CHAPTER V.

'TWIXT THEN AND NOW.

When Martin Ashurst bent over her who had borne for over forty years

the title of Princesse de Rochebazon, and saw that, at last, the light

had gone out of her eyes forever, he recognised how her dying words

had changed his whole existence. Not only was he no more the heir to

the wealth she had put by for him--his honour never halted for one

moment in telling him that, or in dictating the renouncement of every

sol that was hers--but also there had arisen before him a task which,

his honour again speaking clear and trumpet-tongued, he must devote

his life to fulfilling. He had to find the true Prince de Rochebazon,

or, which was more likely, if he ever succeeded in his search at all,

to find that man's children and put before them a plain account of all

the wealth which was theirs, even though they should not be induced to

accept it.

That if he could discover the missing de Rochebazon, even though he

were still alive, he would find him willing to reclaim what was his,

he doubted. A man who could for more than forty years renounce one of

the most brilliant positions in France because of his religious

convictions was not very likely now to alter those convictions, he

knew. Also Martin Ashurst's acquaintance with the land over which the

Grand Monarque reigned was amply sufficient to tell him that here, and

under the all-powerful domination of the self-righteous De Maintenon,

Louis would never allow a hated Protestant to step into the wealth and

titles of so Romish a family as that of the de Rochebazons. Between

these two stumbling blocks, therefore--the Protestantism of the lost

man on one side, and the bigotry of the arbiter of France on the

other--it was scarcely to be hoped that even though he should find him

whom he sought, he should succeed in his endeavour to restore to that

man what was his.

Yet, because he was honest and straightforward, he swore to at least

make the attempt.

Regaining his own room, in which the lights had been placed--even with

the mistress and last ruler of the great house lying dead in it, the

major domo had deemed it fit that waxen candles should blaze from

girandoles in every passage and room of the hotel, and that naught

should be omitted which testified to its sumptuousness and

magnificence--he recollected that he was still grasping in his hand

the packet which the dying woman had directed that hand to, for he had

forgotten almost that he had received it from her, so agitated was he

during her last moments; now that it recalled its presence to him, he

determined that he would as soon as might be discover what it

contained.

But first he knew that there were other things to be done: Orders to

be given that due proclamation of her death should be made; that,

above all, the heads of her Church should at once be communicated

with, since the monk now praying by her side would not, he was aware,

quit the house, even though he had to leave the body while it was

prepared for the grave; that a courier should be sent to Marly, where

the king was; that the seals should be put on everything.

There was much to do still ere he could open that packet which might

tell him all--or nothing.

Yet by midnight, before the great bell struck the hour from St.

Eustache, as much was done as possible. Aurora, Princesse de

Rochebazon, lay, not in her coffin; that, with its emblazonments

and silver feet and coronets at its corners, as well as the great

silver plaque telling of all the rank and honours and titles she had

borne--unrighteously, if her own dying words were true--could not be

prepared hurriedly. Instead, upon her bed, now transformed into a

temporary bier, as the great room in which she had died had been

transformed into a _Chapelle Ardente_. Also the courier was gone, the

Church apprised of the death of its open-handed benefactress; already

the Abbé Le Tellier (confessor to the king and all the royal family,

and titulary bishop and coadjutor of Reims) was here, he having

arrived from St. Cloud as fast as his _chaise roulante_ could bring

him; also the place swarmed with priests--Theatines, Dominicans,

Benedictines, and Augustines; the seals, too, were on doors and

coffers and bureaux.

Likewise, Samuel Bernard, _traitant_ and banker to the _haut monde_,

had paid a visit and been closeted for an hour with the clergy. For

the Church was the principal inheritor of the de Rochebazon wealth,

and the time had come for it to grasp its heritage.

Yet now, at midnight, the great house was at last quiet; the monks

prayed in silence in the room where the dead woman lay; the Suisse sat

behind the high closed gates refreshing himself with the flask of

yellow muscadine which the butler had brought him, and discussing with

that functionary what _legs_ each were like to get; some women

servants who had loved their dead mistress wept in their beds.

All was still at last.

Martin opened the packet in that silence--he had dismissed his own

servant an hour before--and inspected its contents.

They were not numerous--half a dozen letters and a lock of hair,

golden, fair as the ripening cornfield, long, and with a curl to it.

But, except that and the letters, nothing else. Whose hair it was that

had thus been preserved in a piece of satin Martin never knew, yet

perhaps could guess.

The letters lay one above the other in the order they had been

written. The first and uppermost had the upper portion of it torn

away, possibly by accident, or perhaps, instead, by the recipient who,

it may be, was not desirous that the place whence it was dated should

be known. At least such, Martin Ashurst fancied, might be the case.

The paper it was written on was yellow with age, the ink faded, yet

the words still clear and distinct, the writing firm. Because the top

of the sheet was torn away some of the first lines of the

communication were themselves missing, therefore the letter ran thus:

"... her fault upon me. _Soit!_ I bow to what you say. Yet, if

disinheritance of all that should be mine is your determination, my

place in the world you can never disinherit me from; I myself alone

can renounce that. The pity is great that you have it not also in your

power to deprive me of the qualities of mind and heart which you have

transmitted to me. Yet I pray God that I may find in myself the

strength to do so, to cast away from me the pride of race, the fierce

cruelty of heart, the intolerance of all that is not within my own

circle of vision. Also your power of hating another for the fault

committed, not by himself, but an unhappy mother--a mother driven to

sin by coldness from him who should have reverenced her; the victim of

a gloomy, morose nature, of a self-esteem that would be absurd even in

the king himself, of a pride that might rival the pride of Lucifer.

"To reproach you, however, for sins which I may myself have inherited

from you--since even you do not deny me as your son--would be useless.

Therefore it is better for me to write at once that I do not oppose

the disinheritance with which you threaten me. Nay, rather, I go hand

in hand with you, only, also, I go to a greater extent. You tell me

that if I embrace the Reformed Faith no sol or denier of the de

Rochebazon wealth shall ever be mine, that I shall enjoy a barren

title. This you can not force me to do. I will support no title

whatever. Henceforth, neither de Rochebazon, nor d'Ançilly, nor

Montrachet, nor Beauvilliers have aught to do with me. I cast them

off. I forget that the house which bears those titles is one with

which I have any connection. I go forth into the world alone, under a

lowly name. The roof that covers me, the food for my mouth, the

clothes to cover my nakedness, will be earned by my own hands.

Moreover, so do I steel my heart that henceforth even my brother,

Henri, will be lost to me forever. He becomes, therefore, your heir;

may he find in you a better father than I have ever done.

Consequently, for the last time on this earth, I sign myself,

"CYPRIEN DE BEAUVILLIERS."

Martin laid the paper down on the table before him and sat back musing

in his chair. "A stern, fierce determination that," he muttered to

himself, "arrived at by a man who would keep his word. Let us see for

the next."

As he read this next one it was easy to perceive what course the

rupture between the father and son had taken; how the iron will of the

one had beaten down that of the other. Already the elder had sued for

reconciliation--and had failed.

"What you now desire," the man wrote, who had once been Cyprien de

Beauvilliers, "is impossible. First, on the ground of religion, and

secondly, because of yourself. I am now of the Protestant faith, have

embraced that faith in Holland, to which country you appear to have

tracked my steps, I know not how. Yet that you shall never be able to

do so in the future, I leave it at once, and from the time when I quit

it I defy you to ever discover my whereabouts. Let me remind you that

this change of faith alone is a bar to my ever reassuming my position

as your successor; if it were not such bar I would proceed to even

other extremes to deprive myself of the succession; would draw my

sword against France if by doing so I could more utterly sever myself

from you and all connected with you.

"You ask me if I hate you? I reply that I hate the man who drove my

mother to evil by his intolerant and contemptible pride, and, fallen

as she became, I love and adore her memory. But my heart is not large

enough to find space in it for aught else. Not large enough----"

There was no more. The sheet of paper turned over at the word

"enough," and no other succeeded to it.

Again Martin lay back musing.

"He was firm," he murmured. "Firm. The years which have rolled by and

become forgotten since he wrote these lines, now so faded, prove that;

otherwise _she_ would have known of his existence, his whereabouts.

And--and--she was a just woman in spite of the deception of her life.

If she had known that he was still alive she would never have

consented to usurp all his rights. Nay, not though every priest in

France bade her do so."

As the word "priest" rose to his mind he started with a new thought.

"Who were the others," he whispered, "she said who knew of it? Louis,

the king! Almost it seems impossible. Then, next, the woman--his

wife--Madame! Also La Chaise and Chamillart. La Chaise, a

bigot--Chamillart, the man they speak of as _une fine lame!_ They all

know it, and will keep the secret well. What was it she said? 'They

will never tell.'"

Once more from St. Eustache close at hand the hour rolled forth;

almost it seemed as if the deep boom of the great bell echoed in his

ears the words he had repeated to himself, "They will never tell."

"Will they not?" he mused again. "Will they not? Neither Louis, nor

his wife, nor the priest, nor the scheming politicians. Will never

tell! Therefore all search must be unavailing. Yet--yet---we will see.

Only, even though I should find him, even though I forced from one of

them the acknowledgment that he still lived, was the true heir, would

he himself consent to take what is his? The man who wrote that letter

in bygone years will not have grown softer, more easily persuaded by

now. Yet I will make some attempt."

He sought his bed now, and once there, still lay awake for some time

longer, musing and meditating on the secret which had been confided to

him; wondering, too, if what he was doing was owing absolutely to a

determination to right a great wrong, or, instead, was only the

outcome of that strong, latterly-embraced Protestantism of his, which,

through this embrace, now caused him to desire to outwit these

scheming papists. Yet he might have found the answer by studying his

own feelings, his own resolves, arrived at the moment he learned of

the hidden secret of the great family to which he was allied. For if

he held his tongue now it was easily enough to be supposed that all

which he had inherited from the dead woman would at once be made over

to him. If he spoke on the subject of the lawful inheritor, not one

jot of the fortune that woman had left him would ever come his way.

Only he did not so reflect, did not remember, or, remembering, did not

hold that he was ruining himself in his determination not so much to

outwit the Romish Church and its principal adherents as to set right

the horrible wrong that had been committed--committed, in the first

place, by the real de Rochebazon himself toward his children by the

renunciation of all that he should have guarded for them; in the

second place, by those who were only too willing to assist in

depriving him, whom they doubtless termed the heretic, of what was

his.

He rose the next morning with his mind made up as to what should be

his future course, as to what, from this very day, he would set about

doing. Rose, calm and collected, knowing that he had undertaken a task

that must deprive him of that inheritance which by his silence alone

might easily be his; a task that might, in the state of autocratic

government which prevailed in France, lead him to a violent end.

Yet his mind was made up. He would not falter. Never. Even though he

should find the last de Rochebazon still as firmly set in his

determination as he had been in long-past years; even though when

found, if ever, he should spurn him from his threshold with curses for

having unearthed him, still he would do it. To right the wrong! To

repay in some way all that he had already received from this

family--his education, the luxury that had accompanied his earlier

days, the profusion of ease and comfort showered on him by one who, in

very truth, had no right to appropriate one crown or pistole of that

family's wealth. He would do it! To right the wrong!

"Where," he said, sending for the _maître d'hôtel_, who presented

himself at once before him, already clothed in decorous black, "where,

do you know, is Madame de Maintenon now?"

"I know not, monsieur, unless it be at St. Cyr. She is much there now;

almost altogether."

"Can you ascertain?"

"I will endeavour to do so, monsieur."

"If you will."

It was to her that, after the reflections of the night, he had

determined to address himself. To her, knowing full well even as he

did so, the little likelihood which existed of his obtaining any

information. Had not the woman now lying dead upstairs said that she,

among the others, would never tell?

Only it was not altogether with the desire to obtain information that

he was about to seek her. Instead, perhaps, to volunteer some, to tell

her that he knew the secret of the manner in which the existence of

Cyprien de Beauvilliers had been ignored for many years; to see if

there was no possibility of moving her to help in the deed of justice.

She was spoken of by some as God's chosen servant in France, as a

woman who was rapidly bringing a corrupt king, a corrupt court, a

corrupt land into a better path--a path that should lead to salvation.

Surely, surely she would not be a partner in this monstrous act of

injustice, a participator in this monstrous lie.