The Launching of Roger Brook

by Dennis Wheatley

  Yet his pile of greasy little copper coins gradually grew, and presently the young men and girls of the village began to mingle with the afflicted, having raided their savings to buy the vigour-inducing tonics and beauty preparations which the Doctor had mentioned in his opening address.

  For each he had some special name and story. ‘Paris drops’ were the very same elixir which had enabled the hero of antiquity to rape one hundred virgins in a night and yet remain with his desire unappeased next morning. ‘Helen’s cream’ was the secret of the beauty which had made the knees of old men turn to water as they watched her pass by on the battlements of Troy. ‘Cleopatra’s ointment’ was that same kohl with which the Egyptian Queen had painted her black eyebrows when she went out to meet and ensnare Caesar, and so on, ad infinitum.

  As Roger handed out these nostrums, balms and potions, he was amazed that the village wenches among his customers should be so far removed from the score or so of elegant ladies he had seen shopping in the Rue François ler two afternoons earlier, and even from the shop girls of Le Havre, as to appear almost of a different race. They were bedraggled, dirty and slovenly, with their hair unkempt and their ugly feet thrust naked into wooden sabots. Yet it seemed, as they carefully counted out their hoarded sous, they were as anxious to obtain some little aid to beauty as their more fortunate sisters in the city.

  At length, as twilight deepened, the crowd dwindled and the last customer was served with a little phial of ‘Oil of Hercules’, that the Doctor assured him would enable him to win the village ploughing contest in the coming spring; and having packed up their goods and chattels they went into the inn.

  It was a poor place but the simple food was well cooked and, after they had eaten, the partners received three visitors, at intervals, in the room they were sharing. Dr. Aristotle had been averse to his young companion being present at these interviews but Roger, still a little suspicious from his sad experience of the previous day, thought it possible that the old man might secrete a portion of the fees wherewith to buy brandy on the sly, so he insisted.

  The proceedings made him feel slightly sick in all three cases, as the first two patients were suffering from advanced stages of venereal disease, and the third was a bent but lecherous-looking old man who wanted a potion that would make him capable of deflowering a girl who worked on his holding. But the Doctor took a franc a-piece off the two former and a crown off the latter, so Roger felt that he had been wise to remain.

  Next morning they struck away from the high road and walked at an easy pace for five miles down by-lanes until they came to the smaller village of Tancarville, at the mouth of the Seine. Here the performances were repeated with still more meagre results and at a penalty of having to sleep in a miserable inn where the beds were alive with fleas; but on the following day they turned north-east again and, arriving at the township of Lillebonne by midday, spent the following three nights there in reasonable comfort. On the first two they did good business and the third day of their stay being Sunday they rested from their labours.

  On the Monday they set out again, zig-zagging eastward through the villages of Candebec and Duclair to another little township called Barentin, which they reached on the Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and Saturday they slept in the nearby adjacent villages of Le Houlme, Maromme and Deville, and on the Sunday morning they walked into the ancient city of Rouen.

  By this time Roger had picked up the game, and on entering a place where they intended to pass the night was able to form a fair estimate of what their takings in it were likely to be. Any village, however small, seemed good enough for a night’s bed and board with a few crowns over, but in the small towns they had made much bigger profits. For one thing the crowds they attracted were considerably larger and, for another, the general run of the inhabitants being somewhat better off, the Doctor was able to charge more for his wares. So on entering Rouen Roger had high hopes of their garnering a bumper harvest.

  On his mentioning this, however, his partner was quick to disabuse him of the idea. The Doctor emphasised that only from the poor and ignorant could they hope to exact unquestioning belief in his own powers, and consequent tribute. In the larger towns and cities there were properly qualified doctors, apothecarys’ shops and barbers’ establishments which dealt in beauty preparations much superior to his own. Moreover, a good part of their inhabitants were educated people or, worse, cynical riff-raff who thought it good sport to throw rotten eggs and decayed garbage at such poor street practitioners as himself. This visit to Rouen, he added, must be regarded only as a holiday and the occasion for a little relaxation.

  Contrary to Roger’s expectations the old man had, so far, been very good in refraining from asking for nips of Cognac; but, on hearing this, his young partner rightly suspected that the Doctor now had it in mind to indulge his weakness. In ten evenings’ work they had, somewhat to Roger’s surprise, managed to amass, mainly in sous and francs, some nine louis over and above their expenses, and he had no intention of seeing this small nucleus to their fortunes frittered away. So he took the bull by the horns and said at once:

  ‘’Tis not yet two weeks since we set out upon our journey, so the time has not yet come for us to take a holiday.’

  ‘Why should we not take just a little holiday?’ the Doctor pleaded. ‘Two or three nights, no more; but long enough for me to show you the site upon which the Maid of Orleans was burnt as a witch and the tombs of the Crusaders in the great Cathedral?’

  ‘That we can do today,’ said Roger firmly. ‘And, since you say that we shall only invite trouble by setting up our stand here, tomorrow morning we will continue our progress southward to lesser places where profits are to be made.’

  ‘So be it,’ sighed the Doctor. ‘But thou art a hard taskmaster for one so young. I intended to ask no more than a little rest for my old bones and, perhaps a few crowns from our profits with which to purchase the wherewithal to warm the lining of my stomach.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Roger replied. ‘But one little dram leads to another little dram, as you yourself have said; and once you fall to drinking in earnest I’ll never be able to get you on the move again. I’ve naught against our treating ourselves to a good dinner and a decent bottle of wine to go with it, but I pray you be content with that, and let us take the road again tomorrow.’

  The Doctor brightened a little and now seemed quite willing to let Roger fight his failing for him; but although they did not set up their stand in Rouen they were fated to meet trouble there.

  Le Pomme D’Or, at which they put up, because the Doctor was known at it, proved to be a small inn down by the river. Having stabled Monsieur de Montaigne and taken their things up to their room, they went down to the parlour and found it to be full of sailors, who had recently been discharged from a man-o’-war. As in England, most of them had originally been pressed into the service, and many of them had spent the best years of their youth sailing the seas and fighting in the late war; yet now that the French Navy was gradually being reduced they had been paid off with a pittance which would barely keep them for a month, and comparatively few of them knew a trade by which they could earn a living ashore.

  Naturally they were in an angry mood, and Roger, on learning the reason for their discontent, was indiscreet enough to remark that the French King’s finances must be in a very poor state compared to those of the King of England, since the latter gave his sailors handsome bonuses on their discharge, and they went ashore with their pockets full of gold from their share of the prize money earned by the ships in which they had served.

  On it emerging that he was English himself, they showed a sudden and alarming hostility. They knew nothing of the real causes of the late war; only that as a result of it they had been seized by the press-gangs and forced to spend years of hardship and danger far from their families. They had, moreover, been taught to believe that the perfidious English, desiring to dominate the world, had forced the war upon peaceful France, and that every Englishman w
as a fit object for the blackest hatred. In consequence they now regarded Roger as a visible cause of their past miseries and present anxieties.

  With menacing looks half a dozen of these dark, wiry, uncouth-looking sailors now gathered round, shouting obscene abuse indiscriminately at him and everything that England stood for, and the street women they had picked up on landing added to the clamour with shrill, vindictive cries.

  Only the Doctor’s intervention saved Roger from a nasty mauling. In his sonorous voice the old man quelled the tumult. He upbraided the sailors for their discourtesy to a citizen of a country with which France was now at peace, and pointed out that since the late war had begun in ‘78 no one so young as Roger could possibly have had a hand in the making of it.

  A blue-eyed shrew, attracted by Roger’s good looks, also took his part and turned her screaming abuse upon the now hesitant sailors, calling them a pack of great, misbegotten bullies for attempting to browbeat so young a lad.

  At the Doctor’s suggestion Roger stood the company a round of drinks, and there the matter ended. But, when they had gone up to their room that night, he told Roger that among the ignorant in France there was still much resentment against the English, on account of the additional taxes and other hardships that the war had brought upon them; so he thought it would be a wise move if his young companion took another name and gave himself out to be a native of some other country.

  As he was very proud of being English Roger was, at first, most loath to adopt the Doctor’s suggestion, but eventually he was persuaded of its wisdom and, after some discussion, it was decided that to account for his poor French and heavy accent he should pass himself off as a Frenchman hailing from Alsace; since most of the inhabitants of that province were brought up to speak only their mother tongue, which was German.

  It was then agreed that Roger should keep his Christian name, which, pronounced as Rojé, was not uncommon in France, and change his surname to Breuc, that being the nearest French spelling to Brook.

  On the Monday they set out again, crossing the Seine and journeying from village to village through central Normandy by way of Bernay and Lisieux to Caen. The August days were warm and pleasant, the life never lacking in variety and interest. Their stock was dwindling but Roger’s money-bag grew satisfactorily heavier and when they reached Caen on the thirtieth of the month their takings totalled twenty-three louis.

  Now that they had once more reached a city the Doctor again pressed for a ‘little holiday’. But after some trouble Roger managed to argue him out of it on the grounds that another two days would see them in September, so they could count on only five or six weeks more good weather, and therefore should make the most of it.

  The Doctor admitted that there was sound sense in this, as journeyman-doctoring in winter was a poor business, and the more they were able to put by while the good weather lasted the more frequently they would be able to lie up when storms were turning the roads into quagmires.

  That afternoon, instead of remaining in the stuffy city, they walked out to a meadow, from which they could see the spires of the great Norman churches, and lay there for a while in the sunshine.

  They dozed for a little, then, on their rousing, the Doctor asked Roger, apropos of nothing, how he liked the life he was leading and if he would be willing to continue their partnership as a permanency.

  ‘’Tis well enough,’ Roger replied, ‘and I am mighty grateful that I fell in with you. But as soon as I have saved sufficient to make me independent for a while I plan to return to England.’

  ‘Had you not that in view, would you be content to remain with me?’ inquired the Doctor.

  Roger had developed a great fondness for the old man and while he knew that his ambitions could never be satisfied by such a life, he was loath to hurt his companion’s feelings, so he said:

  ‘We get on so well together that I would hate to part with you, and the life itself has many attractions. Even if we fool some people and endanger others by selling them drastic remedies, the good we do to the great majority is out of all proportion to the harm we may do the few. Yet at times it saddens me.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘’Tis the sore straits in which those from whom we make a living, live themselves. They herd together like animals in their miserable, broken-down cottages, many of which have leaking roofs and hardly any of which even have windows to keep out the bitter winds of winter. Often I am ashamed to take from them the miserable sous they bring us.’

  ‘I’ll not gainsay that they are poor,’ replied the Doctor, ‘but the majority of them are by no means as poor as you might think. In most cases ’tis for quite a different reason that they refrain from patching their roofs and putting windows in their houses. As you must have seen, on Sundays and Feast-days the village women bedeck themselves in very different raiment to that which they wear in the fields. Their layers of striped petticoats and lace headdresses have cost good money, and few of them are without gold chains and crosses for their necks, so they can well afford to part with a few sous for a beauty ointment.’

  ‘Why, then, do they live in such miserable conditions?’

  ‘’Tis on account of the taille, my young friend, the most monstrously stupid form of taxation that was ever devised by a government of fools. The King’s Intendants assess each village at whatever lump sum they may judge it to be worth, and the village syndics, whether they like it or not, are forced to collect the money from the villagers. The syndics, in turn, are empowered to assess each householder quite arbitrarily, not upon his actual capacity to pay, but simply on the amount they think they can squeeze out of him. Each man is taxed, therefore, on his presumed wealth, and this is judged by his mode of living and apparent prosperity. As a result every villager makes an outward show of the direct poverty in order to get off as lightly as he can. This not only leads them to the self-infliction of many hardships which there would otherwise be no call for them to bear but it also strikes most savagely at the true interests of the country, since the peasants leave much of their land untitled from fear that bigger crops would land them with a higher tax assessment.’

  ‘What incredible folly,’ said Roger. ‘But why do not the nobles who own so much of the land make representations to the King, and get the tax laws altered?’

  The Doctor shook his head. The nobility of France still retains its privileges. Most unjustly all persons of rank are exempt from taxation, and they still possess the sole rights in shooting and snaring game, which is hard on the peasantry; but for many decades past they have lost all power of influencing the government. ’Twas the great Cardinal de Richelieu who destroyed the power of the feudal lords, and Le Grand Monarque completed the process by compelling them all to leave their estates and live as idlers at his court of Versailles in order to make a splendid background for himself. From that time on the running of the country fell into the hands of the Kings almost entirely, and they could know little of its state, as they were advised only by a small clique of greedy favourites and Finance Ministers who depended on the Farmers of the Revenue to suggest ways of raising money as best they could.’

  ‘They seem to have made a pretty mess of things,’ Roger commented. ‘Our nobility in England would not stand for such mismanagement, nor would the people, either. Why, they cut off the King’s head with less reason a hundred and forty years ago.’

  ‘’Twas neither the nobility nor the people who cut off King Charles’s head,’ corrected the Doctor gently. ‘’Twas the bourgeoisie; the lawyers and the rich tradespeople of the cities. And ‘twill be the same here if the present discontents rise to a head. The peasantry are too apathetic and too cowed to rise; the nobility has all to lose and naught to gain by so doing. But there is money in the towns, and money begets both ambition and jealousy of the privileges of the ruling caste. Of late years the reading of books by such as can read has spread apace, and such works as those of Messieurs de Queshay, de Mirabeau, de Morelly and Jean Jacques Rousseau have spread abroad
this cry for equality. Yet those who shout loudest have not in mind equality for the peasant with themselves but equality for themselves with the nobility.’

  ‘Have you no body the like of the English Parliament that could put matters to rights without disrupting the country by a great rebellion?’

  ‘We have no Parliament in your sense, to which the people elect their own representatives. There are the local Parliaments, which we term Estates. Each of these consists of three chambers, the Church, the Nobility and a third Estate composed of the representatives of the city corporations and the trade guilds; but they have never been aught but provincial municipalities. Time was, though, when they used to send their representatives to Paris to sit in the States-General and advise the Kings of France whenever there arose a major crisis in the affairs of the nation. But the States-General has not now been summoned for nearly a hundred and seventy years. The last time they met was in 1614; and since then the Monarchy has become so all-powerful that it ignores them. As for the provincial Estates, from one cause and another most of them have ceased to function these many decades past, and only those of Artois, Flanders, Burgundy, Brittany and Languedoc continue to assemble regularly.’

  ‘How is the kingdom governed, then?’ asked Roger, ‘for if the nobles play no part and these Estates you speak of are moribund, how can the King, hedged about as he is by a crowd of ill-informed wasters, know what is happening to his subjects?’