Nevertheless, there are many of the Reformed Faith in these armies. There is a De la Tremouille, though he is but a lad, in the bodyguard of the Duc de Bourgogne; a De Rohan with Tallard; a De Sully in the Mousquetaires Noirs; also there are many others. I have means of learning much, though not all that I would know. These 'heretics,'" she continued bitterly, "may help me if trouble comes and I require help. Meanwhile, for yourself. You will never obtain entrance as a mousquetaire."
"I have another passport-one procured for me by a grand personage in England. With that I entered Antwerp, using only the papers of Captain le Blond after I had been recognised by an ancient enemy."
"Under what guise, what description, do you appear in that?"
"A secretary of the French Embassy in London-the embassy that now exists no longer."
The Comtesse de Valorme pondered for a few moments over this information, while, as she did so, there came two little lines on her white forehead, a forehead on which, as yet, Time had not implanted any lines of its own. Then she said:
"And what name do you bear on that?"
"André de Belleville."
Again she pondered for a moment, then said:
"It should suffice. It is by no chance likely that any of the secretaries from that embassy, now closed, should come here, or be here. Also, those at the walls cannot doubt me. It would be best you enter as a kinsman riding by my side as escort, as protector; for such you have been to me. And we are kin in one thing at least-our faith."
"Madame, I am most deeply grateful to you. If-"
"Nay; gratitude is due from me to you. Yet what was it you said but now? That you had an ancient enemy who recognised you at Antwerp. If so, may he not follow you here?"
"I think not. At St. Trond he appeared again, only to again disappear. Some evil may have befallen him, though not at my hands. He would have denounced me by daybreak had that not happened."
"So be it then. Let us go forward. Once in Liége you will doubtless be safe. If 'tis not so, then you must rely on Heaven, which has watched over you so far, to do so still. Where have you dreamt of sojourning when you are there? At the house where dwells this lady you go to seek and help?"
"Nay; that cannot be. I have never seen her since she was a child. Her father is dead. I know not in what part of the city she dwells. I must seek some inn-"
"No, no. I have kinsmen and kinswomen there of your faith. Their houses shall be-nay, will be, freely at your service. Speak but the word and it shall be so."
For a moment Bevill Bracton pondered over this gracious offer, while, even as he did so, he raised the gloved hand of the Comtesse to his lips and murmured words of thanks for her politeness. But after a moment's reflection he decided not to accept this offer.
He recognised at once that he ought not to do so; that the acceptance of that offer would be unwise. For he knew, or, at least, he had a presentiment, that from the moment he reached Sylvia Thorne his duty must be dangerous; that what he had promised the Lord Peterborough- ay! and also promised to do at all cost, all risk-might put him in peril of his life. He had known this ere he set out from England; he knew it doubly now. The French were all about and everywhere. Even during the next hour or so he would have to pass through a portion of that army to enter the city that lay before them. The difficulty of leaving it would be increased twofold-tenfold, when he had with him for charge a young girl, a young woman, who was also an English subject.
"Therefore," he mused, or rather decided quickly, while still the Comtesse de Valorme awaited his answer, "I must be unhampered; above all, untrammelled in my movements. God alone knows with what dangers, what difficulties, it may please Him to environ me; but be that as it may, I must at all hazards be free and at liberty to either face or avoid them. Courtesy, that courtesy as much due from guest to host as from host to guest, could not be freely testified in such circumstances as these. The quality of guest would not be fairly enacted by me. I should be but a sorry inhabitant of any man's house!"
Therefore, in very courteous phrases, conveying many thanks, he spoke these thoughts aloud to the Comtesse, while begging that the rejection of her offer might not be taken ill by her.
"It must be as you say," the lady said; "yet-yet-we must not drift from out each other's knowledge. Remember, I shall still be able to help and assist you; also I look forward still to your guidance and succour. You will not forget? It is imperative for me, if Heaven permits, to obtain audience of the Earl of Marlborough when he draws near, or, failing him, that of other of his generals. It is to England alone that we poor Protestants can look for succour."
CHAPTER XI
An hour later they had passed through the lines of circumvallation thrown up by the French around Liége to prevent any attack from the Allies; and through the earthworks bristling with cannon and culverin. Also they had, since they were now arrived here, passed the first inspection to which they must submit and the only one to which they would be submitted until they were at the gates of the city itself.
As the carriage of the Comtesse de Valorme had approached the opening left in those earthworks, the coachman being guided to it by a track which ran between innumerable grenades piled up in triangular heaps and numbers of tethered chargers as well as various other signs of preparation to resist attack, Bevill, looking down at his companion, saw that she was very white, and that her face, usually so calm and impassive, gave signs of much internal agitation.
"You do not fear, madame?" he asked, more with a view to calming her if necessary than, as a question.
"No," she replied, "I do not fear. My days for fear, for personal fear, are passed. I have suffered enough. But I am in dread for you."
"Dread nothing on my behalf, I beseech you," Bevill said. "I have a presentiment that that which I seek to do will be accomplished."
"I pray that it may be so. Yet-yet-I bear a name that stands not well in the eyes of Louis, and worse, doubly worse, in the eyes of the woman who rules him-the woman, De Maintenon. If the name of Valorme is known here to any in command-the name of Valorme, the heretic, the reformée, the affectée," she repeated bitterly, "it may go hard with us. I should not have bidden you to pass under the garb of a kinsman of mine. It would be best for you not to do so-"
But it was too late. Ere the Comtesse could finish the sentence, from behind a number of superb horses tethered together there rang out the words, "Halt, there!" and a moment later three officers and a trooper came forward, all of whose splendid dress showed that they were of the Mousquetaires Noirs.4 Their blue riding coats were covered with gold and silver lace; on their breasts were crosses of silver emitting flames of gold, above each of which were stamped the fleur-de-lis; while the whole was passemented with more lace. Near where the horses stood, the banner of their regiment blew out to the warm afternoon breeze; close by waved also the guidon of the Mousquetaires, with its romantic legend, or motto, on it, "Mon Dieu, mon Roi, ma Dame."
"It is an officer's guard," Bevill murmured to the Comtesse.
"And of the Mousquetaires," she whispered back. "'Tis very well you are not Captain le Blond any longer."
Seeing that a lady was seated in the great coach, one of the mousquetaires advanced, hat in hand, towards the window, while apologising profusely to Bevill for causing him to back his horse so that he might speak to his companion. Then, in a tone as courtly as though he and the Comtesse stood in the salons of Versailles, he said:
"Madame voyages in troublous times. Yet, alas! 'tis war time. As officer of the exterior guard may I venture to ask for the papers of madame?"
Out of his politeness and innate good-breeding the mousquetaire but glanced at the papers handed to him, while muttering "La Comtesse de Valorme" then, with a bow, he returned them to their owner, saying, "Madame is at liberty to pass. I regret to have been forced to cause her trouble," after which, turning politely to Bevill, he now asked for his papers.
"Là! là!!" he said, "Monsieur is from our embassy in London," while adding, with a smile, "Monsieur may meet with some of the English ere long again. They gather fast. We shall hope soon to give them a courteous reception."
"Without doubt, monsieur."
"Were monsieur and his brother officials well treated in London?"
"He has nothing to complain of, monsieur. Every facility was given for leaving England peaceably."
"I rejoice to hear it. Madame la Comtesse, I salute you," again standing bareheaded before the lady. "Monsieur, I am your servitor. En route," to Joseph on the box; but suddenly he said, "Yet stay an instant. Jacques, mon camarade," to the trooper close by (the troopers of the Mousquetaires were all gentlemen and often noblemen, having servants to attend to their horses and accoutrements), "accompany the carriage to the city walls."
"Yes, Monsieur le Duc," the man answered, saluting.
"Thereby," the former continued, "shall madame's way be made easier for her. The ground is a little encumbered," he said, turning to the Comtesse.
After which, and when more politenesses had been exchanged, the coach proceeded on its way towards the city.
A few moments later Madame de Valorme spoke to the trooper who had vaulted on to a horse on receiving his officer's orders, and was now riding on the other side of the carriage from that on which Bevill rode, and asked:
"Who is that officer who was so gallant to me? He is a very perfect gentleman."
"He is, madame, the Duc de Guise."
"Ah!" she repeated, "the Duc de Guise!" while Bevill, who had glanced into the carriage as she asked the question, saw that her face was clouded as though by a sudden pain.
Still a few moments more and the trooper had moved his horse to the front of those that were drawing the carriage, evidently with the intention of piloting Joseph through the enormous mass of arms and weapons of all kinds, gun carriages, and other materials of war with which the track through the camp was encumbered. So that, seeing they were free from being overheard by the man, Bevill said:
"That name caused madame some unpleasant thoughts. It is a great one, though not now prominent."
"It is the name of the greatest persecutors we have ever known. The bearer of it is the descendant of those who splashed the walls of Paris and dyed the waters of the Seine with our ancestors' blood. Can I-I-do aught but shudder at learning it, at being beholden to a de Guise for courtesy?"
"Those days are passed-"
"Passed Are they passed? Does not their memory linger even now. Is not the reflex of their wicked deeds cast on these present days? Oh, sir, you do not know, you cannot know what is doing even now in France, in the South. Ah, God! it seems to me as though the fact of this man, this inheritor of all the wickedness and cruelty of his forerunners, having been the first I encounter here, is an omen that I shall never succeed in the task I have set myself."
"Madame, think not so, I implore you. The Ducs de Guise are harmless now. Their power is gone, their teeth are broken. The ancient nobility can do nothing against the people without the King's command. He rules, directs all."
"Therein is the fear, the danger. Under that woman-faugh! – De Maintenon, he does indeed rule and direct all, but he directs all for cruelty. Who has filled the prisons, the galleys-ah! the galleys," the Comtesse repeated with an exclamation of such pain that Bevill wondered if, in any of those hideous receptacles of suffering and misery in which countless Protestants were now suffering, there might be, in their midst, some person or persons dear to her. "Who has filled those, who has strung thousands of innocent men and women upon the gallows, to the lamps of their own villages, on the trees of their own orchards, but Louis the King and those, his nobles, under him? Ah! ah!" she went on, "do you know what, in the old days, far, far off, long before they slaughtered us on St. Bartholomew's eve, the motto of the Guises was? It was one word only-'Kill.' And killing is in their blood. It cannot be eradicated; it is there. Is it strange that, in encountering this man. I fear? I who go to save. I who pray nightly, hourly, that my mission may help to save, to prevent, further slaughter?" And, as the Comtesse de Valorme finished speaking, she threw herself back upon the cushions of her carriage and buried her face in her hands.
"I pray God, madame," Bevill said, he being deeply moved at her words, "that the mission you are upon may bear good fruit. It is partly for that, also, that we, the English, are banded against France and Spain. Perhaps it may be that we desire not more to lower the pride, to break down the power of this King, than to prevent those whom he rules over from cruelly persecuting those of our faith."
Now, however, this discourse between them had to cease. They were at the gates of Liége, outside the suburb of St. Walburg, which, although not the nearest point of admission, was the one to which those who were permitted to enter the city at all were forced to go.
Contrary, however, to any fears which either the Comtesse de Valorme or Bevill might have felt as to their admission being made difficult, they found that it was extremely easy. The fact of the trooper who accompanied them having been sent by the Duc de Guise as an escort brought about this state of things, since it was almost unheard of that, whatever might be the detachment on guard at the exterior lines, or whosoever might be the travellers, such thought for their convenience should be exercised.
Consequently, the slightest examination of the papers of each was made by those at this barrier, and a moment later the barrier was passed.
Bevill had accomplished part of the task he had set out to perform. He was in the city where dwelt the woman whom he had come from England to help and assist.
"I am in Liége," he whispered to himself. "Yet-yet the difficulties do but now begin. May Heaven prosper me as it has done hitherto!"
They progressed now through the long, narrow streets that recalled, as every street in the Netherlands recalled, and still in many cases recalls, the ancient rule of Spaniard and Austrian. And thus, continuing on their way, crossing old bridges over the canals and watercourses that run from out the Meuse, observing the burghers coming forth from the service of many of their churches, and remarking the rich shops and warehouses full of silks and brocades from the far-off Indies and Java, they came at last to one of the long quays that border the river.
"And so," the Comtesse de Valorme said, as now the coach drew up at a great solid house in a small square off this quay, "we part for the present. Yet, monsieur, we are more than acquaintances now, more than mere fellow-travellers-"
"Friends, if madame will permit."
"Ay, friends! Therefore will you not tell me what is your rightful name? It may be well that I should know it."
"My name is Bevill Bracton, madame. I never thought when I set out upon this journey that I should tell it to any but her whom I seek; yet to you I now do so willingly."
"You may tell it in all confidence, and you know you may. 'Bevill Bracton,'" she repeated to herself. "I shall not forget. 'Bevill Bracton,'" she said again, as though desirous of impressing it thoroughly on her memory. "But here," she went on, "you are to be known always as André de Belleville!"
"It would be best, madame. I shall be known to few and, if fortune serves, shall not be long here."
For a moment the Comtesse let her clear eyes rest on the young man, as though she were meditating somewhat deeply; then suddenly, though hesitating somewhat in her speech as she did so, she said:
"And this young countrywoman of yours-this lady whom you have come so far to assist? May I not know her name also? It is no curiosity that prompts me-"
"Madame," Bevill replied, "our confidence is well established, our friendship made. The lady's name is Sylvia Thorne."
"Sylvia Thorne! Sylvia Thorne! Why, I know her. We, too, are friends, and firm ones."
"You know her? You are friends?"
"In very truth. I have been here more than once before as guest of my kinsman. And-yes, Sylvia Thorne and I are friends. Ah! what a double passport would this have been to my friendship had I but known that you were on your way to sweet Sylvia."