It was hours before Count Victor could trust himself and his tell-tale
countenance before Olivia, and as he remained in an unaccustomed
seclusion for the remainder of the day, she naturally believed him cold,
though a woman with a fuller experience of his sex might have come to
a different conclusion. Her misconception, so far from being dispelled
when he joined her and her father in the evening, was confirmed, for his
natural gaiety was gone, and an emotional constraint, made up of love,
dubiety, and hope, kept him silent even in the precious moments when
Doom retired to his reflections and his book, leaving them at the other
end of the room alone. Nothing had been said about the letter; the Baron
kept his counsel on it for a more fitting occasion, and though Olivia,
who had taken its possession, turned it over many times in her pocket,
its presentation involved too much boldness on her part to be undertaken
in an impulse. The evening passed with inconceivable dulness; the
gentleman was taciturn to clownishness; Mungo, who had come in once or
twice to replenish fires and snuff candles, could not but look at
them with wonder, for he plainly saw two foolish folks in a common
misunderstanding.
He went back to the kitchen crying out his contempt for them.
“If yon's coortin',” he said, “it's the drollest I ever clapt een on!
The man micht be a carven image, and Leevie no better nor a shifty in
the pook. I hope she disnae rue her change o' mind alreadys, for I'll
warrant there was nane o' yon blateness aboot Sim MacTaggart, and it's
no' what the puir lassie's been used to.”
But these were speculations beyond the sibyl of his odd adoration;
Annapla was too intent upon her own elderly love-affairs to be
interested in those upstairs.
And upstairs, by now, a topic had at last come on between the silent
pair that did not make for love or cheerfulness. The Baron had retired
to his own room in the rear of the castle, and they had begun to talk
of the departure that was now fixed for a date made imminent through
the pressure of Petullo. Where were they bound for but France? Doom
had decided upon Dunkerque because he had a half-brother there in a
retirement compelled partly for political reasons Count Victor could
appreciate.
“France!” he cried, delighted. “This is ravishing news indeed,
Mademoiselle Olivia!”
“Yes?” she answered dubiously, reddening a little, and wondering why he
should particularly think it so.
“Ma foi! it is,” he insisted heartily. “I had the most disturbing
visions of your wandering elsewhere. I declare I saw my dear Baron
and his daughter immured in some pestilent Lowland burgh town, moping
mountain creatures among narrow streets, in dreary tenements, with
glimpse of neither sea nor tree to compensate them for pleasures lost.
But France!--Mademoiselle has given me an exquisite delight. For, figure
you! France is not so vast that friends may not meet there often--if
one were so greatly privileged--and every roadway in it leads to
Dunkerque--and--I should dearly love to think of you as, so to speak,
in my neighbourhood, among the people I esteem. It is not your devoted
Highlands, this France, Mademoiselle Olivia, but believe me, it has
its charms. You shall not have the mountains--there I am distressed for
you--nor yet the rivulets; and you must dispense with the mists; but
there is ever the consolation of an air that is like wine in the head,
and a frequent sun. France, indeed! _Je suis ravi!_ I little thought
when I heard of this end to the old home of you that you were to make
the new one in my country; how could I guess when anticipating my
farewell to the Highlands of Scotland that I should have such good
company to the shore of France?”
“Then you are returning now?” asked Olivia, her affectation of
indifference just a little overdone.
In very truth he had not, as yet, so determined; but he boldly lied like
a lover.
“'Twas my intention to return at once. I cannot forgive myself for being
so long away from my friends there.”
Olivia had a bodice of paduasoy that came low upon her shoulders and
showed a spray of jasmine in the cleft of her rounded breasts, which
heaved with what Count Victor could not but perceive was some emotion.
Her eyes were like a stag's, and they evaded him; she trifled with the
pocket of her gown.
“Ah,” she said, “it is natural that you should weary here in this sorry
place and wish to get back to the people you know. There will be many
that have missed you.”
He laughed at that.
“A few--a few, perhaps,” he said. “Clancarty has doubtless often sought
me vainly for the trivial coin: some butterflies in the _coulisse_ of
the playhouse will have missed my pouncet-box; but I swear there are
few in Paris who would be inconsolable if Victor de Montaiglon never set
foot on the _trottoir_ again. It is my misfortune, mademoiselle, to have
a multitude of friends so busy with content and pleasure--who will blame
them?--that an absentee makes little difference, and as for relatives,
not a single one except the Baroness de Chenier, who is large enough to
count as double.”
“And there will be--there will be the lady,” said Olivia, with a poor
attempt at raillery.
For a moment he failed to grasp her allusion.
“Of course, of course,” said he hastily; “I hope, indeed, to see _her_
there.” He felt an exaltation simply at the prospect. To see her there!
To have a host's right to bid welcome to his land this fair wild-flower
that had blossomed on rocks of the sea, unspoiled and unsophisticated!
The jasmine stirred more obviously: it was fastened with a topaz brooch
that had been her mother's, and had known of old a similar commotion;
she became diligent with a book.
It was then there happened the thing that momentarily seemed a blow of
fate to both of them. But for Mungo's voice at intervals in the kitchen,
the house was wholly still, and through the calm winter night there came
the opening bars of a melody, played very softly by Sim MacTaggart's
flageolet. At first it seemed incredible--a caprice of imagination, and
they listened for some moments speechless. Count Victor was naturally
the least disturbed; this unlooked-for entertainment meant the pleasant
fact that the Duchess had been nowise over-sanguine in her estimate of
the Chamberlain's condition. Here was another possible homicide off
his mind; the Gaelic frame was capable, obviously, of miraculous
recuperation. That was but his first and momentary thought; the next
was less pleasing, for it seemed not wholly unlikely now that after
all Olivia and this man were still on an unchanged footing, and Mungo's
sowing of false hopes was like to bring a bitter reaping of regretful
disillusions. As for Olivia, she was first a flame and then an icicle.
Her face scorched; her whole being seemed to take a sudden wild alarm.
Count Victor dared scarcely look at her, fearing to learn his doom or
spy on her embarrassment until her first alarm was over, when she drew
her lips together tightly and assumed a frigid resolution. She made no
other movement.
A most bewitching flageolet! It languished on the night with an
o'ermastering appeal, sweet inexpressibly and melting, the air unknown
to one listener at least, but by him enviously confessed a very siren
spell. He looked at Olivia, and saw that she intended to ignore it.
“Orpheus has recovered,” he ventured with a smile.
She stared in front of her with no response; but the jasmine rose and
fell, and her nostrils were abnormally dilated. Her face had turned from
the red of her first surprise to the white of suppressed indignation.
The situation was inconceivably embarrassing for both; now his bolt was
shot, and unless she cared to express herself, he could not venture to
allude to it again, though a whole orchestra augmented the efforts of
the artist in the bower.
By-and-by there came a pause in the music, and she spoke.
“It is the blackest of affronts this,” was her comment, that seemed at
once singular and sweet to her hearer.
“_D'accord_,” said Count Victor, but that was to himself. He was quite
agreed that the Chamberlain's attentions, though well meant, were not
for a good woman to plume herself on.
The flageolet spoke again--that curious unfinished air. Never before
had it seemed so haunting and mysterious; a mingling of reproaches and
command. It barely reached them where they sat together listening, a
fairy thing and fascinating, yet it left the woman cold. And soon the
serenade entirely ceased. Olivia recovered herself; Count Victor was
greatly pleased.
“I hope that is the end of it,” she said, with a sigh of relief.
“Alas, poor Orpheus! he returns to Thrace, where perhaps Madame Petullo
may lead the ladies in tearing him to pieces!”
“Once that hollow reed bewitched me, I fancy,” said she with a shy air
of confession; “now I cannot but wonder and think shame at my blindness,
for yon Orpheus has little beyond his music that is in any way
admirable.”
“And that the gift of nature, a thing without his own deserving,
like his--like his regard for you, which was inevitable, Mademoiselle
Olivia.”
“And that the hollowest of all,” she said, turning the evidence of it in
her pocket again. “He will as readily get over that as over his injury
from you.”
“Perhaps 'tis so. The most sensitive man, they say, does not place all
his existence on love; 'tis woman alone who can live and die in the
heart.”
“There I daresay you speak from experience,” said Olivia, smiling, but
impatient that he should find a single plea in favour of a wretch he
must know so well.
“Consider me the exception,” he hurried to explain. “I never loved but
once, and then would die for it.” The jasmine trembled in its chaste
white nunnery, and her lips were temptingly apart. He bent forward
boldly, searching her provoking eyes.
“She is the lucky lady!” said Olivia in a low voice, and then a pause.
She trifled with her book.
“What I wonder is that you could have a word to say of plea for this
that surely is the blackest of his kind.”
“Not admirable, by my faith! no; not admirable,” he confessed, “but I
would be the last to blame him for intemperately loving you. There,
I think his honesty was beyond dispute; there he might have found
salvation. That he should have done me the honour to desire my removal
from your presence was flattering to my vanity, and a savage tribute to
your power, Mademoiselle Olivia.”
“Oh!” cried Olivia, “you cannot deceive me, Count Victor. It is odd that
all your sex must stick up for each other in the greatest villanies.”
“Not the greatest, Mademoiselle Olivia,” said Count Victor with an
inclination; “he might have been indifferent to your charms, and that
were the one thing unforgivable. But soberly, I consider his folly
scarce bad enough for the punishment of your eternal condemnation.”
“This man thinks lightly indeed of me,” thought Olivia. “Drimdarroch has
a good advocate,” said she shortly, “and the last I would have looked
for in his defence was just yourself.”
“Drimdarroch?” he repeated, in a puzzled tone.
“Will you be telling me that you do not know?” she said. “For what did
Simon MacTaggart harass our household?”
“I have been bold enough to flatter myself; I had dared to think--”
She stopped him quickly, blushing. “You know he was Drimdarroch, Count
Victor,” said she, with some conviction.
He jumped to his feet and bent to stare at her, his face all wrought
with astonishment.
“_Mon Dieu!_ Mademoiselle, you do not say the two were one? And
yet--and yet--yes, _par dieu!_ how blind I have been; there is every
possibility.”
“I thought you knew it,” said Olivia, much relieved, “and felt anything
but pleased at your seeming readiness in the circumstances to let me be
the victim of my ignorance. I had too much trust in the wretch.”
“Women distrust men too much in the general and too little in
particular. And you knew?” asked Count Victor. .
“I learned to-day,” said Olivia, “and this was my bitter schooling.”
She passed him the letter. He took it and read aloud:
“I have learned now,” said the writer, “the reason for your black
looks at Monsher the wine merchant that has a Nobleman's Crest upon his
belongings. It is because he has come to look for Drimdarroch. And the
stupid body cannot find him! _We_ know who Drimdarroch is, do we not,
Sim? Monsher may have sharp eyes, but they do not see much further
than a woman's face if the same comes in his way. And Simon MacTaggart
(they're telling me) has been paying late visits to Doom Castle that
were not for the love of Miss Milk-and-Water. Sim! Sim! I gave you
credit for being less o' a Gomeral. To fetch the Frenchman to my
house of all places! You might be sure he would not be long among our
Indwellers here without his true business being discovered. Drimdarroch,
indeed! Now I will hate the name, though I looked with a difference
on it when I wrote it scores of times to your direction in the Rue
Dauphine of Paris, and loved to dwell upon a picture of the place there
that I had never seen, because my Sim (just fancy it!) was there. You
were just a Wee Soon with the title, my dear Traitour, my bonny Spy. It
might have been yours indeed, and more if you had patience, yes perhaps
and Doom forby, as that is like to be my good-man's very speedily. What
if I make trouble, Sim, and open the eyes of Monsher and the mim-mou'ed
Madame at the same moment by telling them who is really Drimdarroch?
Will it no' gar them Grue, think ye?”
Count Victor stood amazed when he had read this. A confusion of feelings
were in his breast. He had blundered blindly into his long-studied
reprisals whose inadequate execution he was now scarce willing to
regret, and Olivia had thought him capable of throwing her to this
colossal rogue! The document shook in his hand.
“Well?” said Olivia at last. “Is it a much blacker man that is there
than the one you thought? I can tell you I will count it a disgrace to
my father's daughter that she ever looked twice the road he was on.”
“And yet I can find it in me to forgive him the balance of his
punishment,” cried the Count.
“And what for might that be?” said she.
“Because, Mademoiselle Olivia, he led me to Scotland and to your
father's door.”
She saw a rapture in his manner, a kindling in his eye, and drew herself
together with some pride.
“You were welcome to my father's door; I am sure of that of it,
whatever,” said she, “but it was a poor reward for so long a travelling.
And now, my grief! We must steep the withies and go ourselves to the
start of fortune like any beggars.”
“No! no!” said he, and caught her hand that trembled in his like a bird.
“Olivia!--oh, God, the name is like a song--_je t'aime! je t'aime!_
Olivia, I love you!”
She plucked her hand away and threw her shoulders back, haughty, yet
trembling and on the brink of tears.
“It is not kind--it is not kind,” she stammered, almost sobbing. “The
lady that is in France.”
“_Petite imbecile!_” he cried, “there is no lady in France worthy to
hold thy scarf; 'twas thyself, _mignonne_, I spoke of all the time; only
the more I love the less I can express.”
He drew her to him, crushing the jasmine till it breathed in a fragrant
dissolution, bruising her breast with the topaz.