Chapter XIII

The hall of this old house was large and square, its floor composed of brown and yellow diamond-shaped marble tiles, over the greater part of which were thrown down various rugs of gorgeous hues. Facing the entrance was a large staircase, also of marble, that, after ascending for five steps, turned to either side and so led up to a gallery above, from which the first floor rooms opened all round.

Now, as Bevill entered the hall, he saw that Sylvia had descended from that floor and was standing on the top step of the five awaiting him. Then, as he approached, she descended the other four steps and, coming swiftly towards him with both hands outstretched, exclaimed:

"So you are Bevill Bracton, who once played with me in the gardens of Carey Villa at Fulham--the young man who pined to be a soldier and became one. In truth, and I am well pleased to see you; yet, had I met you elsewhere I should have scarce known you for my old playmate."

"Nor I you, Mistress Sylvia Thorne; for then you were a little winsome child and now----"

"Now I am a woman. One too," she added, while a shade crept over her face, "whom you find in sad and sorry plight. For, as you know, my father has gone from me--from me who loved him so!--and I am here in this beleaguered city, not knowing whether to leave it or stay on and brave the worst. Yet be that as it may, I thank you for coming here, for offering your services to your kinsman on my behalf."

Murmuring his regrets for the loss of her father and also for the situation in which she found herself placed, while protesting that that which he had done and hoped still more to do was nothing, Bevill could not but let his eyes roam over the features of the young woman who stood welcoming him. And, as he did so, he acknowledged how truthfully the Comtesse de Valorme had spoken when she told him that she had the gift of beauty.

For beautiful Sylvia Thorne was, with that beauty on which no man gazes without giving instant acknowledgment thereof, even though that acknowledgment is never outwardly expressed by eye or voice.

The child's large dark grey eyes--perhaps they were a dark hazel--yet who may tell the shade of women's eyes at one swift glance!--fringed with dark lashes, as he had recalled to the Earl of Peterborough, were, of course, the same; but the rest had changed. The dark chestnut hair that, in Sylvia's girlhood, had flowed loosely about her, was now coiled in masses above her white forehead; the clear-cut features that had promised so much in the young girl had redeemed in her young womanhood that which they promised. And those quiet, calm eyes well became the oval face, straight nose, and small mouth, the upper lip being divinely short; while, when Lord Peterborough had agreed that she was passing fair, and the Comtesse had said that she was beautiful yet seemed not to know that she was so, each had judged aright. Also, there was in her the tranquillity that the latter had spoken of, but shadowed, too, by the memory of a recent sorrow. For the rest, she was, like Rosalind, "more than common tall," upright, and full of dignity; a woman who, as years went on--if they were peaceful, quiet ones, with all that should accompany them, such as love, home, and children; years undisturbed by the struggles for triumph or the tears of failure--would develop into a stately, and it may be commanding one.

Doubtless, as Bevill looked on Sylvia Thorne, so, also, she looked to see what changes time had wrought in the youth who, once little better than a stripling, was now a man, strong, firm, self-reliant. If so, what she saw should not have impressed her unfavourably. The handsome features had not altered, but only become more firmly set; the mouth, well shaped, spoke of determination, and told of one who, without obstinacy, would still remain unturned from any resolution he had come to; the stalwart form of the man had taken the place of the tall, promising youth.

Seated in that great hall into which by now the rays of the evening sun were pouring, and to which two servants had brought great candelabra filled with white wax candles, while they had already lit those in the sconces on the pillars, Sylvia and Bevill spoke of what the future might have before them. But that which Sylvia now told the young man seemed scarcely to convey the idea that he had undertaken a journey likely to bear much fruit.

"Since my dear father's death," she said, after Bevill had described some portions of his journey from London, though omitting the fact of his having been recognised by Sparmann, since he thought it inadvisable to tell her that there was danger in his undertaking, "I have lived here with a companion. Almost, one might say, a _chaperon_, or, as the old tyrannical rulers of the land would have termed her, a _duenna_. Yet now she has fallen sick--in truth, I think the French have terrified her into a fever. Therefore she has departed--it was but yesterday--to her own people at Brussels, where, however, she will also find the French; and I am alone in this great house."

"What, in consequence, have you resolved on doing?"

"On shutting it up and seeking refuge at Mynheer Van Ryk's----"

"The house to which your friend the Comtesse de Valorme has gone!" Bevill exclaimed.

They had already spoken of the Comtesse, Bevill telling Sylvia that that lady had said the latter was well known to her, and also that she had told him ere they parted that Van Ryk had married a connection of hers.

"Yes, that is the house; yet--yet I know not if it is well for me to go there. If----"

"But," said Bevill, "if you resolve to follow my lord's advice--and he is left your guardian--and do me so great an honour as to permit me to endeavour to escort you safely to England, you will scarce need to ask for hospitality of Mynheer Van Ryk."

"I know not. Frankly, I know not what to do. To be very honest, you should know I am in no danger here--from the French. They have their faults, and those are neither few nor small; but they are gallant to women, and, except that they drive hard bargains for all they require, they have not molested those who dwell in the towns and cities they either possess themselves of or surround."

"Until now," Bevill said, while feeling somewhat surprised and somewhat disappointed, too, at this last utterance of Sylvia, since it seemed to express a doubt on her part as to whether she should avail herself of the service which he had come to perform--"until now they have but made themselves secure of those towns and cities, with a view to what the future may bring forth. But it is war time at last, and half Europe has declared against France and Spain. Will France restrain herself so much in the future? Especially since Holland--the Netherlands--have banded with England against her?"

"Ah, yes; ah, yes," Sylvia replied meditatively. "It is true I had forgotten that. Affairs will doubtless be much changed; and also--also," she said in a low voice, as if speaking more to herself than to Bevill, "I am averse to becoming an inmate of Mynheer Van Ryk's house, hospitably as he has pressed me to do so."

Recognising that in this there lay hidden some reason which, probably, Sylvia Thorne knew to be a good one for preventing her acceptance of the hospitality of the Liégois house, yet still one which she did not desire to confide to him, Bevill held his peace, and decided that it did not become him to ask what that reason might be.

Yet, since he asked no question, nor, indeed, uttered any remark at the conclusion of what Sylvia had said, she looked round at him as though in wonderment at his silence.

Then, a moment later, she said:

"Between you and me there must be no secrets. The service you have done me, the service you came here to render me, the service you may yet do me--nay!" she said, seeing his motion of dissent, "it is in truth a service. Do not refuse to regard it as one. There must, I say, be no secrets between us. Therefore, I will be very frank, and tell you why I do not like the thought of sojourning at Mynheer Van Ryk's."

Bevill made a motion with his hand, as though not only to deprecate her appreciation of what he had undertaken to do on her behalf, but also to prevent her from making any confidences to him that she would have preferred not to divulge. But Sylvia, sitting upright in her chair on the other side of the old carved oak table that was between them--while he observed the calm, almost impassive, dignity with which she spoke of a subject that must be far from pleasant to her--said:

"There is in that house a man--a young man--a kinsman of Madame Van Ryk and, consequently, of the Comtesse de Valorme also, who--who--well, wearies me with his attentions. He professes to admire me, and desires that his admiration should be returned."

"Yes?" Bevill replied in a tone of inquiry, while in that tone there was no expression of astonishment. It may be, indeed, that there was no cause for astonishment in what Sylvia had told him. She was beautiful--"passing fair," as he had himself said when musing on what the child he had once known might have become by now, and as Lord Peterborough had echoed; also she was young and--which might well serve for much--wealthy. There was, he thought, no great cause for wonderment. Therefore he said simply, "Yes?" and waited to hear more.

"The matter," Sylvia continued, "would be unworthy a thought, but that it may make my sojourn at Mynheer Van Ryk's irksome to me."

"There being no hope of reciprocation?"

"It is impossible. To me this man--this Emile Francbois----"

"This _who?_" Bevill exclaimed in a voice that caused Sylvia to turn round suddenly and glance at him under the lights of the great candelabra. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "is it possible you know him, or know of him?"

"No, no! The name struck me as--as one that I had heard before in--in far-off days, while unable to recall where or in what circumstances I had done so. I pray you pardon my interruption. You were about to say that to you this man, this Emile--what is it?--Francbois was----"

"Repellent. He is--oh! I know not what--yet one whom I mistrust. Neither know I why he is here. He is, of course, a Frenchman, yet he consorts not with those who hold Liége in their hands, and speaks as though his sympathy is with all who are Dutch."

"And, if he were different," Bevill asked quietly, "would your sentiments be also different?"

"Oh--oh!" Sylvia exclaimed, "how can you ask? Yet it is true you do not know him; you have not seen him yet. Doubtless you will do so, however, if I am compelled to accept the hospitality of his kinsman's house."

"Yet need there be no such compulsion. You will not have forgotten what Lord Peterborough's desires are, what I am here for. To take you away from Liége. Liége that, it is true, has not been harmful to you as yet, but that may now become terribly so. The Earl of Marlborough must be on his way here by this time; he may be in the Netherlands by now; when he comes, war will be carried on in terrible earnest. Will these French, who do but lie around this city at present, be considerate for those who are within its walls when they themselves are between those walls and the troops of the Allies?"

"For myself I do not fear. I am a woman, and therefore safe; but----" "But--yes?"

"The risk will be terrible!"

"The risk? You are safe, yet fear the risk?"

"Not for myself," Sylvia answered with a half-smile; then, changing her tone, speaking once more now in her calm, steady voice, she continued: "Mr. Bracton, do you deem me a heartless, selfish woman thinking only of her own safety? I pray not. Nay," seeing that he was about to reply, "I entreat you, let me speak." After which she went on: "For me there is little or no danger here. Your cousin, who has ever had kindly thoughts for me, has overrated the danger in which I stand. I repeat there is no danger. But--what of you? In what a position has he placed you?"

"Ah! never think of it. What care I for danger? And--has he not told you in the letter I was bearer of that I courted danger? I asked for this office on which I now am. I besought him to let me be the messenger who should reach you, who should be, if not the man who saved you, at least the one who should accompany you, help you, serve you in your journey to England."

"You are very brave," the girl said, looking up at him as now he stood before her, since he had risen and taken up his hat, knowing that, because the night had come, it was time he left her--"brave and gallant. From my heart I thank you."

"No thanks are due. I do not deserve them. Do you know my unhappy circumstances, and how I hope to mend them? Do you know how I, who held not long ago the position I loved--the one I had hoped for since I was a boy----"

"I know," Sylvia Thorne said, looking at him. "I know, and still I thank you; and, in good faith, I would be gone willingly enough from out this place, but not"--and for a moment, just a moment, her stateliness left her, and she placed her hands before her eyes--"not at the risk, the danger to you, that must surely arise."

"The danger is not worth a thought. The English are all around, are near. Only a few hours ago I encountered some English officers not twenty miles from here. Once we reach Athlone's forces, or those of Lord Cutts, we are in safe hands. Our lines stretch from near Venloo almost to Rotterdam; an English road would not be more safe. And the sea is ours; the fleets of Rooke, of Shovel, are all about. Decide--and come, I do beseech you."

"The danger to you," Sylvia said, as now she escorted him to the verandah, "is neither in Holland nor on the high seas. It is here. Here, in Liége! If it is once discovered that you, an Englishman, have entered this city as a Frenchman, that you are endeavouring to quit it while assisting a countrywoman to also do so, you will never leave it alive. Never! Never! Your chivalry will have led you to your doom. Ah! Mr. Bracton," she continued, "there is no danger to me; therefore, I implore you, leave me. Leave me. Escape yourself, as, alone, you may well do. Escape while there is time."

"Never!" While, as he spoke, Sylvia Thorne, looking at him in the light of the now rising moon, saw that he smiled. "Never! If you will not come, if you will not do your guardian's bidding, then I have another resource."

"Another resource?"

"Why, yes: I stay here with you!"

"Ah, no! Ah, no!"

"Yes, I remain with you. When the Allies come near here, as come they surely will--are they not besieging Kaiserswörth--do they not hold Maestricht--is not Venloo, close by, threatened?--there will be terrible trouble in Liége. Those French regiments outside will be drawn nearer; some will be thrown into the city, besides those already in the Citadel and the Chartreuse; a terrible state of things will prevail, an awful licence. I know the French--we have met before! Therefore I will not go and leave you, having found you. I undertook to do this thing, and I will stand by my word--my word given to my kinsman and your guardian. We leave this city together on our road to the Allies, if not to England, or----"

"Yes--or----"

"We remain in it together. I will never set eyes on Peterborough's face again till I stand before him with you by my side--and safe."

As Bevill Bracton spoke thus while standing, hat in hand, on the crushed shells of the path below the verandah steps, and while looking upwards at the young mistress of the great house, the summer night had fallen almost entirely, and, beyond the faint light of the dusk and that of the stars, all was dark around.

Also, the night was very still, save that, afar off, some nightingales were singing in a copse, and, now and again, the voices of the boatmen could be heard on the river and, sometimes, the splash and drip of their oars as they touched the water.

The night was so still that, though Sylvia Thorne spoke now in little more than a whisper, he, standing below and gazing up at her, could hear her words distinctly.

"You will not go," she murmured; "you will not go, leaving me here. Ah! well, you are truly brave and daring." Then, releasing the tendrils of a passion flower growing round one of the great pillars, with which she had been playing, she held out her hand while continuing:

"A wilful man must have his way; but, at least, go now. Farewell. Goodnight."

While, as Bevill turned away and went towards the gate, she murmured to herself:

"Lord Peterborough should be proud to call you cousin, to have chosen you as his emissary."