“I WILL not forgive him. No, I will not. I do not like his conduct with
the lawyer’s daughter who has forty thousand pounds.” So said Lady
Betty Stair to herself many times a day; yet within a week, after a
five minutes’ talk with De Bourmont in the embrasure of a window, they
both came forth with happy, glorified faces, and De Bourmont was indeed
forgiven. He had told her that the Comte d’Artois had “voluntarily”
given him permission to return to France and he only awaited a chance
of a vessel sailing for Brittany, which was the only coast in France
where a royalist could land without being clapped into prison before he
had time to explain why he came. And then, looking searchingly at Lady
Betty, De Bourmont had said:--
“I cannot tell the woman I love, that I love her, until I have my sword
in my hand--but then--! Lady Betty, if I leave a letter for you when I
go away, will you read it?”
“Yes,” answered Lady Betty, blushing and trembling very much.
And so it came that their faces had a look of Paradise in them. This
was not the French way of proceeding, but the Scotch way; and it was De
Bourmont’s fixed opinion that the Scotch way was best.
Only a few weeks more passed before De Bourmont left for France, but
in that time many strange things happened. The first was, the news
that Bastien had been left a considerable fortune, not in assignats,
but in good English gold. Lady Betty, who could not forbear once in a
while whetting her wit on Bastien, made him a laughing-stock the very
night the great news came, while the ladies and gentlemen were awaiting
in the salon the coming of their Royal Highnesses. Everybody was
congratulating Bastien, and when it came to Lady Betty’s turn she said,
courtesying low:--
“A thousand congratulations, Monsieur Bastien, and don’t be _too_
generous with your fortune. You are not called upon to spend it _all_
in the service of the royal cause, as the Macdonalds of Stair did with
the Stuart cause.”
As Bastien was notoriously close with his money and had got more out of
exiled royalty than he ever gave it, these words caused a smile to go
around the circle,--not even Abbé de Ronceray being entirely free from
suspicion,--and Bastien longed to clap his hand over Lady Betty’s rosy
mouth.
A curious thing happened to Bastien at this time. When he had been
nearly penniless, he had thought it both wicked and absurd that he
should feel so acutely the fascination of a penniless Scotch girl like
Lady Betty, and when he had twenty thousand pounds, it seemed still
more wicked and absurd. And as money seeks money, his thoughts turned
instantly to Flora Mackenzie.
A few days after this, Counsellor Mackenzie made his way up the stairs
of the gloomy palace, and on asking for De Bourmont was shown into the
anteroom reserved for the gentlemen in waiting. There sat De Bourmont,
who was delighted to see the honest counsellor.
“My friend,” presently said old Mackenzie, fixing his clear blue eyes
on De Bourmont, “I have startling news in my family. Monsieur Bastien
has asked for the hand of my daughter Flora.”
De Bourmont was surprised; this was quick work.
“And I have come to ask your opinion of this same Bastien, who”--here
the counsellor brought his stick down on the floor with a thwack--“I
believe to be as arrant a knave as God’s sun shines on!”
De Bourmont laughed at this novel way of asking advice.
“I have nothing against Monsieur Bastien,” he replied, “and if I had, I
could not mention it, being a fellow exile with him.”
“Not to save my child?”
“My dear counsellor, I know of no man better able to take care of your
lovely daughter than you are.”
“Then you will say nothing one way or the other?”
“Not a word.”
“That settles it,” responded the counsellor, getting upon his sturdy
legs, “he shall not have my child. I beg your pardon for speaking
ill of your fellow countryman, but, to my mind, Bastien has the word
‘rogue’ writ large all over him--and is a--supercilious dog besides!
Could you have seen the air with which he asked for the honor of paying
his addresses to Miss Mackenzie--very well--very well--I’ll be ready
for this Monsieur Bastien when he comes to-morrow to get his answer.”
“My faith! I would not be in Bastien’s shoes,” said De Bourmont,
laughing; but becoming grave, he asked, “How does Miss Mackenzie stand
toward him?”
“Hanged if I know,” responded Miss Mackenzie’s candid father;
“good-morning.” And the counsellor, being a man of his word, Bastien
got his _congé_ the very next day.
The ladies and gentlemen in waiting, having little to amuse them during
the long days and longer evenings, got hold of Bastien’s unsuccessful
suit, and gave him many a sly dig as he walked about, frowning and
abstracted, and always thinking about his money. And Lady Betty, being
a rash creature, was not behindhand in this sly sort of chaff, so that
in a little while Bastien began to hate her a good deal harder than he
had ever loved her. And then, he was fully persuaded that he owed his
ill luck with Flora Mackenzie to De Bourmont, and privately resolved
to get even with him.
Meanwhile, as Bastien grew richer, De Bourmont grew poorer, and
suddenly the tradesmen he owed became very pressing in their
attentions. Being ignorant of the Scotch law of debtors, De Bourmont
listened very attentively when Lady Betty described to their Royal
Highnesses in the great salon, one evening, that peculiar institution
of Holyrood Palace concerning “abbey lairds.”
“This palace remains still a sanctuary for debtors,” she said, “and
any honest debtor, pursued by his creditors, who can reach that place
outside the gate called the Strand, is safe from arrest as long as
he remains within the demesne of Holyrood; and on Sunday he may walk
abroad anywhere he likes, without fear of molestation. My father
has told me that in his day it was a common enough thing to claim
sanctuary here, and to see a man fleeing toward Holyrood was sure to
start a rabble at his heels, all, however, apt to be partisans of the
fugitive,--for the people rather like to have the bailiffs outrun.
Sanctuary is sometimes claimed now; but, as my father said, the devil
is not so strong as he was forty years ago, and debtors are more
honest, or creditors more careful whom they trust.”
Their Royal Highnesses listened and laughed, as did the Abbé de
Ronceray, with whom Betty, for all her sauciness, was a great favorite;
but the most interested among all the hearers was Bastien. He made
so many and such minute inquiries about it that Betty asked him very
innocently:--
“Why, Monsieur Bastien, are _you_ thinking of claiming sanctuary?”
It was only a few nights after that when De Bourmont, walking down the
Cowgate in the moonlight and thinking of his proposed departure to
France and of Lady Betty, and wondering how long it would be before
he could come back and claim her, presently found two or three men
slipping out of the dark “closes” on either side, and apparently
following him. De Bourmont quickened his pace, and his mysterious
friends quickened theirs. De Bourmont broke into a run--so did his
unknown friends.
“Bailiffs, by all that’s holy!” said De Bourmont to himself; and then,
remembering Lady Betty’s story, he laid his heels to the ground for
Holyrood. A pack of idlers, standing on the street, suddenly sent up a
cry: “Bailiffs! and he’s makkin’ for the palace!”
Straightway they all started in full cry after him. Not all of them
really wanted to see him caught,--indeed, they rather impeded the
bailiffs in the chase; they merely wanted to be in at the dénouement.
Windows were flung up as the scurrying, shouting crowd followed after
De Bourmont’s flying figure. A friendly voice, evidently belonging to
some one who recognized one of the exiles of Holyrood, shouted, “Gang
it, Frenchy!”
This still further inclined the crowd toward De Bourmont, as, with
swift justice, it was felt to be a peculiarly unhandsome thing to
molest exiles and strangers within their gates. De Bourmont began
to perceive that the mob was on his side,--always an exhilarating
knowledge,--and he ran still faster toward the great gloomy pile
that rose before him in the white glow of the moon. Windows in the
palace were being raised, and two heads belonging to their two Royal
Highnesses were seen at the great windows that face the Cowgate,
watching the flight and the pursuit, which became exciting enough,
with yells, shrieks, and laughter,--for these were occasions for
public mirth. The palace courtyard was full of people, who overflowed
beyond the gate, but who were careful to leave a clear space for the
fugitive, now rapidly approaching. All the ladies in waiting had got
permission to run down the stone stairs to see the sight, which
was so excruciatingly humorous from the Edinburgh point of view,
and Lady Betty was among them. As the flying figure neared the line
of demarcation a great cry went up in English, French, and Scotch:
“Hurrah!” “Brava!” “Weel done!” Everybody, clearly, was against the
bailiffs, one of whom was almost on De Bourmont’s heels,--for Lady
Betty, recognizing him, had shrieked out, “’Tis Monsieur de Bourmont!”
The bailiff put out his arm and caught De Bourmont by the shoulder as
the two crossed the line together, and then they both tumbled over in
a heap, De Bourmont’s head and body well within the line, but his legs
outside of it.
A loud groan went up,--the crowd thought De Bourmont had lost,--and
some one came running down the palace stairs laughing stridently. It
was Bastien. The other bailiff had then fallen upon De Bourmont, and
all three were struggling fiercely on the ground. Suddenly Lady Betty
Stair advanced a step or two and cried out, in a shrill, sweet voice:--
“Let him go, you wretched bailiffs. Do you not know the law? If the
debtor’s head falls over the line, as this gentleman’s did, he is safe,
for the head is the noblest part of the body. And let him go, this
instant, I say!”
A ringing cheer broke from the crowd, and a brawny Scotchman, taking
hold of the uppermost bailiff, threw him aside like a bale of wool,
saying gruffly:
“Dinna ye hear the leddy?”
The officers of the law, more out of respect to the temper of the mob
than to Lady Betty’s words, let De Bourmont rise, who made her a low
bow, and then proceeded to carefully dust his clothes. At this the
crowd sent up a great cheer for Lady Betty, who, turning a beautiful
rosy red, said to De Bourmont:
[Illustration: “‘Let him go, you wretched bailiffs!’”]
“Monsieur, you have lost your only chance of being a laird of
Scotland,--a not inconsiderable honor. Do you not know the good old
song?” Whereupon she sang, in a thrilling, sweet voice:
“When, bankrupt frae care,
The fools are set free,
Then we mak’ them all lairds
Of the Abbey, you see.”
The crowd then, quite wild with admiration for her beauty and spirit,
shouted wildly for “Stair’s bonny lassie;” until Lady Betty, redder
than the rose, flew back into the courtyard and up the stairs to her
own room. The people then dispersed, well pleased with their evening’s
entertainment, and guying the bailiffs, who went away sheepishly
enough, followed by the multitude hooting and “heckling” them.
Next day the town rang with De Bourmont’s adventure and Lady Betty
Stair’s share in it. It was rather embarrassing for De Bourmont, but
Counsellor Mackenzie, hearing of it, came to the palace, and after
ha-ha-ing over it plentifully with De Bourmont, cried:--
“Now, let me see the bills of those rascally tradesmen, who know not
how to treat a stranger and a gentleman that has fallen upon evil days.”
De Bourmont produced his bills, which the counsellor examined. Every
now and then a great roar of anger would burst from him, and finally he
rose, shouting: “Thieves! cut-throats! highwaymen they are! You have
been most cruelly swindled, Monsieur de Bourmont, and I will make these
villains abate their overcharges; and I ask the honor of advancing you
the money to pay what you owe, and you may return it when you like.”
“Sir,” replied De Bourmont, “I have spent my lifetime with kings and
princes, but never saw I a more royal heart and soul than yours. And I
accept of your generosity as gladly as you offer it.”
The next day the counsellor returned with a batch of receipted bills.
“And I can tell you who was at the bottom of that chase along the
Cowgate. ’Twas your precious friend Bastien, who told abroad that you
were about leaving secretly for France.”
“The devil!” cried De Bourmont.
He went in hot haste to the anteroom of the gentlemen in waiting, and
there sat Bastien at a table, playing patience, while two gentlemen
of the suite lounged in a window. De Bourmont went up to Bastien and
watched him silently while he worked out his game. Then he said:
“Lend me the cards, Monsieur Bastien. I know a trick worth two of that
you are doing.”
Bastien handed him the cards, and De Bourmont, collecting them
carefully together, promptly dashed them full in Bastien’s face. “That
is for talking with my tradesmen,” he cried.
Of course, next morning, they went out at sunrise to a quiet place near
Arthur’s Seat, and lunged at each other for the best part of an hour.
De Bourmont escaped with a scratch or two, but Bastien came in for a
smart rip in his arm, and--worse luck--for a slight cut across his
unfortunate nose, after which the whole party went back to town for
breakfast.
De Bourmont had meant to keep it all from Lady Betty, but she got it
out of him before twenty-four hours. She was full of contempt, saying:--
“For you to fight Bastien! You ought to have seen him that morning,
seven years ago, at Versailles!” and then with blushes and sighs and
smiles and lamentings over her own unruly temper, she told him the
history of her assault on Bastien’s nose. De Bourmont laughed until he
cried, and then, looking at Lady Betty, saw her speaking eyes watching
him so gravely--nay, tenderly--that he suddenly stopped laughing and,
seizing her hand, cried:--
“Ah, Mademoiselle, nothing but my duty to my country could drag me away
from this or any other place, were it the dreariest on earth, so long
as you are there.”
Now, Lady Betty was rash, very rash, and, having decided in her own
mind that Bastien had long since forgotten that little encounter with
her green fan, it suited her to say to him, when she met him alone soon
afterward in the corridor:
“La! what has happened to your poor nose?”
It was only a little thing, but it was one of a long list that he had
against her, and he hated De Bourmont, and saw in an instant that Lady
Betty knew what had happened. And an evil thought came into his mind
and straightway left his lips.
“Lady Betty Stair,” he said, “I believe that you and the gentleman who
gave me this scratch think to be something more than friends; but you
never can.” Lady Betty turned pale with rage at Bastien’s impertinence,
and, for once, her nimble tongue and ready wit failed her. Bastien
followed up his advantage.
“Do you want to know why? Because your brother’s blood is on De
Bourmont’s hands. Your lover, Mademoiselle, killed your brother.”
At this Lady Betty stepped up quite close to Bastien, and looking him
full in the eye, said quietly:--
“I do not believe you, Monsieur Bastien.”
Bastien shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you not remember, Mademoiselle, the very first night you came to
this place, while we were at supper in De Bourmont’s room, he said: ‘I
was the Abbé de Ronceray’s first penitent, and I made him a confession
that kept him awake, I can tell you’?”
Yes, Lady Betty remembered it perfectly, but she would not acknowledge
it to Bastien; she merely turned to go, with a look of ineffable
contempt at him. Bastien, however, placed himself in her way so that
she could not pass, and continued speaking:--
“The Abbé de Ronceray’s first penitent was a murderer--and the
murderer, as you would call it, of Angus Macdonald. You are sharp
of wit, Lady Betty; you can find out all about this from the Abbé de
Ronceray, without his suspecting what you are trying to learn. Trust a
woman to ferret out what a man has no mind to tell her!”
“Monsieur Bastien,” said Lady Betty, in the same quiet voice in which
she had first spoken, “you have offered me several affronts during
the last few minutes, but the last is the greatest,--as if I could be
induced to follow your advice in the smallest matter in the world! I
shall lay the matter before their Royal Highnesses, and you will excuse
me for declining your acquaintance hereafter,”--and Lady Betty walked
off majestically.
This threat frightened Bastien. Being a trickster himself, he did not
understand the directness of a straightforward nature, and could not
persuade himself that Lady Betty would do so daring a thing as to
appeal to the poor royalties they both served; still, he was undeniably
nervous about it. As for Lady Betty, she was in such a storm of rage
that she scarcely knew what she felt; but after the first palpitations
of wrath, she hit upon one thing which completely reassured her. De
Bourmont knew she was Angus Macdonald’s sister, and would he, knowing
there was a bloody grave between them, offer her his love? Never!
But it is one thing to feel sure, and another thing to be certain.
She wished and longed, with an extreme yearning, that she could hear
some one deny the story. Of course she would not condescend to take
Bastien’s advice and ask the Abbé de Ronceray, and she thought it a
sharp trick of Bastien’s to suggest that she should do this, very well
knowing she would not. At all events, she would put it out of her mind
and never think of it again. Of that much she was certain.
But of course she did not. She thought of it all that day. The thought
walked by her side, and whispered in her ear, and lay down with her,
and rose with her. Nevertheless, she did not once lose her courage,
and resolving to show Bastien how little of a coward she was, that
night she dressed her lovely form in the only splendid gown she
had,--something white and shimmering,--and with her fair neck bare, and
her eyes brilliant and restless, she looked so handsome in her glass
that she was thrilled from head to foot with gratified vanity.
As she came daintily stepping down the stair, by the light of two
candles in the lobby, she found De Bourmont waiting at the foot.
“Dear lady,” he said, “this is the night I go. The ship waits at Leith
for the tide, and at midnight I take post to join her. And will you, as
you promised, read the letter I shall leave for you?”
Lady Betty, blushing and trembling, made him a low courtesy, saying in
a soft voice:--
“With pleasure.”
“And will you not kindly look out of your window on the courtyard at
twelve o’clock, when I shall be leaving? And if I see a light there,
’twill be an illumination to my soul until we meet again.”
“Until we meet again,” whispered Lady Betty. At that moment there was
the faint cry of a nightbird outside under the eaves--so faint that
only sharp ears could have heard it at all. Lady Betty, who was as
full of superstition as a whole clan of Highlanders might be, turned a
little pale.
“Hear that!” she said. “It is a bad omen, I am afraid. You know there
never was any fortunate love in this old palace; there seems to be a
blight upon it.”
At which De Bourmont, respectfully taking her hand,--for it was in a
ceremonious age,--answered, smiling, “Well, I have a presentiment--a
presentiment that I shall one day have the bliss of looking into those
dear eyes again.”
[Illustration: “‘Dear lady, this is the night I go.’”]
They were getting on quite fast in the Scotch fashion of courtship,
when a tall figure in a cassock loomed before them, and the Abbé de
Ronceray’s voice called out peremptorily:--
“Marie--Pierre--loitering here at this time of night? Oh, I beg you ten
thousand pardons, Mademoiselle, and you, too, Monsieur de Bourmont. My
eyesight is so bad--I took you at first for Marie, the maid, who is
always being followed by my footboy, Pierre--the rascal is in love with
her.”
The Abbé looked around blandly--Lady Betty was blushing, and De
Bourmont was laughing--it was too bad! Lady Betty, turning her back
on De Bourmont, walked on toward the salon and passed through the
broad folding doors and the Abbé followed her. It was early yet--not
quite nine o’clock--when the royalties usually entered the salon after
dinner. No one was there but themselves.
“I am afraid I was a little awkward just now,” began the Abbé,
good-humoredly. “I have spent so much more of my life in camps than in
courts, that I cannot altogether learn the soft ways of people about a
court. Sometimes I scold Pierre so loudly that I disturb the slumbers
of their Royal Highnesses themselves.”
Here was a chance to ask a question or two--after having solemnly sworn
she would not.
“Your first duties as a priest must have seemed strange,--confessions,
for example, Monsieur l’Abbé.”
“Very strange they seemed. I was ordained the morning of the day that
the mob entered Versailles, and before night I had heard my first
penitent confess that he had killed a man.”
Lady Betty knew well enough how the secrets of the confessional were
guarded, but in spite of herself, she burst out, leaning toward the
Abbé:
“And he killed Angus Macdonald of the Scottish Guard!”
The Abbé de Ronceray, although soldier, courtier, and priest in one,
was thoroughly disconcerted. He turned pale and then red. His lips
opened to speak, but no word came forth. A duller mind than Lady
Betty’s must have seen that she had hit the white.
“It is not worth while for you to try and deceive me,” cried Lady
Betty, with tears pouring down her pale face, “I know--I know it
all--Angus Macdonald was my brother--my only brother!”
The Abbé, much agitated, sank back in his chair. It is a very terrible
thing for a priest to reveal, even inadvertently, the secrets of the
confessional. He is pledged to die first--and many have died rather
than reveal confessions. He was a straightforward man, accustomed to a
soldierly plainness of speech. He knew not what to say, and could not
restrain a slight groan, and this was the confirmation of Lady Betty’s
fears. They had been quite alone until then, but the folding doors
opened and several persons came in. Seeing the Abbé and Lady Betty
sitting in silence at the other end of the room and plainly deeply
moved, no one approached them. Lady Betty, rising quickly, said to him,
in a broken voice:--
“You did not mean to tell; it was one of those dreadful coincidences
that no one can guard against. But for me--it breaks my heart! it
breaks my heart!” and without another word, she slipped away so quickly
and noiselessly that she might have been one of the ghosts in that
ghostly palace.
It was some hours afterward that Lady Betty, coming out of a dream as
it were, found herself sitting on the steps of Queen Mary’s Bathhouse,
at a distance from the palace. The night was raw and damp, and through
a gloomy haze she could see the faint glimmer of lights below her in
the town, and above her the great sombre pile of the palace, with here
and there a gleaming window. All was strangely still, and the only
distinct sound was the regular step of the sentry as he paced back and
forth on the pathway above her. She wondered dully to herself how she
managed to elude him,--for her present place was beyond the confines of
the palace proper,--and how long had she been sitting in that dismal
place? She remembered having on a white gown, which must have been
visible even in the dusk of night. But to her surprise, as she came
slowly out of the maze of pain and wonder, she realized that she was
wrapped in her plaid, although her head was bare and she still had on
her white satin slippers. She drew the plaid around her and cowered
where she sat in the gloom, leaning her head against one of the stone
pillars. The palace clock tolled out eleven. De Bourmont was to leave
at twelve. He would wait as long as he could in the courtyard, hoping
to see a light in her window. At that very moment he was searching
for her, to give her the letter she had promised to take. And all the
time he had known that Angus Macdonald was her brother! She could
recall a dozen times that she had spoken of him, and De Bourmont’s face
had been so tenderly sympathetic--he had seemed to feel so deeply for
this terrible tragedy of her early life; and he knew, he knew so much
more than she could tell him. As this thought struck her she uttered
a half-articulate cry of anguish, that broke off suddenly. The sentry
alone paused in his walk, listened and looked about, then, perfect
silence succeeding, resumed his steady tramp. No other sound broke the
quiet of the night.
At twelve o’clock the guard would be relieved, and a few minutes
before, a dark figure crossed the sentry’s beat. The man cried “Halt!”
and advancing at a run, seized hold of Lady Betty Stair, who turned on
him a face so white and desperate that he almost dropped his musket.
He recognized her in a moment, and anything more awkward for him never
happened. Was he to take Lady Betty Stair to the guard-house? He
began some blundering questions, holding on to her at the time, and
she, looking into his eyes quietly, and remaining quite mute, as if
she did not quite understand what he was saying, suddenly dropped the
plaid, melting, as it were, out of the man’s grasp, and ran quickly
and noiselessly toward the palace. The sentry was immensely relieved.
He picked the plaid up and determined to make a clean breast of it to
his officer. But he could not get over the uncanny look on Lady Betty’s
face.
“Poor soul!” he said to himself over and over again. “Poor soul! she
had the look and the walk of a ghost,--and of a tormented ghost, at
that.”
And at that moment De Bourmont with a sore heart, was on his way
toward Leith, to embark for France. For there had been no light in Lady
Betty’s window, and there was no letter of his in her hand.