THE ADVANTAGES OF A KEYHOLE
The buxom daughter of mine host at the Goat and Compasses, not
half-a-mile from Carlton House, had her own opinions. They were
decided, and showed an unusual power of discernment.
Mr. Conyers was a very pretty gentleman, in spite of a reprehensible
habit of kissing too freely when rosy lips were near and tempting; but
he was not to be compared--so Mollie told herself--with Mr. Michael
Berrington, who was not pretty at all, and had not even a glance for
Mollie, let alone a kiss, but was all eyes and ears for that handsome
and lavish gentleman his father, who clung to him one moment and
flouted him the next.
Mollie had met a good many Sir Stephens before! Then there was that
Frenchman, who talked so much and seemed so fond of making fun of King
George--bless him! Mollie did not like foreigners, and was as loyal as
she was plump and pretty.
With her ear to the keyhole she was trying hard to hear more of what
Moosoo Trouet was saying to Mr. Conyers and that sleepy-eyed Lord
Denningham, who had made her blush with the freedom of his remarks as
to her charms.
Mollie frowned, and glued her ear closer.
Lack-a-day! She could hear little, and was so intent on courting
better success that she fell back with a squeal when a hand caught her
shoulder.
Sir Stephen Berrington was laughing.
"Come, chick," he gibed. "We'll have to dub you Mistress of the
Keyhole, instead of honest men's hearts. There! don't change colour.
I'll not betray you if you run straight away, and cook me an omelette
of chickens' livers for a snack before I start for Brighton. And, hark
ye, my pretty, a bottle of port as crusty as your father's temper to
drink your health in."
Mollie needed no second bidding, for, sure, that Lord Denningham would
not have spared her had he known of her curiosity, and Peter Cooling
had a strap which he was not too tender a parent to use across an
erring daughter's fair shoulders.
Nevertheless, Mollie's cheeks were aflame and her brown eyes sparkling
with truly righteous indignation.
Morice Conyers had not thought of eavesdroppers when he made that last
speech of his. Loyalty to conviction as well as King makes great
demands on one at times. Mollie, the innkeeper's daughter, was
something near a lady by instinct just now, and ready to make a mighty
sacrifice at the call of honour.
Her reputation as the best omelette maker in England might be at stake,
yet she never hesitated more than a second at the kitchen door before
she thrust her head inside, bidding the serving-wench put aside
kettle-scrubbing, and see to the execution of Sir Stephen's order.
La! there would be some swearing upstairs unless Jenny could rise to
the occasion beyond expectations. But what signified a burnt omelette
compared with the business in hand?
Mollie, rosier than ever with haste, stood at the parlour door.
Was her father inside? If so, it would be a case of fibbing to get
that sober gentleman, Mr. Berrington, outside.
But old Peter was not within. He was discoursing to the ostler in the
yard. A broad-shouldered figure in a blue, many-caped coat, adorned by
brass buttons, with legs stretched well before him, and hands thrust
deeply in his pockets, sat alone.
Mollie advanced, bashful, but brimming with self-importance.
"Mr. Berrington, sir," she cried breathlessly.
Michael turned, half rising as he saw her standing there, for, if he
had neither kisses nor smiles for pretty barmaids, he treated every
woman he met with a deference which they found vastly pleasing.
"Why, yes, Mollie," quoth he. "The coach is never ready to start yet?"
"No, indeed!" she answered at a gabble. "Sir Stephen has but now
ordered an omelette, which that slut Jenny is sure to burn, but I had
to leave her, having news of moment for your ear."
Her air of self-importance was amusing.
Michael's grey eyes twinkled.
"News of moment! Now you must not complain to me, child, if Mr.
Conyers kisses you too often."
She pouted at that, with the air of a spoilt little coquette.
"Kisses indeed! I'll teach Mr. Conyers! No, no, Mr. Berrington, sir.
It's news I bring you. You remember the young gentleman from France
who rode up from the country a day since to see that same Mr. Conyers?"
"Jehan de Quernais? His pardon! Monsieur le Comte. Oh yes, I recall
him very well, since he only left yesterday."
"He was cousin to Mr. Conyers, and had a favour to crave from him?"
"Fie, Mollie, you should not interest yourself with the affairs of
gentlemen."
"There's no harm done if I have, this time, Mr. Berrington, sir.
Perhaps you know, as well as I, that Mr. Conyers sent him back to his
country-house, bidding him wait there a few days for him, and promising
to do afterwards all he asked."
Michael nodded, recollecting an annoyance that Morry should send this
dainty Breton gentleman back to Langton, where Mistress Gabrielle dwelt
alone, save for the chaperonage of old Nurse Bond.
"They sent him away," nodded Mollie. "But, poor gentleman, they mean
to play a scurvy trick on him from what Mr. Conyers cried, laughing, to
that ugly Frenchman just now. They'll play him false, and leave him in
the country, whilst they go back to Brittany to do what Moosoo Trouet
and the black Revolution want, and from what the pretty young gentleman
begged Mr. Conyers to save them."
Michael was frowning now, his cheeks pale and grey eyes stern.
"Where learnt you this, girl?" he rapped out imperiously.
Mollie flushed, hanging her head.
"I ... I learnt it b--but now, sir," she stammered.
"Ah, I see. At the keyhole. Fie, Mollie; it was not well done!"
Yet his tone was more absent than upbraiding, for he was trying to fit
the key to the tale.
"I ... I did it to p-pleasure you, sir, and because my father says the
Revolution in France is a bloody and wicked thing. And ... and I am
sure Moosoo Trouet would be ready to murder us all in our beds as they
have been doing in Paris. So, for sake of it all, and the pretty young
gentleman from France, I came to tell you. An' it's certain Jenny's
burnt the omelette, which if father knew he'd beat me sorely."
A tear in a pretty eye is a wonderful softener to men's hearts.
Michael Berrington took Mollie's hand and tried to express at the same
moment his gratitude for her good intent and the wrongness of deceit
and eavesdropping.
Mollie sobbed a little, smiled a little, found coquetry vain, and a
golden guinea consoling.
Michael's conscience pricked him at the thought that this last might be
termed bribery and corruption.
Yet Mollie's news was startling even if incoherent.
What did it mean?
The cousin from Brittany had found more in common with Michael
Berrington than with Morice Conyers, though the latter had been
constrainedly affable.
Monsieur Marcel Trouet had been confined to his room through illness
during the young Count's stay, but Morry had visited him.
Monsieur Jehan de Quernais had been pressing and enthusiastic in the
cause of his mission. At first Morice, with a round oath, had declared
that nothing should take him to Brittany. He had his own pies to bake,
and had not the least wish for the embrace of the "widow."*
* The guillotine.
But this hectoring decision, mark you, was before he visited Monsieur
Trouet--poor Monsieur Trouet, who lay groaning in bed with that kind
Lord Denningham to act as sick nurse!
Afterwards Morry climbed down; that is, he began to feel the bonds of
kinship and the great responsibility due to him as Monsieur le Marquis
de Varenac.
Yes, he would come and guide his waiting people in the right way.
He and the overjoyed Jehan talked long into the night over the matter,
till Morice felt that he was indeed Breton too, and almost ready to
join the ranks of la Rouerie's desperate band, which meant to sweep
Robespierre, the guillotine, and the whole Revolution itself into the
sea.
But Jehan must not be impatient.
It was absolutely impossible for his cousin to be whirled off on the
instant to Varenac.
He must arrange his affairs. An appointment of the utmost importance,
nay, the command of the Prince of Wales himself, took him the next day
to Brighton.
Three days, and then he would be at the disposal of Brittany, the
Royalists, and, finally, of Jehan de Quernais. But for those three
days he asked his good cousin to accept the hospitality of Langton
Hall. He himself would not be there, though he regretted it a thousand
times. However, he would find many interests and amusements, as well
as the society of his little sister Gabrielle.
Monsieur Jehan, even though he disliked delay, was ready to admit that
he should find Langton Hall charming.
He had seen la belle Cousine Gabrielle.
It was that last speech which had so ruffled poor Michael's humour.
Morry had no right to make it possible that even the breath of a
sullying whisper should spread about young Mistress Conyers
entertaining a handsome foreigner alone.
Morry--whose ideas of propriety were as elastic as London morals--would
have laughed at such a suggestion.
So, perforce, Michael, having no right to interfere, had to swallow his
vexation.
He was glad to see in Monsieur Jehan a discreet and pleasant gentleman.
Yet his own heart-strings tugged him homewards, whilst that fetish,
honour, held him bound at the Goat and Compasses.
The power of a strong will over a weak had already given him some
influence with Sir Stephen, and he would not leave him alone in the
company of such men as Denningham and Trouet.
Mollie's story had convinced him that the honour of more than one house
was at stake. And Morice Conyers was Gabrielle's brother.
There was little of the dare-devil, racketing youth left in the
sober-eyed man who sat pondering over the fire, whilst without, in the
yard, the ostlers called to each other, laughing and joking, as they
led out the roan horses which my Lord Denningham was driving to
Brighton, comparing them with the blacks which Mr. Berrington handled
with such skill.
And upstairs a group of finely-clothed gentlemen lounged over their
wine, which they found soothing enough after shouting themselves hoarse
in anathemas on Mollie's devoted head for the foulest omelette ever
beaten.
But Mollie, escaping in good time to her chamber, laughed softly as she
tucked away her guinea in a silken pouch, and reflected how truly angry
that hateful little Moosoo would be if he knew how she had tried to
foil his nasty, creepy ways.
Faugh! The snake! How she hated him, although he called her "Ze
pretty, pretty Mollee."
Mollie indeed! The impertinence!