“D’Avaux had made his move,” said Rossignol.
“That is what I came to understand, from hints given me by Lieutenant Bart. My accuser, he said, was a very important man, who was in Dublin, and who had given orders that I was to be detained, on suspicion of spying, until he could reach Dunkerque.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Two weeks.”
“Then d’Avaux might get here at any moment!” Rossignol said.
“Behold his ship,” said Eliza, and directed Rossignol’s attention to a French Navy vessel moored elsewhere in the basin. “I was watching it come round the end of the jetty when I saw you riding up the street.”
“So d’Avaux has only just arrived,” said Rossignol. “We have little time to lose, then. Please explain to me, briefly, how you have ended up in this house; for only a moment ago you told me that you were detained on the ship there.”
“I was already ensconced in one of her cabins. It was practical to remain there. Bart caused the ship to be anchored where you see it, so that he could keep an eye on it-both to protect me from lusty French sailors and to be sure that I would not escape. He rounded up a few female servants from gin-houses and bordellos and put them aboard to stoke the galley fires and boil water and so on. As weeks went by, I learned which were good and which weren’t, and fired the latter. Nicole, whom you saw a minute ago, has turned out to be the best of these. And I sent to the Hague for a woman who had become a loyal lady-in-waiting to me there, named Brigitte. Letters began to reach me from Versailles.”
“I know.”
“As you have already read them, to list their contents would be redundant. Perhaps you remember one from Madame la marquise d’Ozoir, inviting me to-nay, demanding that I make myself at home in this, her Dunkerque residence.”
“Remind me please of your connexion to the d’Ozoirs?”
“Before I was ennobled, I required some excuse to be hanging around Versailles. D’Avaux, who had put me there in the first place, concocted a situation for me whereby I worked as a governess for the daughter of the d’Ozoirs, and followed them on their migrations back and forth between Versailles and Dunkerque. This made it easy for me to travel up the coast to Holland when business called me thither.”
“It sounds, by your leave, somewhat farcical.”
“Indeed, and the d’Ozoirs knew as much; but I had treated their daughter well, and a kind of loyalty had arisen between us nonetheless. So I have moved into this house.”
“Other servants?”
“Brigitte has arrived, and brought another good one with her.”
“I saw men?”
“To ‘guard’ me, Lieutenant Bart chose two of his favorite marines: ones who have grown a bit too old to be swinging from grappling-hooks.”
“Yes, they had that look about them. And if I may ask an indelicate question, mademoiselle, how do you pay all of these servants when by your own tale you have not a sou in hard money?”
“A reasonable question. The answer lies in my status as a Countess and benefactress of the French treasury. Because of this Lieutenant Bart has been willing to open his purse and lend me money.”
“All right. It is improper, but clearly you had no choice. We shall try to improve on these arrangements. Now, there is one other thing I must understand if I am to assist you, and that is the bundle of letters from Ireland.”
“After I had been living on that boat for two weeks, my mail began to catch up with me, and one day I received that packet, sewn up in tent-cloth, which had been posted to me from Belfast. It turned out to be correspondence stolen from the desk of Monsieur le comte d’Avaux in Dublin. It contained many letters and documents that were state secrets of France.”
“And so knowing that d’Avaux was en route to accuse you of spying, you have held on to them as bargaining counters.”
“Indeed.”
“Excellent. Is there a place where I could spread them out and go through them?”
Here, though she would never show it, Eliza felt a sudden upwelling of affection for Rossignol. In a world full of men who only wanted to take her to bed, it was somehow comforting to know that there was one who, given the opportunity, would prefer to read through a big pile of stolen correspondence.
“You may ask Brigitte-she is the big Dutch woman-to show you to the Library,” Eliza said. “I will keep an eye on the harbor. I believe that the longboat over yonder, just rounding the end of that pier, might be carrying d’Avaux.”
“Carrying him hither?” Rossignol asked sharply.
“No, to the flagship of Lieutenant Bart.”
“Good. I need at least a little bit of time.”
ELIZA REPAIRED TO AN UPPER storey of the house, where a prospective-glass was mounted on a tripod before a window, and watched Lieutenant Bart receive d’Avaux in the cabin of his flagship. This cabin extended across the full width of the ship’s sterncastle, and was illuminated by a row of windows looking abaft; at either end these curled around like a great golden scroll wrapped around the transom of the ship, creating small turrets from which Jean Bart might gaze forward to port or starboard. The sky was clear, and the afternoon sun was shining in through these windows.
The interview proceeded as follows: first, courteous greetings and chit-chat. Second, a momentary pause and adjustment of postures (because of a recent exploit, Jean Bart still could not sit down without suffering the torments of the damned, and d’Avaux, ever the gentleman, spurned all offers of chairs). Third, a long and, Eliza did not doubt, most entertaining Narration from Lieutenant Bart, enlivened by diverse zooming and veering movements of his hands. Slowly mounting impatience shown in d’Avaux’s posture. Fourth, interrogation of Bart by d’Avaux, during which Bart held up a ledger and ticked off several items (presumably rendering an accompt of all the jewels, purses, etc., that had been taken from Eliza). Fifth, d’Avaux jumped to his feet, face red, and worked his jaw violently for some minutes; Bart was startled at first, and went a bit slack, but gradually stiffened into a dignified and aggrieved posture. Sixth, both men came over to the window and looked at Eliza (or so it seemed through her spyglass; they could not see her, of course). Seventh, aides were summoned and coats and hats were donned. Which was Eliza’s cue to summon Brigitte and Nicole and the other female servants of her little household, and to begin putting on clothes. She borrowed a dress from the closet of Madame la marquise d’Ozoir. It was from last year; but d’Avaux had been in Dublin since then, and so to him it would look fashionable. And it was too big for Eliza, but with some artful pinning and basting in the back, it would serve, as long as she did not stand up. And she had no intention of standing up for d’Avaux. She arranged herself, a bit stiffly, in an armchair in the Grand Salon, and discoursed sotto voce with Bonaventure Rossignol. For Bart and d’Avaux had only required a few minutes of time to reach this house from Bart’s flagship, and were being made to wait in another room, so nearby that Bart’s pacing boots and d’Avaux’s sniffling nose (he had caught a catarrh en route) were clearly audible.
Rossignol had had time by now to sort through the stolen letters. Certain of these he gave into Eliza’s hands, and she arranged them on her lap, as if she had been reading them. The rest he took away, at least for the time being. He withdrew into another part of the house, not wishing to be seen by d’Avaux. A few minutes later Eliza sent word that the caller was to be admitted. The furniture had been arranged so that the sun was shining hard into the side of d’Avaux’s face. Eliza sat with her back to a window.
“His majesty has summoned me to his chateau at Versailles, so that I may report on the progress of the campaign that his majesty the King of England wages to wrest that island from the grip of the Usurper,” d’Avaux began, once they had got the opening formalities out of the way. “The Prince of Orange has sent out a Marshal Schomberg to campaign against us near Belfast, but he is timid or lethargic or both and it appears he’ll do nothing this year.”