At daylight he was awakened by Dicky, fully dressed in his seminarist’s gown.
“Get up, Roger. I am now going to have Merrylegs fed, and your breakfast will be waiting,—you have less than an hour to sunrise.”
The sun was just tipping the tops of the half-bare trees with golden light, when Roger and Dicky reached the edge of the forest, where they were to meet Berwick and Madame de Beaumanoir’s party. They walked, Dicky with his black robe tucked up, and his light-blue, laughing, honest eyes shining under his beretta, Roger leading Merrylegs, on whom was strapped a small portmanteau, which contained all the worldly possessions of the head of the house of Egremont. This included the little bag of earth from Egremont, without which Roger had never slept a single night since that last night at his home, nearly four years before. They soon reached the appointed place of meeting, on the forest’s edge, and Berwick, ever the most punctual of men, was on the spot as soon as they were. He rode a fine gray gelding, and his servant was riding another horse, and leading a packhorse, upon which he nimbly strapped Roger’s little portmanteau. And in another minute there was a great rattling of wheels and trampling of hoofs heard on the road from the château, where it touched the highroad and Madame de Beaumanoir’s equipage came in sight.
It was a cavalcade. First came the berline of the Duchess. She had fought hard to travel in her great gilt coach, but the impossibility of getting it through the passes of the Vosges daunted even her high spirit. The berline was horsed with only a pair, but behind the baggage wagon which followed, were led two other horses. The baggage wagon contained the maître d’hôtel, a footman who acted as coachman, and a couple of lady’s-maids. Behind all rode François Delaunay, glad to escape from the berline and the company of his benefactors; and Mademoiselle d’Orantia rode beside him.
She wore a black riding-suit with a black hat, under which her dark eyes were lustrous. She rode with incomparable grace, and as her delicate figure was outlined against the bright sky of sunrise, Roger thought he had never seen her look so handsome. He remembered that she was not always handsome, but when she bloomed, as it were, she shone with a dazzling and brilliant beauty which was a charming surprise.
Madame de Beaumanoir, sitting in solitary state in the berline had a long cane with a jewelled head to it in her hand, with which she prodded the bewigged coachman and footman who sat upon the box. As soon as the party drew up she began to screech,—
“Here I am, my lads. This dull court was dull enough at best; but after you, Berwick, and Mr. Egremont and I go away, ’twill be like a dissenters’ meeting,—the sort my nephew François would frequent if I would let him.”
François bore this gibe with meekness, and Berwick engaging the old lady in conversation, Roger had a chance to speak with Michelle, who had drawn up her horse by the roadside.
“Do you contemplate making much of the journey a-horseback, mademoiselle?” asked Roger.
“All of it, Mr. Egremont,” replied Michelle, promptly. “You may remember, the second time we met, I told you that I longed to ride by night and day, and to know how it feels to sleep with the earth for a bed and the sky for a roof.”