The Heir of Douglas by Lillian de la Torre

Author:Lillian de la Torre
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504044592
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2017-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

It chanced a French mountebank lost son or heiress

The same year the DOUGLAS was born in great Paris;

And they will maintain it, (the de’il give them joy),

That our warlike Douglas is harlequin’s boy.

(The Douglas Garland)

Chapter VIII

Andrew Stuart sat at his desk in the Hôtel de Tours. From his powdered wig to his buckled shoes he was point-device, as became the manager of the Hamilton cause. His black velvet suit was sombre, his laced ruffles and his silk stockings snowy white. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth was tight closed. It was May 9, 1763, and he was new-returned from London. Before him lay a month’s accumulation of letters.

He sifted them. Cards of invitation and letters of greeting could wait. A letter with a Rheims post-mark waited; it had already been waiting three weeks. At last he picked it up and slit the envelope.

The writer was an Alderman of Rheims whom Andrew Stuart had met there. A polite attention, Stuart thought it, as he read the first small items of gossip. He had no premonition that this was the petard which was to hoist the Douglas claimant.

Mons. and Madame D’Aubigny [the writer chatted on to the next bit of gossip], whom you saw at my house, some days ago saw Mons. Poule, abbe of Nogent-under-Concy, who told them à propos your affair, that some time ago the curé of St. Laurent, or of the Fauxbourg St. Laurent at Paris, told them an adventure of which he had been a witness, about thirteen or fourteen years ago.

An English gentleman and his wife came to establish themselves in his fauxbourg, and after having captured the good will of the curé with some alms, they imparted to him the intention they held, of undertaking the education of the son of some poor person of his parish, and even taking him with them. The curé indicated to them a poor shoe-maker, who had six children, among whom they chose one, whom they took, and forthwith disappeared.…

Andrew Stuart needed to read no more. He recruited lawyer D’Anjou’s son to help with the French, and went out to Saint-Laurent. The curé looked at the letter.

“Are these facts true or false?”

“Some are true,” replied the curé cautiously, “and some are false. It is true that such a thing happened. The gentleman came to me after Sunday Mass. At first glance I took him for an Irishman of my acquaintance. I cannot recall if he talked like a foreigner. His face was a little long, and pretty full; he was tall, and well-proportioned in his person, had a manly air, and appeared from fifty-five to sixty years of age.”

Colonel John Steuart to the life! Andrew Stuart pressed for more details.

“It is not true that I indicated any poor person to him. I mistrusted him, and declined to aid him. I gave him a vague direction to the sisters of charity, and he took himself off. But I heard that he did find his way to the poor of my parish, and carried off the little son of one of them.

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