The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 20

Chapter 20

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."

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