The Launching of Roger Brook (29 page)

Swerving violently he dashed from between the trees and across the street again. The soldiers at the barrack gate had not yet caught sight of him. For a precious moment they remained where they were, peering into the shadows of the avenue. He had reached the corner of the
Rue du Colombier
and shot round it before one of them spotted him; then, with excited cries, they joined the chase.

Roger’s breath was coming fast now; his heart was thumping wildly. Up to the time of his leaving the avenue he had managed to keep his lead on Fouché and the people from the inn, but the soldiers had entered the chase at an angle and turned into the
Rue du Colombier
barely fifty yards behind him. Their nearness lent him fresh vigour and he tore on in terror of his life.

For a brief interval he was hidden from them by the curve of the street. During it, he looked desperately to right and left for an alley into which he could dive, but the houses on both sides of the street formed solid blocks; none of them had even an open doorway offering some chance of sanctuary.

As the street straightened out the soldiers caught sight of him again. They gave a yell that told him how close upon his heels they were. Ahead he could now see a crossroads. Rallying himself for a final effort, he spurted towards it in the vague hope that he would be able to elude his pursuers there.

The crossroads proved to have five streets radiating from it. He was hidden again for a second from his pursuers by an outjutting building on the corner of the
Rue du Colombier
. Instead of dashing across the open space ahead of him he swivelled round the hairpin bend to his right, almost doubling back on his pursuers. The street he had entered was a narrow one and it was almost blocked by a big, stationary coach.

The coach was facing away from him. A footman, holding a lighted torch, was waiting in the doorway of the house before which the coach stood. Both he and the coachman on the box had their backs turned. It flashed into Roger’s mind that the occupant of the coach must have gone into the house, so it would be empty. If only he could get inside
it unobserved and remain there for two minutes his pursuers would run past, he would then have a new chance to elude them in the darkness.

He knew that if the lackey turned and saw him the game would be up; but his chest was now paining him so badly that he also knew he could not run another hundred yards. It was a choice of attempting to conceal himself in the empty coach, or of capture.

From fear of attracting the man’s attention he dropped into a walk; he had no more than ten paces to cover. In a moment he had reached the offside of the coach. Now that it was between him and the lackey he felt more confident. Seizing the curved door handle he turned it and pulled the door open. To his horror there was a sudden movement in its shadowy interior. It was not empty after all.

The heavy boots of the running soldiers striking against the cobbles could be heard clearly now. The lackey in the doorway turned and lifted his flambeau on high to find out the cause of the approaching clamour. The light from it shone into the coach and Roger could see its occupant plainly.

It was a girl; a girl so young that she still carried a doll, and so could not yet have fully left childhood behind. Yet, all his life long, Roger was to remember the staggering impression her beauty made upon him in that first glimpse before he scrambled into the coach and fell panting at her feet.

Her eyes were a bright china blue; her hair, golden and unpowdered, fell in thick, silky ringlets about her small shoulders. She wore no paint but her skin was flawless and her complexion of milk and roses. Her mouth was small and delicately modelled, the upper lip short, the lower a little full. Her nose was thin and of Roman cast; her face oval, ending in a firm, determined chin. She sat bolt upright and so looked taller than she was in fact. Every feature of her face, and her whole attitude, expressed a completely natural imperiousness and absolute right to command immediate obedience to her slightest whim.

‘Save me!’ gasped Roger. They’re after me for a killing that I didn’t do! I swear I didn’t! For God’s sake, hide me!’

The clamour at the street corner could now be heard by them both. Voices, amongst which Roger could distinguish
Fouché’s, were calling: ‘Where is he? Which way has he gone?’

As Roger stared up at the girl the light from the torch now lit his face too. She did not appear the least frightened and had made no attempt either to shrink away from him or to cry out. Her arched eyebrows had risen in a little frown, creasing her smooth forehead, but as she saw his face, nearly as young as her own, and gazed straight into his deep blue eyes fringed by their dark lashes, her lips broke into a smile, showing two rows of white, even teeth.

‘What is it to me if you have done a killing?’ she laughed suddenly. ‘I like your face, so I’ll protect you. Quick! Get over there and draw your feet up!’

The cushioned seat opposite, to which she pointed, was both wide and deep, and as on speaking she snatched up a large fur rug, Roger saw that she meant to hide him under it. Flopping into one corner he pulled in his legs and next moment the fur blanketed his sight but not his hearing.

Two seconds later he caught a loud voice: ‘Has a young fellow passed this way? He wore a blue coat, and would be running!’

The inquiry was evidently addressed to the lackey with the torch, and the voice hurried on: ‘What of the coach? If ’tis empty he may have hopped inside while your back was turned. With your leave I’ll ascertain.’

As the near door was pulled open the girl’s high treble came: swift, haughty, dominating: ‘Hands off my coach, villain! How darest thou push past my lackey to have speech with me! I have seen no fugitive. Close that door instantly and get about thy business!’

With a muttered apology the man closed the door, but the high childish voice went on now, evidently calling to the footmen. ‘Up on thy stand, Pierre! I’ve a mind to get home and will not wait for Madame Velot. The coach can return to pick her up later.’

Then, unseen by Roger, she gave a violent jerk to a silk cord attached to the coachman’s little finger and, as he lifted the hatch in the roof of the coach, trilled up at him: ‘
A l’hôtel, Baptiste! Depêche-toi
!’

The footman sprang up on his stand at the back of the coach, the coachman shook the reins of his horses, and the great cumbersome vehicle rumbled into motion. It had not covered twenty yards before the girl pulled the rug from
off Roger and said: ‘You can sit up now, and tell me about yourself.’

On his jerking his feet from the seat one of them struck a dark object in a far corner of the foot space, near the door opposite to that by which he had entered. The object gave a little bark of protest and, until that moment, owing to the deep shadows, he had not realised that a dog was lying there. As it reared up he saw that it was a black poodle.

‘Down, Bougie! Down!’ cried its young mistress. ‘Quiet now, or I will order the Englishman to eat you!’

For a second Roger thought that she was referring to him, and stared at her in astonishment, wondering how she could possibly have guessed his nationality so quickly. But at that moment they were passing a street corner lantern and she held up her doll for him to see, as she said:

This is my Englishman. Is he not hideous? And the English do eat dogs, you know. My uncle, the Count, commanded the last expedition that we sent to aid Monsieur de la Fayette in the Americas and he told me so on his return. They are a most bloodthirsty and barbarous people.’

The doll was certainly a fearsome monstrosity. It differed only from the later caricature of John Bull in having a cocked hat instead of a squat topper. A Union Jack waistcoat covered its great protruding paunch, its forehead was so low as to be almost entirely lacking and a most alarming row of upper teeth protruded from its gaping jaws.

Roger was about to repudiate the charge indignantly, when he thought better of it since he was now being hunted for murder and his young protectress believed all Englishmen to be bloodthirsty by nature, to disclose that he was one himself might easily throw her into such a panic that she would abandon him and turn him over to his enemies.

‘Well! Tell me of yourself!’ she demanded. ‘I am all agog to hear about this killing of which you are accused. What is your name?’

Had Roger but known it the fate of nations hung upon his reply, and the simple fact that a young French girl, already budding into glorious womanhood, was still sufficiently amused by dolls to carry one, was in a few years’ time to have immeasurably far-reaching effects on European politics. Had it been otherwise he would have told the truth about himself and given his real name. As it was, he decided to stick to the story to which he was now well
accustomed through his journeying with old Aristotle Fénelon these past three months, and he replied:

‘My name is Rojé Breuc, and I am a native of Alsace. I ran away from my home in Strasbourg to seek adventure early last July. I have since been following the road with a journeyman-doctor whom I met with in Le Havre.’ He then went on to describe the Doctor’s murder that evening and how a rascally teacher, named Joseph Fouché, who acted as an informer to the police, was attempting to pin the murder on to him.

The coach had meanwhile crossed the river Vilaine by the single bridge in the centre of the town, passed the Cathedral of St. Pierre and entered the
Rue St. Louis
. Halfway along the street it halted, until at the shouts of the footmen a pair of great gates in a high wall were thrown open, so that it could drive into a spacious courtyard.

Roger just had time to say: ‘May I know the name of the beautiful young lady to whom I owe my life?’ when the coach pulled up before a broad flight of steps leading to a heavily carved pair of double doors.

‘I am Athénaïs de Rochambeau,’ the girl replied, ‘and this is the Hôtel de Rochambeau, the town house of my father, the Marquis.’

On the footman opening the door Roger sprang out and handed her down. The double doors of the mansion had now been opened and, going up the steps together, they entered a wide, lofty hall. It was paved with marble, and a splendid horseshoe staircase of elaborate iron scrollwork, picked out with gold, led to a landing, then divided again to sweep towards the upper floors. At either side of the doorway stood three tall footmen with powdered wigs and dressed in the same violet and gold livery as the lackey who had accompanied the coach. They stood there like statues, rigidly immobile, but a seventh servant, considerably older and dressed in a more, sombre livery than the others, came forward, bowing almost to the ground before Mademoiselle de Rochambeau.

‘The coach is to return to the
Rue de Nantes
, to pick up Madame Velot, Aldegonde,’ she told him. ‘Meanwhile, take this gentleman somewhere where he can tidy himself, then bring him to the small salon. He is to dine with us.’ Without deigning to glance at either the major-domo or
Roger, she lifted the front of her full skirts a little and tripped upstairs as lightly as a bird.

Monsieur Aldegonde gave Rogter one swift glance of appraisal, noted that his clothes were of cloth, which now showed the wear of his eleven weeks’ wanderings, and that he wore no sword, gave the very faintest sniff of disapproval, and bowed very slightly, as he said: ‘This way, Monsieur. Please to follow me.

He led Roger between two of the eight great pillars that supported the gallery round the hall and threw open a door concealed in the panelling under one side of the staircase. It gave on to a small room in which there was a marble washbasin, towels and a variety of toilet articles laid out on the shelves of a shallow recess.

Roger washed, combed his hair and brushed down his clothes. As he did so, he wondered with some misgivings what would happen next. He was still shaken and immeasurably distressed by the old Doctor’s death, and he knew that he had only escaped capture by a piece of remarkable good fortune. But he was now acutely anxious as to what view Mademoiselle de Rochambeau’s father would take of the matter. Would he support his beautiful little daughter’s high-handed action or promptly hand his unexpected visitor over to the police?

Having made himself as presentable as possible Roger came out and waited for some time in the hall until, eventually, the major-domo returned and led him upstairs. The whole of the first floor appeared to be one long suite of rooms, each being of splendid proportions and magnificently furnished, their walls hung with Gobelins tapestries and the parquet of their floors polished to a mirror-like brilliance. After passing through two of them the major-domo ushered him into a third, somewhat smaller than the other two and panelled in striped yellow silk.

As the door opened Roger nerved himself to meet the Marquis, but at the first glance he saw that he was not yet called upon to face this ordeal. There were four people in the room; an elderly Abbé with graceful white locks falling to the shoulders of his black cassock; a portly woman of about forty, well but soberly dressed; Mademoiselle Athénaïs and a handsome boy who, from his features, appeared to be her brother.

Athénaïs waved a little white hand negligently towards
the woman: ‘Madame Marie-Angé Velot, my governess, whom we left behind in the
Rue de Nantes
; and this is my brother, Count Lucien de Rochambeau.’

Roger made a leg to the woman then bowed to the boy, who returned his bow a little stiffly. The young Count’s features were in the same cast as his sister’s but distinctly heavier, his eyes, although also blue, lacked the brightness of hers, and both his nose and mouth were much thicker. Roger put him down as about two years younger than himself, and formed a first impression that he was of a somewhat sullen nature and dull-witted. However, with formal politeness, Count Lucien said:

‘I have not the pleasure of knowing your name, Monsieur,’ and added, half-turning towards the priest, ‘but I should like to present you to my tutor, Monsieur l’Abbé Duchesnie.’

As Roger and the Abbé exchanged salutations Athénaïs said, quickly: ‘Monsieur is one, Rojé Breuc, a native of Strasbourg. As I was telling you, they are after him for a killing. I have given orders that he is to dine with us, and over dinner he shall entertain you with his story.’