Henri de Schomberg

“ What the morals of a spectre could be, Schomberg had no idea. Something dreadful, no doubt. Compassion certainly had no place in them. As to the ape—well, everybody knew what an ape was. It had no morals. Nothing could be more hopeless.
Outwardly, however, having picked up the cigar which he had laid aside to get the drink, with his thick fingers, one of them ornamented by a gold ring, Schomberg smoked with moody composure. Facing him, Ricardo blinked slowly for a time, then closed his eyes altogether, with the placidity of the domestic cat dozing on the hearth-rug. ”

“ He flashed a grin at Schomberg in passing, and a snarling:
“Ah! H'm!”
“Well, what more dangerous do you want?” argued Schomberg. “He's in no way a fighting man, I believe,” he added negligently.
“And you say he has been living alone there?”
“Like the man in the moon,” answered Schomberg readily. “There's no one that cares a rap what becomes of him. He has been lying low, you understand, after bagging all that plunder.”
“Plunder, eh? Why didn't he go home with it?” inquired Ricardo.
The henchman of plain Mr. Jones was beginning to think that this was something worth looking into. ”

“ But nothing lasts in this world, at least without changing its physiognomy. So, after a few weeks, Schomberg regained his outward calm, as if his indignation had dried up within him. And it was time. He was becoming a bore with his inability to talk of anything else but Heyst's unfitness to be at large, Heyst's wickedness, his wiles, his astuteness, and his criminality. Schomberg no longer pretended to despise him. ”

“ Schomberg was certainly, says Story, ‘a man of the best education in the world, and knew men and things beyond most of his time, being courteous and civil to everybody, and yet had something always that looked so great in him that he commanded respect from men of all qualities and stations. ”

“ They always get in the way.”
He was a muscular, short man with eyes that gleamed and blinked, a harsh voice, and a round, toneless, pock-marked face ornamented by a thin, dishevelled moustache, sticking out quaintly under the tip of a rigid nose. Schomberg made the reflection that there was nothing secretarial about him. Both he and his long, lank principal wore the usual white suit of the tropics, cork helmets, pipe-clayed white shoes—all correct. The hairy nondescript creature perched on their luggage in the bow had a check shirt and blue dungaree trousers. ”

“ Schomberg looked down at him dumbly. For a few seconds neither of them stirred; then Ricardo lowered his glance, and, opening his fingers, let the whole pack fall on the table. Schomberg sat down. He sat down because of the faintness in his legs, and for no other reason. His mouth was dry. Having sat down, he felt that he must speak. He squared his shoulders in parade style.
"You are pretty good at that sort of thing," he said.
"Practice makes perfect," replied the secretary.
His precarious amiability made it impossible for Schomberg to get away. ”

“ Wandering about his premises in profound solitude, Schomberg recoiled at the door of the billiard-room, as if he had seen a snake in his path. All alone with the billiards, the bare little tables, and a lot of untenanted chairs, Mr. Secretary Ricardo sat near the wall, performing with lightning rapidity something that looked like tricks with his own personal pack of cards, which he always carried about in his pocket. Schomberg would have backed out quietly if Ricardo had not turned his head. Having been seen, the hotel-keeper elected to walk in as the lesser risk of the two. ”

“ Thus, both in the army and in general society a malcontent party was formed, to which Schomberg’s sullenness gave too much encouragement. One reason for his discontent appears in the Treasury Papers, which contain a memorial from the Duke of Schomberg to the Lord High Treasurer, asking for “his arrears due to him in the last war, during which time he was Commander-in-Chief of the forces of England. He was obliged to be the more pressing, by reason of the great expense he had been at for Her Majesty’s service in the expedition to Portugal.” ”

“ The despised Swede became for Schomberg the deepest, the most dangerous, the most hateful of scoundrels. He could not believe that the creature he had coveted with so much force and with so little effect, was in reality tender, docile to her impulse, and had almost offered herself to Heyst without a sense of guilt, in a desire of safety, and from a profound need of placing her trust where her woman's instinct guided her ignorance. Nothing would serve Schomberg but that she must have been circumvented by some occult exercise of force or craft, by the laying of some subtle trap. ”

“ Ricardo could not be more sick of staying than Schomberg was of seeing him stay. Schomberg believed so firmly in the reality of Heyst as created by his own power of false inferences, of his hate, of his love of scandal, that he could not contain a stifled cry of conviction as sincere as most of our convictions, the disguised servants of our passions, can appear at a supreme moment. ”

“ They talked to the men, leaning on their elbows, and suggesting funnily—if it hadn't been for the crimson sashes—in their white dresses an assembly of middle-aged brides with free and easy manners and hoarse voices. The murmuring noise of conversations carried on with some spirit filled Schomberg's concert-room. Nobody remarked Heyst's movements; for indeed he was not the only man on his legs there. ”

“ Schomberg walked about swearing and fuming for the purpose of screwing his courage up to the sticking point.
“Hang me if I ought not to go now, at once, this minute, into his bedroom, and tell him to be off—him and that secretary of his—early in the morning. I don't mind a round game of cards, but to make a decoy of my table d'hote—my blood boils! He came here because some lying rascal in Manila told him I kept a table d'hote.” ”

“ Besides, any man who did not resemble Schomberg appeared for that very reason attractive. She was afraid of the hotel-keeper, who, in the daytime, taking advantage of the fact that she lived in the hotel itself, and not in the Pavilion with the other "artists" prowled round her, mute, hungry, portentous behind his great beard, or else assailed her in quiet corners and empty passages with deep, mysterious murmurs from behind, which, not withstanding their clear import, sounded horribly insane somehow. ”

“ After participating with his army in the revolution which deposed the reigning king in favour of his brother dom Pedro, and ending the war with Spain, Schomberg returned to France, became a naturalized Frenchman and bought the lordship of Coubert near Paris. ”

“ Schomberg could have no wish to overwhelm in disaster the young Prince of Orange. Though he had not any personal acquaintance with him (for he was the posthumous child of Prince William the Second) , he felt affection for his person, and admired the gallant course on which he had entered. Being not unwilling to take the Secretary’s hint, he gave his opinion in the King’s tent in conformity with it. This was his speech:— “The King is here, carrying forward his design to cover the siege of Bouchain. A young general has come up on a desperate humour to offer battle to His Majesty. ”

“ At the cannibalistic comparison, Schomberg muttered a faint, sickly “don't.” Ricardo hitched himself up in his seat and glanced down his outstretched legs complacently.
“I am tolerably light on my feet, as a general thing,” he went on. “Dash me if I don't think I could drop a pinch of salt on a sparrow's tail, if I tried. ”

“ He therefore again entered the service of France. His first operations in Catalonia were unsuccessful owing to the disobedience of subordinates and the rawness of his troops, but he retrieved the failure of 1674 by retaking Bellegarde in 1675. For this he was made a marshal, being included in the promotion that followed the death of Turenne. The tide had now set against the Huguenots, and Schomberg’s merits had been long ignored on account of his adherence to the Protestant religion. ”

“ This is in great contrast to its neighbours; it is what remains (centre and west wing) of Schomberg House, built about the middle of the seventeenth century. The first Schomberg came over in the train of William of Orange; he was Count in his own country, bore several French titles, and was created an English Duke. He was killed at the Battle of the Boyne. The house was later occupied by Cumberland of Culloden, George III.'s uncle, and subsequently by Astley the painter. Astley divided it into three parts, reserving the centre for his own use. ”

“ Schomberg's vanity clung to the belief in some atrocious, extraordinary means of seduction employed by Heyst. “Look how he bewitched that poor Morrison,” he murmured.
“Ah, Morrison—got all his money, what?”
“Yes—and his life.”
“Terrible fellow, that Swedish baron! How is one to get at him?”
Schomberg exploded.
“Three against one! Are you shy? Do you want me to give you a letter of introduction?”
“You ought to look at yourself in a glass,” Ricardo said quietly. “Dash me if you don't get a stroke of some kind presently. And this is the fellow who says women can do nothing! ”

“ I have served the king as well, though, perhaps, not quite so long."
"But you are a born subject of France," replied the other; "Schomberg is not; and, besides, Schomberg has given no offence, except remaining faithful to his religion. You have been heading preaching in the open fields they say, if not preaching yourself."
"Certainly not the last," replied the Count.
"Indeed!" said his friend; "they have manufactured a story, then, of your having addressed the people before any one else."
"Good God!" exclaimed the Count; "is it possible that people can pervert one's actions in such a manner? ”

“ Schomberg uplifted his hands in distress. This tribute seemed to flatter Ricardo. His mouth twitched grimly.
“Like that—enough to give colic to an ostrich, eh? Awful. Well, there was a cook there who loved me—an old fat, Negro woman with spectacles. I used to hide in the kitchen and turn her to, to make me dulces—sweet things, you know, mostly eggs and sugar—to pass the time away. I am like a kid for sweet things. And, by the way, why don't you ever have a pudding at your tablydott, Mr. Schomberg? Nothing but fruit, morning, noon, and night. Sickening! What do you think a fellow is—a wasp?” ”

“ For every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.
It's easy to imagine Schomberg's humiliation, his shocked fury, when he discovered that the girl who had for weeks resisted his attacks, his prayers, and his fiercest protestations, had been snatched from under his nose by "that Swede," apparently without any trouble worth speaking of. He refused to believe the fact. ”

“ It may be doubted whether there ever existed a human being whose mind was quite as firmly toned at eighty as at forty. But that Schomberg's intellectual powers had been little impaired by years is sufficiently proved by his despatches, which are still extant, and which are models of official writing, terse, perspicuous, full of important facts and weighty reasons, compressed into the smallest possible number of words. ”

“ Ricardo displayed no conversational vein, but Mr. Jones appeared communicative enough. His voice somehow matched his sunken eyes. It was hollow without being in the least mournful; it sounded distant, uninterested, as though he were speaking from the bottom of a well. Schomberg learned that he would have the privilege of lodging and boarding these gentlemen for at least a month more. He could not conceal his discomfiture at this piece of news.
"What's the matter? Don't you like to have people in your house?" asked plain Mr. Jones languidly. ”

“ The Schomberg of a few years ago—the Schomberg of the Bangkok days, for instance, when he started the first of his famed table d'hote dinners—would never have risked anything of the sort. His genius ran to catering, “white man for white men” and to the inventing, elaborating, and retailing of scandalous gossip with asinine unction and impudent delight. But now his mind was perverted by the pangs of wounded vanity and of thwarted passion. In this state of moral weakness Schomberg allowed himself to be corrupted. ”

“ Not only as a soldier and a tactician, but as a disinterested man, old Schomberg was pre-eminent. He could say to the king, from Lisburn, 30th December, “I have saved you since I came hear, £3000 on the artillery, and the same sum on the contingent money, as the accounts indicate. As I do not love to pillage, I do what I can to prevent others, who think of nothing else.” He also did a great act of self-denial. The troops were in want of their pay, and he at once offered his grant of £100,000 [22] for the purpose, thus sacrificing his hopes of retiring to a snug mansion and plentiful estate. ”

“ If only I had something to lever him out with!”
“What do you mean, to lever him out with?” muttered Schomberg hopelessly.
Ricardo was impatient with this denseness.
“Don't you understand English? Look here! I couldn't make this billiard table move an inch if I talked to it from now till the end of days—could I? Well, the governor is like that, too, when the fits are on him. He's bored. Nothing's worthwhile, nothing's good enough, that's mere sense. But if I saw a capstan bar lying about here, I would soon manage to shift that billiard table of yours a good many inches. ”