Vayenne Part 19

"Tell me, what made you come to Vayenne--originally, I mean?" said the priest after another pause.

"I came as any traveller might. From childhood Vayenne has always had a fascination for me. Long ago I determined to visit it some day, and truly it has treated me very scurvily thus far."

"Why this fascination?"

"Indeed, I cannot tell, but I do know it is being speedily cured,"

Herrick answered.

"And why have you returned to Vayenne now?"

"I hardly know," laughed Herrick. "The whim of an Englishman to see the game to the end. I might have been wiser to ride to the frontier while I had the chance."

"Perhaps; yet who shall say? Providence, or circ.u.mstance, call it what you will, determines these matters. I, too, have schemed, my son, schemed to bring about this very meeting, and after all it comes in a strange manner. It was I who on the night of your arrival arranged to have you captured--no, not as a spy, I never thought of that. I only wanted you brought here."

"Why not have invited me to come?" asked Herrick, who, although astonished at the priest's admission, would not show it.

"I did not know why you had come to Vayenne. I had reasons to be suspicious."

"I cannot congratulate you on your method," said Herrick. "Your fellows nearly succeeded in getting me hanged on the nearest lamp."

"You put such wholesome fear in them that they acted foolishly. One is still in his bed getting his bones mended, the other----"

"Faith, I'll give him some mending to do if he but gives me the chance."

"Poor Mercier," said Father Bertrand; "and you seem to have treated him in friendly fashion to-day."

"Was that he? The man who brought me here?"

"You may be anxious to thank him presently. That night," the priest went on, "I went to the castle, to your cell. I should have proved you were no spy, but you had gone. For the second time this interview was delayed."

"And this third time?" queried Herrick.

"Circ.u.mstances have changed. Duke Maurice is reported dead, is believed to be dead; you have said yourself that you do not know whether he is dead or alive. At such a time events happen quickly.

Preparation is already active. Felix will be Duke, and once crowned----"

"That shall not be," said Herrick.

"How will you prevent it?"

Father Bertrand snapped out the question, and leaned forward, waiting for the answer. His whole att.i.tude had changed. There was a tenseness about him that seemed subtly to convey itself into Herrick's blood.

"Show me the way," he said, leaning forward in his turn as eagerly as the priest had done.

"There is a mirror yonder, Monsieur Herrick," said the priest, rising suddenly. "If you have forgotten what manner of man you are, look in it."

Herrick had risen as the priest rose, and almost unconsciously turned to look at his own reflection. While he did so, he heard the rattle of a curtain being sharply drawn aside, and turned to see the priest pointing to a picture which the curtain had concealed until now.

"Do you know that face?" he asked.

"Surely, my grandmother--my mother's mother," said Herrick in astonishment.

"The likeness of the face in the mirror to this face leaves no doubt of close relationship. It is a distinctive face, as sometimes happens in families; it cannot be hidden. I recognized it in an instant when I saw you at the Croix Verte. That lady, your grandmother, was sister to Robert VI. of Montvilliers. You did not know that?"

"No. I only knew that she was a foreigner, a lady of rank, who was content to become the wife of an English country gentleman."

"Were it not for the law of this land, which forbids the throne to descendants of the female line, your grandmother, or, failing her, your mother, would have been d.u.c.h.ess of Montvilliers. There have been times when the people have been inclined to do away with this law.

There are some now who would do away with it in favor of Christine de Liancourt. I have been tempted to wish it done away with. Her determination is fixed, however; she will keep to the very letter of the law, and lest she should loom too prominently in this matter, it is her whim to use none of her many t.i.tles, but to be called simply Mademoiselle de Liancourt."

"You mean that you would plot to do away with this law now?" asked Herrick after a pause.

"The breaking of a law which has been long established, and has worked for the general good, is not wise, my son," answered Father Bertrand, going to the table and unfolding a rough pedigree chart there. "This will show my meaning clearer. Here, you see, is Robert IV., dying without issue; Charles, his brother, who predeceased him; and Marie, his sister, your grandmother. On the death of Robert the crown went to Philip I., his cousin, and at his death to his son, a dissolute man, who was deposed in favor of Robert VII., the old Duke who lies waiting burial in the castle yonder. The deposed Duke, Philip II., died suddenly in the South Tower. He had no friends to a.s.sist him to escape, and plenty of enemies to help him to his death. Robert's elder brother Charles died before Robert seized the throne, leaving one child, Christine de Liancourt. A younger brother, Conrad, died a few years since. Felix is his son."

"Had Duke Robert no claim to the throne?" asked Herrick.

"You can trace it here," said Father Bertrand, pointing the descent with his finger; "through the male line all along you note until we come to Robert II., who had many children, of whom only the eldest and youngest survived--the eldest being the ancestor of your mother, the youngest of Duke Robert. This was the Duke's claim, and putting aside the deposition of Philip II., for which the people had no quarrel with him, a righteous claim but for one fact. You see what this youngest son was called."

"Called The b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Herrick read from the chart.

"Nicknamed so in his own day," said the priest. "His father's love for a young girl in his old age has entered into the regions of romance in this country. You may find ballads which it has inspired. No one has ever doubted the story until it pleased the people to forget it when they made Robert Duke. Do you understand how the matter stands?"

"The story goes back so far, it may well be forgotten," Herrick answered.

"If Maurice came to the throne, yes; but not if Felix is the heir. The law which forbids women to reign in Montvilliers, and under ordinary conditions excludes even their male descendants, has one important provision which is this: that failing a direct male heir, the son through the female line shall inherit."

"Then?"

Father Bertrand glanced at the picture from which the curtain had been withdrawn, and then looked again at his visitor.

"Have I made it quite clear to Roger Herrick, the real Duke of Montvilliers?" he said slowly.

CHAPTER XII

HOW JEAN LOST HIS ENEMIES

Herrick looked from the priest to the picture, and then again at the chart lying on the table. He bent over it, his finger travelling from name to name as though he were carefully tracing the descent once more to satisfy himself that the priest was right. It was a ruse to gain time, to collect his thoughts, for they had leaped back to his mother, his youth, and his dreams. Now he understood why Vayenne had always had such a fascination for him. He was of it, a part of its life. The source of the blood that tingled in his veins lay far back in history.

They were his ancestors who had kept Montvilliers inviolate as it was to-day, his fathers who had fought in the forefront of the battle, thrusting back their foes at the sword's point. Herrick did not remember his grandmother, and had only a faint recollection of his mother, who had died when he was young; but there certainly was a lady who came into his boyhood's life at intervals, and whom he remembered well. Perhaps she was a friend of his mother's or grandmother's, and he had often sat on her knee while she told him stories which stirred him, stories of Vayenne, so that the name of the city figured in his games of soldiers and doughty deeds, and sank deep down into his heart. One day he would go to Vayenne had been his determination as he dreamed lad's dreams of life and the future. That day had come. His finger had unconsciously travelled down the chart until it rested on his grandmother's name.

"There is no flaw," said Father Bertrand, and his voice made Herrick start, so lost was he in his thoughts. "This chart is no secret; it is copied from one which is common property, open to all who choose to study it, and in which every date is fully given. I am no maker and unmaker of dukes, no mere plotter for place and power. The late Duke, with all his harshness, was a just man in the main. Under his rule the country was at peace, and there was prosperity. His son, were he alive, would make but a poor ruler. Count Felix would a.s.suredly prove a bad one. Is it not right that the reign of the usurping house should end here and now? I have only to bring this chart to date thus." And the priest took a pencil, and under the name of Herrick's grandmother drew a little vertical line, then paused, and said: "What was your mother's name?"

"Mary."

"Mary, daughter of Marie, and then Mary's son, Roger Herrick." And, perhaps unconsciously, he wrote the name more firmly and a little larger.

"And your plans, Father Bertrand?" said Herrick shortly.