ALL this time Bastien and Lady Betty maintained an armed neutrality,
though by degrees it grew on both that “the other one knew.” And a
strange thing happened to Bastien: he began to like Lady Betty a great
deal more than was either convenient or agreeable. At first he had
hated her, and never looked at her without remembering the blazing
wrath that showed in her eyes when she whacked his nose; and then there
was that secret uneasiness about something else which he always felt
in her company. “Faith,” he thought to himself sometimes, “perhaps it
was a good thing she had no more dangerous weapon than a fan, for,
sure, she would have used anything on me that came to her hand.” And
then he was a little fearful lest she should tell the story on him,
particularly as Bastien’s account of the whack he got from the baker’s
wife had passed into the history of the court, and was often alluded
to. The first time this happened was soon after Lady Betty’s arrival.
They were all assembled for the evening in the drawing-room, drinking
tea after the English fashion. Bastien was called upon to tell the
story, and he very promptly began the tale, meaning to stick to it if
Lady Betty should happen to let the truth out; for he had no great
opinion of a woman’s power to keep anything to herself. However, he had
but little fear, because the lie would have many years’ start of the
truth in any event.
By strange luck, Lady Betty, who was serving tea, sat next Bastien that
night. As he told the story for the hundredth time, amid shouts of
laughter,--Lady Betty, listening very gravely, apparently minding her
business of making the kettle boil over the spirit-lamp,--she could
not help blushing; but she blushed so often and so easily that nobody
noticed it. Just as Bastien wound up, though, the kettle, which had not
yet boiled, got a sudden tilt, and about a gallon of warm water was
poured over Bastien’s black silk breeches; and Lady Betty’s voice was
heard, in the tone of great meekness and softness which she always used
when she meant to be impertinent:--
“Dear me!” she cried; “how unfortunate! A thousand apologies, M.
Bastien.”
Bastien had more than a suspicion that it was not wholly an accident,
but he was much too astute to show his suspicion. He bowed and smiled,
and, professing to have an engagement with the chaplain, went off with
a very good air. De Bourmont, who remained behind, laughed in Lady
Betty’s demure face. He was not sorry to see Bastien discomfited.
This should have made Bastien hate Lady Betty the more; but so full
of contrariety is the human heart that it made him look at her more
and think of her oftener,--and Lady Betty was so charming that no man
was safe who came within the circle of her spell. Moreover, Bastien
could have dashed his brains out at his own folly when he thought of
it. Lady Betty was as poor as poverty,--for the dowry of a Scotch
laird’s daughter with a castle in the Highlands was likely to consist
of heather-bells, romantic rocks, and a large stock of family pride. If
there was anything on earth that Bastien loved more than his ease and
comfort, it was the money to buy that ease and comfort. And, as if no
element of contrariness should be lacking, Bastien felt that Lady Betty
hated him. But there is a fire that warms itself at ice, and a fancy
that loves contradictions,--and such was Bastien’s.
As for De Bourmont, Lady Betty daily grew more charming to him, and,
likewise, he continued to go to Castle Street, telling himself quite
seriously that each time would be the last. He sometimes wondered if
Mistress Flora, or her father the counsellor, suspected his real rank.
In those days, _émigrés_ were found all over England and Scotland,
earning their living by all sorts of trades. The counsellor had said to
him in Castle Street the first time they had met, “Sir, are you a man
of title?”
Now, if he had asked whether De Bourmont were a man of rank, it might
have been hard to answer; but De Bourmont could truthfully say he had
no title, in the sense the counsellor understood titles.
“For, look you, sir,” continued the counsellor, “although I respect
the French counts and marquises who work for their living, yet it has
ever been found that it is not well to introduce them into the houses
of plain citizens like me. Our wives and daughters get to be infatuated
with the fellows, and will not look thereafter at honest, plain
lawyers and doctors and merchants; and I am too proud a man to wish my
daughter to aspire to a rank she can never reach, and so I would have
her satisfied with her own class, which is good enough for any woman,
or man either.”
At last, though, Lady Betty Stair’s charms having helped to stiffen
up his resolution, De Bourmont actually determined that his next
visit should be his last. He felt some natural masculine interest in
knowing how the lawyer’s beautiful daughter would take the news, and
he had enough masculine vanity to feel very sorry for her in having to
resign his company. Flora Mackenzie was an unread riddle to him still.
There was a sort of magnetic current between them, although they never
exchanged a word except upon the subject of the French language and the
weather. At every lesson there sat, in a high-backed chair, Mistress
Mackenzie, a simple, handsome creature, who was quite happy in her
fine husband, her fine daughter, her fine house, and money in the bank.
On this day, therefore, when De Bourmont meant to make this
announcement, as he was ushered into the grim drawing-room there sat
the counsellor,--a tall, burly man, with the darkest, deepest, truest
eyes De Bourmont had ever seen. Boys sometimes have such eyes in
the white innocence of their youth; but when a man keeps it through
the storms of his manhood, he must be, as was this Scotch lawyer,
needlessly and superfluously honest.
The counsellor held a great big card of invitation in his hand,
while over him stood his wife and daughter, and even the gentle and
stately Flora was in a flutter; and as De Bourmont was ushered in the
counsellor roared out, in his big, rich voice:--
“Well, M. de Bourmont, you see my womankind all set by the ears over a
trumpery invitation to the castle.”
At this De Bourmont involuntarily straightened himself up. Although he
had managed to bear himself heretofore so that his rank and station
were only suspected, not ascertained, he could not conceal the pride of
a noble altogether.
“Sir,” he said with dignity to the counsellor, “an invitation from one
of the royal princes of France is no trumpery invitation. The Comte
d’Artois has received much civility from the gentlemen of Edinburgh,
and would return it as becomes a prince and a gentleman.”
“Good for you!” cried the counsellor, jumping up and slapping De
Bourmont on the back as a butcher slaps a bullock; while Flora’s sweet
voice echoed, “Good for you!”
De Bourmont was too much of a gentleman not to know how to take the
counsellor’s hearty commendation. He only laughed and rubbed his
shoulder.
But he had great curiosity about the invitation. They were strictly
confined to the nobility and higher gentry of the town, and how one got
to a rich lawyer in the new town puzzled him not a little. He looked
at the handwriting and he saw in an instant that it was Bastien’s.
The whole thing was revealed in a flash. Bastien wanted to bring the
Mackenzies and Lady Betty Stair together before De Bourmont’s eyes and
for his discomfiture, because never, since the night of Lady Betty’s
arrival, when Bastien had let the Castle Street cat out of the bag, had
there been good feeling between the two. De Bourmont had not only won
Bastien’s money, but had cut him out with the fair sex; and Bastien was
not the fellow to miss a chance of getting even.
De Bourmont said nothing, though, but returned the card into Flora’s
white hand, which he squeezed upon the sly. Flora changed color
slightly, but her blue eyes met his with cool composure. The womenkind
were plainly bent on going to the great ball, and the counsellor
at heart felt a secret satisfaction in the invitation, which was
the greater compliment because so absolutely unsolicited. Mistress
Mackenzie begged De Bourmont to show her how to approach royalty,--for
etiquette was strict at Holyrood and no man, woman, or child was
allowed to go out of the presence of the royal princes other than
backward. De Bourmont, in high good humor, agreed to do this. He put
the fine old counsellor in a huge chair to represent the Comte d’Artois.
“And look you, Mr. Mackenzie,” he said, “I would not place any unworthy
man to represent his Royal Highness.”
“I appreciate your handsome compliment, sir,” answered the counsellor
with dignity.
Then De Bourmont took Mistress Mackenzie in hand. She was wonderfully
quick to learn, and advanced, bowed, and retreated, with the tail of
her gown over her arm, so easily that De Bourmont taxed her with having
been to court.
“Not so much as you, perhaps,” said the counsellor, very significantly.
De Bourmont took no notice of this, which convinced the shrewd
Scotchman that the Frenchman was a man of position, because a vulgarian
would have jumped at such a suggestion with delight.
But if Mistress Mackenzie was easy to teach the graces of society,
Flora required no teaching at all, and showed herself much more apt
at French graces than the French language. Waving her white hand
disdainfully at De Bourmont, she said, “I do not need to be taught how
to approach _anybody_!”
At that she made her bow so prettily and gracefully that De Bourmont
cried, “Bravo!” and the old counsellor shouted, “Well done, my girl!”
There was no lesson in the language that day, but when De Bourmont was
leaving, Counsellor Mackenzie went with him to the door.
“M. de Bourmont,” said he, very positively, “I am under the impression
that you know more about royalties than you are willing to admit. In
short, I charge you with being a gentleman.”
For answer, De Bourmont turned his pockets, which were quite empty,
inside out.
“That does not argue that you are not a gentleman,” coolly remarked old
Mackenzie. “On the contrary, your willingness to show me your poverty
confirms me in my belief. But if you were the man I should take you
for, you would be fighting for your country in these days.”
De Bourmont grew quite pale, and stood for a moment with the shaft
rankling in his heart. Then, without another word, he went rapidly down
the street and disappeared from view.
The afternoon was fast melting into night and there was a gray pall of
mist and rain over the old town. De Bourmont walked on, not feeling
the rain or the wind. In his ears rang Mackenzie’s words. He should be
fighting for his country! He could almost see the Austrians and the
Prussians advancing upon French armies and trampling Frenchmen under
their feet--and he, he here in idleness! He ground his teeth, and
walked and walked for hours, he knew not whither. He did not appear at
dinner that night, and Lady Betty Stair was sad and distrait. About ten
o’clock, when the solemn game of ombre was going on in the grand salon,
De Bourmont came in. He looked haggard, and sat down silently in a
window seat. Presently, Lady Betty Stair came along and sat down by him.
“Where have you been, that you look so sad?” she asked.
“At Saulsbury Crag.”
“On such a night!”
“Yes. A Scotchman asked me to-day why I was not fighting for France. I
could not come back after that and play cards with his Royal Highness.”
“I know how you must have felt,” said Lady Betty, in a low voice.
“Not quite,” answered De Bourmont, with a smile that was ferocious in
its despair. “No one can know what a Frenchman suffers, all of whose
ancestors used their swords for France, while now she is fighting all
Europe, and he stays here in attendance upon royalty!”
De Bourmont spoke with such a concentration of rage that Lady Betty
looked around, fearful that he might be overheard.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Lady Betty Stair,” said he, smiling slightly.
“I wish I could be overheard! I wish this moment that his Royal
Highness would kick me out of this place. Sometimes, do you know, I
ask myself if those ‘canaille’ in France are not right after all in
thinking the country more than the king. See how gallantly they fought
the Austrians that we, _we_, WE, the royalists, invited into
France to avenge the killing of the king and queen! I assure you, I
have not spent a day in peace or slept a night through since first I
began following his Royal Highness. I thought it was my duty at first;
but there is ‘noblesse oblige’ for one’s country as well as one’s
sovereign, and I will be hanged, shot, or guillotined,” he suddenly
cried, “if I stay out of France another month!”
“Good, good!” cried Lady Betty. “There spoke a man!”
“But remember,” said De Bourmont, in a warning voice, “not one word of
this. I am here to stay until the Day of Judgment, if need be. Nothing
would induce me to desert his Royal Highness, Charles Philippe, Comte
d’Artois. I have no intention whatever of running away.” Here De
Bourmont smiled cunningly.
“I understand you perfectly,” gravely answered Lady Betty. “You want
permission offered you by his Royal Highness.”
And then De Bourmont asked, “Shall you be sorry when I am gone?”
“No,” said Lady Betty, looking him bravely in the eye, but the blood
dropped swiftly out of her fair face.
Four days after that was the grand ball. Lady Betty and De Bourmont
were much together in that time, and they were seen whispering to
one another so often and so intimately that those who could see
farther into a millstone than most people, confidently predicted that
“something would come of it.”
De Bourmont had some qualms about the coming ball, when Lady Betty and
Flora Mackenzie would be brought face to face. He was not vain enough
to think for one moment that either of them was in love with him;
but he apprehended Lady Betty’s fine scorn when she found out, as she
certainly would, that he had pursued his acquaintance with the lawyer’s
daughter in the new town.
De Bourmont had one of those generous temperaments that can be upon the
verge of falling in love with two women at once. And Flora Mackenzie
was very beautiful,--even more so than the daughter of the Macdonalds
of Stair,--and De Bourmont was in love with beauty wherever he found
it. However, he consoled himself with this reflection: “I shall soon
be out of it all. No more balls for me. I shall soon be marching and
fighting as a true Frenchman should be at this time.”
The night of the great ball arrived, and when De Bourmont and Lady
Betty went together to the anteroom of the Comte d’Artois and his
princess to attend them, De Bourmont felt very much in love with Lady
Betty’s beauty. She had no fine gowns, but she had the whitest neck
and the brightest eyes, and across her slender figure was draped the
silk tartan of the Macdonalds, which she wore as proudly as if it were
the ribbon of the Garter. If Lady Betty felt any regret at the coming
parting, of which she was the only soul in Holyrood that knew anything,
she very bravely hid it,--for De Bourmont was chagrined and half
offended at the air of careless happiness that she wore.
The company was assembled in the long ball-room, which blazed with wax
lights. At eight o’clock most of the guests had arrived, the gentlemen
wearing swords as part of their full dress, and the ladies mostly in
ringlets. A dais, covered with crimson cloth, with a canopy over it,
and two armchairs for the royal pair, was erected at the upper end of
the room. At the lower end a band was stationed which played Scotch
versions of “L’air Henri Quatre,” “Gavotte de Louis XI.,” and other
French compositions that referred to the Bourbons. Dancing did not
begin until after their Royal Highnesses had come and gone; but at
ten minutes past eight precisely the Comte d’Artois, magnificently
dressed in some old finery that he had saved from Versailles, and his
Savoyard wife, Marie Thérèse, upon his arm, made a solemn entry, and
proceeded up the long ball-room, bowing right and left to the ladies
and gentlemen who lined the way to the dais. They were not a very royal
looking pair, but very good-natured and amiable. Lady Betty Stair held
up the princess’s great train of flowered satin, while De Bourmont
walked next her, after the Comte d’Artois. De Bourmont was secretly
wondering how this ball would turn out for him; and no man can be at
ease who has two women in his mind. Lady Betty looked very demure,--she
was always very demure when she was not very saucy,--and she was not
less pretty for a concealed agitation that she had felt ever since she
knew that De Bourmont was “riding for a fall” from royal favor.
The royal party made a very slow and stately progress toward the dais,
the jewelled feathers in the princess’s head-dress nodding gravely
and incessantly, and presently they reached the dais and the princess
seated herself, her train being very carefully spread out by Lady
Betty, who then took her stand behind the royal chair. De Bourmont was
behind the Comte d’Artois’s chair, and he and Lady Betty exchanged
little nods and looks that took the place of conversation, which
etiquette forbade during the performance of the solemn and arduous duty
of standing up behind the chairs of princes and princesses.
Then all the ladies and gentlemen advanced in the order of their rank
and paid their respects. Most of them were known to the little circle
at Holyrood; but presently there was a sort of hush,--the beautiful
Flora Mackenzie, tall, superbly dressed, was approaching with her
father and mother, and scarcely ten persons in the room knew who she
was. She walked quite calmly and sedately behind the counsellor, who
had Mistress Mackenzie upon his arm. The older woman was finely gowned,
as became a rich man’s wife, and blazed with diamonds. Flora had on a
rich white brocaded satin, very unlike the simple muslins and gauzes
that were all the young girls of the exiled court could afford, and
around her neck was a great string of pearls. As she approached, Lady
Betty so far forgot etiquette as to whisper to De Bourmont:
“Who is she?”
“Miss Mackenzie,” answered De Bourmont, feeling as guilty as if he had
stolen something.
Lady Betty flashed him a look of scorn and jealousy and pain that
was indescribable. She felt quite sure that he had got them their
invitation; and Flora’s beauty and her noble figure and her string
of pearls went like a dagger to Lady Betty’s quivering heart. The
counsellor and his wife made their bows with dignity and without
any air of servility; but Flora made hers with matchless grace, and
looked as composedly at their Royal Highnesses as if she had been a
Montmorenci or a De Rohan, instead of a lawyer’s daughter from the
new town. It was a great sensation. Bastien, who was responsible for
it all, sat back in a corner and smiled like Mephistopheles. He had
paid off several old scores by getting that invitation, which had
required some diplomacy and some secrecy. He knew women well enough to
understand that Lady Betty, in her heart, at once taxed De Bourmont
with having got the Mackenzies to the levee. De Bourmont did not know
in the least how the old counsellor would take it that a man should
introduce himself into another man’s house under an assumed character,
but at the moment that Counsellor Mackenzie caught De Bourmont’s
glance, a twinkle came into the old Scotchman’s eye. He had found out
that De Bourmont was a gentleman and had charged him with it, and here
he was, one of the first gentlemen in the royal suite. De Bourmont’s
eyes twinkled, too, as he bowed and smiled at the counsellor. Mistress
Mackenzie gave him a bow of delighted recognition, but her heart jumped
into her mouth; here she had been treating a gentleman-in-waiting on
royalty exactly as if he had been a mere ordinary French teacher.
Only Flora looked at him so calmly and loftily that no one would have
dreamed that they had ever met before.
De Bourmont could not leave his post until the royalties saw fit to
retire, and that was not until nearly midnight.
Lady Betty spoke no more to him that evening. She often played at
haughtiness with him, and it was a joke of De Bourmont’s to complain
to the princess of Lady Betty’s unkindness to him, when she would be
called up and be gravely admonished; at which she would say such droll
things that the princess would laugh heartily,--and the poor princess
had only too few things to make her laugh. De Bourmont whispered to
Lady Betty, therefore:--
“If you are so cruel to me, I shall report you to the princess;” but
Lady Betty flashed him such a look of anger that he said no more to her.
A man will not stand much of that sort of thing, so, as soon as their
Royal Highnesses retired, De Bourmont left Lady Betty and, rather
ostentatiously, sought out the Mackenzies. The counsellor burst out
laughing when De Bourmont appeared.
“So, Monsieur de Bourmont,” he said, “you are a gentleman, after all!”
“But it is not my fault,” answered De Bourmont, with his usual air of
well-bred impudence. “I was born so, without anybody’s asking me if I
wished to be a gentleman or not. I had no choice at all.”
The counsellor was not very deeply offended with him for masquerading
as a tutor, although De Bourmont explained to them that the money did
not go amiss, as he was uncommonly in need of it. And all of them
laughed at De Bourmont’s plea of poverty, which, although very real, he
always put in such an amusing way that people could not but smile.
Then De Bourmont, who had not said a word to Flora, asked her to
join in the quadrille which was then being formed. She simply bowed
silently, and he led her to a place in the dance; and there, as soon as
he looked up, he saw Lady Betty Stair and Bastien standing up to dance
opposite them.
It was then too late to retreat, and, besides, De Bourmont would not
seem to run away from either Lady Betty or Bastien. The two girls
looked haughtily at each other. In Lady Betty’s eyes was a cool,
fine-lady air of scorn which was not wasted on the lawyer’s daughter.
Flora asked De Bourmont carelessly who Lady Betty was, and, in spite
of his cool and self-possessed manner, she shrewdly guessed out in an
instant something very near the truth, and returned Lady Betty’s look
of haughty contempt with interest.
The dance began. De Bourmont noticed Bastien whispering in Lady Betty’s
ear and laughing, and he saw the blood mount slowly but redly into her
clear cheek. Bastien was telling some story about him--probably more
about the wager--to Lady Betty. And he caught something about “a great
fortune,” in the turn of the dance--for Flora Mackenzie was a very
great fortune. Lady Betty carefully avoided De Bourmont’s eye, and
once, when in the dance their hands met and he gave her fingers a faint
pressure, she looked into his eyes with such an air of cold surprise
that he dared not repeat it.
At last the ball was over, and De Bourmont and Lady Betty, each angry,
chagrined, and burning with love for the other, parted, after having
plagued each other exquisitely for the whole evening.