The Inn at the Red Oak Part 2

She welcomed Monsieur de Boisdhyver graciously, enquiring with interest of his journey and with solicitude as to his rest during the night. She received with satisfaction his rapturous compliments on the comforts that had been provided him, on the beauty of the surrounding country upon which he had looked from the windows of his chamber, and on her own condescension in vouchsafing to breakfast with them. She was delighted that he should find the Inn at the Red Oak so much to his taste that he proposed to stay with them indefinitely.

They were soon seated at the breakfast-table and had addressed themselves to the various good things that black Deborah had provided.

The native Johnny cakes, made of meal ground by their own windmill, the Marquis professed to find particularly tempting.

Despite Mrs. Frost's questions, despite his own voluble replies, Monsieur de Boisdhyver gave no hint, that there was any deeper reason for his seeking exile at the Inn of the Red Oak than that he desired rest and quiet and had been a.s.sured that he would find them there. And who had so complimented their simple abode of hospitality?

"Ah, madame," he murmured, lifting his tiny hands, "so many!"

"But I fear, monsieur," replied his hostess, "that you, who are accustomed to the luxuries of a splendid city like Paris, to so many things of which we read, will find little to interest and amuse you in our remote countryside."

"As for interest, madame," the Marquis protested, "there are the beauties of nature, your so delightful household, my few books, my writing; and for amus.e.m.e.nt, I have my violin;--I so love to play. You will not mind?--perhaps, enjoy it?"

"Indeed yes," said Mrs. Frost. "Dan, too, is a fiddler after a fashion; and as for Nancy, she has a pa.s.sion for music, and dreams away many an evening while my son plays his old tunes."

"Ah, yes," said the Marquis, "Mademoiselle Nancy, I have not the pleasure to see her this morning?"

"No," replied Mrs. Frost, flushing a trifle at the recollection of why Nancy was not present, "she is somewhat indisposed--a mere trifle. You will see her later in the day. But, monsieur, you should have come to us in the spring or the summer, for then the country is truly beautiful; now, with these snow-bound roads, when not even the stagecoach pa.s.ses, we are indeed lonely and remote."

"It is that," insisted the Marquis, "which so charms me. When one is old and when one has lived a life too occupied, it is this peace, this quiet, this remoteness one desires. To walk a little, to sit by your so marvellously warm fires, to look upon your beautiful country, _cest bou_!"

He held her for a moment with his piercing little eyes, a faint smile upon his lips, as though to say that it was impossible he should be convinced that he had not found precisely what he was seeking, and insisting, as it were, that his hostess take his words as the compliment they were designed to be.

Before she had time to reply, he had turned to Dan. "What a fine harbour you have, Monsieur Frost," he said, pointing through the window toward the Cove, separated from the river and the sea by the great curve of Strathsey Neck, its blue waters sparkling now in the light of the morning sun.

"Yes," replied Dan, glancing out upon the well-known sh.o.r.eline, "it is a good harbour, though nothing, of course, to compare with a Port. But it's seldom that we see a ship at anchor here, now."

"There is, however," inquired the Marquis with interest, "anchorage for a vessel, a large vessel?"

"Yes, indeed," Tom interrupted, "in the old days when my father had his ships plying between Havana and the Port, he would often have them anchor in the Cove for convenience in lading them with corn from the farm."

"And they were large ships?"

"Full-rigged, sir; many of 'em, and drawing eight feet at least."

"_Eh bien_! And the old Inn, madame, it dates, your son tells me, from 1693?"

"We think so, sir, though I have no positive knowledge of its existence before 1750. My husband purchased the place in '94, and it had then been a hostelry for some years, certainly from the middle of the century. But we have made many additions. Danny dear, perhaps it will interest the Marquis if you should take him over the house. We are proud of our old inn, sir."

"And with reason, madame. If monsieur will, I shall be charmed."

"I will leave you then with my son. Give me your arm, Dan, to the parlour. Unfortunately, Monsieur le Marquis, affliction has crippled me and I spend the day in my chair in the blue parlour. I shall be so pleased, if you will come and chat with me. Tommy, you will be staying to dinner with us?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Frost, but I must get to the Port for the day. Mother and Father are leaving by the afternoon stage, if it gets through. They are going to spend the winter in Coventry. But I shall be back to-night as I have promised Dan to spend that time with him."

"We shall be glad to have you, as you know."

Soon after Mrs. Frost had left the breakfast-room and Tom had started forth with horse and sleigh, Dan returned. The Marquis promptly reminded him of the suggestion that he should be taken over the Inn. It seemed to Dan an uninteresting way to entertain his guest and the morning was a busy one. However, he promised to be ready at eleven o'clock to show the Marquis all there was in the old house.

As Dan went about the offices and stables, performing himself much of the work that in prosperous times fell to grooms and hostlers, he found himself thinking about his new guest. Dan knew enough of French history to be aware there were frequent occasions in France when partisans of the various factions, royalist, imperialist, or republican, found it best to expatriate themselves. He knew that in times past many of the most distinguished exiles had found asylum in America. But at the present, he understood, King Louis Philippe, was reigning quietly at the Tuileries and, moreover, the Marquis de Boisdhyver, mysterious as he was, did not suggest the political adventurer of whom Dan as a boy had heard his parents tell such extraordinary tales. In the few years immediately after the final fall of the great Bonaparte there had been an influx of imperialistic supporters in America, some of whom had even found their way to Monday Port and Deal. One of these, Dan remembered, had stayed for some months in '14 or '15 at the Inn at the Red Oak, and it was he whom Tom had recalled the night before as having told them stories of his adventurous exploits in the wars of the Little Corporal. But it was too long after Napoleon's fall to connect his present guest with the imperial exiles. He could imagine no ulterior reason for the Marquis's coming and was inclined to put it down as the caprice of an old restless gentleman who had a genuine mania for solitude. Of solitude, certainly, he was apt to get his fill at the Inn at the Red Oak.

At eleven o'clock he returned to keep his appointment. He found the Marquis established at a small table in the bar by an east window, from which was obtained a view of the Cove, of the sand-dunes along the Neck, and of the open sea beyond. A writing-desk was on the table, ink and quills had been provided, a number of books and papers were strewn about, and Monsieur de Boisdhyver was apparently busy with his correspondence.

"Enchanted" he exclaimed, as he pulled out a great gold watch. "Punctual.

I find another virtue, monsieur, in a character to which I have already had so much reason to pay my compliments. I trust I do not trespa.s.s upon your more important duties." As he spoke, he rapidly swept the papers into the writing-desk, closed and locked it, and carefully placed the tiny golden key into the pocket of his gayly-embroidered waistcoat.

"Not at all," Dan replied courteously, "I shall be glad to show you about. But I fear you will find it cold and dismal, for the greater part of the house is seldom used or even entered."

"I bring my cloak," said the Marquis. "Interest will give me warmth. What I have already seen of the Inn at the Red Oak is so charming, that I doubt not there is much more to delight one. I imagine, monsieur, how gay must have been this place once."

He took his great cloak from the peg near the fire where it had been hung the night before to dry wrapped himself snugly in it; and then, with a little bow, preceded Dan into the cold and draughty corridor that opened from the bar into the older part of the house.

This hallway extended fifty or sixty feet to the north wall of the main part of the inn whence a large window at the turn of a flight of stairs gave light. On the right, extending the same distance as the hall itself, was a great room known as the Red Drawing-room, into which Dan first showed the Marquis. This room had not been used since father's death four or five years before, and for a long time previous to that only on the rare occasions when a county gathering of some sort was held at the inn. It had been furnished in good taste and style in colonial days, but was now dilapidated and musty. The heavy red damask curtains were drawn before the windows, and the room was dark and cheerless. Dan admitted the dazzling light of the sun; but the Marquis only shivered and seemed anxious to pa.s.s quickly on.

"You see, sir," observed the young landlord, "it is dismal enough."

"_Mais oui_--_mais oui_," exclaimed the Marquis.

At the foot of the stairway the corridor turned at right angles and ran north. On either side opened a number of chambers in like conditions of disrepair, which had been used as bedrooms in the palmy days of the hostelry. This corridor ended at the bowling-alley, where as children Tom and Dan had loved to play. Half-way to the entrance to the bowling-alley a third hallway branched off to the right, leading to a similar set of chambers. Into all these they entered, the Marquis examining each with quick glances, dismissing them with the briefest interest and the most obvious comment.

Dan saved the _piece-de-resistance_ till last. This was a little room entered from the second corridor just at the turn--the only room indeed, as he truthfully said, that merited a visit.

"This," he explained, "we call the Oak Parlour. It is the only room on this floor worth showing you. My father brought the wainscoting from an old English country-house in Dorsetshire. My father's people were Torries, sir, and kept up their connection with the old country."

It was a delightful room into which Dan now admitted the light of day, drawing aside the heavy green curtains from the eastern windows. It was wainscoted from floor to cornice in old black English oak, curiously and elaborately carved, and divided into long narrow panels. The ceiling, of similar materials and alike elaborately decorated, was supported by heavy transverse beams that seemed solid and strong enough to support the roof of a cathedral. On one side two windows opened upon the gallery and court and looked out upon the Cove, on the other side stood a cabinet. It was the most striking piece of furniture in the room, of enormous dimensions and beautifully carved on the doors of the cupboards below and on the top-pieces between the mirrors were lion's heads of almost life-size.

Opposite the heavy door, by which they had entered, was a large fireplace, containing a pair of elaborately ornamented bra.s.s and irons.

There was not otherwise a great deal of furniture,--two or three tables, some chairs, a deep window-seat, a writing-desk of French design; but all, except this last, in keeping with the character of the room, and all brought across the seas from the old Dorsetshire mansion, from which Peter Frost had obtained the interior.

"_Charmant_!" exclaimed the Marquis. "You have a jewel, _mon ami_; a bit of old England or of old France in the heart of America; a room one finds not elsewhere in the States. It is a _creation superbe_."

With enthusiastic interest he moved about, touching each article of furniture, examining with care the two of three old English landscapes that had been let into panels on the west side of the room, pausing in ecstacies before the great cabinet and standing before the fireplace as if he were warming his hands at that generous hearth.

"Ah, Monsieur Frost, could I but write, read, dream here...!"

"I fear that would be impossible, sir," replied Dan. "It is difficult to heat this portion of the house; and in fact, we never use it."

"_Helas_!" exclaimed the Marquis, "those things which allure us in this world are so often impossible. Perhaps in the spring, in the summer, when there is no longer the necessity of the fire, you will permit me."

"It may be, monsieur," Dan replied, "that long before the summer comes you will have left us."

"_Mais non_!" cried M. de Boisdhyver. "Every hour that I stay but proves to me how long you will have to endure my company."

Somewhat ungraciously, it seemed, young Frost made no reply to this pleasantry; for already he was impatient to be gone. Although the room was intensely cold and uncomfortable, still his guest lingered, standing before the ma.s.sive cabinet, exclaiming upon the exquisiteness of the workmanship, and every now and then running his dainty fingers along the carving of its front. As Dan stood waiting for the Marquis to leave, he chanced to glance through the window to the court without, and saw Jesse starting out in the sleigh. As he had given him no such order he ran quickly to the window, rapped vigourously and then, excusing himself to the Marquis, hurried out to ask Jesse to explain his errand.

The Marquis de Boisdhyver stood for a moment, as Dan left him, motionless in front of the cabinet. His face was bright with surprise and delight, his eyes alert with interest and cunning. After a moment's hesitation he stole cautiously to the window, and seeing Frost was engaged in conversation with Jesse, he sprang back with quick steps to the cabinet.

He hastily ran the tips of his fingers along the beveled edges of the wide shelf from end to end several times, each time the expression of alertness deepening into one of disappointment. He stopped for a moment and listened. All was quiet. Again with quick motions he felt beneath the edges. Suddenly his eyes brightened and he breathed quickly; his sensitive fingers had detected a slight unevenness in the smooth woodwork. Again he paused and listened, and then pressed heavily until he heard a slight click. He glanced up, as directly in front of him the eye of one of the carved wooden lion's heads on the front of the board winked and slowly raised, revealing a small aperture. With a look of satisfaction, the Marquis thrust his fingers into the tiny opening and drew forth a bit of tightly folded yellow paper; he glanced at it for an instant and thrust it quickly into the pocket of his waistcoat. Then he lowered the lid of the lion's eye. There was a slight click again; and he turned, just as Dan reappeared in the doorway.

"Excuse my leaving you so abruptly," said Frost, "but I saw Jesse going off with the sleigh, and as I had given him no orders, I wanted to know where he was going. But it was all right. Are you ready, sir? I am afraid if we stay much longer you will catch cold." This last remark was added as the Marquis politely smothered a sneeze with his flimsy lace handkerchief.

"_C'est bien_, monsieur. I fear I have taken a little cold. Perhaps it would be just as well if we explore no further to-day."