"Well, well," said Dr. Winthorne, "we will have it all after supper. Now tell me every thing you have done and seen and suffered; for I doubt not you have suffered too, my poor boy. We shall have plenty of time if this prince takes as long to bedizen himself as he used to do. He was a mighty fop in other years; but he has a more soldier-like look now. Well, Ned, give me the whole story."
Edward Langdale willingly enough related succinctly what had befallen him since he parted from the good doctor nearly two years before. There was a good deal, indeed, he did not tell, for he knew that the explanations required would be too long for the limited space before him. Indeed, before even the abbreviated narrative was brought to a close, the Prince de Soubise joined them, and they retired into another chamber to supper.
The meal passed over in great cheerfulness; the wine was good, and of that quality which parsons loved in those days, but all partook moderately; and as soon as the servants had withdrawn—for supper at that period of the world's history was served with very nearly the same forms as dinner in the present times—Soubise bowed his head to Edward Langdale, saying, in not very good English, "There must be some mistake between us, sir. I should like to have it set right, for your father was one of my dearest friends. We travelled long together with this worthy minister; and I wish much to remove any thing like coldness between myself and his son."
"I really do not know, Monsieur de Soubise," replied Edward, in French, "what mistake there can be. But may I ask if in June of last year you did not write a letter to your brother the Duc de Rohan, in which you styled me an insolent varlet? The duke sent me the letter, and my eyes, I think, cannot have deceived me."
"No, no!" cried Soubise. "Stay; let me remember. I applied that term," he continued, more slowly, "to Sir Richard Langdale, your father's eldest son, who, as I have been told and as I have still reason to believe, had robbed you of your property,—of your mother's as well as your father's inheritance. To the latter he might have some claim: even that is doubtful. To the former he had none."
"Unfortunately, by the laws of this country he had," said Edward. "But all this is past and over, and——"
"Stay, stay," said Soubise, interrupting him. "It is not all over yet: it is the very cause of my coming here. I was a witness, sir, to the marriage-contract—or settlement, as you call it here, I believe—between your father and your mother, by which it was agreed that all the property she possessed, not only at the time, but which might descend to her from her uncle, should belong to her and descend to her children. In his last letter, when he thought himself dying, good old Clement Tournon informed me that this very property had been taken from you by him whom I may well call your base-born brother. Having done all that I had to do, and been disappointed in all,—having seen the noble Buckingham die at my feet, and borne the loss of Rochelle,—my first business was to come on here to see right done if it could be done."
"There, Edward! there!" said Dr. Winthorne. "I told you he was noble and true."
"I doubted it not, my dear friend," replied Edward. "But still the words his Highness used were somewhat galling."
"They never were applied to you, upon my honor," said the prince. "As far as I recollect now,—for it was a time of great hurry and confusion,—I had heard that Richard Langdale, whose whole history I knew as well as my daily service, was at the court of France soliciting some place from his Majesty. My brother wrote to me, mentioning only Monsieur de Langdale. Probably it was to you he referred. Probably he was deceived as well as myself, although he did not know so much of the circumstances as I did. My cousin left his child with his dying breath to my charge, enjoining me strictly to have her educated in the Protestant faith, and never to suffer her to fall into the hands——"