The Inn at the Red Oak | Page 8

moreover, the Marquis de Boisdhyver, mysterious as he was, did not suggest the political adventurer of whom Dan as a boy had heard his parents tell such extraordinary tales. In the few years immediately after the final fall of the great Bonaparte there had been an influx of imperialistic supporters in America, some of whom had even found their way to Monday Port and Deal. One of these, Dan remembered, had stayed for some months in '14 or '15 at the Inn at the Red Oak, and it was he whom Tom had recalled the night before as having told them stories of his adventurous exploits in the wars of the Little Corporal. But it was too long after Napoleon's fall to connect his present guest with the imperial exiles. He could imagine no ulterior reason for the Marquis's coming and was inclined to put it down as the caprice of an old restless gentleman who had a genuine mania for solitude. Of solitude, certainly, he was apt to get his fill at the Inn at the Red Oak.
At eleven o'clock he returned to keep his appointment. He found the Marquis established at a small table in the bar by an east window, from which was obtained a view of the Cove, of the sand-dunes along the Neck, and of the open sea beyond. A writing-desk was on the table, ink and quills had been provided, a number of books and papers were strewn about, and Monsieur de Boisdhyver was apparently busy with his correspondence.
"Enchanted" he exclaimed, as he pulled out a great gold watch. "Punctual. I find another virtue, monsieur, in a character to which I have already had so much reason to pay my compliments. I trust I do not trespass upon your more important duties." As he spoke, he rapidly swept the papers into the writing-desk, closed and locked it, and carefully placed the tiny golden key into the pocket of his gayly-embroidered waistcoat.
"Not at all," Dan replied courteously, "I shall be glad to show you about. But I fear you will find it cold and dismal, for the greater part of the house is seldom used or even entered."
"I bring my cloak," said the Marquis. "Interest will give me warmth. What I have already seen of the Inn at the Red Oak is so charming, that I doubt not there is much more to delight one. I imagine, monsieur, how gay must have been this place once."
He took his great cloak from the peg near the fire where it had been hung the night before to dry wrapped himself snugly in it; and then, with a little bow, preceded Dan into the cold and draughty corridor that opened from the bar into the older part of the house.
This hallway extended fifty or sixty feet to the north wall of the main part of the inn whence a large window at the turn of a flight of stairs gave light. On the right, extending the same distance as the hall itself, was a great room known as the Red Drawing-room, into which Dan first showed the Marquis. This room had not been used since father's death four or five years before, and for a long time previous to that only on the rare occasions when a county gathering of some sort was held at the inn. It had been furnished in good taste and style in colonial days, but was now dilapidated and musty. The heavy red damask curtains were drawn before the windows, and the room was dark and cheerless. Dan admitted the dazzling light of the sun; but the Marquis only shivered and seemed anxious to pass quickly on.
"You see, sir," observed the young landlord, "it is dismal enough."
"Mais oui--mais oui," exclaimed the Marquis.
At the foot of the stairway the corridor turned at right angles and ran north. On either side opened a number of chambers in like conditions of disrepair, which had been used as bedrooms in the palmy days of the hostelry. This corridor ended at the bowling-alley, where as children Tom and Dan had loved to play. Half-way to the entrance to the bowling-alley a third hallway branched off to the right, leading to a similar set of chambers. Into all these they entered, the Marquis examining each with quick glances, dismissing them with the briefest interest and the most obvious comment.
Dan saved the piéce-de-resistance till last. This was a little room entered from the second corridor just at the turn--the only room indeed, as he truthfully said, that merited a visit.
"This," he explained, "we call the Oak Parlour. It is the only room on this floor worth showing you. My father brought the wainscoting from an old English country-house in Dorsetshire. My father's people were Torries, sir, and kept up their