The Launching of Roger Brook (48 page)

He had scarcely spoken when masked faces appeared at both windows of the coach, the doors were wrenched open and two evil-looking ruffians covered the occupants with their pistols.

The moon had not yet risen and, owing to the overhanging branches of the trees, the afterglow of the summer night did little to lighten the darkness in the lane where the coach had halted. The light was only just sufficient for Roger to make out the faces of the two Abbés opposite him as whitish blurs in the blackness; but he could see a little more of the men who had held them up, as each stood framed in one of the doorways of the coach. Both were masked and each was threatening one of the Abbés with a brace of pistols.

‘Out with your purses!’ growled the taller of the two, who was standing on d’Heury’s side of the vehicle.

D’Heury made a movement to obey; but de Périgord rapped out another oath, and snapped: ‘Have a care, rogues! I am no rich bourgeois whom you can rob with impunity. Lay a hand on me and I’ll have M. de Crosne’s police search all Paris for you, and come to see you broken on the wheel for it.’

Roger tensed himself. He was unarmed, but if de Périgord meant to put up a fight he was ready to join him in it. He did not think that either of the highwaymen had yet noticed him and kept very still, hoping to be able to take the man nearest him by surprise when the time came to fling himself into the fray.

De Périgord had hardly uttered his threat before the spokesman of the pair took him up.

‘So you resist!’ he rasped; and, without more ado, pulled the trigger of one of his pistols. A streak of flame issued from its barrel towards d’Heury. By the flash Roger saw the fear in the Abbé’s eyes; then heard him cry out. Throwing himself forward he knocked up the other man’s pistol, just as he fired, and the bullet thudded harmlessly into the upholstery above de Périgord’s head.

With a curse the footpad turned his second pistol on Roger. His companion fired again at d’Heury. Again, by the flash, Roger caught an instant’s glimpse of the interior of the coach. D’Heury lay slumped in his corner. De Périgord had pressed a spring in the handle of his cane and was in the act of drawing from it a long, glittering poignard.

As Roger’s glance switched, a second before the blackness descended again, he found himself staring down the barrel of the pistol. He jerked himself aside and, at the very second it went off the Abbé’s deadly weapon sank into the man’s neck. A blinding flash eclipsed Roger’s sight, and he felt a blow on the head like a hit from a hammer. It threw him violently backwards, then he seemed to be falling into a pit of blackness.

When he regained partial consciousness he knew that he was lying in a comfortable bed, but he had no idea how he had got there. His head ached intolerably, and someone was adding to its pain by moving it about. From a long way off the voice of the Abbé de Périgord reached him.

‘Nay, surgeon,’ the voice said, ‘I’ll not let you shave off one hair of his head more than is absolutely essential. He is a handsome fellow and those blue eyes of his must play the very devil with the women. But I’d have you know that he saved my life a while back. ’Twould be an ill return on my part to allow his appearance to be spoilt and, maybe, lose him his latest mistress.’

Blackness then again engulfed Roger and when next he came to it was morning. On opening his eyes he saw that
he was in a pleasant room with a tree outside its low window. Beside his bed sat a rosy-cheeked woman who was busy sewing. When she noticed that he was awake she smoothed out his pillows, gave him a drink of milk and bade him go to sleep again. He obediently shut his eyes and, before he had had time for any but the vaguest thoughts, he dropped off.

When he woke some hours later he felt perfectly well except for a dull pain in his head. He sat up and with a smile at his nurse told her that he felt hungry. She propped his pillows round him, warned him to remain quiet and left him for a while, to return with a light meal of eggs and fruit upon a tray.

After he had eaten he dozed for a little, and when he roused again it was at the rattle of rings as the nurse drew the curtains across the window, so he knew that it was evening. Soon afterwards the Abbé de Périgord came into the room. With a smiling word to the woman he sent her outside; then, leaning gracefully on his cane, he looked down at Roger, and said, slowly:

‘’
Ow—do—you do? I’ opes you are better
.’

It was just on three years since Roger had heard a single word of English spoken, but the reflexes in his still woolly brain caused him to reply in that language: ‘
Thank you; I’m none too bad except that my head still aches
.’

Only after the words were out did he suddenly jerk forward and, staring up at the Abbé, cry in French: ‘What was that you said?’

The Abbé’s delicately modelled mouth twitched with unconcealed humour as he replied in his native tongue: ‘I only asked you how you were, and I am delighted to see that you are well on the way to recovery.’

‘But you spoke in English,’ Roger muttered accusingly.

‘What if I did? I do not speak it very well but I know a little of that language. I have English friends. Lord and Lady Grey came to stay with me last year. Also I saw quite a lot of your Prime Minister, Mr. Pitt, when he was over here. He and I had good fun giving one another lessons in our languages. You are an Englishman. I know it, since you raved for a solid hour in that tongue when you were unconscious last night.’

‘Did I?’ faltered Roger lamely, as he strove to grasp the
results which this unmasking of his long deception might have upon his fortunes.

‘Indeed you did,’ went on the Abbé, carefully lowering himself into a chair beside the bed. ‘But please do not distress yourself on that account. It is clear that for some reason of your own you prefer to pass as a Frenchman, and I would never abuse a confidence obtained in such a manner.’

Somewhat reassured, Roger murmured his thanks; then asked the outcome of the affray with the footpads.

‘After I had wounded one the other fled,’ replied the Abbé, ‘but they were no footpads; they were hired bravos who set upon us in a deliberate attempt to kill me. Of that I now have little doubt. Footpads never use their weapons unless positively forced to it, and those ruffians fired on us before we’d even had a chance to produce our purses. I’ve a shrewd idea, too, who primed them to it. Unless I’m much mistaken, ’twas the Comte de Caylus.’

Roger looked up quickly. ‘You mean that revolting-looking half-breed who is a close friend of M. de Rochambeau?’

‘I do. But let me warn you, my young friend, not to use such expressions in front of anyone who is likely to carry them to M. de Caylus’s ears. The fact that his mother was a mulatto does not invalidate his ancient lineage on his father’s side, and he is both powerful and vindictive. He is also rich as Crœsus, so ’twas no small triumph on my part to win away from him Mademoiselle Olympe, who is, I think, the loveliest of all our Opera girls.’

‘You underrate your own good looks, M. le Abbé,’ Roger laughed. ‘Between them and M. de Caylus’s money how could a woman hesitate, since I can scarce imagine a more horrid fate for any girl than to have to suffer his embraces.’

De Périgord bowed. ‘I thank you for the compliment. He is certainly an oafish fellow and, since my being a churchman prevents his calling me out, he is just the morbid sort of person who might seek redress by attempting to have me murdered. By God’s grace those villains cannot have known me by sight, and thinking that every Abbé wears a cassock mistook poor d’Heury for myself; so killed him instead.’

‘What! Is d’Heury dead!’ exclaimed Roger.

‘Aye! Shot through the heart. I would be dead, too, had
it not been for your prompt action in knocking up the other rogue’s pistol. So I owe you a debt that I doubt ever being able to repay. And, believe me, I count my life mighty precious as I get endless amusement from it. I trust that henceforth you will regard me as your friend and allow me to be of service to you whenever occasion offers.’

Roger smiled, realising his good fortune in having earned the gratitude of so influential a protector, and said:

‘Indeed, M. I’Abbé, I could have done no less; and I count your friendship almost too great an honour, for I am, as you know, but a secretary to M. de Rochambeau.’

The Abbé gave him a shrewd look and, being by nature insatiably curious, sought to plumb the mystery of his posing as a Frenchman by replying: ‘You are at present only a secretary, ’tis true; but that has no bearing on what you may become, particularly in these days; or what you were in the past. It may be that like many others of your countrymen you have been driven abroad by Jacobite sympathies and, having run out of funds, forced to earn your living as best you may.’

‘I come of a Jacobite family on my mother’s side,’ Roger admitted. ‘She was a Lady Marie McElfic before her marriage, and my grandfather was the Earl of Kildonan.’

‘Why; how small the world is!’ exclaimed de Périgord, ‘I know him. But no; it must be your uncle with whom I am acquainted.’

Roger nodded. ‘’Twould be my uncle Colin. You have the advantage of me there, though, for my mother quarrelled with her family on her marriage and I have never met any of them. He would be about fifty now, and ’tis said that I take after him.’

‘You do. Now I look at you again I can see the resemblance. Lord Kildonan was in Paris last autumn and again this spring. He broke his journey here for several weeks both going to and coming from Rome, where he spent the winter in attendance on the old gentleman whom you no doubt regard as your lawful Sovereign.

Roger was saved from having to reply to this awkward question by the Abbé standing up, and going smoothly on. But I am forgetting that you are still an invalid. I must not tire you by gossiping overmuch. We’ll talk again tomorrow. In the meantime, good night and fair dreams to you, Monsieur le Chevalier de Breuc.’

For a moment Roger was nonplussed, but he recovered in time to say good night before his host limped gracefully from the room then he gave himself up to thinking over this strange interview. It had not occurred to him before that in France, as the grandson of an Earl, he was fully entitled both to style himself ‘Chevalier’ and place the ‘de’ of the nobility before his name if he wished. He wondered what effect that might have on his affair with Athénaïs. It was the magic pass which would enable him to cross the barrier that lay between them but, even so, it would not raise him to her status. Her father would never allow her to marry a landless Chevalier; moreover, she was still in distant Brittany and he had yet to make his peace with her.

Next day the doctor came to remove his bandages. The bullet had only grazed his scalp and a strip of plaster covering the furrow it had made was now all that was necessary. An inch-wide swathe of his hair had been cut away to cleanse the wound, but the Abbé’s barber came in the afternoon to redress his hair in a new fashion which almost concealed the plaster.

In the evening de Périgord paid him another visit and, having thought the matter over during the day, Roger confided to him the major events which had led to his becoming the Marquis de Rochambeau’s secretary. He said nothing of Athénaïs and allowed the Abbé to continue, in his belief that Jacobite sympathies were one of his principal reasons for coming to France. To this end he laid his quarrel with his father to that account.

It was not that he did not trust the Abbé but he feared that the whole truth might place him in an awkward position. During the past forty years innumerable British subjects of Jacobite sympathies had taken service under the French flag and many of them had held positions of trust in the wars against their own country. So to pose as a Jacobite secured him from any possibility that the Abbé might feel it his duty to inform the Marquis that he had been deceived into employing as his secretary an Englishman who was loyal to King George III. Roger also took the opportunity to say that as long as he had to earn his living as a servant he would greatly prefer that his true lineage should not be made public; and de Périgord readily agreed to the wisdom of this.

When Roger had done the Abbé said thoughtfully:
‘Would that I had had the courage to do as you did, and break with my family rather than allow them to force me into the Church; but in view of my crippled foot it seemed that no other course was open to me.’

‘Were you born a cripple?’ Roger asked.

‘Nay. I came by my lameness through an accident. As a babe I was put out to nurse with poor folk who had not the time to look after me properly, and while still quite young had a fall. The injury was neglected and has cost me dear. As the eldest surviving son of my father, the Count de Talleyrand-Périgord, I was his heir; but when it was found that on account of my lameness I should never be able to bear arms, he secured the King’s permission to disinherit me in favour of my younger brother.’

‘That was hard indeed, and you must have had a most unhappy childhood.’

‘No worse than falls to the lot of most children of the French nobility. My parents remained almost strangers to me and I never passed a night under their roof; but between the ages of five and eight I spent three wonderful years with my great-grandmother, the Princess de Chalais, at her château near Bordeaux. She and I loved each other fondly, and to live there with her was an education in itself. Her friends were all old people, relics of a past age, but they had known the real glory of the Court of Louis XIV, where integrity and intellect were rated greater virtues than the capacity to tell a dirty story or cheat skilfully at cards. Their manners were impeccable, and they still maintained the old tradition of being a father to their peasants instead of ruining them by a hundred petty taxes to provide for their own extravagance. It almost broke my heart when I was brought back to Paris and put to study in the College d’Harcourt.’

‘Was it very dreary there?’

‘Incredibly so; but the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, where I later spent seven years, was even worse. Before I went there, in an endeavour to reconcile me to entering the Church, my parents sent me to live for a year with my uncle at Hautefontaine, the Court of the Archbishop of Rheims. He was then Coadjutor there and is now Archbishop himself. ’Twas thought that a sight of the pomp, luxury and licence in which these great prelates live would tempt me to follow in their steps with some eagerness, yet even that had
no permanent effect on my distaste for the Church as a career. But my latter years at Saint Sulpice were made bearable by a truly charming love affair. When I was seventeen I met a young and lovely actress, named Dorothée Dorinville. She was no common trollop of the stage but loathed its sordidness and was as lonely as myself. She became my mistress, and at our stolen meetings I could forget the endless, nit-picking discourses on theology which for hours each day I was compelled either to listen to or compose. Then at the age of twenty-five I was ordained. At last I had my freedom and not an hour of it have I wasted since. ’Tis a fine life even if we do all live on the edge of a precipice.’