The Launching of Roger Brook (69 page)

Roger realised then that the Vicomte had only pleaded
hunger as an excuse to bring them into the inn, and that he had done so with the most generous intention of giving his companions an opportunity to say their farewells in private.

As the door closed behind de la Tour d’Auvergne the two lovers made an instinctive movement towards each other, but both checked it almost instantly, and Roger shook his head.

Athénaïs smiled sadly, having the same thought. ‘’Tis true. My lips are no longer mine to give you; yet you will ever hold a great part of my heart.’

‘And you of mine, my most beautiful Princess,’ he replied. ‘I would, though, that I had the courage to beg you to forget me; for your betrothed surely deserves that you should make him happy.’

‘And I will make him so, never fear. Having gone contrary to the fashion by taking a lover before my marriage, ’tis my intent to continue in my eccentric course, and be faithful to my husband afterwards.’

‘’Tis a wise decision,’ Roger agreed gravely. ‘If he were not so fine a man I would be sick with envy; but honesty compels me to admit that he is more worthy of you than myself.’

‘Say not so, dear miller’s youngest son. No gentleman of France or England could have shown greater devotion to his lady, or more gallantry on her behalf, than you have done.’

He smiled. ‘That is as it should be in an old romance; but when it comes to marriage more sterling qualities are of greater worth. He, too, fought on your behalf. I was more fortunate, that is all. He loves you as devotedly as I have ever done, and in addition has qualities that I lack. I often lie to gain my ends and that is a thing he would never do. I am an adventurer by instinct and, though I was sorely tempted in your case, I doubt if I shall ever marry; whereas he is the very pattern of upright manhood best suited to be the father of a woman’s children and give her a constant love.’

It had cost Roger a lot to say that, but he wanted to leave an impression with her that she had not, after all, lost so much by losing him; and thus cause her heart to incline the more speedily towards her husband.

He was all the more disconcerted when she suddenly cried in a tone of reproach: ‘Oh,
Rojé, Rojé
! You have no
need to praise his qualities and decry your own. Have I not told you that I will be a good wife to him; and this marriage gives both him and me a better prospect of contentment than any our parents would have made for us. But ’tis not for their worthiness that women love men. If aught could make me love him ’tis his generosity in having left us here expressly that you might take me in your arms again. Yet you waste these precious minutes in talking like a fool!’

Her eyes were swimming with tears as she swayed towards him and, all his better resolutions gone, he caught her to his breast. For a few moments they clung together, then she took from her middle finger a great sapphire ring and put it on the little finger of his left hand.

‘Take this,’ she said, smiling wanly. ‘You’ll not need it to remember me by, but it may serve you in some emergency. ’Twas the ring de Caylus gave me on my betrothal to him, so in any case I would wear it no longer. And ’twould pleasure me to think that his gift had saved you in a time of trouble.’

As he thanked her she went to the table and poured two glasses of wine. Giving him one she lifted the other, and said: ‘Should we meet again ‘twill be only as friends, so I give a toast. To our memories and our future friendship.’

To our memories and our future friendship,’ he repeated, and they both drank down the wine.

Their empty glasses were still in their hands when de la Tour d’Auvergne re-entered the room.

She turned away to hide her tear-dimmed eyes, but he did not even glance at her, and said to Roger with a smile: ‘I have chosen and vetted the best fresh mount in the stables, and ’tis outside ready saddled for you. What we owe to one another no words can express so let us not attempt it. Instead we’ll wish each other God-speed and a renewal of our friendship. May it not be too long before we meet again. Let’s drink a glass of wine to that.’

‘You put my own thoughts better than I could have put them myself,’ Roger smiled back; and filling the glasses he drank again with de la Tour d’Auvergne. Then all three of them went out into the night.

As they reached the yard the Vicomte murmured: ‘Your best road is to Gisors, and thence to Gournay.’

‘And yours?’ asked Roger. ‘I would like to know as I shall be thinking of you.’

‘We shall make for Evreux and should reach the town by six o’clock. ’Tis there I hope to find a priest to marry us.’

‘My prayers for your happiness go with you.’

‘And mine with you for your good fortune.’

Athénaïs was already seated in the chaise. As the Vicomte settled himself beside her she extended a slender hand to Roger. Bowing over it he kissed her fingertips. Then he took one last look at the beautiful face that four years before, when still that of a child, had thrown an instant enchantment over him. He had seen it proud, angry, sullen, disfigured, and finally, as the adoring face of a most lovely woman. The magnificent blue eyes were still dim with tears but they smiled bravely, and serenely now, upon him. He released her hand and closed the door.

Before the chaise was out of the yard he had mounted the horse that the ostler was holding for him. A moment later his love and his friend were being whirled along the road to the north-west as fast as six fresh horses could carry them; while he had turned his mount on to the road to the north-east and was settling down to ride for his life—and to reach England with the letter that might prevent a war.

It was just on four in the morning when Roger galloped out of the courtyard of the
Grand Cerf
at Mantes; at a quarter to six he drew rein in that of the
De Blanmont
at Gisors. In the stable he changed his horse for a chestnut gelding and, within five minutes, was on his way again.

Now that the morning light had come the peasants were wending their way out into the fields, but he took no notice of them or of the countryside through which he passed. His every thought was concentrated on choosing the best ground for his mount, and seeing that each time he adjusted its pace it should not jolt and tire him needlessly.

By seven o’clock he reached Gournay, changed his chestnut
for a bay mare at the
Auberge du Nord
, and took the road to Neufchatel. This stage was longer than the last and the vigour of the good wine he had drunk in Mantes had now passed out of him. Moreover, shortly after eight o’clock it began to rain, which soon made the going heavier; so he did not reach Neufchatel until a quarter past nine.

He had now covered over fifty miles and still had twenty-five to go; the fourth and last stage of his journey being considerably the longest; so, on dismounting in the yard of the
Lion d’Or
, he decided to give himself a rest before undertaking it.

Going into the inn he ordered coffee, laced it well with cognac and, lying back in an elbow chair with his long legs stretched out before him, drank it slowly. At a quarter to ten he went out into the rain, mounted a mettlesome strawberry roan that had been saddled for him and took the road to Dieppe.

A wind had now got up and was blowing the rain against his face in gusty squalls. Before he covered half the distance he was feeling both tired and dejected. His knees and thigh muscles were aching acutely from their hours of constant pressure on his mounts, in two places he was saddle-sore and the slippery reins were hurting where he gripped them with the gloved fingers of his left hand. Despite these physical afflictions he had no doubts about his ability to reach Dieppe, but he was now extremely perturbed by the state of the weather. The fine spell had clearly broken and with every mile he covered towards the sea conditions worsened, so he was desperately afraid that all sailings might be cancelled on that account.

At a quarter past twelve he urged the flagging, foam-flecked roan past the turnpike at the entrance to Dieppe and asked the way down to the harbour. He was aching in every limb and soaked to the skin, but he had done the journey from Paris well under twelve hours and he felt confident that no ordinary courier would do it under eighteen; so, with the hour or two’s start he must have had over any agent that M. de Crosne might have despatched to Dieppe, he felt that he still had a clear field for the best part of eight hours, and would get clean away if only a boat were leaving before nightfall.

But on reaching the pier from which the packets left for
Newhaven, his worst fears were realised. He was told that the boat that would normally have left at six that evening would not be sailing, owing to the storm in the Channel.

He knew that the first inquiries for him would be made at the official posting-house; so instead of going there he went to a small inn on the
Quai Henri IV
, called
Le Bon Matelot
and stabled his horse. Then, tired, wet and sore as he was, he went out and spent two hours dragging himself round the harbour district from one drinking-booth to another, frantically endeavouring to find a Captain who would put out for England in the storm.

Normally, the money he had on him would have been ample to induce some poor fisherman to undertake the trip, but none of them would do so in such weather. It occurred to him then that this was just the sort of emergency that Athénaïs had had in mind when she had given him de Caylus’s ring; so he showed it to several of the fishing-masters and offered it in exchange for an immediate passage to England.

It was a beautiful sapphire, surrounded with small diamonds and he thought that it must be worth at least a hundred
louis
; but all of them shook their heads. One after another they pointed out that neither gold nor jewels were of use to any man if he was lying rotting at the bottom of the sea, and that as the waves were riding too high for the packet it would be suicide to attempt the crossing in one of their much smaller craft.

A little before three, Roger realised that further efforts were useless. Neither prayers nor bribes would induce any master to leave Dieppe harbour that night. In the dramshops that he had visited he had had several cognacs to whip up his failing energies but now he felt utterly done, and knew that when he did sleep it would be for many hours.

By morning it was as good as certain that the authorities would be hunting him. De Crosne’s agent would have picked up the fact overnight that the fugitive had left the
Lion d’Or
at Neufchatel on a roan horse, and the steed not having been handed in at the Dieppe posting-stage would be would be found at
Le Bon Matelot
, so for him to spend the night there obviously involved a considerable risk. In consequence, he went to another small inn, near the
Eglise St. Jacques
, called the
Chapon Fin
, and took a room there.

Going straight upstairs he emptied his pockets, pulled off his soaking clothes, and gave them to the chambermaid to be dried at the kitchen fire, then flopped naked into bed. He was utterly exhausted and, despite his anxieties, was overcome almost instantly by a deep and dreamless sleep.

He slept for sixteen hours, waking a little before eight the following morning. He was terribly stiff, but his head was clear and he felt ravenously hungry. Giving scarcely a thought to any of these things, he jumped out of bed and ran to the window. In a second he saw that the rain was sheeting down and being driven in violent gusts against the panes. With a curse, he turned away; but, none the less, seeing that the maid had brought back his dried clothes while he slept he began to hurry into them.

On getting downstairs he at once questioned the landlord about the prospects of the packet sailing that day, but the man said that the weather had worsened during the night and it was certain that no ships would be leaving port while the gale continued. Roger could only attempt to console himself by ordering two boiled eggs and a fillet steak to be served in the coffee-room with his
petit déjeuner
.

The astounded landlord gave him a nasty jar by declaring that he ‘must be an Englishman in disguise’. For a second he thought that he had aroused the man’s suspicions in connection with a description of himself which might have been circulated to innkeepers during the night; then he remembered that he was, after a lapse of years, once more on a coast where the habits of the English were well known, and realised that the man was only joking.

Yet, all the same, while Roger was eating his eggs and steak he knew he must face the fact that M. de Crosne’s courier would have reached Dieppe the preceding night, and the odds were that the police would be combing the town for him that morning. As he had arrived at the
Chapon Fin
hatless, coatless and without baggage of any kind, it seemed certain that suspicion would swiftly fall on him in the event of any inquiry being made there. So after breakfast he paid his bill and left the inn.

In spite of the rain and the blustering wind he went along the harbour to make quite certain that no ships were leaving. He found it practically deserted and an old salt who was splicing a rope under a lean-to told him that, even if the wind dropped, which he thought unlikely, the seas
would be running too high for any vessel to venture out into them for another twenty-four hours at least.

Cursing the weather that, by its foulness, was placing his life in jeopardy, Roger set about endeavouring to alter his appearance. After buying a large canvas grip he visited a secondhand clothes’ shop, where he bought a tattered cloak and a seaman’s stocking-cap. Putting these on outside, to conceal the clothes in which he had left Paris and hide his hair, he visited another secondhand shop in a better part of the town and bought there a more expensive outfit. It included sea-boots, blue trousers and reefer coat, a topcoat with a triple collar and a low, square-crowned bowler hat with a shiny leather band, of a type often worn by the officers of merchant ships.

Having crammed his purchases into the bag he carried it to the far side of the channel leading from the harbour to the sea, where he had noticed that morning a number of sheds and half-built boats on stocks. No one was working there in the teeming rain so he entered one of the wooden sheds and, without fear of interruption, changed into his new clothes. Next, he plaited his back hair and, doubling the thin end under, tied it with a piece of ribbon in a nautical queue. Then he made a bundle of his Paris clothes, weighted it with stones and, carrying it to the water’s edge, threw it in.