The Battle of the Strong Part 50

The man did not answer the last question. "You like it?" he said again, and he nodded his head towards the little fellow. "H'm, it keeps good time, excellent time it keeps," and he rose to meet the child's mother, who having just entered the room, stood looking at them. It was Guida. She had heard the last words, and she glanced towards the watch curiously. Detricand smiled in greeting, and said to her: "Do you remember it?" He held up the watch.

She came forward eagerly. "Is it--is it that indeed, the watch that the dear grandpethe--?"

He nodded and smiled. "Yes, it has never once stopped since the moment he gave it me in the Vier-Marchi seven years ago. It has had a charmed existence amid many rough doings and accidents. I was always afraid of losing it, always afraid of an accident to it. It has seemed to me that if I could keep it things would go right with me, and things come out right in the end. Superst.i.tion, of course, but I lived a long time in Jersey. I feel more a Jerseyman than a Frenchman sometimes."

Although his look seemed to rest but casually on her face, it was evident he was anxious to feel the effect of every word upon her, and he added: "When the Sieur de Mauprat gave me the watch he said, 'May no time be ill spent that it records for you.'"

"Perhaps he knows his wish was fulfilled," answered Guida.

"You think, then, that I've kept my promise?"

"I am sure he would say so," she replied warmly.

"It isn't the promise I made to him that I mean, but the promise I made to you."

She smiled brightly. "You know what I think of that. I told you long ago." She turned her head away, for a bright colour had come to her cheek. "You have done great things, Prince," she added in a low tone.

He flashed a look of inquiry at her. To his ear there was in her voice a little touch--not of bitterness, but of something, as it were, m.u.f.fled or reserved. Was she thinking how he had robbed her child of the chance of heritage at Bercy? He did not reply, but, stooping, put the watch again to the child's ear. "There you are, monseigneur!"

"Why do you call him monseigneur?" she asked. "Guilbert has no t.i.tle to your compliment."

A look half-amused, half-perplexed, crossed over Detricand's face. "Do you think so?" he said musingly. Stooping once more, he said to the child: "Would you like the watch?" and added quickly, "you shall have it when you're grown up."

"Do you really mean it?" asked Guida, delighted; "do you really mean to give him the grandpethe's watch one day?"

"Oh yes, at least that--one day. But I have something more," he added quickly--"something more for you;" and he drew from his pocket a miniature set in rubies and diamonds. "I have brought you this from the Duc de Mauban--and this," he went on, taking a letter from his pocket, and handing it with the gift. "The Duke thought you might care to have it. It is the face of your G.o.dmother, the d.u.c.h.ess Guidabaldine."

Guida looked at the miniature earnestly, and then said a little wistfully: "How beautiful a face--but the jewels are much too fine for me! What should one do here with rubies and diamonds? How can I thank the Duke!"

"Not so. He will thank you for accepting it. He begged me to say--as you will find by his letter to you--that if you will but go to him upon a visit with this great man here"--pointing to the child with a smile--"he will count it one of the greatest pleasures of his life. He is too old to come to you, but he begs you to go to him--the Chevalier, and you, and Guilbert here. He is much alone now, and he longs for a little of that friends.h.i.+p which can be given by but few in this world. He counts upon your coming, for I said I thought you would."

"It would seem so strange," she answered, "to go from this cottage of my childhood, to which I have come back in peace at last--from this kitchen, to the chateau of the Duc de Mauban."

"But it was sure to come," he answered. "This kitchen to which I come also to redeem my pledge after seven years, it belongs to one part of your life. But there is another part to fulfil,"--he stooped and pa.s.sed his hands over the curls of the child, "and for your child here you should do it."

"I do not find your meaning," she said after a moment's deliberation. "I do not know what you would have me understand."

"In some ways you and I would be happier in simple surroundings," he replied gravely, "but it would seem that to play duly our part in the world, we must needs move in wider circles. To my mind this kitchen is the most delightful spot in the world. Here I took a fresh commission of life. I went out, a sort of battered remnant, to a forlorn hope; and now I come back to headquarters once again--not to be praised," he added in an ironical tone, and with a quick gesture of almost boyish shyness--"not to be praised; only to show that from a grain of decency left in a man may grow up some sheaves of honest work and plain duty."

"No, it is much more than that, it is much, much more than that," she broke in.

"No, I am afraid it is not," he answered; "but that is not what I wished to say. I wished to say that for monseigneur here--"

A little flash of anger came into her eyes. "He is no monseigneur, he is Guilbert d'Avranche," she said bitterly. "It is not like you to mock my child, Prince. Oh, I know you mean it playfully," she hurriedly added, "but--but it does not sound right to me."

"For the sake of monseigneur the heir to the duchy of Bercy," he added, laying his hand upon the child's head, "these things your devout friends suggest, you should do, Princess."

Her clear unwavering eye looked steadfastly at him, but her face turned pale.

"Why do you call him monseigneur the heir to the duchy of Bercy?" she said almost coldly, and with a little fear in her look too.

"Because I have come here to tell you the truth, and to place in your hands the record of an act of justice."

Drawing from his pocket a parchment gorgeous with seals, he stooped, and taking the hands of the child, he placed it in them. "Hold it tight, hold it tight, my little friend, for it is your very own," he said to the child with cheerful kindliness. Then stepping back a little, and looking earnestly at Guida, he added with a motion of the hand towards the child:

"You must learn the truth from him."

"Oh, what can you mean--what can you mean?" she exclaimed. Dropping upon her knees, and running an arm round the child, she opened the parchment and read.

"What--what right has he to this?" she cried in a voice of dismay.

"A year ago you dispossessed his father from the duchy. Ah, I do not understand it! You--only you are the Duc de Bercy."

Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning with a happy excitement and tenderness. No such look had been in them for many a day. Something that had long slept was waking in her, something long voiceless was speaking. This man brought back to her heart a glow she had never thought to feel again, the glow of the wonder of life and of a girlish faith.

"I am only Detricand of Vaufontaine," he answered. "What, did you--could you think that I would dispossess your child? His father was the adopted son of the Duc de Bercy. Nothing could wipe that out, neither law nor nations. You are always Princess Guida, and your child is always Prince Guilbert d'Avranche--and more than that."

His voice became lower, his war-beaten face lighted with that fire and force which had made him during years past a figure in the war records of Europe.

"I unseated Philip d'Avranche," he continued, "because he acquired the duchy through--a misapprehension; because the claims of the House of Vaufontaine were greater. We belonged; he was an alien. He had a right to his adoption, he had no right to his duchy--no real right in the equity of nations. But all the time I never forgot that the wife of Philip d'Avranche and her child had rights infinitely beyond his own.

All that he achieved was theirs by every principle of justice. My plain duty was to win for your child that succession belonging to him by all moral right. When Philip d'Avranche was killed, I set to work to do for your child what had been done by another for Philip d'Avranche. I have made him my heir. When he is of age I shall abdicate from the duchy in his favour. This deed, countersigned by the Powers that dispossessed his father, secures to him the duchy when he is old enough to govern."

Guida had listened like one in a dream. A hundred feelings possessed her, and one more than all. She suddenly saw all Detricand's goodness to her stretch out in a long line of devoted friends.h.i.+p, from this day to that far-off hour seven years before, when he had made a vow to her--kept how n.o.bly! Devoted friends.h.i.+p--was it devoted friends.h.i.+p alone, even with herself? In a tumult of emotions she answered him hurriedly. "No, no, no, no! I cannot accept it. This is not justice, this is a gift for which there is no example in the world's history."

"I thought it best," he went on quietly, "to govern Bercy myself during these troubled years. So far its neutrality has been honoured, but who can tell what may come! As a Vaufontaine it is my duty to see that Bercy's interests are duly protected amidst the troubles of Europe."

Guida got to her feet now and stood looking dazedly at the parchment in her hand. The child, feeling himself neglected, ran out into the garden.

There was moisture in Guida's eyes as she presently said: "I had not thought that any man could be so n.o.ble--no, not even you."

"You should not doubt yourself so," he answered meaningly. "I am the work of your hands. If I have fought my way back to reputable life again--"

He paused, and took from his pocket a handkerchief. "This was the gage,"

he said, holding it up. "Do you remember the day I came to return it to you, and carried it off again?"

"It was foolish of you to keep it," she answered softly, "as foolish of you as to think that I shall accept for my child these great honours."

"But suppose the child in after years should blame you?" he answered slowly and with emphasis. "Suppose that Guilbert should say, What right had you, my mother, to refuse what was my due?"

This was the question she had asked herself long, long ago. It smote her heart now. What right had she to reject this gift of Fate to her child?

Scarcely above a whisper she replied: "Of course he might say that, but how, oh, how should we simple folk, he and I, be fitted for these high places--yet? Now that what I desired all these years for him has come, I have not the courage."

"You have friends to help you in all you do," he answered meaningly.

"But friends cannot always be with one," she answered.

"That depends upon the friends. There is one friend of yours who has known you for eighteen years. Eighteen years' growth should make a strong friends.h.i.+p--there was always friends.h.i.+p on his part at least. He can be a still stronger and better friend. He comes now to offer you the remainder of a life for which your own goodness is the guarantee. He comes to offer you a love of which your own soul must be the only judge, for you have eyes that see and a spirit that knows. The Chevalier needs you, and the Duc de Mauban needs you, but Detricand of Vaufontaine needs you a thousand times more."