REVENGE
We must surmise that surprise and rage had rendered Gaston speechless
for the moment.
Of all the conjectures which had racked his brains for the past two
hours none had come near this amazing reality. Gaston was no fool, and
in one vivid flash he saw before his mental vision not only his own
discomfiture, the annihilation of all his hopes, but also the failure
of King Louis' plans, the relegation of those fifteen millions back
into the pockets of His Grace the Duke of Cumberland.
That Eglinton had not ridden to Le Havre on the King's business but on
his own, that he had not sent _Le Monarque_ to Scotland in order that
he might share in those millions was of course obvious.
No! no! it was clear enough! Lydie having found that Gaston had failed
her, had turned to her husband for help: and he, still nominally
Comptroller-General of Finance, had found it quite easy to send
Captain Barre on his way with secret orders to find Charles Edward
Stuart and ensure the safety of the Jacobites at once and at any cost.
Milor was immensely rich; that had helped him too, of course; bribes,
promises, presents of money were nothing to him. Mentally he was
weak--reasoned Gaston's vanity--and Lydie had commanded him.
But physically he was as strong as a horse, impervious to fatigue, and
whilst Gaston rested last night preparing for his journey, _le petit
Anglais_ was in the saddle at midnight and had killed a horse under
him ere de Stainville was midway.
What King Louis' attitude would be over this disappointment it were
premature to conjecture. Royal disfavour coupled with Pompadour's
ill-humour would make itself felt on innocent and guilty alike.
That he himself was a ruined man and that, through the interference of
that weak-kneed young fop, whom it had been the fashion in Versailles
mildly to despise, was the one great, all-absorbing fact which seemed
to turn Gaston's blood into living fire within his veins.
And the man who had thus deliberately snatched a couple of millions or
more from his grip stood there, not twenty paces away, calm, somewhat
gauche in manner, yet with that certain stiff dignity peculiar to
Englishmen of high rank, and withal apparently unconscious of the fact
that the rival whom he had deprived of a fortune was in this same room
with him, burning with rage and thirsting for revenge.
Gaston watched his enemy for awhile as he now settled himself at the
table, with Jean Marie ministering obsequiously to his wants. Soon
mine host had arranged everything to his guest's liking, had placed a
dish of stewed veal before him, a bottle of wine, some nice fresh
bread, then retired walking backwards, so wonderfully deferential was
he to the man who dealt with gold as others would with tin.
One grim thought had now risen in Stainville's mind, the revival of a
memory, half-faded: an insult, a challenge, refused by that man, who
had thwarted him!
A coward? Eh?
These English would not fight! 'twas well known; in battle, yes! but
not in single combat, not in a meeting 'twixt gentlemen, after a heady
bottle of wine when tempers wax hot, and swords skip almost of
themselves out of the scabbard.
Aye! he would ride a hundred and eighty leagues, to frustrate a plan,
or nathless to dip into the well-filled coffers of the Jacobite
Alliance--such things were possible--but he would not fight!
Gaston hugged the thought! it was grim but delicious! revenge, bitter,
awful, complete revenge was there, quite easy of accomplishment.
Fortune was lost to him, but not revenge! Not before his hand had
struck the cheek of his enemy.
This was his right. No one could blame him. Not even the King, sworn
foe of duelling though he might profess to be.
A long laugh now broke from Gaston's burning throat! Was it not all
ridiculous, senseless, and puerile?
His Majesty the King, Pompadour, the Duc d'Aumont, Prime Minister of
France, and he himself, Gaston de Stainville, the most ruthlessly
ambitious man in the kingdom, all fooled, stupidly fooled and tricked
by that man, who was too great a coward to meet the rival whom he had
insulted.
At Gaston's laugh Eglinton turned to look in his direction, and his
eyes met those of de Mortémar fixed intently upon him.
"Surely it is M. le Contrôleur-Général," said the latter, jumping to
his feet.
He had paid no heed to his guest's curious outburst of merriment,
putting it down as another expression of his strange humour, else to
the potency of Jean Marie's wine; but he had been deeply interested in
the elegant figure of the stranger, that perfect type of a high-born
gentleman which the young man was quick enough to recognise. The face,
the quaintly awkward manner, brought back certain recollections of two
days spent at the Court of Versailles.
Now when Eglinton turned toward him, he at once recognised the
handsome face, and those kind eyes, which always looked grave and
perfectly straight at an interlocutor.
"Milor Eglinton, a thousand pardons," he now said as he moved quickly
across the room. "I had failed to recognise you at first, and had
little thought of seeing so great a personage in this sleepy old
town."
Eglinton too had risen at his first words and had stepped forward,
with his habitual courtesy, to greet the young man. De Mortémar's hand
was cordially stretched out toward him, the next moment he would have
clasped that of the young Englishman, when with one bound and a rush
across the room and with one wild shout of rage, Gaston de Stainville
overtook his friend and, catching hold of his arm, he drew him roughly
back.
"Nay! de Mortémar, my friend," he cried loudly, "be warned in time
lest your honest hand come in contact with that of a coward."
His words echoed along the vast, empty room. Then there was dead
silence. Instinctively Mortémar had stepped back as if he had been
stung. He did not of course understand the meaning of it all, and was
so taken aback that he could no nothing but stare amazed at the figure
of the young man before him. Eglinton's placidity had in no sense
given way before the deadly insult; only his face had become pale as
death, but the eyes still looked grave, earnest and straight at his
enemy.
"Aye! a coward," said Gaston, who during these few moments of silence
had fought the trembling of his limbs, the quiver of his voice. He saw
the calm of the other man and with a mighty effort smothered the
cryings of his rage, leaving cool contempt free play. "Or will you
deny here, before my friend le Comte de Mortémar, who was about to
touch your hand, that last night having insulted me you refused to
give me satisfaction? Coward! you have no right to touch another's
hand . . . the hand of an honourable gentleman. . . . Coward! . . . Do
you hear me? I'll say it again--coward--and coward again ere I shout
it on the house-tops of Versailles--coward!--even now when my hand has
struck your cheek--coward!"
How it all happened Mortémar himself could not afterward have said,
the movement must have been extraordinarily quick, for even as the
last word "Coward!" rose to Gaston's lips it was drowned in an
involuntary cry of agony, whilst his hand, raised ready to strike, was
held in a grip which indeed seemed like one of steel.
"'Tis done, man! 'tis done!" said the gentle, perfectly even voice,
"but in the name of Heaven provoke me no further, or it will be murder
instead of fight. There!" he added, releasing the other man's wrist,
who staggered back faint and giddy with the pain, "'tis true that I
refused to meet you in combat yester e'en; the life of my friend,
lonely and betrayed, out there in far-off Scotland, had been the price
of delay if I did not ride out of Versailles before cock-crow, but
now 'tis another matter," he added lightly, "and I am at your
service."
"Aye!" sneered Gaston, still writhing with pain, "at my service now,
when you hope that my broken wrist will ensure your impunity."
"Nay, sir, but at your service across the width of this table,"
responded Eglinton coldly, "a pair of pistols, one unloaded. . . . And
we'll both use the left hand."
An exclamation of protest broke from Mortémar's lips.
"Impossible! . . ."
"Why so, Monsieur le Comte?"
"'Twere murder, milor!"
"Does M. le Comte de Stainville protest?" queried the other calmly.
"No! damn you! . . . Where are the pistols?"
"Yours, M. le Comte, an you will; surely you have not ridden all the
way from Versailles without a pair in your holster."
"Well guessed, milor," quoth Gaston lightly. "Mortémar, I pray you, in
the pocket of my coat . . . a pair of pistols."
Mortémar tried again to protest.
"Silence!" said Gaston savagely, "do you not see that I must kill
him?"
"'Tis obvious as the crescent moon yonder, M. de Mortémar," said
Eglinton with a whimsical smile. "I entreat you, the pistols."
The young man obeyed in silence. He strode across the room to the
place lately vacated by Gaston, and near which his cloak was lying
close to his hat and whip. Mortémar groped in the pockets: he found
the two pistols and then rejoined the antagonists.
"I used one against a couple of footpads in the early dawn," said
Gaston, as he took the weapons from Mortémar's hands and placed them
on the table.
"'Twas lucky, Monsieur le Comte," rejoined Eglinton gravely, "then all
we need do is to throw for the choice."
"Dice," said Stainville curtly.
On a table close by there was a dice-box, left there by one of Jean
Marie's customers: Mortémar, without a word, handed it to Eglinton. He
could not understand the placidity of the man: Gaston's attitude was
simple enough, primitive animal rage, blinding him to the possibility
of immediate death; excitement too, giving him a sense of bravado, an
arrogant disregard of the consequences of his own provocation.
Eglinton was within his rights. He was now the insulted party, he
could make his own conditions, but did he wish to die? or was he so
supremely indifferent to life that he could view with perfect serenity
that pair of pistols, one of which death-dealing of a surety across a
narrow table, and that box of dice the arbiter of his fate?
Of a truth Eglinton was perfectly indifferent as to the issue of the
combat. He did not care if he killed Gaston, nor did he care to live.
Lydie hated him, so what mattered if the sky was blue, or if the sun
ceased to shed radiance over the earth?
It was the supreme indifference of a man who with life had nothing
else to lose.
His hand was absolutely steady as he took the dice-box and threw:
"Blank!" murmured Mortémar under his breath, as he saw the result of
the throw. Yet the face of milor was as impassive as before, even
though now by all the rules of chance Gaston's was the winning hand.
"Three!" he said calmly, as the dice once more rolled on to the table.
"Monsieur le Comte, the choice of weapon rests with you."
Once more Mortémar tried to interpose. This was monstrous! horrible! a
shocking, brutal murder!
"Monsieur de Stainville knows his own weapons," he said impulsively,
"he discharged one this morning and . . ."
"Milor should have thought of this before!" retorted Stainville
savagely.
"The remark did not come from me, Monsieur," rejoined Eglinton
passively, "an you will choose your weapon, I am fully satisfied."
But his grave eyes found occasion to send a kindly glance of gratitude
to young de Mortémar. The latter felt a tightening of his very heart
strings: he would at this moment have willingly given his fortune to
avert the awful catastrophe.
"Mortémar, an you interfere," said Gaston, divining his thoughts,
"I'll brand you as a meddler before the Court of Versailles. An you
are afraid to see bloodshed, get you gone in the name of hell."
By all the unwritten laws which governed such affairs of honour,
Mortémar could not interfere. He did not know the right or wrong of
the original enmity between these two men, but had already guessed
that mere disappointment with regard to the voyage of _Le Monarque_
had not been sufficient to kindle such deadly hate: vaguely he
surmised that somewhere in the background lurked the rustle of a silk
petticoat.
Without the slightest hesitation now Gaston took one of the pistols in
his left hand: his right still caused him excruciating pain; and every
time he felt the agony, his eyes gleamed with more intense savagery,
the lust of a certain revenge.
He had worked himself up into a passion of hate. Money has the power
to do that sometimes; that vanished hope of fortune had killed every
instinct in the man, save that of desire for vengeance. He was sure of
himself. The pistols were his as de Mortémar had said, and he had
handled them but a few hours ago: he could apprise their
weight--loaded or unloaded--and he was quite satisfied.
It was hatred alone that prompted him to a final thrust, a blow, he
thought, to a dying man. Eglinton was as good as dead, with the muzzle
of a loaded pistol a foot away from his breast, and an empty weapon in
his own hand; but his serenity irritated Gaston; the blood which
tingled in his own veins, which had rushed to his head almost
obscuring his vision clamoured for a sight of a shrinking enemy, not
of a wooden puppet, calm, impassive even before certain death.
The agony as he lifted the half-broken wrist to his coat was
intolerable, but he almost welcomed it now, for it added a strange,
lustful joy to the excitement of this deed. His eyes, glowing and
restless with fumes of wine and passion of hate, were fixed upon the
marble-like face of his enemy. Then from the breast-pocket of his
coat, he drew a packet of papers.
And although he was nigh giddy with the pain in his wrist, he clutched
that packet tightly, toyed with it for a while, smoothed out the
creases with a hand which shook with the intensity of his excitement,
the intensity of his triumph.
The proofs in Madame la Marquise d'Eglinton's own writing that she was
at one with the gang who meant to sell the Stuart prince for gold! The
map revealing his hiding-place! and her letter to him bidding him
trust the bearer whose orders--now affixed to map and letter--were
that he deliver the young Pretender into the hands of the English
authorities.
That these orders to _Le Monarque_ had been forestalled by milor
Eglinton could not exonerate Madame la Marquise from having been at
one with Gaston de Stainville and Madame de Pompadour, and others who
might remain nameless, in the blackest treachery ever planned against
a trusting friend.
No wonder Gaston de Stainville forgot physical suffering when he toyed
lovingly with this packet of papers in his hand, the consummation of
his revenge.
At last 'twas done. A subtle, indefinable change had come over the
calm face of Lord Eglinton, an ashen grey hue which had chased the
former pallor of the cheeks, and the slender hand, which held the
pistol, trembled almost imperceptibly.
Serenity had given way at sight of that packet of papers.
"Friend de Mortémar," said Gaston lightly, but with glowing eyes still
fixed on his opponent, "the chances of my demise being at least equal
to those of milor's--seeing that I know not, on my honour, which is
the loaded pistol, and that methinks at this moment I can read murder
in his eye--I pray you to take charge of this packet. It is a sacred
trust. In case of my death promise me that you will deliver it into
the hands of my wife, and into no other. Madame la Comtesse de
Stainville will know how to deal with it."
The young Comte de Mortémar took the packet from Gaston.
"I will do as you desire," he said coldly.
"You promise that no one shall touch these papers except my wife,
Irène Comtesse de Stainville," reiterated Gaston solemnly.
"On my word of honour," rejoined the young man.
The request was perfectly proper and natural, very usual in such
cases; de Mortémar could not help but comply. He could not know that
the fulfilment of this promise would mean public dishonour to an
innocent and noble woman, and the supreme revenge of a baffled
traitor.
If Gaston expected protest, rage, or excitement from his foe he was
certainly disappointed. Eglinton had all the characteristics of his
race, perfect sang-froid in the face of the inevitable, and an almost
morbid consciousness of pride and dignity. He could not filch those
papers from Gaston nor prevent de Mortémar from accepting and
fulfilling a trust, which had all the appearance of being sacred.
He knew that by this act he had wrested a fortune from a man whose
fetish was money, and the power which money gives: true that being an
honest man himself, he had never thought of such an infamous revenge.
If he died now Heaven help his proud Lydie! but if he lived then
Heaven help them both!