Chapter XXV A Bundle of Letters
Jealousy—Hard Facts—A Special Plea—Family History—Brother and Sister—Marriage Lines—A Fair Claimant—Air Castles
Some hours later, when Madame de Vaudrey had been composed to sleep, and the three patients made as comfortable as possible pending the arrival of the doctor, who had been summoned from the village, Adèle left her mother’s bed-side and joined Harry in the dining-room.
“I must thank you,” she said, advancing to him with outstretched hands. “We have always to thank you. It seems to be fated that you should save us from that bad man.”
“He will trouble you no more, Mademoiselle.”
Adèle looked a question.
“Yes, he is dead.”
The girl shuddered, and looked involuntarily towards the sword at Harry’s side.
“No, it was not I; it was my man.”
There was a look of relief in Adèle’s face.
“How thankful to God we must be that you came in time, Monsieur!”
“Did Madame not get my letter?”
“Did you write a letter?”
“Yes; I learnt some time ago that this plot was hatching, and I wrote twice. The first letter, I know, must have miscarried, but the second—it should have reached you, for I am sure Mynheer Grootz must have received a letter written at the same time. That is why he is here now.”
“We have been away from home: stay, Monsieur, I will enquire.”
She soon returned with the letter unopened.
“It came three days ago,” she said. “We have been for a week in Breda; there were festivities given by the officers of the garrison, and the servants did not think to send the letter, knowing that we should soon return. M. de——he must have found out the time of our departure, and so planned to waylay us. But we were late in starting; Mother was fatigued; and I see how it happened. Mynheer Grootz’s coach was taken for ours; when the—the man found that it was not, he thought it had been sent on in front to deceive him. Oh, Monsieur Harry, but for your letter to Mynheer Grootz, and your coming so soon yourself——”
“Think no more of it, Mademoiselle. I cannot say how glad I am that I happened to be able to serve you. Forgive me; you are worn out; it will not do to have another invalid, you know——”
Adèle smiled in answer.
“Yes, I will go to bed,” she said, “and I do thank you for Mother and myself.”
She clasped his hands again, then ran from the room. Harry had never seen her so much moved. Hitherto she had always been so cold, so reserved, seeming to grudge the few words that courtesy demanded. Even when something claimed her active help, as in the stratagem by which Lindendaal had been saved from the raiders nearly eighteen months before, she had acted, indeed, with decision and courage, as a good comrade, but had at once relapsed into her former attitude of aloofness, almost disdain. With Fanshawe, on the contrary, she had been frank and gay, ready with quip and jest, gently correcting his French, merrily laughing at her own attempts to speak English, never wearying of accompanying on the harpsichord his west-country songs, which she quickly picked up by ear. Fanshawe was thoroughly in love with her—and Harry remembered with a pang that he bore a letter from Fanshawe to her mother, once more urging his suit.
“Confound him!” he thought, and, his hands tight clasped behind him, he strode up and down the room with compressed lips and lowering brow.
He had no doubt now of the relationship in which he stood to Fanshawe; he was both his rival and friend. He tried to face the situation calmly. Fanshawe was a good fellow, an officer in the English army, and heir to a baronetcy and a fine estate. He could sell out at any moment, and doubtless enjoy by the liberality of his father an income sufficient to maintain a wife in something more than comfort. It gave Harry a pang to contrast his own position. He had no property, no family influence, nothing beyond his pay and the income so generously allowed by Mynheer Grootz. True, he was now in the service of Prince Eugene, and the circumstances in which he had joined the Austrian service gave him a good prospect of ultimate advancement; but it might be many years before he could venture to ask a lady to share his fortunes. Besides, if Mademoiselle de Vaudrey was indeed heiress to an estate, as Simmons had reported, a poor man could not seek her hand without incurring the suspicion of being a fortune-hunter: the mere suggestion brought a hot flush to Harry’s cheeks. No; he could but stand aside. Fanshawe had failed once; he might yet succeed; and if it should so turn out, Harry could but wish his friend joy and go his way.
“Heigh ho! Some fellows are lucky!” he thought, and, heaving a tremendous sigh, he went to bed.
A good night’s rest, and the knowledge that Polignac could never disturb her again, cured Madame de Vaudrey’s hysteria, and she came down next morning somewhat pale, but in her usual health. After breakfast Harry took the first opportunity of finding his hostess alone, to deliver Fanshawe’s letter. She smiled as she took it and noticed the handwriting.
“From that dear Monsieur Fanshawe, is it not?” she said.
“Yes, Madame.”
“What can he have to write about, I wonder? Do you know, Harry?”
“Fanshawe told me, and—well, he asked me—that is, I promised to put in a word for him.”
“Vraiment! Then I think I guess the subject of his letter. Come, mon ami, what have you to say for him, then?”
The comtesse watched Harry with a twinkle of enjoyment. Her mother’s eye had penetrated the state of the case.
“Godfrey is a good fellow, Madame; amiable—you know that; he will be rich some day; he—sings a good song; he—in short, Madame, he is very fond of Mademoiselle, and—and——”
“And would make a good husband, you think? Well, my dear Harry, I shall tell Adèle that he has written to me, and repeat what you have said in his behalf; but you know her: she has a mind of her own; and I can only give her my advice.”
And she left Harry in a tormenting perplexity as to what her advice would be.
It was a week or two before Mynheer Grootz was well enough to leave his room, and during those days his kind attendants were careful to avoid all but the most necessary references to what had happened. He was told that Polignac was dead and the hue and cry was out after Aglionby, and his convalescence was not retarded by any fears on the ladies’ behalf. One morning, when the doctor allowed him to come downstairs, he sent Harry to find Madame de Vaudrey. It was time, he said, that the motive of Polignac’s recent attempt should be seriously considered.
“Madame,” he said in French, when with Harry they were closeted in the reception-room, “it has not yet been told you, but we have reason to believe that Polignac urged his suit upon Adèle because he had information that she is heiress to some estates.”
“As she is—heiress to Lindendaal.”
“Yes, but the estates in question must be of greater value. Your little estate here is not of so much worth as to account for Polignac promising large sums to Aglionby, first on his marriage with Adèle, secondly on her succession to her property. Tell me, Madame, know you of anything that could give colour to the beliefs of these wretches?”
“Nothing, my friend. My husband, as you know well, was a refugee, an exile: his family estates in France were confiscated long ago. As for me, I had nothing but my poor little dowry. No relatives of mine are owners of estates.”
“But on Monsieur le Comte’s side: his mother: she was an Englishwoman, I believe?”
“Yes. I know little of her; she died very soon after the birth of her only child, my dear husband.”
“What was her name?”
“I do not remember. Certainly I have heard it, but it is many years ago, and English names are so difficult to keep in mind.”
“But Monsieur le Comte—had he not some souvenir of his mother?—some portrait, or heirloom, or family papers?”
“I never saw any. But I have upstairs a box in which I treasure many little things that were his: perhaps you would like to see it?”
“Certainly. It would be as well.”
Madame de Vaudrey sent a servant to a private room in the turret, whence he returned presently with a leather-covered brass-studded box. After some search the key was discovered, the box was opened, and the comtesse took out, one after another, various memorials of her dead husband. Among them was a bundle of papers tied up with ribbon; this she laid with trembling hands before her friend.
“You permit me, Madame?” he said.
She nodded through her tears.
Grootz untied the ribbon, and unfolded the topmost paper. A cursory glance showed that it threw no light on the subject all had at heart. Several other papers were examined with a like result; then, nearly at the bottom of the bundle, Grootz came upon a smaller packet separately tied. The outer wrapper bore, in a faded, delicate handwriting, the words: “Dernières letters de la famille de feu ma chère femme”. Harry got up and leant towards him in some excitement.
“Wait, my son,” said Grootz; “let us proceed with quietness.”
He opened the topmost letter, and read it slowly through.
“It tells us nothing,” he said. “It begins ‘My dear sister’, and ends ‘Eustace’. We go to the next.”
Unfolding this, he saw at the top the date June 12, 1659, and an address in London.
“This is in the same hand,” he said. “It is cramped; Harry, your eyes are young; read it, my boy, aloud.”
Harry took the letter and read:
“MY DEARE SISTER,
“It will please you to heare the Affaire goes according to our hopes. The people are well dispos’d to the Gentleman you wot of, & the rule of the Saintes is abhorr’d of the moste. But businesse of State holds lesse in your Estimation than the fortunes of your brother, and I have a peece of Newes that will put your gentle heart all in a Flutter. What do ’ee think, sweete? You never had a sister: will you thanke me if I give you one? There! not to keepe you on tenterhooks, I designe—now is yr heart going pit-a-pat—to wed: ay, Mary, your brother has met his fate. This daye weeke the Knot is to be ty’d. I knowe the questions that at this Newes flocke into your mind: is she black or faire, tall or short, of court or cottage? I am not carefull to answer; you shall love her, my sweet; ’tis the fairest, dearest ladie lucky man ever wonne, yonge, freshe, winsome as you could wishe. I dare not, as you may beleeve, wed in my owne name; ’tis too perilous as yet, my Businesse being what it is; indeede, Lucy herselfe knows not of my family, for being so yonge and simple, she might let fall in an unwatch’d moment what might bring me to the block. She shall knowe all in due season. I have not open’d my Designe to our brother, for in truthe I find no reason to truste him; his warm professions of Zeale for us seeme to me but Flams. I feare he has play’d throughout a Double Game. He stands exceeding well with the Godly Partie, & having been at Paines to enquire thro’ a sure friend I can heare of nothing done in our behalfe, but rather of endeavors to feather his owne nest. But enough of that; if our hopes are crown’d, as praye God they may be speedilie, Nicolas will have——”
Harry paused as he read the name.
——“Nicolas will have no choice but to quitte the Hall, and make what Profitte he may of his owne farmes. Ask in yr prayers that the Happie Daie be hasten’d. And now no more from your righte loving Brother EUSTACE.”
Harry laid the letter down, and looked at Mynheer Grootz.
“Why did you pause?” asked the Dutchman.
“’Twas a thought I had, Mynheer. It may be vain. Before I say more, will you look at the next paper?”
“Hé!” exclaimed Madame de Vaudrey, “I am becoming curious.”
Mynheer Grootz with the same imperturbable calm unfolded the next paper of the bundle.
“This,” he said, scanning it over his spectacles, “is not a letter; it is a document. It records the marriage, in the Huguenot church in Paris, on May 2, 1658, of Louis Marie Honoré, Comte de Vaudrey, aged 34, with Mary Berkeley,”—he pronounced the name in three syllables, foreign fashion—“aged 22, daughter of John Berkeley Esquire of Winton Hall, in the county of Wiltshire, England.”
“’Tis found!” cried Harry, springing up in excitement. “We call the name Barkley in England; Madame, Monsieur le Comte was the son of Mr. Berkeley’s sister; he is the squire of my own village Winton St. Mary; without a doubt it is his estates to which Mademoiselle is heiress. What a discovery we have made!”
“Stay, Harry,” said Mynheer Grootz quietly; “did you not tell me that your squire has a son?”
“Yes, yes, but now I remember: at home I have heard it said that Mr. Berkeley was lord of the manor only by default of other heirs: yes, it comes back to me now: the villagers did not like him; they grudged him his estate; he was stepson of the former squire, and step-brother of the lady who became Comtesse de Vaudrey.”
“Still I do not understand. The lady had a brother—the gentleman whose name was Eustace; being employed in state business, to do with the restoration of your King Charles, I think, he was doubtless the elder of the two: he would be his father’s heir, and his children after him. The letter, you see, announces his approaching marriage.”
“You are right, Mynheer. I heard him talked of, too; he was killed in a fray with highwaymen on the Dover road, when he was returning from France, after King Charles came back, to claim his estates. Yes, the squire’s family history is well known in the village; but I never heard of a Mistress Eustace Berkeley; perhaps the marriage did not take place after all.”
“It would seem so.”
“It must be so,” cried Harry. “Do you not now see Captain Aglionby’s part? When he stayed with you, Madame, six years ago, he must have discovered Monsieur le Comte’s relationship with Mr. Berkeley; that explains his hold over the squire; it explains also the scheme arranged between him and Monsieur de Polignac. Indeed, it is clear as daylight: the captain bled Mr. Berkeley on pretence of keeping his secret; and he sold that secret to Polignac.”
“The odious man!” exclaimed Madame de Vaudrey, who sat in a state of perfect amazement as link after link was added to the chain.
“A very villain!” said Grootz, smiting the table. “Madame, it appears that Adèle is indeed the rightful owner of the estates now held by this miscreant Berkeley, and I, Jan Grootz, will make it my business, as soon as I am recovered, to see that right is done.”
“And it is to Harry that we owe it all! Oh, my dear Harry, Adèle shall thank you! If only my dear husband could have lived to bless you too!”
“Zo!” exclaimed Grootz. “But, Madame, I have a thing to say. Adèle shall thank Harry; yes; but I say tell her nothing until I have been to London, and with the aid of English law have overthrown the villain Berkeley. It will be best; yes, it will be best.”
“Very well, my friend. Dear Adèle! to think of her as lady of an English manor! She has thought much of her English grandmother: she will love to live in England; I have no English blood in me, and I dread the sea; but I must live with her, of course I must.”
Grootz compressed his lips.
“Il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué,” he said sententiously.