If it hadn't been for the hope of seeing Jack again, I should have said
that I wanted nothing to eat, when I was asked; but I thought that he
might come to the servants' dining-room, if only because he would expect
to find me there; and I was right: he came.
"What an imbroglio!" I whispered, as he joined me at the table, where
hot soup and cold chicken were set forth.
"Not at all," said he, cheerfully. "Things are better for me than I
thought. Roquemartine didn't recognize me, I'm sure, for if he had, he
would have said so. He isn't a snob. But I rather hoped he would have
forgotten. I came as a stranger, brought by a friend of his and mine,
was here only for a meal (we were motoring then, too)--and it's three
years ago."
"But the marquise?"
"She's a bran new one. I fancied I'd heard that the wife died. This one
has the air of a bride, and I should say she's an American."
"Yes. She is. The maid who showed me my room told me. The other girl who
came out of doors, is her sister. They're fearfully rich, it seems, and
that young brute wants to marry her."
"Thank you for the descriptive adjective, my little partizan, but you're
troubling yourself for me more than you need. I don't mind, really.
It's all in a life-time, and I knew when I went in for this business,
that I should have to take the rough with the smooth. I was down on my
luck, and glad to get anything. What I have got is honest, and something
that I know I can do well--something I enjoy, too; and I'm not going to
let a vulgar young snob like that make me ashamed of myself, when I've
nothing to be ashamed of."
"You ought to be proud of yourself, not ashamed!" I cried to him, trying
to keep my eyes cold.
"Heaven knows there's little enough to be proud of. You'd see that, if I
bored you with my history--and perhaps I will some day. But anyhow, I've
nothing which I need to hide."
"As if I didn't know that! But Bertie hates you."
"I don't much blame him for that. In a way, the position in which we
stand to each other is a kind of poetical justice. I don't blame myself,
either, for I always did loathe a cad and Stokes is a cad par
excellence. He visited, more or less on suffrance, at two or three
houses where I used to go a good deal, in my palmy days. How he got
asked, originally, I don't exactly know, for the people weren't a bit
his sort; but money does a lot for a man in these days; and once in, he
wasn't easy to get rid of. He had a crawling way with any one he hoped
to squeeze any advantage out of--"
"I suppose he crawled to you then," I broke in.
"He did try it on, a bit, because I knew people he wanted to know; but
it didn't work. I rather put myself out to be rude to him, for I
resented a fellow like that worming himself into places where he had no
earthly right to be--no right of brains, or heart, or breeding. I must
admit, now I think of it, that he has several scores to wipe off; and
judging from the way he begins, he will wipe hard. Let him!"
"No, no," I protested. "You mustn't let him. It's too much. You will
have to tell Sir Samuel that he must find a new chauffeur at once. It
hurts me like a blow to think of such a creature humiliating you. I
couldn't see it done."
He looked at me very kindly, with quite all a brother's tenderness. "My
dear little pal," he said, "you won't have to see it."
"You mean--you will go?" Of course, I wanted him to take my advice, or I
wouldn't have offered it, yet it gave me a heartache to think he was
ready to take it so easily.
"I mean that I'm not the man to let myself be humiliated by a Bertie
Stokes. Possibly he may persuade his stepfather to sack me, but I don't
think he'll succeed in doing that, even if he tries. Sir Samuel, I
suppose, has given him every thing he has; sent him to Oxford (I know he
was there, and scraped through by the skin of his teeth), and allows him
thousands enough to mix with a set where he doesn't belong; but though
the old boy is weak in some ways, he has a strong sense of justice, and
where he likes he is loyal. I think he does like me, and I don't believe
he'd discharge me to please his stepson. Not only that, I should be
surprised if the promising Bertie wanted me discharged. It would be more
in his line to want me kept on, so that he might take it out of me."
I shuddered; but Jack smiled, showing his white teeth almost merrily.
"You may see some fun," he said, "but it shan't be death to the frogs;
not so bad as that. And I shall have you to be kind to me."
"Kind to you!" I echoed, rather tremulously. (If he only knew how kind I
should like to be!) "Yes, I will be kind. But I can't do anything to
make up for what you'll have to bear. You had better go."
"Perhaps I would, if I could take you away with me, but that can't be.
And, no, even in that case, I should prefer to stick it out. I shouldn't
like to let that young bounder drive me from a place, whether I wanted
to go or not. And do you think I would clear out, and leave him to worry
you?"
"He can't," I said.
"I wish I were sure of that. When the beast sees you without your
veil--oh, hang it, you mustn't let him come near you, you know."
"He isn't likely to take the slightest notice of his stepfather's wife's
maid," said I, "especially as he's dying to marry the American heiress
here."
"Anyhow, be careful."
"I shan't look at him if I can help it. And we shall be gone before
long. I believe the Turnours' invitation, which their Bertie was bribed
to ask for, is only for two or three days. How you _must_ have been
feeling when you were told to drive here! But you showed nothing."
"I had a qualm or two when I was sure of the place; but then it was
over. It's far worse for you than for me. And I told you I've been
learning from you a lesson of cheerfulness. I was merely a Stoic
before."
"It's nothing for me, comparatively," I said, and by this time, I was
quite sincere; but I didn't know then what the next twenty-four hours
were to bring.
We were not left alone for long, but in ten minutes we had had our talk
out, while we played at eating the meal we had looked forward to with
eagerness before our appetites were crowded into the background. A fat
_sous chef_ flitted about; maids and valets glanced in; nevertheless, we
found time for a heart-warming hand pressure before we parted for the
night. Altogether, I had not had more than fifteen minutes in the
dining-room; yet when I left I felt a hundred times braver and more
cheerful.
Already I had been to my mistress's quarters. The maid who took charge
of me on my arrival showed me that room before she showed me mine, and
explained the way from one to the other. My "bump of locality" was
tested, however, in getting back to her ladyship's part of the house,
for the castle has its intricacies.
The word "château," in France, covers a multitude of comfortable,
unpretentious family mansions, as I had not to find out now, for the
first time; and the dwelling of the Roquemartines, though a fine old
house of the seventeenth century, is no more imposing, under its high,
slate roof, than many another. It is Lady Turnour's first experience,
though, as a visitor in the "mansions of the great," and when I had been
briskly unpacking for half an hour or so, she came in, somewhat subdued
by her new emotions. I think that she was rather glad to see a familiar
face, to have someone to talk to of whom she did not feel in awe, with
whom she need not be afraid of making some mistake; and she seemed
quite human to me, for the first time.
Never had I seen her in such an expansive mood, not even when she gave
me the blouse. Instead of the cross words I had braced myself to expect,
she was almost friendly. She had felt a fool, she said, not being able
to dress for dinner, but then no one else could touch her, for jewels;
and didn't every one just stare, at the table, though, of course, she
hadn't put on her tiara, as that wouldn't have been suitable with a
blouse and short skirt! Sir Samuel's stepson had been quite nasty and
superior about the jewels, when he got at her, afterward, and she
believed would have been rude if he'd dared, but luckily he didn't know
her well enough for that; and he'd better be careful how far he went, or
he'd find things very different from what they'd been with him, since
his mother married Sir Samuel. As if men knew when women ought to wear
their jewels, and when not! But he was green with jealousy of the things
his stepfather had given her; wanted everything himself.
She went on to describe the other members of the house party, and
mouthed their titles with delight, though she had only her own maid to
impress. Everyone had a title, it seemed, except Bertie, and the
American girl he wanted to marry, Miss Nelson, a sister of the young
marquise. Some of the titles were very high ones, too. There were
princes and princesses, and dukes and duchesses all over the place,
mostly French and Italian, though one of the duchesses was American,
like the marquise and her sister.
"Not the Duchesse de Melun!" I exclaimed, before I stopped to think.
"Yes, that's the name," said her ladyship, twisting round to look up at
me, as I wound her back hair in curling-pins. "What do you know about
her?"
How I wished that I knew nothing--and that I hadn't spoken!
The name had popped out, because the Duchesse de Melun is the only
American-born duchess of my acquaintance, and because I was hoping very
hard that the duchess of the Château de Roquemartine might _not_ be the
Duchesse de Melun. What bad luck that the Roquemartines had selected
that particular duchess for this particular house party, when they must
know plenty, and could just as well have chosen another specimen!
"I have heard her name," I admitted, primly. And so I had, too often. "A
friend of mine was--was with her, once."
"As her maid?"
"Not exactly."
"Another sort of servant, I suppose?"
As her ladyship stated this as a fact, rather than asked it as a
question, I ventured to refrain from answering. Fortunately she didn't
notice the omission, as her thoughts had jumped to another subject. But
mine were not so readily displaced. They remained fastened to the
Duchesse de Melun; and while Lady Turnour talked, I was wondering
whether I could successfully contrive to keep out of the duchess's way.
She is quite intimate with Cousin Catherine; and I told myself that she
was pretty sure already to have heard the truth about my disappearance.
Or, if even with her friends, Cousin Catherine clings to
conventionalities, and pretends that I'm visiting somewhere by her
consent, people are almost certain to scent a mystery, for mysteries are
popular. "If that duchess woman sees me, she'll write to Cousin
Catherine at once," I thought. "Or I wouldn't put it _past_ her to
telegraph!"
("Put it past" is an expression of Cousin Catherine's own, which I
always disliked; but it came in handy now.)
I tried to console myself, though, by reflecting that, if I were
careful, I ought to be able to avoid the duchess. The ways of great
ladies and little maids lie far apart in grand houses and--
"There is going to be a servants' ball to-morrow night," announced Lady
Turnour, while my thoughts struggled out of the slough of despond. "And
I want you to be the best dressed one there, for _my_ credit. We're all
going to look on, and some of the young gentlemen may dance. The
marquise and Miss Nelson say they mean to, too, but I should think they
are joking. _I_ may not be a French princess nor yet a marquise, but I
_am_ an English lady, and I must say I shouldn't care to dance with my
cook, or my chauffeur."
Her chauffeur would be at one with her there! But I could think of
nothing save myself in this crisis. "Oh, miladi, I _can't_ go to a
servants' ball!" I exclaimed.
She bridled. "Why not, I should like to know? Do you consider yourself
above it?"
"It isn't that," I faltered. (And it wasn't; it was that duchess!)
"But--but--" I searched for an excuse. "I haven't anything to wear."
"I will see to that," said my mistress, with relentless generosity. "I
intend to give you a dress, and as you have next to nothing to do
to-morrow, you can alter it in time. If you had any gratitude in you,
Elise, you'd be out of yourself with joy at the idea."
"Oh, I am out of myself, miladi," I moaned.
"Well, you might say 'Thank your ladyship,' then."
I said it.
"When you have unpacked the big luggage in the morning, I will give you
the dress. I have decided on it already. Sir Samuel doesn't like it on
me, so I don't mind parting with it; but it's very handsome, and cost me
a great deal of money when I was getting my trousseau. It is scarlet
satin trimmed with green beetle-wing passementerie, and gold fringe."
My one comfort, as I gasped out spasmodic thanks, was this: I would look
such a vulgar horror in the scarlet satin trimmed with green
beetle-wings and gold fringe, that the Duchesse de Melun might fail to
recognize Lys d'Angely.