The Seats of the Mighty, Complete. Gilbert Parker
Robert Moray
I. AN ESCORT TO THE CITADEL
When Monsieur Doltaire entered the salon, and, dropping lazily into a chair beside Madame Duvarney and her daughter, drawled out, “England’s Braddock—fool and general—has gone to heaven, Captain Moray, and your papers send you there also,” I did not shift a jot, but looked over at him gravely—for, God knows, I was startled—and I said,
“The General is dead?”
I did not dare to ask, Is he defeated? though from Doltaire’s look I was sure it was so, and a sickness crept through me, for at the moment that seemed the end of our cause. But I made as if I had not heard his words about my papers.
“Dead as a last years courtier, shifted from the scene,” he replied; “and having little now to do, we’ll go play with the rat in our trap.”
I would not have dared look towards Alixe, standing beside her mother then, for the song in my blood was pitched too high, were it not that a little sound broke from her. At that, I glanced, and saw that her face was still and quiet, but her eyes were shining, and her whole body seemed listening. I dared not give my glance meaning, though I wished to do so. She had served me much, had been a good friend to me, since I was brought a hostage to Quebec from Fort Necessity. There, at that little post on the Ohio, France threw down the gauntlet, and gave us the great Seven Years War. And though it may be thought I speak rashly, the lever to spring that trouble had been within my grasp. Had France sat still while Austria and Prussia quarreled, that long fighting had never been. The game of war had lain with the Grande Marquise—or La Pompadour, as she was called—and later it may be seen how I, unwillingly, moved her to set it going.
Answering Monsieur Doltaire, I said stoutly, “I am sure he made a good fight; he had gallant men.”
“Truly gallant,” he returned—“your own Virginians among others” (I bowed); “but he was a blunderer, as were you also, monsieur, or you had not sent him plans of our forts and letters of such candour. They have gone to France, my captain.”
Madame Duvarney seemed to stiffen in her chair, for what did this mean but that I was a spy? and the young lady behind them now put her handkerchief to her mouth as if to stop a word. To make light of the charges against myself was the only thing, and yet I had little heart to do so. There was that between Monsieur Doltaire and myself—a matter I shall come to by-and-bye—which well might make me apprehensive.
“My sketch and my gossip with my friends,” said I, “can have little interest in France.”
“My faith, the Grande Marquise will find a relish for them,” he said pointedly at me. He, the natural son of King Louis, had played the part between La Pompadour and myself in the grave matter of which I spoke. “She loves deciding knotty points of morality,” he added.
“She has had chance and will enough,” said I boldly, “but what point of morality is here?”
“The most vital—to you,” he rejoined, flicking his handkerchief a little, and drawling so that I could have stopped his mouth with my hand. “Shall a hostage on parole make sketches of a fort and send them to his friends, who in turn pass them on to a foolish general?”
“When one party to an Article of War brutally breaks his sworn promise, shall the other be held to his?” I asked quietly.
I was glad that, at this moment, the Seigneur Duvarney entered, for I could feel the air now growing colder about Madame his wife. He, at least, was a good friend; but as I glanced at him, I saw his face was troubled and his manner distant. He looked at Monsieur Doltaire a moment steadily, stooped to his wife’s hand, and then offered me his own without a word; which done, he went to where his daughter stood. She kissed him, and, as she did so, whispered something in his ear, to which he nodded assent. I knew afterwards that she had asked him to keep me to dinner with them.
Presently turning to Monsieur Doltaire, he said inquiringly, “You have a squad of men outside my house, Doltaire?”
Doltaire nodded in a languid way, and answered, “An escort—for Captain Moray—to the citadel.”
I knew now, as he had said, that I was in the trap; that he had begun the long sport which came near to giving me the white shroud of death, as it turned white the hair upon my head ere I was thirty-two. Do I not know, the indignities, the miseries I suffered, I owed mostly to him, and that at the last he nearly robbed England of her greatest pride, the taking of New France?—For chance sometimes lets humble men like me balance the scales of fate; and I was humble enough in rank, if in spirit always something above my place.
I was standing as he spoke these words, and I turned to him and said, “Monsieur, I am at your service.”
“I have sometimes wished,” he said instantly, and with a courteous if ironical gesture, “that you were in my service—that is, the King’s.”
I bowed as to a compliment, for I would not see the insolence, and I retorted, “Would I could offer you a company in my Virginia regiment!”
“Delightful! delightful!” he rejoined. “I should make as good a Briton as you a Frenchman, every whit.”
I suppose he would have kept leading to such silly play, had I not turned to Madame Duvarney and said, “I am most sorry that this mishap falls here; but it is not of my doing, and in colder comfort, Madame, I shall recall the good hours spent in your home.”
I think I said it with a general courtesy, yet, feeling the eyes of the young lady on me, perhaps a little extra warmth came into my voice, and worked upon Madame, or it may be she was glad of my removal from contact with her daughter; but kindness showed in her face, and she replied gently, “I am sure it is only for a few days till we see you again.”
Yet I think in her heart she knew my life was perilled: those were rough and hasty times, when the axe or the rope was the surest way to deal with troubles. Three years before, at Fort Necessity, I had handed my sword to my lieutenant, bidding him make healthy use of it, and, travelling to Quebec on parole, had come in and out of this house with great freedom. Yet since Alixe had grown towards womanhood there had been strong change in Madame’s manner.
“The days, however few, will be too long until I tax your courtesy again,” I said. “I bid you adieu, Madame.”
“Nay, not so,” spoke up my host; “not one step: dinner is nearly served, and you must both dine with us. Nay, but I insist,” he added, as he saw me shake my head. “Monsieur Doltaire will grant you this courtesy, and me the great kindness. Eh, Doltaire?”
Doltaire rose, glancing from Madame to her daughter. Madame was smiling, as if begging his consent; for, profligate though he was, his position, and more than all, his personal distinction, made him a welcome guest at most homes in Quebec. Alixe met his look without a yes or no in her eyes—so young, yet having such control and wisdom, as I have had reason beyond all men to know. Something, however, in the temper of the scene had filled her with a kind of glow, which added to her beauty and gave her dignity. The spirit of her look caught the admiration of this expatriated courtier, and I knew that a deeper cause than all our past conflicts—and they were great—would now, or soon, set him fatally against me.
“I shall be happy to wait Captain Moray’s pleasure,” he said presently, “and to serve my own by sitting at your table. I was to have dined with the Intendant this afternoon, but a messenger shall tell him duty stays me. … If you will excuse me!” he added, going to the door to find a man of his company. He looked back for an instant, as if it struck him I might seek escape, for he believed in no man’s truth; but he only said, “I may fetch my men to your kitchen, Duvarney? ’Tis raw outside.”
“Surely. I shall see they have some comfort,”