II
ALL this time Bastien and Lady Betty maintained an armed neutrality, though by degrees it grew on both that “the other one knew.” And a strange thing happened to Bastien: he began to like Lady Betty a great deal more than was either convenient or agreeable. At first he had hated her, and never looked at her without remembering the blazing wrath that showed in her eyes when she whacked his nose; and then there was that secret uneasiness about something else which he always felt in her company. “Faith,” he thought to himself sometimes, “perhaps it was a good thing she had no more dangerous weapon than a fan, for, sure, she would have used anything on me that came to her hand.” And then he was a little fearful lest she[Pg 35]should tell the story on him, particularly as Bastien’s account of the whack he got from the baker’s wife had passed into the history of the court, and was often alluded to. The first time this happened was soon after Lady Betty’s arrival. They were all assembled for the evening in the drawing-room, drinking tea after the English fashion. Bastien was called upon to tell the story, and he very promptly began the tale, meaning to stick to it if Lady Betty should happen to let the truth out; for he had no great opinion of a woman’s power to keep anything to herself. However, he had but little fear, because the lie would have many years’ start of the truth in any event.
By strange luck, Lady Betty, who was serving tea, sat next Bastien that night. As he told the story for the hundredth time, amid shouts of laughter,—Lady Betty, listening very gravely, apparently minding her business of making the kettle boil over the spirit-lamp,—shecould not help blushing; but she blushed so often and so easily that nobody noticed it. Just as Bastien wound up, though, the kettle, which had not yet boiled, got a sudden tilt, and about a gallon of warm water was poured over Bastien’s black silk breeches; and Lady Betty’s voice was heard, in the tone of great meekness and softness which she always used when she meant to be impertinent:—
“Dear me!” she cried; “how unfortunate! A thousand apologies, M. Bastien.”
Bastien had more than a suspicion that it was not wholly an accident, but he was much too astute to show his suspicion. He bowed and smiled, and, professing to have an engagement with the chaplain, went off with a very good air. De Bourmont, who remained behind, laughed in Lady Betty’s demure face. He was not sorry to see Bastien discomfited.
This should have made Bastien hateLady Betty the more; but so full of contrariety is the human heart that it made him look at her more and think of her oftener,—and Lady Betty was so charming that no man was safe who came within the circle of her spell. Moreover, Bastien could have dashed his brains out at his own folly when he thought of it. Lady Betty was as poor as poverty,—for the dowry of a Scotch laird’s daughter with a castle in the Highlands was likely to consist of heather-bells, romantic rocks, and a large stock of family pride. If there was anything on earth that Bastien loved more than his ease and comfort, it was the money to buy that ease and comfort. And, as if no element of contrariness should be lacking, Bastien felt that Lady Betty hated him. But there is a fire that warms itself at ice, and a fancy that loves contradictions,—and such was Bastien’s.
As for De Bourmont, Lady Betty daily grew more charming to him, and,likewise, he continued to go to Castle Street, telling himself quite seriously that each time would be the last. He sometimes wondered if Mistress Flora, or her father the counsellor, suspected his real rank. In those days,émigréswere found all over England and Scotland, earning their living by all sorts of trades. The counsellor had said to him in Castle Street the first time they had met, “Sir, are you a man of title?”
Now, if he had asked whether De Bourmont were a man of rank, it might have been hard to answer; but De Bourmont could truthfully say he had no title, in the sense the counsellor understood titles.
“For, look you, sir,” continued the counsellor, “although I respect the French counts and marquises who work for their living, yet it has ever been found that it is not well to introduce them into the houses of plain citizens like me. Our wives and daughters get to be infatuated with the fellows,and will not look thereafter at honest, plain lawyers and doctors and merchants; and I am too proud a man to wish my daughter to aspire to a rank she can never reach, and so I would have her satisfied with her own class, which is good enough for any woman, or man either.”
At last, though, Lady Betty Stair’s charms having helped to stiffen up his resolution, De Bourmont actually determined that his next visit should be his last. He felt some natural masculine interest in knowing how the lawyer’s beautiful daughter would take the news, and he had enough masculine vanity to feel very sorry for her in having to resign his company. Flora Mackenzie was an unread riddle to him still. There was a sort of magnetic current between them, although they never exchanged a word except upon the subject of the French language and the weather. At every lesson there sat, in a high-backed chair, Mistress Mackenzie,a simple, handsome creature, who was quite happy in her fine husband, her fine daughter, her fine house, and money in the bank.
On this day, therefore, when De Bourmont meant to make this announcement, as he was ushered into the grim drawing-room there sat the counsellor,—a tall, burly man, with the darkest, deepest, truest eyes De Bourmont had ever seen. Boys sometimes have such eyes in the white innocence of their youth; but when a man keeps it through the storms of his manhood, he must be, as was this Scotch lawyer, needlessly and superfluously honest.
The counsellor held a great big card of invitation in his hand, while over him stood his wife and daughter, and even the gentle and stately Flora was in a flutter; and as De Bourmont was ushered in the counsellor roared out, in his big, rich voice:—
“Well, M. de Bourmont, you see mywomankind all set by the ears over a trumpery invitation to the castle.”
At this De Bourmont involuntarily straightened himself up. Although he had managed to bear himself heretofore so that his rank and station were only suspected, not ascertained, he could not conceal the pride of a noble altogether.
“Sir,” he said with dignity to the counsellor, “an invitation from one of the royal princes of France is no trumpery invitation. The Comte d’Artois has received much civility from the gentlemen of Edinburgh, and would return it as becomes a prince and a gentleman.”
“Good for you!” cried the counsellor, jumping up and slapping De Bourmont on the back as a butcher slaps a bullock; while Flora’s sweet voice echoed, “Good for you!”
De Bourmont was too much of a gentleman not to know how to take the counsellor’s hearty commendation. He only laughed and rubbed his shoulder.
But he had great curiosity about the invitation. They were strictly confined to the nobility and higher gentry of the town, and how one got to a rich lawyer in the new town puzzled him not a little. He looked at the handwriting and he saw in an instant that it was Bastien’s. The whole thing was revealed in a flash. Bastien wanted to bring the Mackenzies and Lady Betty Stair together before De Bourmont’s eyes and for his discomfiture, because never, since the night of Lady Betty’s arrival, when Bastien had let the Castle Street cat out of the bag, had there been good feeling between the two. De Bourmont had not only won Bastien’s money, but had cut him out with the fair sex; and Bastien was not the fellow to miss a chance of getting even.
De Bourmont said nothing, though, but returned the card into Flora’s white hand, which he squeezed upon the sly. Flora changed color slightly, but her blue eyes met his with cool composure.The womenkind were plainly bent on going to the great ball, and the counsellor at heart felt a secret satisfaction in the invitation, which was the greater compliment because so absolutely unsolicited. Mistress Mackenzie begged De Bourmont to show her how to approach royalty,—for etiquette was strict at Holyrood and no man, woman, or child was allowed to go out of the presence of the royal princes other than backward. De Bourmont, in high good humor, agreed to do this. He put the fine old counsellor in a huge chair to represent the Comte d’Artois.
“And look you, Mr. Mackenzie,” he said, “I would not place any unworthy man to represent his Royal Highness.”
“I appreciate your handsome compliment, sir,” answered the counsellor with dignity.
Then De Bourmont took Mistress Mackenzie in hand. She was wonderfully quick to learn, and advanced,bowed, and retreated, with the tail of her gown over her arm, so easily that De Bourmont taxed her with having been to court.
“Not so much as you, perhaps,” said the counsellor, very significantly.
De Bourmont took no notice of this, which convinced the shrewd Scotchman that the Frenchman was a man of position, because a vulgarian would have jumped at such a suggestion with delight.
But if Mistress Mackenzie was easy to teach the graces of society, Flora required no teaching at all, and showed herself much more apt at French graces than the French language. Waving her white hand disdainfully at De Bourmont, she said, “I do not need to be taught how to approachanybody!”
At that she made her bow so prettily and gracefully that De Bourmont cried, “Bravo!” and the old counsellor shouted, “Well done, my girl!”
There was no lesson in the languagethat day, but when De Bourmont was leaving, Counsellor Mackenzie went with him to the door.
“M. de Bourmont,” said he, very positively, “I am under the impression that you know more about royalties than you are willing to admit. In short, I charge you with being a gentleman.”
For answer, De Bourmont turned his pockets, which were quite empty, inside out.
“That does not argue that you are not a gentleman,” coolly remarked old Mackenzie. “On the contrary, your willingness to show me your poverty confirms me in my belief. But if you were the man I should take you for, you would be fighting for your country in these days.”
De Bourmont grew quite pale, and stood for a moment with the shaft rankling in his heart. Then, without another word, he went rapidly down the street and disappeared from view.
The afternoon was fast melting into night and there was a gray pall of mist and rain over the old town. De Bourmont walked on, not feeling the rain or the wind. In his ears rang Mackenzie’s words. He should be fighting for his country! He could almost see the Austrians and the Prussians advancing upon French armies and trampling Frenchmen under their feet—and he, he here in idleness! He ground his teeth, and walked and walked for hours, he knew not whither. He did not appear at dinner that night, and Lady Betty Stair was sad and distrait. About ten o’clock, when the solemn game of ombre was going on in the grand salon, De Bourmont came in. He looked haggard, and sat down silently in a window seat. Presently, Lady Betty Stair came along and sat down by him.
“Where have you been, that you look so sad?” she asked.
“At Saulsbury Crag.”
“On such a night!”
“Yes. A Scotchman asked me to-day why I was not fighting for France. I could not come back after that and play cards with his Royal Highness.”
“I know how you must have felt,” said Lady Betty, in a low voice.
“Not quite,” answered De Bourmont, with a smile that was ferocious in its despair. “No one can know what a Frenchman suffers, all of whose ancestors used their swords for France, while now she is fighting all Europe, and he stays here in attendance upon royalty!”
De Bourmont spoke with such a concentration of rage that Lady Betty looked around, fearful that he might be overheard.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Lady Betty Stair,” said he, smiling slightly. “I wish I could be overheard! I wish this moment that his Royal Highness would kick me out of this place. Sometimes, do you know, I ask myself if those‘canaille’ in France are not right after all in thinking the country more than the king. See how gallantly they fought the Austrians that we,we,WE, the royalists, invited into France to avenge the killing of the king and queen! I assure you, I have not spent a day in peace or slept a night through since first I began following his Royal Highness. I thought it was my duty at first; but there is ‘noblesse oblige’ for one’s country as well as one’s sovereign, and I will be hanged, shot, or guillotined,” he suddenly cried, “if I stay out of France another month!”
“Good, good!” cried Lady Betty. “There spoke a man!”
“But remember,” said De Bourmont, in a warning voice, “not one word of this. I am here to stay until the Day of Judgment, if need be. Nothing would induce me to desert his Royal Highness, Charles Philippe, Comte d’Artois. I have no intention whateverof running away.” Here De Bourmont smiled cunningly.
“I understand you perfectly,” gravely answered Lady Betty. “You want permission offered you by his Royal Highness.”
And then De Bourmont asked, “Shall you be sorry when I am gone?”
“No,” said Lady Betty, looking him bravely in the eye, but the blood dropped swiftly out of her fair face.
Four days after that was the grand ball. Lady Betty and De Bourmont were much together in that time, and they were seen whispering to one another so often and so intimately that those who could see farther into a millstone than most people, confidently predicted that “something would come of it.”
De Bourmont had some qualms about the coming ball, when Lady Betty and Flora Mackenzie would be brought face to face. He was not vain enough to think for one momentthat either of them was in love with him; but he apprehended Lady Betty’s fine scorn when she found out, as she certainly would, that he had pursued his acquaintance with the lawyer’s daughter in the new town.
De Bourmont had one of those generous temperaments that can be upon the verge of falling in love with two women at once. And Flora Mackenzie was very beautiful,—even more so than the daughter of the Macdonalds of Stair,—and De Bourmont was in love with beauty wherever he found it. However, he consoled himself with this reflection: “I shall soon be out of it all. No more balls for me. I shall soon be marching and fighting as a true Frenchman should be at this time.”
The night of the great ball arrived, and when De Bourmont and Lady Betty went together to the anteroom of the Comte d’Artois and his princess to attend them, De Bourmont felt very much in love with Lady Betty’s beauty.She had no fine gowns, but she had the whitest neck and the brightest eyes, and across her slender figure was draped the silk tartan of the Macdonalds, which she wore as proudly as if it were the ribbon of the Garter. If Lady Betty felt any regret at the coming parting, of which she was the only soul in Holyrood that knew anything, she very bravely hid it,—for De Bourmont was chagrined and half offended at the air of careless happiness that she wore.
The company was assembled in the long ball-room, which blazed with wax lights. At eight o’clock most of the guests had arrived, the gentlemen wearing swords as part of their full dress, and the ladies mostly in ringlets. A dais, covered with crimson cloth, with a canopy over it, and two armchairs for the royal pair, was erected at the upper end of the room. At the lower end a band was stationed which played Scotch versions of “L’air Henri Quatre,” “Gavotte de Louis XI.,” and otherFrench compositions that referred to the Bourbons. Dancing did not begin until after their Royal Highnesses had come and gone; but at ten minutes past eight precisely the Comte d’Artois, magnificently dressed in some old finery that he had saved from Versailles, and his Savoyard wife, Marie Thérèse, upon his arm, made a solemn entry, and proceeded up the long ball-room, bowing right and left to the ladies and gentlemen who lined the way to the dais. They were not a very royal looking pair, but very good-natured and amiable. Lady Betty Stair held up the princess’s great train of flowered satin, while De Bourmont walked next her, after the Comte d’Artois. De Bourmont was secretly wondering how this ball would turn out for him; and no man can be at ease who has two women in his mind. Lady Betty looked very demure,—she was always very demure when she was not very saucy,—and she was not less pretty for a concealed agitationthat she had felt ever since she knew that De Bourmont was “riding for a fall” from royal favor.
The royal party made a very slow and stately progress toward the dais, the jewelled feathers in the princess’s head-dress nodding gravely and incessantly, and presently they reached the dais and the princess seated herself, her train being very carefully spread out by Lady Betty, who then took her stand behind the royal chair. De Bourmont was behind the Comte d’Artois’s chair, and he and Lady Betty exchanged little nods and looks that took the place of conversation, which etiquette forbade during the performance of the solemn and arduous duty of standing up behind the chairs of princes and princesses.
Then all the ladies and gentlemen advanced in the order of their rank and paid their respects. Most of them were known to the little circle at Holyrood; but presently there was a sort of hush,—the beautiful Flora Mackenzie,tall, superbly dressed, was approaching with her father and mother, and scarcely ten persons in the room knew who she was. She walked quite calmly and sedately behind the counsellor, who had Mistress Mackenzie upon his arm. The older woman was finely gowned, as became a rich man’s wife, and blazed with diamonds. Flora had on a rich white brocaded satin, very unlike the simple muslins and gauzes that were all the young girls of the exiled court could afford, and around her neck was a great string of pearls. As she approached, Lady Betty so far forgot etiquette as to whisper to De Bourmont:
“Who is she?”
“Miss Mackenzie,” answered De Bourmont, feeling as guilty as if he had stolen something.
Lady Betty flashed him a look of scorn and jealousy and pain that was indescribable. She felt quite sure that he had got them their invitation; and Flora’s beauty and her noble figure andher string of pearls went like a dagger to Lady Betty’s quivering heart. The counsellor and his wife made their bows with dignity and without any air of servility; but Flora made hers with matchless grace, and looked as composedly at their Royal Highnesses as if she had been a Montmorenci or a De Rohan, instead of a lawyer’s daughter from the new town. It was a great sensation. Bastien, who was responsible for it all, sat back in a corner and smiled like Mephistopheles. He had paid off several old scores by getting that invitation, which had required some diplomacy and some secrecy. He knew women well enough to understand that Lady Betty, in her heart, at once taxed De Bourmont with having got the Mackenzies to the levee. De Bourmont did not know in the least how the old counsellor would take it that a man should introduce himself into another man’s house under an assumed character, but at the moment that CounsellorMackenzie caught De Bourmont’s glance, a twinkle came into the old Scotchman’s eye. He had found out that De Bourmont was a gentleman and had charged him with it, and here he was, one of the first gentlemen in the royal suite. De Bourmont’s eyes twinkled, too, as he bowed and smiled at the counsellor. Mistress Mackenzie gave him a bow of delighted recognition, but her heart jumped into her mouth; here she had been treating a gentleman-in-waiting on royalty exactly as if he had been a mere ordinary French teacher. Only Flora looked at him so calmly and loftily that no one would have dreamed that they had ever met before.
De Bourmont could not leave his post until the royalties saw fit to retire, and that was not until nearly midnight.
Lady Betty spoke no more to him that evening. She often played at haughtiness with him, and it was a joke of De Bourmont’s to complain tothe princess of Lady Betty’s unkindness to him, when she would be called up and be gravely admonished; at which she would say such droll things that the princess would laugh heartily,—and the poor princess had only too few things to make her laugh. De Bourmont whispered to Lady Betty, therefore:—
“If you are so cruel to me, I shall report you to the princess;” but Lady Betty flashed him such a look of anger that he said no more to her.
A man will not stand much of that sort of thing, so, as soon as their Royal Highnesses retired, De Bourmont left Lady Betty and, rather ostentatiously, sought out the Mackenzies. The counsellor burst out laughing when De Bourmont appeared.
“So, Monsieur de Bourmont,” he said, “you are a gentleman, after all!”
“But it is not my fault,” answered De Bourmont, with his usual air of well-bred impudence. “I was bornso, without anybody’s asking me if I wished to be a gentleman or not. I had no choice at all.”
The counsellor was not very deeply offended with him for masquerading as a tutor, although De Bourmont explained to them that the money did not go amiss, as he was uncommonly in need of it. And all of them laughed at De Bourmont’s plea of poverty, which, although very real, he always put in such an amusing way that people could not but smile.
Then De Bourmont, who had not said a word to Flora, asked her to join in the quadrille which was then being formed. She simply bowed silently, and he led her to a place in the dance; and there, as soon as he looked up, he saw Lady Betty Stair and Bastien standing up to dance opposite them.
It was then too late to retreat, and, besides, De Bourmont would not seem to run away from either Lady Betty or Bastien. The two girls lookedhaughtily at each other. In Lady Betty’s eyes was a cool, fine-lady air of scorn which was not wasted on the lawyer’s daughter. Flora asked De Bourmont carelessly who Lady Betty was, and, in spite of his cool and self-possessed manner, she shrewdly guessed out in an instant something very near the truth, and returned Lady Betty’s look of haughty contempt with interest.
The dance began. De Bourmont noticed Bastien whispering in Lady Betty’s ear and laughing, and he saw the blood mount slowly but redly into her clear cheek. Bastien was telling some story about him—probably more about the wager—to Lady Betty. And he caught something about “a great fortune,” in the turn of the dance—for Flora Mackenzie was a very great fortune. Lady Betty carefully avoided De Bourmont’s eye, and once, when in the dance their hands met and he gave her fingers a faint pressure, she lookedinto his eyes with such an air of cold surprise that he dared not repeat it.
At last the ball was over, and De Bourmont and Lady Betty, each angry, chagrined, and burning with love for the other, parted, after having plagued each other exquisitely for the whole evening.