The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Roger, after meeting and greeting many acquaintances and friends, returned to the inn. He much desired to see Dicky, and also Berwick. Judging from what he had heard concerning Sarsfield’s beautiful young widow, he had but little doubt that St. Germains was the place to seek Berwick, and not all the blandishments of the French King and Monseigneur combined could keep him long away. But Dicky must be sought in Paris. Bess Lukens, he found, was to return that afternoon, and so he determined to go in the stage-coach with her,—a huge, rumbling vehicle which ran daily at that time between St. Germains and Paris.

At five o’clock they were to start. It was a dull winter afternoon, and the journey promised to be cold and disagreeable. But Roger was glad to get away from St. Germains, and delighted at the prospect of seeing Dicky. He walked with Bess to the street corner where they were to meet the stage. He noticed, as he had done every moment since he had seen her, how great was her improvement in language, in manners, in all externals. But she was the same Bess after all,—warm-hearted, generous, full of courage and quite capable of vindictiveness. A gallant on the seat beside her venturing some impertinent glances at her, Bess turned, coolly surveyed him, and then remarked out aloud, as if talking to herself,

“Of all the monkeys I ever saw, this is the worst. The very dogs in Paris will bark at us if we carry him all the way.”

And this gay gentleman, like others, began by admiring Bess’s blooming beauty, and ended by cursing her saucy tongue.

It was long after dark before they rolled into Paris, and Roger escorted Bess to her own door. The Mazets were delighted to see him, and nothing would do but he must stay to supper. As soon as he accepted their invitation, Bess disappeared into the kitchen. While Papa Mazet was telling with pride of the triumphs of his pet pupil, and his battles on her account with the Abbé d’Albret, who now had charge of the King’s Opera, the song-bird was standing over the batterie de cuisine in the kitchen, preparing a delicious supper, which she presently served with her own hands. After it was over, and it was time for Roger to seek a lodging, he rose to go, thanking Papa Mazet and the old sister for their kindness to his friend. Bess went with him to the door, and held a candle in her hand to light him down the dark street. He heard her sweet, clear voice calling after him, “Good-night, Mr. Roger, and good sleep to you!”

Next day, at an appointed hour, he went to see Dicky at the seminary. They hugged each other as they had done when they were boys, and then spent the afternoon together in the garden of the monastery,—a quaint old place, shut off and screened, in perfect solitude, although in the heart of the great city.

It amazed Roger that Dicky should have changed so little. He seemed exactly like the apple-cheeked boy he had loved and patronized and bullied and hectored over at Egremont in those days, so long, long past. Yet, as Bess Lukens said, Dicky was all of three-and-twenty, and that he was no longer a boy was proved by what he told Roger.

“You must know, Roger,” he said, “that the Superior may let me be ordained before my ten years of study are over. In truth, old boy, I think the Superior knows that I shall never be as learned as most of the men in the Society of Jesus, and that I shall never be more than respectable at books. It is action that will suit me best. And there have come to us many letters and messages from our scattered flocks in England, praying for priests to come to them; and in the present persecution it is useless for any of the Society to go there except an Englishman who can maintain his disguise. So I have urgently prayed the Superior to let me be ordained and go to my native country. I think my precious fiddle will supply me with a disguise. Think, Roger, how delightful it must be to walk through green England, doing one’s duty, and taking one’s pleasure in the fresh fields and the pleasant country lanes, and basking in God’s sun all the while.”

“And playing the fiddle,” assented Roger. “Dick, man, I will not dissuade you. If ’tis your duty to go, it shall not be said that I, the head of our house—such a poor, broken house it is!—shall keep you back. No more would you keep me back from leading the forlorn hope, if I were accorded that honor. You stand a good chance of escape—for not eight years’ residence in France has altered the Devonshire tongue of you.”

“And the poor people about Egremont, most of them, are non-jurors anyway, and much as many of them hate my religion, they love the name of Egremont too well to betray me. So if you hear of me going to England, be not too anxious about me. I have a thousand chances of escape.”