THE PRETENDER
THAT mood of deep dissatisfaction with his life which had been growing
upon Alistair Stuart of late was strongly with him as he left the
Underground Railway-station at Westminster, and walked across the
bridge on his way to see Des Louvres.
The night was misty, but not dark, the lamps were lit, and the Palace
showed up grey and spectral beside the water, while farther on there
stretched a dim line of river-shore unillumined by any spark of light,
as though night and slumber had overcome and blotted out that quarter
of the city, while the other parts were still awake with feverish life.
As Alistair reached the southern foot of the bridge all the lights and
sounds of Lambeth burst upon him with an effect of squalid but stirring
energy.
He plunged into the bustling thoroughfare, with its noisy
street-stalls, its jostling tramcars, and its hurrying passengers,
as a bather plunges into the sea, and took his way along the road
which branches southwards in the direction of Kennington. The sense
of bankruptcy and failure no longer affected him disagreeably as it
still did in the region he had just quitted. Here his poverty seemed
to bring him into touch with the life about him, and he looked at
everything with pleased, expectant eyes, like a traveller wandering
through the picturesque slums of some romantic town of Spain or Italy
in which he thinks of settling for a time.
He drew a deep breath of anticipation, like a man about to be released
from prison, as he reflected that the poverty which he had been afraid
of might become a glorious incognito, under which his nature would
have freer play than it had ever had in the world which had held him
hitherto. The thought of this new, strange freedom caused his blood to
tingle. Strange, formless instincts and yearnings began to stir within
him. He glanced curiously to right and left as he walked along, down
dark, narrow turnings with narrower courts and alleys leading out of
them, and the impulse grew upon him to throw off the ways and hampering
conventions of his class, and mingle in the mysterious, half-naked life
of this underground world of which he seemed to catch glimpses all
around him.
“There are adventures to be met with here!” he whispered to himself.
“There are men who commit crimes!”
All the old lawless blood of a hundred generations of highland
manslayers and freebooters surged up into his brain, and he fidgeted
in his civilized bonds as a boy on a hot summer’s day fidgets in his
clothes before the splash and sparkle of the sea.
For a moment he stopped in front of a house which was to let, but a
glance at his watch caused him to move on at a quickened pace. He was
amused with the idea that the watch, which he had bought in Paris,
would pay for a year’s rent of the house.
By this time the character of the thoroughfare had begun to change. He
was passing by terraces of lodging-houses standing back behind long
narrow strips that had once been gardens. In some of them the sickly
grass still struggled for existence, in others it had frankly given up
the ghost and been replaced by gravel. Decayed notice-boards behind
the railings announced the various ways in which the tenants of these
houses struggled for a livelihood; one aspired to be a coal-merchant,
one deemed himself a dentist, others would have liked to give lessons
in shorthand or book-keeping; none of them, it was to be feared, got
much beyond the stage of expectation.
Presently Stuart came to a street in which the houses seemed to be of a
better class; it was a street which still preserved some features from
the time when this neighbourhood had ranked as a residential suburb for
the prosperous middle class, on a level with Dulwich or Finchley of
to-day. The name painted on the side-wall was Chestnut-Tree Walk, and
the first house in the street was detached, and surrounded by a high
wall, over which a few straggling shoots of dirty ivy hung their heads,
while at the side of the house rose up one or two trees which, if the
thick black crust upon their limbs and stunted foliage could have been
washed off, might have proved even to be chestnuts.
This house was the end of Alistair’s walk. It was the residence of the
Comte des Louvres.
The situation was happily chosen for privacy. The neighbourhood was
not quite poor enough for a well-dressed man to be conspicuous,
and not quite respectable enough to possess an organized social
vehmgericht, while it was altogether off the track of the ordinary
foreign outlaw. Such of his neighbours as had noticed his existence
at all supposed the tenant of Chestnut-Tree House, known simply as
“Monsieur,” to be a teacher of the French language, who had seen better
days. The last supposition was not very wide of the mark, but the
better days were those of the Count’s ancestors, real and fictitious.
His great-grandfather, a wealthy furniture-maker, had conferred the
title on himself in the confusion of the great Revolution, after the
last of the true Des Louvres had perished by the guillotine. Similar
occupations of vacant honours were too common at the time for this one
to attract much attention, and the furniture-maker’s son, by a great
display of zeal for the Bourbons and for Holy Church, had succeeded in
firmly establishing his position in the aristocratic sphere. It was the
grandson who had dissipated the family fortune, leaving the present
Count only the inheritance of a good name.
The merits of his ancestors, or his own Legitimist zeal, had secured
for Des Louvres the patronage of the Pretender who passed as the Comte
de Rouen, but whom the Count invariably referred to in private as His
Most Christian Majesty Louis XIX. In the service of this personage Des
Louvres filled a position half-way between that of a press-agent and a
chargé d’affaires, supplying the English newspapers with paragraphs in
the Count’s interest, and generally watching the course of events on
his behalf.
Des Louvres had made no mystery of these functions, but a certain
obscurity hung over whatever other transactions he was engaged in. Some
persons believed him to be in the employment of a Government celebrated
for its elaborate secret police organized in every capital of the
world; others suspected the Count of rendering services even less
creditable to a certain foreign potentate, and hinted that the house in
Chestnut-Tree Walk, if it could speak, would be able to tell some very
strange stories indeed.
Among these activities of Des Louvres which he took less pains to hide
was his connection with the English Legitimists. It was he who kept
them in touch with the more important organizations abroad--in France,
in Spain, in Italy, and in Portugal. He cheered their flagging spirits,
oppressed by the sense of their insignificance at home, by making them
feel that the Guild was taken seriously on the Continent, and that
they themselves were persons of note in Paris and Madrid. It brought
consolation and refreshment to Egerton and Wickham Vane to know that
their toy conspiracy bulked largely in the columns of such trusted
organs of the Papacy as the _Osservatore Romano_ or the _Paris Univers_.
Des Louvres was one of those who know human nature only by its
weaknesses. Such men seldom come to grief, though they never come
to greatness. He had been the first to perceive that Lord Alistair
Stuart’s bankruptcy would change his point of view in certain respects,
and to lay his plans accordingly.
As soon as Stuart touched the bell-knob of Chestnut-Tree House--the
door abstained from the indiscretion of a knocker--he was admitted by
the Count’s confidential servant, a fellow whom it did not require the
science of M. Bertillon to identify as a hardened criminal. Leclerc,
as this respectable felon was called, received Lord Alistair with an
exaggeration of his customary deference, and ushered him towards what
Des Louvres called his cabinet.
On the way he observed respectfully:
“You will find Monsieur le Comte alone. His Royal Highness has not yet
arrived.”
He spoke in a sort of church whisper, as though the coming princeling
already cast a shadow of awe before.
Des Louvres came out to receive his visitor, whom he greeted with
enthusiasm.
“I am delighted you have managed to get here. Don Juan is most anxious
to make your acquaintance.”
Stuart had come to keep the appointment with a certain feeling of
interest in the romance of Don Juan’s exalted claims, tempered with
an insular distrust of foreign royalties and foreign decorations. His
prejudice softened insensibly under the Count’s blandishments.
“Has his father much of a party left?” he asked.
“Undoubtedly a very strong one. The priesthood has never taken kindly
to the constitutional dynasty, and you know that in those countries the
Church is still a power.”
“I suppose there is no prospect of his taking the field?” Stuart said
wistfully, as he thought of what a glorious escape it would be from the
ruins of his present life to take part in a romantic expedition to a
sunburnt land, to recover a lost crown.
The watchful Frenchman caught the note of yearning in Alistair’s voice,
and his answer was tuned in sympathy.
“On the contrary, there is every prospect just now. Not the father
himself, of course--he is too old--but Don Juan as his representative.
His father intends to abdicate in his favour, I believe.”
“And you think he has a real chance?” asked Alistair. His eyes lit
up as he pictured himself lying out on the wild sierras, making the
camp-fire under the cork-trees at night, and in the daytime taking part
in that great game whose stakes are death and renown. Already he was
marching, crowned with myrtle, through Gothic cities bedight in flags
and flowers, his ears deafened with the clang of joy bells and the
roar of exultant throngs, and his veins throbbing with the intoxication
of victory.
“If I did not think so I should not have asked you to meet him,”
answered Des Louvres, following up the impression he had made. “The
Prince has come to England in order to organize an expedition. All
he requires are the necessary funds to arm his followers with modern
weapons. As soon as he succeeds in landing the first shipload of
magazine rifles and ammunition the country will be in flames--I ought
to say that I mention this for your ear alone. You are the only person
in England beside myself whom the Prince is willing to take into his
confidence.”
Alistair received this compliment with satisfaction not unmixed with
surprise. Hitherto he had not been very serious in his support of
the Legitimist cause, for Alistair was one of those who are wiser
in judgment than in action, and it did not escape him that a party
which rallied to it such adherents as the two Vanes contained no very
formidable menace for existing institutions. To find himself thus
singled out as the one English partisan whom Don Juan considered worthy
of his confidence was therefore as unexpected as it was gratifying.
“If Don Juan would care to have me, I should like to volunteer for the
expedition,” he said eagerly.
“I know that you could not please him more than by such an offer,” Des
Louvres responded. “He will certainly invite you to serve as one of his
aides-de-camp. This will make it especially appropriate for him to
give you the Holy Sepulchre.”
Alistair could not resist a slight grimace. He was unable to overcome
the fear that by his acceptance of this doubtful honour he might be
making himself ridiculous. He had recently been forced to contrast
himself rather sharply with his elder brother; the contrast would be
sharp indeed between the Garter which Trent expected soon to receive
and this mock badge bestowed by a foreign adventurer.
Des Louvres was aware of Stuart’s feeling, which he had manœuvred
skilfully to overcome.
“Of course, the Prince recognizes that in the present state of his
affairs it is you who confer a favour on him by consenting to take this
decoration,” he said. “You must not suppose that he does not understand
the difference between you and a man like Egerton Vane.”
Alistair smiled.
“I shouldn’t think you would have much difficulty in persuading either
of the Vanes to accept the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.”
Des Louvres shrugged his shoulders.
“I have promised them the second or third class, as a matter of fact.
They are gentlemen, and it will make a good impression abroad if the
Prince appears to have a strong connection in England.”
He had scarcely finished his explanation when the faithful Leclerc
opened the door to admit the two brothers.
As Stuart had judged, Des Louvres had encountered no misgiving on their
part. At the first mention of the Pretender and his decoration their
flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes had betrayed the eagerness within.
In fact, their feelings had been so unmistakable that Don Juan’s agent
thought he might safely slip in an intimation that there were fees in
connection with the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, as in the case of
better known and more highly coveted distinctions. The fees payable
by a Chevalier, he informed Egerton, amounted to sixty pounds in
English money, while Wickham might compound for the lower dignity of a
Companion with forty pounds. This disagreeable preliminary had caused
much anguish to the brothers, who were both misers at heart; but after
a severe struggle vanity triumphed over avarice, and they handed their
cheques to the Count as Chancellor of the Order, on his assurance that
the sums named represented little more than the actual cost of the
jewels they would receive from His Royal Highness.
The sight of Lord Alistair Stuart in the Count’s study came as a
considerable shock to the Vanes, who had looked forward to patronizing
Stuart on the strength of their new honour. “In foreign Courts they
attach more importance to a decoration than to a mere courtesy title,”
Egerton had already laid it down to his admiring brother. “I am not
sure that, as a Chevalier of the Holy Sepulchre, I am not entitled to
take precedence of Alistair Stuart.” The study of ancient tapestry
not throwing any light on this important problem, Wickham received the
observation with that soothing docility which his brother had been
accustomed to exact from their nursery days.
But a bitterer stroke awaited the Chevalier Vane, as Egerton had now
instructed his servants to call him. For scarcely had the new-comers
exchanged greetings with the rival they found before them when a
confident ring at the front-door was followed by the entrance of the
one man whom they had most wished to crush with their newly-acquired
rank--in short, Mr. St. Maur.
Neither of the Vanes could conceal his chagrin at this turn of affairs,
and Des Louvres perceived that all his tact would be required to
smooth them down. As soon as the intruder had planted himself, with
his customary simple strategy, beside Lord Alistair as the person
of highest rank present, their host put his lips to the ear of the
Chevalier.
“It is a thousand pities that we have no better Irishman among us
than this fellow,” he whispered. “His Royal Highness insisted on my
presenting some representative of Ireland to him; and what could I do?”
“I think you should have declined,” the Chevalier Vane returned acidly.
“I consider that the dignity of the Order will be lowered if the Prince
bestows it on a man like that.”
“His family is very ancient and illustrious,” Des Louvres suggested.
The Chevalier Vane put on a pitying smile.
“I am afraid his family doesn’t much appreciate the connection. I have
never heard of St. Maur’s being asked to----” He named the ducal seat
to which St. Maur was in the habit of referring as if it had been his
childhood’s home.
“I am a foreigner; I do not understand these things,” said the
Frenchman. “But I have met this man in your flat, and I have heard you
introduce him to others as a relative of the Duke’s.”
The charge was a true one, and Egerton winced. The Count pursued
pitilessly:
“Besides, it is a very common thing in this country, is it not, for the
elder branch to ignore the existence of the younger ones?”
This was hitting Vane on a raw place. The abiding sorrow of the
brothers’ lives was that their titled relative, a vulgar Philistine
immersed in field-sports and such coarse pleasures, had never taken the
slightest notice of a cousinship which should have been his pride.
Further discussion was prevented by the sound of wheels outside. Des
Louvres instantly excused himself to his guests, and went out to the
front-door to receive his royal guest with fitting honour.
The personage who now alighted from a hansom-cab, and walked up the
steps to where the Count stood waiting with bowed head, was a tall,
swarthy young man of a rather heavy type of face, and sombre eyes. The
face and figure were not lacking in distinction, though they could
scarcely be called handsome. Their chief defect, however, was an air of
listlessness and lifelessness, as though the unfortunate bearer of a
great name had been crushed beneath its weight from his birth.
Life had, in fact, had nothing to offer Don Juan that he could accept
as compensation for what his forefathers had possessed and lost. The
misery of opposition, the misery of exile, and the misery of ruin
had accumulated their shadows over his cradle. The secret of earthly
happiness is to have found the work we are best fitted for, and to be
doing it with all our might. The only work for which this young man had
been formed by birth or circumstance was to saunter in black velvet
beneath the shade of cedar-trees, in a park wide as a province, with
a falcon on his wrist, and silk-clad favourites on each side of him,
while behind a curtain a queen and a confessor played chess for his
kingdom. It was thus that his ancestors had discharged their office for
two centuries; it was thus that he himself would have discharged it had
the kingdom been still to lose.
It is unhappiness to gaze too long at the unattainable. The memory of
the past had been to Don Juan what a glimpse of London is sometimes
to a savage, unfitting him to take up his daily task, and rendering
his life a dull ache of longings for the remote and unachieved. In
understudying the great part he was never likely to play he had missed
the chance of success in some humbler rôle.
The poor Royal Highness mounted the steps of Chestnut-Tree House and
greeted Des Louvres in a tone of intimacy.
“I am not too soon, am I? Those gentlemen have come?” he asked, using
the French language.
“They are awaiting you, sir,” the Count returned with a nice mixture of
cordiality and deference. “Leclerc, marshal His Royal Highness to the
audience-room.”
Leclerc, looking more like a gaolbird than ever, led the way upstairs,
while his master walked respectfully in the visitor’s rear. They
entered a large drawing-room in which the furniture had been disposed
with some care, so that an armchair stood by itself against one wall in
the manner of a throne.
“This chair is for you, sir,” the Count said persuasively, as the
Pretender stood hesitating. “If I may venture to advise, it will be
better to rise to receive Lord Alistair Stuart, as he is the heir to
a dukedom. The others are simply gentlemen, and you may receive them
seated. It will do good to maintain a little reserve with them, but
of course that does not apply to Lord Alistair, who is, or has been,
intimate with the Royal Family in this country. In his case I have
ventured to waive the question of fees.”
Don Juan’s face fell slightly at this last intimation, the exchequer
of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre being a not unimportant item in the
princely civil list.
“I have never given the Order to any one for nothing,” he objected.
“The price of the Grand Cordon is two thousand francs.”
Des Louvres put on his most conciliating air.
“You remember, sir, that you are going to ask Lord Alistair to render
you an important service. It is well to establish a claim on him
beforehand.”
“Still, Des Louvres, I think he should pay something. As a favour I am
willing to let him have the collar for a thousand francs.”
“I am afraid in that case he would decline it. I must tell Your Royal
Highness frankly that there is a very strong prejudice amongst the
British nobility against foreign decorations, no matter of what kind. I
had almost to urge Lord Alistair to accept your Order.”
The poor Pretender winced at this plain speaking.
“I trust, Count, you have not degraded my family Order,” he said, with
a flash of pride.
“On the contrary, Prince, I have given it prestige in British eyes.
Lord Alistair Stuart belongs to the highest nobility; his brother is
Minister of the Interior. Permit me to assure you that the moment it
becomes known that he has accepted the Order of the Holy Sepulchre its
value will be greatly increased. You will be able to sell as many of
the second and third classes as you like.”
“Of course, if you tell me that”--muttered the disappointed Prince.
“But I do tell you,” Des Louvres returned, with some impatience. He
was used to dealing with these waifs and strays of royalty, and their
airs and pretensions frequently tried his temper. “You have brought the
jewels with you, I suppose?”
Don Juan fished in his pockets, and brought out four small boxes
covered with imitation leather, and lined with cheap plush.
The boxes on being opened revealed small badges in different
metals--gold, silver, and bronze--in the form of a cross enamelled with
a Latin motto. The one intended for Lord Alistair was attached to a
neck-ribbon, and the intrinsic value of the four together might have
been about five pounds.
As soon as Des Louvres had arranged these gimcracks on a small table
beside the Prince he withdrew to summon the four candidates. On the way
he passed into his dressing-room, and selected his own collar and badge
from a number of other decorations more or less real.
Entering the room where the others were waiting, he drew a paper from
his pocket, from which he read aloud with perfect gravity, for though
Des Louvres was a rascal he was a Frenchman, and perhaps took the
proceedings more seriously than any of his English puppets.
“This is the protocol approved by His Royal Highness,” he explained.
“We shall enter the room in the following order: myself, as Chancellor;
Lord Alistair Stuart; Mr. Vane; Mr. St. Maur; and Mr. Wickham Vane.
I shall present you in the same order, and as I pronounce each name
you will advance, bowing low, and kiss the Prince’s hand. As soon
as the presentations are finished I shall recall you to receive your
decorations. Each of you will then advance in turn, and go down on
one knee, the Prince rising. His Royal Highness will throw the Collar
of the Order over Lord Alistair’s neck, and kiss him on one cheek; he
will fasten the Chevalier’s badge on Mr. Vane’s breast, and hand the
Companion’s badges to the other two.”
No one raising any objections to the ceremonial indicated, the Count
led the way upstairs, where his man was waiting to throw open the door.
As Stuart approached him, bearing himself with the dignity of one who
was himself a descendant of kings, Don Juan rose instinctively, and,
departing from the protocol, courteously shook hands. He sat down again
to receive the other three in the manner prescribed. The Vanes showed
their superior acquaintance with Court etiquette by merely approaching
their lips to the royal hand; the Irishman’s smack betrayed the warmth
of his nation.
The bestowal of the decorations followed, causing a disagreeable
surprise to the two brothers as they perceived the difference between
the value of their jewels as bullion and the substantial sums they had
paid for them.
The formalities happily accomplished, Don Juan, who had played his part
with a mixture of pride and uneasiness, at once put aside his state,
and invited the company to treat him as a friend.
St. Maur instantly clutched the chair nearest to the Prince’s, and drew
it forward, cleverly cutting off the new-made Chevalier, while Des
Louvres rang the bell for champagne and cigars.
The Pretender at once began to talk about the prospects of his cause,
not saying anything directly about the proposed expedition, but giving
his listeners to understand that he hoped before very long to receive
them more suitably in the palace of his ancestors.
The Prince’s French being rather too fluent for some of his British
hearers, and theirs not quite fluent enough, Des Louvres helped out the
conversation with hints and explanations of his own, now throwing in a
respectful question, and now reminding Don Juan of some point he had
passed over.
Alistair had suffered from a sense of awkwardness during the previous
ritual, and he still felt half ashamed whenever he glanced at the
gaudy ribbon on his shoulders. But as the conversation went forward
his reserve melted away, his eyes began to sparkle, and he questioned
the Pretender, as eagerly as good manners allowed, on the state of the
country and the chances of a campaign.
Don Juan noticed the interest he had aroused, and his tone towards Lord
Alistair Stuart became evidently more friendly, while the Chevalier
Vane as evidently bored him by disquisitions on the art and literature
of the promised land.
Finally, after throwing a look at Des Louvres, and receiving an
imperceptible nod in return, the Prince rose to his feet, saying, as he
did so:
“I shall hope to receive you again before long, gentlemen. Will you
remain behind a few minutes, Milord Stuart? I have something to ask
you.”
The others were obliged to take their leave, the Chevalier remarking
with some bitterness to his brother on their way home that even royalty
in these days is tainted with the Philistinism of the triumphant middle
class.
Another bottle of champagne was opened, and as soon as Stuart had
emptied his glass, Des Louvres approached the real object of the
conference.
“The Prince wants to buy arms for his partisans, as I told you, and he
is over here in order to raise the money. I have taken the liberty of
saying that I think you may be willing to assist him.”
“I!” exclaimed the astonished Alistair.
The Frenchman bent forward, and murmured softly:
“I ventured to tell His Royal Highness that you were on intimate terms
with the head of the South American Bank.”
“Mendes!”
“Exactly. The suggestion is that you should sound Mendes on the
Prince’s behalf.”
Alistair sat as one dumbfounded, and for some moments the other two
watched him without speaking a word.
A repugnance, which he could hardly explain to himself, battled
within him against yielding to the Pretender’s request. Mendes was his
intimate acquaintance; Mendes sat at his table, and entertained him in
return. He was a banker; it was his business to grant loans, and this
was a loan for an object which Alistair heartily sympathized with. And
yet he felt he would have gone to anyone rather than Mendes.
Des Louvres understood the silent struggle better, perhaps, than
Alistair himself. He also knew the way to end it.
“You are not taking any champagne,” said the tempter, refilling his
glass for him.
Mechanically, weakly, Alistair lifted the glass to his lips, and
drained it. As he set it down again a flush overspread his face, and he
cried out thickly:
“Why not? I’ll tackle old Mendes with pleasure. He’s not a bad sort; he
would like to oblige me, I know.”
An hour later the Frenchman and his servant were helping Lord Alistair
Stuart into a cab, to the driver of which the Count gave the necessary
directions, while the sober Prince looked on with a face of regretful
dismay.