Ralestone Luck | Page 8

here, where some of it really happened. Tell it, please, Rupert!"
"In your second childhood?" he asked.
"Not out of my first yet," she answered promptly. "Pretty please, Rupert."
"Miles Ralestone, Marquess of Lorne," he began, "rode with Prince Rupert of the Rhine. He was a notorious gambler, a loose liver, and a cynic. And he even threw the family Luck across the gaming table."
"'The Luck went from him who did it no honor,'" Val repeated slowly. "I read that in that old letter among your papers, Rupert."
"Yes, the Luck went from him. He survived Marston Moor; he survived the death of his royal master, Charles the First, on the scaffold. He lived long enough to witness the return of the Stuarts to England. But the Luck was gone, and with it the good fortune of his line. Rupert, his son, was but a penniless hanger-on at the royal court; the manor of Lorne a fire-gutted wreckage.
"Rupert followed James Stuart from England when that monarch became a fugitive to escape the wrath of his subjects. And the Marquess of Lorne sank to the role of pot-house bully in the back lanes of Paris."
"And then?" prompted Val.
"And then a miracle occurred. Rupert was employed by his master on a secret mission to London, and there the Luck came again into his hands. Perhaps by murder. But he died miserably enough of a heavy cold got by lying in a ditch to escape Dutch William's soldiers."
"'So is this perilous Luck come again into our hands. Then did I persevere to mend the fortunes of my house.' That's what Rupert's son Richard wrote about the Luck," Ricky recalled. "Richard, the first pirate."
"He did a good job of fortune mending," commented Val dryly. "Married one of the wealthiest of the French king's wards and sailed for the French West Indies all in a fortnight. Turned pirate with the approval of the French and took to lifting the cargoes of other pirates."
"I'll bet that most of his success was due to the Lady Richanda," observed Ricky. "She sailed with him dressed in man's clothes. Remember that miniature of her that we saw in New York, the one in the museum? All the 'Black' Ralestones are supposed to look like her. Hear that, Val?"
"At least it was the Lady Richanda who persuaded her husband to settle ashore," said Rupert. "She was personally acquainted with Bienville and Iberville who were proposing to rule the Mississippi valley for France by building a city near the mouth of the river. And 'Black Dick,' the pirate, obtained a grant of land lying along Lake Borgne and this bayou. Although the city was not begun until 1724, this house was started in 1710 by workmen imported from England.
"The house of an exile," Rupert continued slowly. "Richard Ralestone was born in England, but he left there in his tenth year. In spite of the price on his head, he crept back to Devon in 1709 to see Lorne for the last time. And it was from the rude sketches he made of ruined Lorne that Pirate's Haven was planned."
"Why, we saw those sketches!" Ricky's eyes shone with excitement. "Do you remember, Val?"
Her brother nodded. "Must have cost him plenty to do it," he replied. "Richard had an immense personal fortune of his own gained from piracy, and he spared no expense in building. The larger part of the stone in these walls was brought straight from Europe, just as they later brought the paving blocks for the streets of New Orleans. When he had done--and the place was five years a-building because of Indian troubles and other disturbances--he settled down to live in feudal state. Some of his former seamen rallied around him as a guard, and he imported blacks from the islands to work his indigo fields.
"The family continued to prosper through both French and Spanish domination until the time of American rule."
"Now for Uncle Rick." Ricky settled herself with a wriggle. "This is even more exciting than Pirate Dick."
"In the year 1788, the time of the great fire which destroyed over half of New Orleans, twin boys were born at Pirate's Haven. They came into their heritage early, for their parents died of yellow fever when the twins were still small children.
"Those were restless times. New Orleans was full of refugees. From Haiti, where the revolting blacks were holding a reign of terror, and from France, where to be a noble was to be a dead one, came hundreds. Even members of the royal house, the Duc d'Orleans and his brother, the Duc de Montpensier, came for a space in 1798.
"The city had always been more or less lawless and intolerant of control. Like the New Englanders of the eighteenth century, many respected merchants were also smugglers."
"And pirates," suggested Val.
"The king of smugglers