Part 24 (1/2)
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 kins.h.i.+p 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 wars.h.i.+p in time of war,” answered Philip quietly, ”and I lost that wars.h.i.+p. 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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 pa.s.s. 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 a.s.sent 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.”
CHAPTER XXI
”The Comtesse Chantavoine, young, rich, amiable. You shall meet her to-morrow”...!--Long after Philip left the Duke to go to his own chamber, these words rang in his ears. He suddenly felt the cords of fate tightening round him. So real was the momentary illusion that, as he pa.s.sed through the great hall where hung the portraits of the Duke's ancestors, he made a sudden outward motion of his arms as though to free himself from a physical restraint. Strange to say, he had never foreseen or reckoned with this matter of marriage in the designs of the Duke. He had forgotten that sovereign dukes must make sure their succession even unto the third and fourth generation. His first impulse had been to tell the Duke that to introduce him to the Countess would be futile, for he was already married. But the instant warning of the mind that his Highness could never and would never accept the daughter of a Jersey s.h.i.+p-builder restrained him. He had no idea that Guida's descent from the n.o.ble de Mauprats of Chambery would weigh with the Duke, who would only see in her some apple-cheeked peasant stumbling over her court train.
It was curious that the Duke had never even hinted at the chance of his being already married--yet not so curious either, since complete silence concerning a wife was in itself declaration enough that he was unmarried. He felt in his heart that a finer sense would have offered Guida no such humiliation, for he knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech.
He had not spoken, partly because he had not yet become used to the fact that he really was married. It had never been brought home to him by the ever-present conviction of habit. One day of married life, or, in reality, a few hours of married life, with Guida had given the sensation more of a n.o.ble adventure than of a lasting condition. With distance from that n.o.ble adventure, something of the glow of a lover's relations had gone, and the subsequent tender enthusiasm of mind and memory was not vivid enough to make him daring or--as he would have said--reckless for its sake. Yet this same tender enthusiasm was sincere enough to make him accept the fact of his marriage without discontent, even in the glamour of new and alluring ambitions.
If it had been a question of giving up Guida or giving up the duchy of Bercy--if that had been put before him as the sole alternative, he would have decided as quickly in Guida's favour as he did when he thought it was a question between the duchy and the navy. The straightforward issue of Guida or the duchy he had not been called upon to face. But, unfortunately for those who are tempted, issues are never put quite so plainly by the heralds of destiny and penalty. They are disguised as delectable chances: the toss-up is always the temptation of life. The man who uses trust-money for three days, to acquire in those three days a fortune, certain as magnificent, would pull up short beforehand if the issue of theft or honesty were put squarely before him. Morally he means no theft; he uses his neighbour's saw until his own is mended: but he breaks his neighbour's saw, his own is lost on its homeward way; and having no money to buy another, he is tried and convicted on a charge of theft. Thus the custom of society establishes the charge of immorality upon the technical defect. But not on that alone; upon the principle that what is committed in trust shall be held inviolate, with an exact obedience to the spirit as to the letter of the law.
The issue did not come squarely to Philip. He had not openly lied about Guida: so far he had had no intention of doing so. He even figured to himself with what surprise Guida would greet his announcement that she was henceforth Princesse Guida d'Avranche, and in due time would be her serene highness the d.u.c.h.esse de Bercy. Certainly there was nothing immoral in his ambitions. If the reigning Prince chose to establish him as heir, who had a right to complain?
Then, as to an officer of the English navy accepting succession in a sovereign duchy in suzerainty to the present Government of France, while England was at war with her, the Duke had more than once, in almost so many words, defined the situation. Because the Duke himself, with no successor a.s.sured, was powerless to side with the Royalists against the Red Government, he was at the moment obliged, for the very existence of his duchy, to hoist the tricolour upon the castle with his own flag.
Once the succession was secure beyond the imbecile Leopold John, then he would certainly declare against the present fiendish Government and for the overthrown dynasty.