There was a silence between the two for a little after they came out
from Petullo's distracted household. With a chilling sentiment towards
his new acquaintance, whom he judged the cause of the unhappy woman's
state, Count Victor waited for the excuse he knew inevitable. He could
not see the Chamberlain's face, for the night was dark now; the tide,
unseen, was running up on the beach of the bay, lights were burning in
the dwellings of the little town.
“M. Montaiglon,” at last said the Chamberlain in a curious voice where
feelings the most deep appeared to strive together, “yon's a tragedy, if
you like.”
“_Comment?_” said the Count. He was not prepared for an opening quite
like this.
“Well,” said the Chamberlain, “you saw it for yourself; you are not a
mole like Petullo the husband. By God! I would be that brute's death if
he were thirty years younger, and made of anything else than sawdust.
It's a tragedy in there, and look at this burgh!--like the grave but for
the lights of it; rural, plodding, unambitious, ignorant--and the last
place on earth you might seek in for a story so peetiful as that in
there. My heart's wae, wae for that woman; I saw her face was like a
corp when we went in first, though she put a fair front on to us. A
woman in a hundred; a brave woman, few like her, let me tell you, M.
Montaiglon, and heartbroken by that rat she's married on. I could greet
to think on all her trials. You saw she was raised somewhat; you saw I
have some influence in that quarter?”
For his life Count Victor could make no reply, so troubled was his mind
with warring thoughts of Olivia betrayed, perhaps, to a debauchee _sans_
heart and common pot-house decency; of whether in truth this was the
debauchee to such depths as he suggested, or a man in a false position
through the stress of things around him.
The Chamberlain went on as in a meditation. “Poor Kate! poor Kate! We
were bairns together, M. Montaiglon, innocent bairns, and happy, twenty
years syne, and I will not say but what in her maidenhood there was some
warmth between us, so that I know her well. She was compelled by her
relatives to marriage with our parchment friend yonder, and there you
have the start of what has been hell on earth for her. The man has not
the soul of a louse, and as for her, she's the finest gold! You would
see that I was the cause of her swoon?”
“Unhappy creature!” said Montaiglon, beginning to fear he had wronged
this good gentleman.
“You may well say it, M. Montaiglon. It is improper, perhaps, that I
should expose to a stranger the skeleton of that house, but I'm feeling
what happened just now too much to heed a convention.” He sighed
profoundly. “I have had influence with the good woman, as you would see;
for years I've had it, because I was her only link with the gay world
she was born to be an ornament in, and the only one free to be trusted
with the tale of her misery. Well, you know--you are a man of the world,
M. Montaiglon--you know the dangers of such a correspondence between a
person of my reputation, that is none of the best, because I have been
less a hypocrite than most, and a lady in her position. It's a gossiping
community this, long-lugged and scandal-loving like all communities
of its size; it is not the Faubourg St. Honoré, where intrigues go on
behind fans and never an eye cocked or a word said about it; and I'll
not deny but there have been scandalous and cruel things said about the
lady and myself. Now, as God's my judge--”
“Pardon, monsieur,” said the Count, eager to save this protesting
gentleman another _bêtise_; “I quite understand, I think,--the lady
finds you a discreet friend. Naturally her illness has unmanned you. The
scandal of the world need never trouble a good man.”
“But a merely middling-good man, M. Montaiglon,” cried the Chamberlain;
“you'll allow that's a difference. Lord knows I lay no claim to a
crystal virtue! In this matter I have no regard for my own reputation,
but just for that very reason I'm anxious about the lady's. What
happened in that room there was that I've had to do an ill thing and
make an end of an auld sang. I'm rarely discreet in my own interest,
M. Montaiglon, but it had to be shown this time, and as sure as death I
feel like a murderer at the havoc I have wrought with that good woman's
mind!”
He stopped suddenly; a lump was in his throat. In the beam of light that
came through the hole in a shutter of a house they passed, Montaiglon
saw that his companion's face was all wrought with wretchedness, and a
tear was on his cheek.
The discovery took him aback. He had ungenerously deemed the strained
voice in the darkness beside him a mere piece of play-acting, but
here was proof of genuine feeling, all the more convincing because the
Chamberlain suddenly brisked up and coughed and assumed a new tone, as
if ashamed of his surrender to a sentiment.
“I have been compelled to be cruel to-night to a woman, M. Montaiglon,”
said he, “and that is not my nature. And--to come to another
consideration that weighed as much with me as any--this unpleasant duty
of mine that still sticks in my throat like funeral-cake was partly
forced by consideration for another lady--the sweetest and the best--who
would be the last I should care to have hear any ill of me, even in a
libel.”
A protest rose to Montaiglon's throat; a fury stirred him at the
gaucherie that should bring Olivia's name upon the top of such a
subject. He could not trust himself to speak with calmness, and it was
to his great relief the Chamberlain changed the topic--broadened it, at
least, and spoke of women in the general, almost cheerfully, as if
he delighted to put an unpleasant topic behind him. It was done so
adroitly, too, that Count Victor was compelled to believe it prompted
by a courteous desire on the part of the Chamberlain not too vividly to
illuminate his happiness in the affection of Olivia.
“I'm an older man than you, M. Montaiglon,” said the Chamberlain, “and I
may be allowed to give some of my own conclusions upon the fair. I have
known good, ill, and merely middling among them, the cunning and the
simple, the learned and the utterly ignorant, and by the Holy Iron!
honesty and faith are the best virtues in the lot of them. They all like
flattery, I know--”
“A dead man and a stupid woman are the only ones who do not. _Jamais
beau parler riecorcha le langue!_” said Montaiglon.
“Faith, and that's very true,” consented the Chamberlain, laughing
softly. “I take it not amiss myself if it's proffered in the right
way--which is to say, for the qualities I know I have, and not for the
imaginary ones. As I was saying, give me the simple heart and honesty;
they're not very rife in our own sex, and--”
“Even there, monsieur, I can be generous enough,” said Montaiglon. “I
can always retain my regard for human nature, because I have learned
never to expect too much from it.”
“Well said!” cried the Chamberlain. “Do you know that in your manner of
rejoinder you recall one Dumont I met once at the Jesuits' College when
I was in France years ago?”
“Ah, you have passed some time in my country, then?” said the Count with
awakened interest, a little glad of a topic scarce so abstruse as sex.
“I have been in every part of Europe,” said the Chamberlain; “and it
must have been by the oddest of mischances I have not been at Cammercy
itself, for well I knew your uncle's friends, though, as it happened, we
were of a different complexion of politics. I lived for months one
time in the Hôtel de Transylvania, Rue Condé, and kept my _carosse de
remise_, and gambled like every other ass of my kind in Paris till I had
not a louis to my credit. Lord! the old days, the old days! I should be
penitent, I daresay, M. Montaiglon, but I'm putting that off till I find
that a sober life has compensations for the entertainment of a life of
liberty.”
“Did you know Balhaldie?”
“Do I know the inside of my own pocket! I've played piquet wi' the
old rogue a score of times in the Sun tavern of Rotterdam. Pardon me
speaking that way of one that may be an intimate of your own, but to be
quite honest, the Scots gentlemen living on the Scots Fund in France in
these days were what I call the scourings of the Hielan's. There were
good and bad among them, of course, but I was there in the _entourage_
of one who was no politician, which was just my own case, and I saw
but the convivial of my exiled countrymen in their convivial hours.
Politics! In these days I would scunner at the very word, if you know
what that means, M. Montaiglon. I was too throng with gaiety to trouble
my head about such trifles; my time was too much taken up with buckling
my hair, in admiring the cut of my laced _jabot_, and the Mechlin of my
wrist-bands.”
They were walking close upon the sea-wall with leisurely steps,
preoccupied, the head of the little town, it seemed, wholly surrendered
to themselves alone. Into the Chamberlain's voice had come an accent
of the utmost friendliness and flattering ir-restraint; he seemed to be
leaving his heart bare to the Frenchman. Count Victor was by these
last words transported to his native city, and his own far-off days of
galliard. Why, in the name of Heaven! was he here listening to hackneyed
tales of domestic tragedy and a stranger's reminiscences? Why did
his mind continually linger round the rock of Doom, so noisy on its
promontory, so sad, so stern, so like an ancient saga in its spirit?
Cecile--he was amazed at it, but Cecile, and the Jacobite cause he had
come here to avenge with a youth's ardour, had both fallen, as it were,
into a dusk of memory!
“By the way, monsieur, you did not happen to have come upon any one
remotely suggesting my Drimdarroch in the course of your travels?”
“Oh, come!” cried Sim MacTaggart; “if I did, was I like to mention
it here and now?” He laughed at the idea. “You have not grasped the
clannishness of us yet if you fancy--”
“But in an affair of strict honour, monsieur,” broke in Count Victor
eagerly. “Figure you a woman basely betrayed; your admirable sentiments
regarding the sex must compel you to admit there is here something
more than clannishness can condone. It is true there is the political
element--but not much of it--in my quest, still--”
“Not a word of that, M. Montaiglon!” cried the Chamberlain: “there
you address yourself to his Grace's faithful servant; but I cannot be
denying some sympathy with the other half of your object. If I had
known this by-named Drimdarroch you look for, I might have swithered to
confess it, but as it is, I have never had the honour. I've seen scores
of dubious cattle round the walls of Ludo-vico Rex, but which might be
Drimdarroch and which might be decent honest men, I could not at this
time guess. We have here among us others who had a closer touch with
affairs in France than I.”
“So?” said Count Victor. “Our friend the Baron of Doom suggested that
for that very reason my search was for the proverbial needle in the
haystack. I find myself in pressing need of a judicious friend at court,
I see. Have you ever found your resolution quit you--not an oozing
courage, I mean, but an indifference that comes purely by the lapse of
time and the distractions on the way to its execution? It is my case
at the moment. My thirst for the blood of this _inconnu_ has modified
considerably in the past few days. I begin to wish myself home again,
and might set out incontinent if the object of my coming here at all
had not been so well known to those I left behind. You would be doing
a brilliant service--and perhaps but little harm to Drimdarroch after
all--if you could arrange a meeting at the earliest.”
He laughed as he said so.
“Man! I'm touched by the issue,” said the Chamberlain; “I must cast
an eye about. Drimdarroch, of course, is Doom, or was, if a lawyer's
sheep-skins had not been more powerful nowadays than the sword;
but”--he paused a moment as if reluctant to give words to the
innuendo--“though Doom himself has been in France to some good purpose
in nis time, and though, for God knows what, he is no friend of mine, I
would be the first to proclaim him free of any suspicion.”
“That, monsieur, goes without saying! I was stupid enough to
misunderstand some of his eccentricities myself, but have learned in our
brief acquaintanceship to respect in him the man of genuine heart.”
“Just so, just so!” cried the Chamberlain, and cleared his throat. “I
but mentioned his name to make it plain that his claim to the old title
in no way implicated him. A man of great heart, as you say, though with
a reputation for oddity. If I were not the well-wisher of his house,
I could make some trouble about his devotion to the dress and arms
forbidden here to all but those in the king's service, as I am myself,
being major of the local Fencibles. And--by the Lord! here's MacCailen!”
They had by this time entered the policies of the Duke. A figure walked
alone in the obscurity, with arms in a characteristic fashion behind its
back, going in the direction they themselves were taking. For a second
or two the Chamberlain hesitated, then formed his resolution.
“I shall introduce you,” he said to Count Victor. “It may be of some
service afterwards.”
The Duke turned his face in the darkness, and, as they came alongside,
recognised his Chamberlain.
“Good evening, good evening!” he cried cheerfully. “'Art a late bird, as
usual, and I am at that pestilent task the rehearsal of a speech.”
“Your Grace's industry is a reproach to your Grace's Chamberlain,” said
the latter. “I have been at the speech-making myself, partly to a lady.”
“Ah, Mr. MacTaggart!” cried the Duke in a comical expostulation.
“And partly to this unfortunate friend of mine, who must fancy us a
singularly garrulous race this side of the German Ocean. May I introduce
M. Montaiglon, who is at the inn below, and whom it has been my good
fortune to meet for the first time to-night?”
Argyll was most cordial to the stranger, who, however, took the earliest
opportunity to plead fatigue and return to his inn. He had no sooner
retired than the Duke expressed some natural curiosity.
“It cannot be the person you desired for the furnishing of our tolbooth
the other day, Sim?” said he.
“No less,” frankly responded the Chamberlain. “Your Grace saved me a
_faux pas_ there, for Montaiglon is not what I fancied at all.”
“You were ever the dubious gentleman, Sim,” laughed his Grace. “And
what--if I may take the liberty--seeks our excellent and impeccable Gaul
so far west?”
“He's a wine merchant,” said the Chamberlain, and at that the Duke
laughed.
“What, man!” he cried at last, shaking with his merriment, “is our
ancient Jules from Oporto to be ousted with the aid of Sim MacTaggart
from the ducal cellars in favour of one Montaiglon?” He stopped, caught
his Chamberlain by the arm, and stood close in an endeavour to perceive
his countenance. “Sim,” said he, “I wonder what Modene would say to find
his cousin hawking vile claret round Argyll. Your friend's incognito is
scarcely complete enough even in the dark. Why, the man's Born! I
could tell it in his first sentence, and it's a swordsman's hand, not
a cellarer's fingers, he gave me a moment ago. That itself would betray
him even if I did not happen to know that the Montaiglons have the
_particule_.”
“It is quite as you say,” confessed the Chamberlain with some chagrin
at his position, “but I'm giving the man's tale as he desires to have
it known here. He's no less than the Count de Montaiglon, and a rather
decent specimen of the kind, so far as I can judge.”
“But why the _alias_, good Sim?” asked the Duke. “I like not your
_aliases_, though they have been, now and then--ahem!--useful.”
“Your Grace has travelled before now as Baron Hay,” said the
Chamberlain.
“True! true! and saved very little either in inn charges or in the
pother of State by the device. And if I remember correctly, I made no
pretence at wine-selling on these occasions. Honestly now, what the
devil does the Comte de Montaiglon do here--and with Sim MacTaggart?”
“The matter is capable of the easiest explanation. He's here on what he
is pleased to call an affair of honour, in which there is implicated the
usual girl and another gentleman, who, it appears, is some ope, still
unknown, about your Grace's castle.” And the story in its entirety was
speedily his Grace's.
“H'm,” ejaculated Argyll at last when he had heard all. “And you fancy
the quest as hopeless as it is quixotic? Now mark me! Simon; I read our
French friend, even in the dark, quite differently. He had little to say
there, but little as it was 'twas enough to show by its manner that he's
just the one who will find his man even in my crowded corridors.”