The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Bess remained silent—she had no true idea of noblesse oblige. Poor Bess was not a lady,—the blood of the Lukens family did not run in the channels of the Egremonts. She thought Roger a little hard-hearted.

“Anyway,” she cried aggressively, “he is far too good for a popish priest, and a great deal too handsome.”

“Take care, my dear,” responded Roger, laughing, “I may yet be a popish priest myself. Remember Monsieur La Trappe, who was a soldier.”

“There’s no danger for you,” coolly said Bess. And then they were at the inn door, and Madame Michot came forth, bustling, to meet them; and lame Jacques, who admired Bess as a star far above him, limped forward, and they were all very glad to see each other once more.

Madame Michot could give Roger his old garret for a month. As for the inn itself, it was like its old self only in the winter, when some of the former patrons came back. Some of them would never come back, but slept in Flemish ground, or their bones were bleaching in the passes of the Spanish mountains, or they whitened the plains of Italy, or they took their rest on the banks of the Rhine.

The common room, however, was decently full that evening when Roger ordered his supper. Many of those present he had served with. They had talk of campaigns, past and future, good news from England, where the recent death of Mary of Orange had seriously weakened her husband’s position. The Duke of Berwick was at St. Germains for the winter, where it was reported that he sought favor in the lovely eyes of Honora de Burgh, widow of the brave Sarsfield, killed at Neerwinden, and daughter of Lord Clanricarde. He was in high favor at Marly-le-Roi, and was one of the twenty great nobles whom the Dauphin invited to Choisy to plant trees, to hunt, and to enjoy life as great nobles should. The little Prince of Wales charmed everybody. When he met a private soldier, he always pulled out his little purse and gave what he had in it, “to drink the health of the King, my father.” And the little Princess Louisa, “La Consolatrice,” as her fond father called her, was then nearly three years old, and was an angel. William and Mary had no children; all of the Princess Anne’s were dead or dying, so the exiles told each other, believing the hand of God to be upon Goneril and Regan, while the Queen whom those daughters had displaced had two beautiful infants, so lovely that the greatest queen and empress in the world might envy her those cherubs. This was the talk Roger Egremont heard that night in the common room,—most of it highly agreeable to him. After the usual nightcap of punch and the King’s health had been drunk, and the house was quiet for the night, Roger looked out of the window he knew so well, down upon that familiar scene. A bright December moon illuminated the glorious terrace, the black pile of the old château, the river flowing icy cold through the wintry meadows. It was all very sad to him,—the place was haunted. He wished he had remained at winter quarters in Brabant.

Next day was Sunday, and he went to mass in the chapel. He saw the King, broken and aged, but a King still, enter; the Queen, a queen always; and the two tiny children, the little Prince of Wales gravely leading “La Consolatrice” by the hand. Roger’s heart swelled when he saw these two infants—they were so beautiful.

The organ pealed out, and voices rose in the anthem. Roger tried to keep his mind fixed on holy things, but he easily distinguished, above the golden tones of the organ and the melody of the other voices, Bess Lukens’s glorious soprano. It was one of those rich and radiant voices, full of color and religious passion. One knew that the singer was young and glowing with life and fire. Roger glanced upward at her. She was standing up to sing, her hood and mantle thrown back. He saw in her face that great and beautiful change which was taking place in her. She was singing, “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” It was true; and because she had honestly hated iniquity she had passed through it unscathed, and had come from the continual sight of it in a common gaol, to a life of innocence and peace, among honest people like herself.

After mass, Roger attended the King’s levee. It was very full, for the chances of James’s restoration seemed brilliant. The little town was crowded, and what gave great joy to Roger Egremont was that they were chiefly new faces,—persons who thought they saw the rising, once more, of the Jacobite star. Already human nature was asserting itself at St. Germains in quarrels over the coming flesh-pots. Lord Middleton led a party called the Compounders, who wanted a general amnesty; while Lord Melfort led the non-Compounders, who proposed to distribute punishments as well as rewards. The King, with whom Mary of Orange had once been a favorite child, whose impenitent death distressed him greatly, yet sternly refused to have his shabby court wear mourning for her, or to take any outward notice of the death of this despoiler of her father and brother. The King, however, prayed long and often for the soul of his undutiful child.

The château, like all the rest of St. Germains, was haunted to Roger Egremont. He sincerely hoped he should not meet Madame de Beaumanoir that day, and looked about him anxiously on entering the grand saloon. To his relief, she was not there.