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The Inn at the Red Oak

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They were soon seated at the breakfast-table and had addressed
themselves to the various good things that black Deborah had provided.
The native Johnny cakes, made of meal ground by their own windmill, the
Marquis professed to find particularly tempting.

Despite Mrs. Frost's questions, despite his own voluble replies, Monsieur
de Boisdhyver gave no hint, that there was any deeper reason for his
seeking exile at the Inn of the Red Oak than that he desired rest and
quiet and had been assured that he would find them there. And who had so
complimented their simple abode of hospitality?

"Ah, madame," he murmured, lifting his tiny hands, "so many!"

"But I fear, monsieur," replied his hostess, "that you, who are
accustomed to the luxuries of a splendid city like Paris, to so many
things of which we read, will find little to interest and amuse you in
our remote countryside."

"As for interest, madame," the Marquis protested, "there are the beauties
of nature, your so delightful household, my few books, my writing; and
for amusement, I have my violin;--I so love to play. You will not
mind?--perhaps, enjoy it?"

"Indeed yes," said Mrs. Frost. "Dan, too, is a fiddler after a fashion;
and as for Nancy, she has a passion for music, and dreams away many an
evening while my son plays his old tunes."

"Ah, yes," said the Marquis, "Mademoiselle Nancy, I have not the pleasure
to see her this morning?"

"No," replied Mrs. Frost, flushing a trifle at the recollection of why
Nancy was not present, "she is somewhat indisposed--a mere trifle. You
will see her later in the day. But, monsieur, you should have come to us
in the spring or the summer, for then the country is truly beautiful;
now, with these snow-bound roads, when not even the stagecoach passes, we
are indeed lonely and remote."

"It is that," insisted the Marquis, "which so charms me. When one is
old and when one has lived a life too occupied, it is this peace,
this quiet, this remoteness one desires. To walk a little, to sit by
your so marvellously warm fires, to look upon your beautiful country,
_cest bou_!"

He held her for a moment with his piercing little eyes, a faint smile
upon his lips, as though to say that it was impossible he should be
convinced that he had not found precisely what he was seeking, and
insisting, as it were, that his hostess take his words as the compliment
they were designed to be.

Before she had time to reply, he had turned to Dan. "What a fine harbour
you have, Monsieur Frost," he said, pointing through the window toward
the Cove, separated from the river and the sea by the great curve of
Strathsey Neck, its blue waters sparkling now in the light of the
morning sun.

"Yes," replied Dan, glancing out upon the well-known shoreline, "it is a
good harbour, though nothing, of course, to compare with a Port. But it's
seldom that we see a ship at anchor here, now."

"There is, however," inquired the Marquis with interest, "anchorage for a
vessel, a large vessel?"

"Yes, indeed," Tom interrupted, "in the old days when my father had his
ships plying between Havana and the Port, he would often have them anchor
in the Cove for convenience in lading them with corn from the farm."

"And they were large ships?"

"Full-rigged, sir; many of 'em, and drawing eight feet at least."

"_Eh bien_! And the old Inn, madame, it dates, your son tells me,
from 1693?"

"We think so, sir, though I have no positive knowledge of its existence
before 1750. My husband purchased the place in '94, and it had then been
a hostelry for some years, certainly from the middle of the century. But
we have made many additions. Danny dear, perhaps it will interest the
Marquis if you should take him over the house. We are proud of our old
inn, sir."

"And with reason, madame. If monsieur will, I shall be charmed."

"I will leave you then with my son. Give me your arm, Dan, to the
parlour. Unfortunately, Monsieur le Marquis, affliction has crippled me
and I spend the day in my chair in the blue parlour. I shall be so
pleased, if you will come and chat with me. Tommy, you will be staying to
dinner with us?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Frost, but I must get to the Port for the day. Mother
and Father are leaving by the afternoon stage, if it gets through. They
are going to spend the winter in Coventry. But I shall be back to-night
as I have promised Dan to spend that time with him."

"We shall be glad to have you, as you know."

Soon after Mrs. Frost had left the breakfast-room and Tom had started
forth with horse and sleigh, Dan returned. The Marquis promptly reminded
him of the suggestion that he should be taken over the Inn. It seemed to
Dan an uninteresting way to entertain his guest and the morning was a
busy one. However, he promised to be ready at eleven o'clock to show the
Marquis all there was in the old house.

As Dan went about the offices and stables, performing himself much of the
work that in prosperous times fell to grooms and hostlers, he found
himself thinking about his new guest. Dan knew enough of French history
to be aware there were frequent occasions in France when partisans of the
various factions, royalist, imperialist, or republican, found it best to
expatriate themselves. He knew that in times past many of the most
distinguished exiles had found asylum in America. But at the present, he
understood, King Louis Philippe, was reigning quietly at the Tuileries
and, moreover, the Marquis de Boisdhyver, mysterious as he was, did not
suggest the political adventurer of whom Dan as a boy had heard his
parents tell such extraordinary tales. In the few years immediately after
the final fall of the great Bonaparte there had been an influx of
imperialistic supporters in America, some of whom had even found their
way to Monday Port and Deal. One of these, Dan remembered, had stayed
for some months in '14 or '15 at the Inn at the Red Oak, and it was he
whom Tom had recalled the night before as having told them stories of his
adventurous exploits in the wars of the Little Corporal. But it was too
long after Napoleon's fall to connect his present guest with the imperial
exiles. He could imagine no ulterior reason for the Marquis's coming and
was inclined to put it down as the caprice of an old restless gentleman
who had a genuine mania for solitude. Of solitude, certainly, he was apt
to get his fill at the Inn at the Red Oak.

At eleven o'clock he returned to keep his appointment. He found the
Marquis established at a small table in the bar by an east window, from
which was obtained a view of the Cove, of the sand-dunes along the Neck,
and of the open sea beyond. A writing-desk was on the table, ink and
quills had been provided, a number of books and papers were strewn about,
and Monsieur de Boisdhyver was apparently busy with his correspondence.

"Enchanted" he exclaimed, as he pulled out a great gold watch. "Punctual.
I find another virtue, monsieur, in a character to which I have already
had so much reason to pay my compliments. I trust I do not trespass upon
your more important duties." As he spoke, he rapidly swept the papers
into the writing-desk, closed and locked it, and carefully placed the
tiny golden key into the pocket of his gayly-embroidered waistcoat.

"Not at all," Dan replied courteously, "I shall be glad to show you
about. But I fear you will find it cold and dismal, for the greater part
of the house is seldom used or even entered."

"I bring my cloak," said the Marquis. "Interest will give me warmth. What
I have already seen of the Inn at the Red Oak is so charming, that I
doubt not there is much more to delight one. I imagine, monsieur, how gay
must have been this place once."

He took his great cloak from the peg near the fire where it had been hung
the night before to dry wrapped himself snugly in it; and then, with a
little bow, preceded Dan into the cold and draughty corridor that opened
from the bar into the older part of the house.

This hallway extended fifty or sixty feet to the north wall of the main
part of the inn whence a large window at the turn of a flight of stairs
gave light. On the right, extending the same distance as the hall
itself, was a great room known as the Red Drawing-room, into which Dan
first showed the Marquis. This room had not been used since father's
death four or five years before, and for a long time previous to that
only on the rare occasions when a county gathering of some sort was held
at the inn. It had been furnished in good taste and style in colonial
days, but was now dilapidated and musty. The heavy red damask curtains
were drawn before the windows, and the room was dark and cheerless. Dan
admitted the dazzling light of the sun; but the Marquis only shivered and
seemed anxious to pass quickly on.

"You see, sir," observed the young landlord, "it is dismal enough."

"_Mais oui_--_mais oui_," exclaimed the Marquis.

At the foot of the stairway the corridor turned at right angles and ran
north. On either side opened a number of chambers in like conditions of
disrepair, which had been used as bedrooms in the palmy days of the
hostelry. This corridor ended at the bowling-alley, where as children Tom
and Dan had loved to play. Half-way to the entrance to the bowling-alley
a third hallway branched off to the right, leading to a similar set of
chambers. Into all these they entered, the Marquis examining each with
quick glances, dismissing them with the briefest interest and the most
obvious comment.

Dan saved the _piéce-de-resistance_ till last. This was a little room
entered from the second corridor just at the turn--the only room indeed,
as he truthfully said, that merited a visit.

"This," he explained, "we call the Oak Parlour. It is the only room on
this floor worth showing you. My father brought the wainscoting from an
old English country-house in Dorsetshire. My father's people were
Torries, sir, and kept up their connection with the old country."

It was a delightful room into which Dan now admitted the light of day,
drawing aside the heavy green curtains from the eastern windows. It was
wainscoted from floor to cornice in old black English oak, curiously and
elaborately carved, and divided into long narrow panels. The ceiling, of
similar materials and alike elaborately decorated, was supported by heavy
transverse beams that seemed solid and strong enough to support the roof
of a cathedral. On one side two windows opened upon the gallery and court
and looked out upon the Cove, on the other side stood a cabinet. It was
the most striking piece of furniture in the room, of enormous dimensions
and beautifully carved on the doors of the cupboards below and on the
top-pieces between the mirrors were lion's heads of almost life-size.
Opposite the heavy door, by which they had entered, was a large
fireplace, containing a pair of elaborately ornamented brass and irons.
There was not otherwise a great deal of furniture,--two or three tables,
some chairs, a deep window-seat, a writing-desk of French design; but
all, except this last, in keeping with the character of the room, and all
brought across the seas from the old Dorsetshire mansion, from which
Peter Frost had obtained the interior.

"_Charmant_!" exclaimed the Marquis. "You have a jewel, _mon ami_; a bit
of old England or of old France in the heart of America; a room one finds
not elsewhere in the States. It is a _creation superbe_."

With enthusiastic interest he moved about, touching each article of
furniture, examining with care the two of three old English landscapes
that had been let into panels on the west side of the room, pausing in
ecstacies before the great cabinet and standing before the fireplace as
if he were warming his hands at that generous hearth.

"Ah, Monsieur Frost, could I but write, read, dream here...!"

"I fear that would be impossible, sir," replied Dan. "It is difficult to
heat this portion of the house; and in fact, we never use it."

"_Hélas_!" exclaimed the Marquis, "those things which allure us in this
world are so often impossible. Perhaps in the spring, in the summer, when
there is no longer the necessity of the fire, you will permit me."

"It may be, monsieur," Dan replied, "that long before the summer comes
you will have left us."

"_Mais non_!" cried M. de Boisdhyver. "Every hour that I stay but proves
to me how long you will have to endure my company."

Somewhat ungraciously, it seemed, young Frost made no reply to this
pleasantry; for already he was impatient to be gone. Although the room
was intensely cold and uncomfortable, still his guest lingered, standing
before the massive cabinet, exclaiming upon the exquisiteness of the
workmanship, and every now and then running his dainty fingers along the
carving of its front. As Dan stood waiting for the Marquis to leave, he
chanced to glance through the window to the court without, and saw Jesse
starting out in the sleigh. As he had given him no such order he ran
quickly to the window, rapped vigourously and then, excusing himself to
the Marquis, hurried out to ask Jesse to explain his errand.

The Marquis de Boisdhyver stood for a moment, as Dan left him, motionless
in front of the cabinet. His face was bright with surprise and delight,
his eyes alert with interest and cunning. After a moment's hesitation he
stole cautiously to the window, and seeing Frost was engaged in
conversation with Jesse, he sprang back with quick steps to the cabinet.
He hastily ran the tips of his fingers along the beveled edges of the
wide shelf from end to end several times, each time the expression of
alertness deepening into one of disappointment. He stopped for a moment
and listened. All was quiet. Again with quick motions he felt beneath the
edges. Suddenly his eyes brightened and he breathed quickly; his
sensitive fingers had detected a slight unevenness in the smooth
woodwork. Again he paused and listened, and then pressed heavily until he
heard a slight click. He glanced up, as directly in front of him the eye
of one of the carved wooden lion's heads on the front of the board winked
and slowly raised, revealing a small aperture. With a look of
satisfaction, the Marquis thrust his fingers into the tiny opening and
drew forth a bit of tightly folded yellow paper; he glanced at it for an
instant and thrust it quickly into the pocket of his waistcoat. Then he
lowered the lid of the lion's eye. There was a slight click again; and he
turned, just as Dan reappeared in the doorway.

"Excuse my leaving you so abruptly," said Frost, "but I saw Jesse going
off with the sleigh, and as I had given him no orders, I wanted to know
where he was going. But it was all right. Are you ready, sir? I am afraid
if we stay much longer you will catch cold." This last remark was added
as the Marquis politely smothered a sneeze with his flimsy lace
handkerchief.

"_C'est bien_, monsieur. I fear I have taken a little cold. Perhaps it
would be just as well if we explore no further to-day."

"If you prefer, sir," answered Dan, holding the door open for his guest
to go out. Monsieur de Boisdhyver turned and surveyed the Oak Parlour
once more before he left it. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "this so charming
room--it is of a perfection! Dorsetshire, you say? ... To me it would
seem French." They walked back rapidly along the dark cold corridors to
the bar. All the way the Marquis, wrapped tightly in his great cloak,
kept the thumb of his left hand in his waistcoat pocket, pressing
securely against the paper he had taken from the old cabinet in the Oak
Parlour.



CHAPTER III

THE MARQUIS AT NIGHT


The household of the Inn at the Red Oak soon became accustomed to the
presence of their new member; indeed, he seemed to them during those
bleak winter months a most welcome addition. Except for an occasional
traveller who spent a night or a Sunday at the Inn, he was the only
guest. He was gregarious and talkative, and would frequently keep them
for an hour or so at table as he talked to them of his life in France,
and of his adventures in the exciting times through which his country had
passed during the last fifty years. He was the cadet, he told them, of a
noble family of the Vendée, the head of which, though long faithful to
the exiled Bourbons, had gone over to Napoleon upon the establishment of
the Empire. But as for himself--Marie-Anne-Timélon-Armand de
Boisdhyver--he still clung to the Imperial cause, and though now for many
years his age and infirmities had forced him to withdraw from any part in
intrigues aiming at the restoration of the Empire, his sympathies were
still keen.

When he talked in this strain, of his thrilling memories of the Terror
and of the extraordinary days when Bonaparte was Emperor, Dan and Tom
would listen to him by the hour. But Mrs. Frost preferred to hear the
Marquis's reminiscences of the _ancien régime_ and of the old court life
at Versailles. He had been a page, he said, to the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette; he would cross himself piously at the mention of the magic
name, and digress rapturously upon her beauty and grace, and bemoan, with
tears, her unhappy fate. She liked also to hear of the court of Napoleon
and of the life of the _faubourgs_ in the Paris of the day. On these
occasions the young men were apt to slip away and leave the Marquis alone
with Mrs. Frost and Nancy.

For Nancy Monsieur de Boisdhyver seemed to have a fascination. She would
listen absorbed to his voluble tales, her bright eyes fixed on his
fantastic countenance, her head usually resting upon her hand, and her
body bent forward in an attitude of eager attention. She rarely spoke
even to ask a question; indeed, her only words would be an occasional
exclamation of interest, or the briefest reply.

During the day their noble guest would potter about the house or, when
the weather was fine, stroll down to the shore, where he would walk up
and down the strip of sandy beach in the lee of the wind hour after hour.
Now and then he wandered out upon the dunes that stretched along the
Neck; and once, Dan afterwards learned, he paid a call upon old Mrs.
Meath who lived by herself in the lonely farmhouse on Strathsey Neck,
that was known as the House of the Dunes.

After supper they were wont to gather in Mrs. Frost's parlour or in the
old bar before the great hearth on which a splendid fire always blazed;
and when the Marquis had had his special cup of black coffee, he would
get out his violin and play to them the long evening through. He played
well, with the skill of a master of the art, and with feeling. He seemed
at such times to forget himself and his surroundings; his bright eyes
would grow soft, a dreamy look would steal into them, and a happy little
smile play about the corners of his thin pale lips. Obligingly he gave
Dan lessons, and often the young man would accompany him, in the songs
his mother had known and loved in her youth, when old Peter had come
wooing with fiddle in hand.

But best of all were the evenings when the Marquis chose to improvise.
Plaintive, tender melodies for the most part; prolonged trembling,
faintly-expiring airs; and sometimes harsh, strident notes that evoked
weird echoes from the bare wainscoted walls. Mrs. Frost would sit, tears
of sadness and of pleasure in her eyes, the kindly homely features of her
face moving with interest and delight. Nancy was usually by the table,
her sharp little chin propped up on the palms of her hands, never taking
her fascinated gaze from the musician. Sometimes Tom would look at her
and wonder of what she could be thinking. For certainly her spirit seemed
to be far away wandering in a world of dreams and of strange
inexpressible emotions. For Tom the music stirred delicate thoughts
bright dreams of beauty and of love; the vivid intangible dreams of
awakening youth. He had not had much experience with emotion; the story
of his love affairs contained no more dramatic moments than the stealing
of occasional kisses from the glowing cheeks of Maria Stonywell, the
beauty of the Tinterton road, as he had walked back to the old farm with
her on moonlight evenings.

They would all be sorry when Monsieur pleaded weariness and bade them
good-night. Sometimes his music so moved the old Frenchman that the tears
would gather in his faded blue eyes and steal down his powdered cheeks;
and then, like as not, he was apt to break off suddenly, drop violin and
bow upon his knees, and exclaim, "_Ah! la musique! mon Dieu, mon Dieu!
elle me rappelle ma jeunesse. Et maintenant--et maintenant_!" And then,
brushing away the tears he would rise, make them a courtly bow, and hurry
out of the room.

Dan alone did not fall under his spell. He and Tom would often talk of
their strange guest after they were gone to bed in the great chamber over
the dining-room.

"I don't know what it is," Dan said one night, "but I am sorry he ever
came to the Inn; I wish he would go away."

"How absurd, old boy!" protested Tom. "He has saved our lives this
frightful winter. I never knew your mother to be so cheerful and
contented; Nancy seems to adore him, and you yourself are making the most
of his fiddle lessons."

"I know," Dan replied, "all that is true, but it is only half the truth.
Mother's cheerfulness is costing me a pretty penny, for I can't keep her
from ordering the most expensive things,--wines, and the like,--that we
can't afford. Maybe Nance adores him, as you say,--she is such a strange
wild child; but I have never known her to be so unlike herself. We used
to have good times together--Nance and I. But this winter I see nothing
of her at all." For the moment Dan forgot his complaint in the tender
thought of his foster-sister. "It probably is absurd," he added
presently, "but I don't like it; I don't like him, Tom! He plays the
fiddle well, I admit but he is so queer and shifty, nosing about, looking
this way and that, never meeting your eyes. It's just as though he were
waiting, biding his time, for--I don't know what."

"Nonsense, Dan; you're not an old woman."

"It may be, Tom, but I feel so anyway. The place hasn't seemed the same
to me since that Frenchman came. I wish he would go away; and apparently
he means to stay on forever."

"I think you would miss him, if he were to go," insisted Pembroke, "for
my part I'm glad he is here. To tell the truth, Dan, he's been the life
of the house."

"He has fascinated you as he has fascinated Mother and Nance," Dan
replied. "But it stands to reason, boy, that he can't be quite all
right. What does he want poking about in a deserted old hole like Deal?"

"What he has said a thousand times; just what he so beautifully
gets--quiet and seclusion."

"Perhaps you are right and I am wrong; but all the same I shall be glad
to see the last of him."

The night was one of bright moonlight at the end of February. The bedroom
windows were open to the cold clear air. Tom was not sleepy, and he lay
for a long time recalling the dreams and emotions that had so stirred him
earlier in the evening, as he had listened to the Marquis's playing. He
kept whistling softly to himself such bars of the music as he could
remember. Dan's chamber faced west, and Tom's bed was so placed that he
could look out, without raising his head from the pillow, over the court
in the rear of the Inn and into the misty depths of Lovel's Woods beyond
the offices and stables.

As he lay half-consciously musing--it must have been near midnight--his
attention was suddenly riveted upon the court below. It seemed to him
that he heard footsteps. He was instantly wide awake, and jumped from the
bed to the window, whence he peered from behind the curtain into the
courtyard. Close to the wall of the Inn, directly beneath the window, a
shadow flitted on the moonlight-flooded pavement, and he could hear the
crumbling of the snow. Cautiously he thrust his head out of the window.
Moving rapidly along near to the house, was a little figure wrapped in a
dark cloak, which looked to Tom for all the world like the Marquis de
Boisdhyver.

For the moment he had the impulse to call to him by name, but the
conversation he had so recently had with Dan flashed into his mind, and
he decided to keep still and watch. The figure moved rapidly along the
west wall of the Inn almost the entire length of the building, until it
arrived at the entrance of the bowling-alley which abutted from the old
northern wing. Reaching this it paused for a moment, glancing about; then
inserted a key, fumbled for a moment with the latch, opened the door, and
disappeared within.

Tom was perplexed. He could not be sure that it was the Marquis; but
whether it were or not, he knew that there was no reason for any one
entering the old portion of the Inn at midnight. His first thought was to
go down alone and investigate; his second was to waken Dan.

He lowered the window gently, drew the curtains across it, and
bending over his friend, shook him gently by the shoulder. "Dan, Dan,
I say; wake up!"

"What's the matter?" exclaimed Dan with a start of alarm, as he sat
up in bed.

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