AFAR OFF STILL.
Kate had been, as already stated, far from well of late; the horrible
revelation of that snowy morning brought her near to death's door;
and, after she had been taken back to the Prince's house in a
prostrate condition and put at once to bed, her life was for some
weeks despaired of.
Meanwhile she was carefully ministered to by all the Scotch ladies who
formed a part of the establishment, and also by Lady Ames, who refused
under any circumstances to quit Paris; though, indeed, her indulgent
husband did not press her to do so.
"The King," she said, "may call me a Jacobite, may even prosecute me
for one when I return to London, yet I shall not leave Lady
Fordingbridge now--no, not even if I have to become an inmate of
Charles Edward's house. Oh, the horror of seeing one's husband brought
out to such a doom, villain though he was; the horror of it! How shall
she ever recover from such a catastrophe?"
"How, indeed?" replied Sir Charles, who, worldling though he was, had
been as terribly shocked as she at the end of Fordingbridge's career.
"Yet it might have been worse. It was a merciful providence that saw
fit to end his life at the moment it did. Think, only think, if, added
to all else, she had seen his head fall, as she would have done had he
not died at the instant!"
Lady Ames nodded her head reflectively as she agreed with him; then a
few moments later she said, speaking from the deep _fauteuil_ in which
she was sitting in their lodgings, which they had now taken on the
Quai des Théatins so as to be near her:
"You heard his last words?--'I have seen him. He forgives. He is a
prisoner in----' and then died before he could conclude. What,
Charles, do you think they pointed to?"
Sir Charles shrugged his shoulders; then he asked significantly, "What
does _she_ think they pointed to?"
"Alas!" his wife replied, "she does not refer to them; seems scarcely
to have heard them uttered, or, if she did, not to have understood them.
Remember, she is but a woman, and, although it is impossible she should
regret his death, the horror, the shame of it, has broken her down
completely. She longed--any woman would long--to be free of a man who
had deceived her from the first as he had done, yet no woman could
desire her freedom should come in such an awful form. They say," she
continued, sinking her voice to an awestruck whisper, "that he died of
fright upon that scaffold."
"Possibly," replied Sir Charles, "possibly. He was a cowardly fellow,
as it seemed to me, when Sholto and I had that interview with him in
your morning-room. I should not be surprised; other men have died on
the scaffold, at the foot of the gallows, before now. Why not he?
But," he said, changing the subject, "since we can do nothing, we must
be what assistance we can to her. Now, I propose to set about
discovering what he was led out to execution for; what his crime was.
It must have been something horribly grave to lead to a man of his
position being executed in France; for, although no treaty of peace
has as yet been signed between them and us, we are no longer at open
strife. And if," he added, "France would but send this Stuart packing,
and harbour him no longer, a lasting peace might be secured."[8]
"What could it have been, think you?" his wife asked. "Something
terrible, to lead to such a conclusion."
"Yes," he replied, "yes. Something terrible."
Then he devoted himself to the task of discovering what that something
terrible could have been.
Meanwhile, Kate, after being utterly broken down and lying between
life and death for something short of a month, began to mend at last,
her naturally fine though delicate constitution enabling her to
triumph over the blow she had received. Then she, too, told Lady Ames
that she must discover for her own future ease, if not peace of mind,
the reason why her wretched husband, after having disappeared for so
many months, had met his end in such a way. Also she undeceived her
friend in the belief that she had not heard that wretched husband's
last words.
"For," she said, "I heard them all, clearly and distinctly. Heard
them! I hear them now--at night; all day; as I lie here. 'I have seen
him. He forgives. He is a prisoner in----.' And," she continued,
laying a white, wan hand on that of the other who sat by her bedside,
"I know well enough to whom he referred. It was to Bertie, to Mr.
Elphinston."
"Great heavens!" exclaimed Lady Ames, who, in the excitement of all
that had happened since that terrible morning, had absolutely
forgotten that this other one was also as mysteriously missing as Lord
Fordingbridge had been--"great heavens! to Mr. Elphinston. Yes, it
must be. Each word would apply to him. O Kate! what does it all mean?"
"God knows what it means; what it points to none can doubt--to the
fact that in the prison from which they brought him the other one is
incarcerated; though on what charge I cannot dream. Oh, my dear," she
exclaimed to her friend, "beg Sir Charles to find out that--those two
things, above all: the prison, and the reason why he is detained.
Then, when that is discovered, we may do something to obtain his
release, since I am known to so many who have influence."
"Yes," Lady Ames acquiesced, "yes; Charles must do that. Yet there
are many prisons in Paris where men are kept unknown to the outer
world--La Force, Bicêtre, Vincennes, the Bastille. And what can he
have done to be sent to any one of them?"
"Heaven alone knows. Yet, in France, men are sent on the most trivial
charges, on suspicion alone, sometimes. Oh, I beseech you, ask your
husband to discover first where he is, and then we may learn of what
he is accused, and do our best to free him."
Sir Charles, with now a clue as to whom the miserable man had
referred, prosecuted his researches with great ardour, keeping ever
two points before him for elucidation: the first being the reason for
which Fordingbridge had been brought to execution, and the second the
prison from which he had been conducted to the Hôtel de Ville; for,
when he had discovered the latter, he would know almost of a surety
where Elphinston was. Yet almost as well might he have demanded
information of the stones in the streets and have expected to receive
an answer, as from those whom, with infinite trouble, he sought out.
Commencing with the English ambassador--who professed himself
profoundly ignorant of the execution of Lord Fordingbridge, as well as
extremely shocked that such an outrage should have been committed upon
a nobleman of our country, no matter what his fault was--he next
managed to procure an interview with the Mayor of Paris and with the
Prefect of Police, the former a more important functionary then than
now. Yet all was useless; he got no further. After many visits to the
ambassador, the latter told him plainly that Lord Fordingbridge's
death would lead to very little discussion between the two countries;
moreover, any discussion was just now to be avoided. France and
England were by this time sick of warfare and wanted peace, and the
only thing that stood in the way of that peace was the espousal of the
Stuart cause by France.
"And," remarked the ambassador quietly to Sir Charles, in a private
interview they had together, "the peace will come, and, if I am not
deceived, the Stuarts will go. The Chevalier de St. George at Rome
knows such to be the case; so does the Prince here; only they do not
run away from the storm. Time enough for that when it breaks; anyhow,
it won't be particularly hurtful--will only, indeed, lead to a
residence in Paris being exchanged for the capital of some other
country. Yes, everything points to peace--has begun, indeed, to do so
for some time back. Now," and his Excellency leaned forward and spoke
very gravely, "this Fordingbridge episode must not disturb that
impending peace."
"No one wishes that it should do so," Sir Charles exclaimed; "we only
desire a little information. He had a wife, and, although he had
behaved as a thorough scoundrel to her, is it not natural that she
should wish to know what his crime was, and what prison he was
confined in before the morning when he was taken to what was intended
for his execution?"
"Perfectly natural," replied the ambassador, with easy grace,
"perfectly natural on her part. Only, how is the information to be
obtained? I tell you frankly I cannot procure it for you. Lord
Fordingbridge was, in London, what they term here 'a suspect'; he was
under Government surveillance there; known to be a late Jacobite
avowing Hanoverian principles--yet known also, of late, to have been
one of the prime movers, if not _the_ prime mover, in the attempted
assassination of his Majesty before the invasion. Also he was known--I
assure you," the ambassador interjected still more gravely, as he bent
forward, "everything was known about him--to be the friend of Charles
Edward's followers, yet to be, also, their denouncer. He disappeared
from England, no one knew why, closed up his house, wrote to his
attorney to say he should probably not return for many years, and also
that the lady who had passed as the viscountess was not so in actual
fact."
"It was a lie!" exclaimed Sir Charles.
"Without doubt," the diplomatist continued suavely. "I only
mention all these things to show you that we need not trouble our
soon-to-be-beloved French neighbours about the Viscount Fordingbridge,
especially as, after all, it was a higher power than they who slew
him. Remember, he plotted to kill the King; he was Hanoverian or
Jacobite as it suited him; in fact, Sir Charles, he was contemptible.
Let us forget him."
"Everyone is perfectly willing to do so, I assure your Excellency,"
the baronet replied, in quite as easy a manner as the other was
capable of assuming; "he is quite done with on all sides. Only someone
else has to be remembered who is supposed to be in the prison he was
led out from--someone whose freedom many of us desire to procure."
"An Englishman, of course?"
"Yes. Not precisely so, though. A Scotchman, and----"
"A Jacobite, perhaps?" the ambassador asked with a sweet smile.
"There have been tendencies----"
"Precisely. Good-morning. You can hardly----I protest, Sir Charles,
you can hardly expect King George's representative to interest himself
in that quarter. _Good_-morning."
As regards the mayor and the _préfet_, he arrived no nearer. The
former, a rabid hater of all things British, told him that, although
he had no knowledge of what persons might be in the various prisons of
Paris, he was quite sure that, if any Englishmen were incarcerated,
they deserved to be. The _préfet_, more politely but with equal
firmness, said he also was not aware of what English people might be
detained in the prisons, but that, even if he possessed the knowledge,
he should not consider it his duty to give any information on the
subject.
Then Kate, by this time recovered somewhat from the shock of her
husband's death, and, although she knew it not, rapidly mending in
health through the knowledge of the freedom that was now hers
undoubtedly, determined that she would lose no opportunity of herself
discovering where Bertie Elphinston was incarcerated; for that
Fordingbridge had spoken the truth in his last moments, half mad
though he seemed, she never had the faintest shadow of a doubt.
First she wrote, as was natural, to Archibald Sholto, telling him
everything exactly as it occurred from the ending of the ball at the
opera house to Fordingbridge's last words. Also she asked him to
discover, if possible, for what crime her husband had been condemned
to death. Above all, she begged him to find out from what prison he
had been led to the Hôtel de Ville on the morning of his execution.
"Because," she wrote, "in that prison Bertie Elphinston, your friend,
your murdered brother's friend, will be found."
Her letter reached Father Sholto at St. Omer, to which he had removed
from Amiens, and for some weeks he did not answer it; while, when he
did so, he simply wrote to say that he would endeavour to find out the
reason why Bertie should be incarcerated in the prison from which
Fordingbridge had been brought forth.
"'Tis a cold answer at best," he muttered to himself one evening, as
he paced along the marshy swamps around St. Omer, unobservant of the
ripening fruit in the rich orchards all about, and even of the
glorious sunset behind him--"a cold answer, yet what else to make? I
cannot tell her that it must be the Bastille in which Bertie is
confined. Merciful Father in heaven!" he broke off, "what can he have
done to be there? Because it was to the Bastille that I, determined
never to loose my hold on Douglas's murderer, procured he should be
sent. Also I dread to tell her what Fordingbridge's crime was, who the
avenger of that crime is. I dread! I dread! It is more than I have
strength to dare."
Still pacing the marshes, he turned over and over again in his mind
all that he had pondered on for so long, with--now added to all
that--the fresh knowledge derived through Kate that Elphinston was in
the Bastille.
"In the Bastille! the Bastille! So that is where he disappeared to
without leaving a trace, a sign behind him. To the Bastille! It seems
incredible. What could he have done? A good officer, a favourite with
all. It is indeed incredible."
Still musing, he approached the town, to be aroused from his
meditations, in spite of himself, by the clash of arms from the guard
being relieved at the gates, and by the blare of some trumpets from
the walls. They seemed to chide him, he thought, for being so
inactive; they seemed to reproach him for meditating so much and for
doing so little.
"Only," he murmured as he almost wrung his hands, "what--what shall I
do? He is in the Bastille, and, though I could send that other one to
the same fortress, I have no power to obtain this one's release. Who
can help me? To whom shall I apply?"
At last, tossing on his bed as he had so often wearily tossed before,
he thought of Tencin. The cardinal, he knew, was no longer in the
greatest favour, and had been sent back to his archbishopric as a
punishment; yet he could not be the Primate of France and still be
without some influence. If he could do nothing else, he could at least
find out on what charge Elphinston, an officer of the King's army, had
thus been thrown into prison. So he sat down and wrote to monseigneur.
Of course more weeks passed thus--long ones to the poor prisoner in
the _calotte_, and almost as long to the woman outside who loved him
so, and to the man at St. Omer who was doing his best for him; then,
at last, the archbishop wrote, but could tell nothing. He was, he
said, astonished that such a thing could be. The Scotch officers had
served the King faithfully without exception; it was incredible that
one could be thus incarcerated. The only thing his Eminence could
suppose was that Elphinston must have mortally wounded or angered
someone of high position at court--someone much in favour with the
King himself, and able to procure a lettre de cachet from him without
any questions whatever being asked. He could imagine nothing else but
that. Then, having given vent to his surmise, he proceeded to suggest
to Sholto the very best steps he could take.
"Of all men," his Eminence wrote, "there is none for your purpose
like D'Argenson. As you know, all the family are of the same
trade--lieutenants of police, Presidents of Parliament, judges; and
the present one, like his father before him, is not only one of his
Majesty's chief judges, but also the chief Examiner of the _internes_
of the Bastille. The family is high in the world now, but some
generations back were low--forget not that. Yet, neither will your
remembrance of it have weight with D'Argenson. He has a heart of
marble if he has any heart at all, but with it a sense of justice that
it is impossible to excel. If Captain Elphinston is falsely detained,
or detained in error, D'Argenson will set the matter right, though he
may take months to do it."
"Though he may take months to do it." Alas! it soon seemed to
Archibald Sholto that he was more like to take years. He had got into
communication with this important personage through the influence of
the cardinal, but once in communication had advanced, or seemed to
advance, no further. The judge wrote in his tablets, it is true, the
name of Elphinston, and said that if he were in any prison in France
he would take care that his case was inquired into sooner or later.
Beyond that he refused to say another word.
And with this Sholto had to be content, and to try and persuade
himself that it was at least something toward the desired end. Also he
wrote to Kate, saying that it was from the Bastille that Fordingbridge
had been brought to execution, and that therefore doubtless it was the
Bastille in which Bertie was. And he bade her be of good heart and
hope for the best, since one of the principal examiners of prisoners
detained in the prisons had promised that his case should be inquired
into.
"Though he may take months to do it!" the cardinal had said. Verily it
seemed as if he had indeed known the man of whom he wrote.
For the months passed away outside the Bastille as they were passing
away inside, and to those without there came no news of him within; so
that, at last, Kate was led almost to believe that, as her husband had
lied to her from the very beginning, so he had lied to her at the end.
For it seemed to her that if Bertie had ever been in the gloomy
fortress, by which she now so often walked and to which she went and
stood before and gazed upon, he must have been released ere this, or
in some way have found an opportunity of communicating with her.