Morose and silent he laboured on at his work and did as he was bid by the senior apprentices without a murmur of complaint, but he was now counting the hours until a letter from his mother should bring him release from his bondage.
At last, on the 16th of November, it arrived. Brochard handed it to him on his entering the office first thing that morning and gave him a look of curiosity as he remarked:
"You must have friends who travel far afield, young man, to correspond with them in England."
But Roger ignored the implied question, stuffed the letter in his pocket and, excusing himself hurriedly, dashed upstairs to read it. He was already cursing his short-sighted policy in not having asked his mother for funds with which to return, as now he would have to write again, and another three weeks must elapse before he could receive her reply with the money which would enable him to set out. In his mind he made a swift calculation. Three weeks would bring him to the 7th of December and allowing another four days, which should be ample for his journey, he should reach Lymington by the nth. Even with unforeseen delays he would be home in plenty of time for Christmas.
With hasty, fumbling fingers he tore the letter open, and ran his eye swiftly down the close-written pages. The letter was only mildly reproachful and full of loving phrases. As he skimmed through it a paragraph near its end suddenly riveted his attention.
In it, his mother urged him to write frequently, and said how relieved she was to hear that he was comfortably settled as, much as she would love to see him, it would be most ill-advised to return as yet. With time she hoped to bring about a softening of his father's heart, but Roger's conduct had angered him to such a degree that he had sworn never to receive him into the house again. As to the Admiral's going to sea, to her own great joy, apart from the fact that it would deprive her of seeing Roger, there would be no prospect of that for a long time to come. He had, early that month, been appointed C.-in-C, Portsmouth, and his command being so hear Lymington would enable him to practically live at home for the next two years.
CHAPTER XIII
FIRST LOVE
Two years! At Roger's age that sounded like a life sentence. Aghast and dumbfounded, tears welled up into his eyes. As they misted over he could no longer make out his mother's fine writing and he dropped the letter on to his truckle bed. This then, was the price he must pay for his liberty. To slave for eight hours a day, week after week, in a musty office, to feed in a kitchen and sleep with five others in the sordid, depressing attic room. No holidays, apart from the principal Saints' days, were ever given; Saturday was a working day like all the rest and, even had there been some periods of leisure to look forward to, he had neither the money nor the friends with which to enjoy them. Yet, where could he go? What could he do? Other than continue to face this dreary round, which appeared to be his sole means of securing the bare necessities of life.
Gamely he fought back the tears, blinked his eyes clear and picked up the letter again to read it through properly, in the hope that he might yet discover in it some ray of comfort. But there was none. Evidently his mother had read into his overdrawn picture of the position he had secured that he was content to remain where he was for the present unless his father was prepared to forgive and forget the past. She praised him for his initiative in having obtained a post of responsibility while still so young and said how fortunate he was to have been taken into the house of a kindly and respectable lawyer. The rest of the letter contained only local news and much good advice as to how he should care for his health through the winter.
Her reference to the winter brought back to Roger's mind a problem that had been causing him much concern of late. Apart from a change of linen he had no clothes other than those he stood up in; and, now that it was mid-November, he sadly needed a warm coat.
As his prospects of returning home had been so rudely shattered, it occurred to him that, while he could not ask his mother to send him money without loss of face, he could ask her to send him his wardrobe. Monsieur Brochard, who acted as cashier as well as second head in the office, would, he felt sure, give him his November pay in advance if he asked for it. Then he could buy himself a coat at once, still have cash in hand and, by selling some of his things that he did not particularly require when they arrived from England, make good the outlay he contemplated at the moment.
This project helped a little to take his mind off the sad blow he had just received and, during the course of the day, he carried it out. The possession of the new coat, a good warm garment of maroon cloth with a big triple collar, cheered him considerably; and the next day being Sunday, he went to Mass in it.
Roger had been brought up with a horror of Popish mummery, as the practices of the Roman Catholic church were then termed in England; but upon going to live at Maitre Leger's he had found himself in a most invidious position. None of the household, apart from the red-headed Douie, appeared to be particularly religious, and from their conversation it was clear that a number of them were actually freethinkers; yet everyone in the household went to at least one service in the Cathedral every Sunday, and Roger was obviously expected to go too.
As he was supposed to have come from a German province he had thought of saying that he was a Lutheran, but he soon realised that he would be inviting serious trouble for himself if he did. During his two months in France he had already learned that all Protestants were penalised there even more rigorously than were Catholics in England, and that Brittany was the most rabid of all Catholic strongholds. Not being of the stuff of which religious martyrs are made and fearing to add to the many difficulties with which he was already beset, he had decided, like King Henry of France and Navarre before him, that a quiet life was worth a Mass, and, taking the line of least resistance, had accompanied Julien Quatrevaux to St. Pierre.
To his relief he found that most of his colleagues neither took Communion or went to Confession with any regularity; so, not being called upon to imperil his immortal soul, as he would have regarded so doing, he was able to attend the service simply as an interested spectator. The gorgeous robes of the priests, the pageantry of the ceremonial, the incense and the music all appealed to his imagination; and he thought the short but colourful ritual a great improvement on the long and uninspiring services he had been accustomed to attend in England; so he had formed the habit of going to Mass without a qualm.
On this occasion a surprise was in store for him. There were no pews in the nave of the great Cathedral and the bulk of the congregation stood about in little groups, only the richer among them using stools or prie-dieu which were brought to church and carried home again by the servants who accompanied them. This led to people often changing their position during the course of the service and, about halfway through the Mass, a tall man having planted himself in front of Roger, he moved to a less congested place. From it, he suddenly caught sight of Athenais.
For the remainder of the service he could not take his eyes off her and, at its end, he moved again so that she would have to pass close to him on her way to the door.
Flushed and excited he nerved himself to meet her glance as, having moved on an impulse, he was suddenly beset by an awful fear that he had deliberately offered himself to a new humiliation. Count Lucien was not with her, only Madame Marie-Ange and a footman, but her brother might have told her how he had had her uninvited visitor thrown out of the house and Roger, burning with shame at the memory, now dreaded that on seeing him her look would hold only contempt.