Petticoat Rule

"What does your Majesty desire me to do?"

He came quite close to her, and she forced herself not to draw back one inch. For the sake of the fugitive prince and his friends, who had trusted in the honour of France; for the sake of that honour which, in her peculiar position, was as dear to her as her own, she would not flinch now; she would show no repulsion, no fear, though her whole being rose in revolt at contact with this man.

A man, not a king! Par Dieu, not a King of France!

His face to her looked hideous, the eyes seemed to leer, and there was lust for money, and ignoble treachery writ on every feature.

"We have explained it all to milor," whispered Louis under his breath; "a ship to be commissioned and sent to meet the Stuart. She will have secret orders – no one shall know but her captain – and he will be a man whom we can trust – a man whom we shall have to pay – you understand?"

"I understand."

"Then from you we want to know the place in Scotland where we will find Charles Edward – eh? And also a token – a ring, a word perhaps, by which that young adventurer will be made to trust his own person and that of his friends to our good ship. It is very simple, you see."

"Quite simple, your Majesty."

"The ship's orders will be that once the Stuart and his faction are on board, she shall make straight for the first English port – and – and – that is all!" he added complacently.

"Yes, that is all, your Majesty."

"And on the day that Charles Edward Stuart is handed over to the English authorities, there will be fifteen millions for your King, Madame, and a million livres pin money for the most able statesman in Europe."

And with consummate gallantry, Louis bowed very low and took her hand in his. It rested cold and inert between his hot fingers, but he was far too eager, far too triumphant to notice anything beyond the fact that he had succeeded in enlisting the help of Lydie d'Eglinton, without whom his project was bound to have been considerably delayed, if not completely frustrated. He had indeed not wasted this glorious morning.

"I am eternally your debtor, Madame!" he said gaily; "and 'tis well, believe me, to serve the King of France."

"I have done nothing as yet, Sire," she rejoined.

"Nay, but you will," he said confidently.

She bowed her head and he interpreted the movement according to his will. But he was impatient, longing to see this matter finally settled to his entire satisfaction.

"Will you not give me a definite answer now?"

"In the midst of so much chatter, Sire?" she said, forcing herself to smile gaily. "Nay, but 'tis a serious matter – and I must consult with my father."

Louis smiled contentedly. M. le Duc d'Aumont was at one with him in this. The letter had been originally sent to the Prime Minister, and the Duke, who was weak, who was a slave to the Bourbon dynasty, and who, alas! was also tainted with that horrible canker which was gradually affecting the whole of the aristocracy of France, the insatiable greed for money, had been bribed to agree with the King.

Therefore Louis was content. It was as well that Lydie should speak with the Duke. The worthy D'Aumont would dissipate her last lingering scruples.

"And your husband?" he added, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at milor, and smiling with good-natured sarcasm.

"Oh, my husband will think as I do," she replied evasively.

At thought of her father and the King's complacent smile, Lydie had winced. For a moment her outward calm threatened to forsake her. She felt as if she could not keep up this hideous comedy any longer. She would have screamed aloud with horror or contempt, aye! and deep sorrow, too, to think that her father wallowed in this mire.

She too cast a quick glance at milor. His eyes were no longer fixed on her face. He stood quietly beside Madame de Pompadour, who, leaving the King to settle with Lydie, had engaged Lord Eglinton in frivolous conversation. He was quite placid again, and in his face, gentle and diffident as usual, there was no longer the faintest trace of that sudden outburst of withering contempt.

The Duke of Cumberland's letter was still in her hand. It seemed to scorch her fingers with its loathsome pollution. But she clung to it, and after a violent effort at self control, she contrived to look Louis straight in the face and to give him a reassuring smile, as she slipped the letter into the bosom of her gown.

"I will consult with my father, Sire," she repeated, "and will read the letter when I am alone and undisturbed."

"And you will give me a final answer?"

"The day after to-morrow."

"Why not sooner?" he urged impatiently.

"The day after to-morrow," she reiterated with a smile. "I have much to think about, and – the only token which Charles Edward would trust without demur must come from Lord Eglinton."

"I understand," said the King knowingly. "Par ma foi! But we shall want patience. Two whole days! In the meanwhile we'll busy ourselves with preparations for the expedition. We had thought of Le Monarque. What say you?"

"Le Levantin would be swifter."

"Ah, yes! Le Levantin– and we can trust her captain. He is under deep obligation to Madame de Pompadour. And M. de Lugeac, Madame's nephew, you know – we had thought of him to carry the secret orders to Brest to the captain of Le Levantin directly she is ready to sail. Methinks we could trust him. His interests are bound up with ours. And there is another, too; but more of that anon. The secret orders will bear our own royal signature, and you might place them yourself, with the token, in our chosen messenger's hands."

Once more he gave her a gracious nod, and she curtseyed with all the deference, all the formality which the elaborate etiquette of the time demanded. Louis looked at her long and searchingly, but apparently there was nothing in the calm, serene face to disturb his present mood of complacent satisfaction. He put out his podgy hand to her; the short, thick fingers were covered with rings up to their first joint, and Lydie contrived to kiss the large signet – an emblem of that kingship to which she was true and loyal – without letting her lips come in contact with his flesh.

What happened during the next ten minutes she could not afterward have said. Her whole mind was in a turmoil of thought, and every time the infamous letter crackled beneath her corselet, she shuddered as with fear. Quite mechanically she saw the King's departure, and apparently she acted with perfect decorum and correctness. Equally, mechanically she saw the chattering throng gradually disperse. The vast room became more and more empty, the buzz less and less loud. She saw milor as through a mist, mostly with back bent, receiving the adieux of sycophants; she heard various murmurs in her own ears, mostly requests that she should remember and be ready to give, or at least to promise. She saw the procession of courtiers, of flatterers, of friends and enemies pass slowly before her; in the midst of them she vaguely distinguished Mme. de Stainville's brightly coloured gown.

La belle Irène lingered a long time beside milor. She was one of the last to leave, and though Lydie forced herself not to look in that direction, she could not help hearing the other woman's irritating giggle, and Lord Eglinton's even, pleasant voice framing compliments, that pandered to that brainless doll's insatiable vanity.

And this when he knew that his friend was about to be betrayed.

The taint! The horror! The pollution of it all!

Fortunately she had not seen her father, for her fortitude might have broken down if she read that same awful thought of treachery in his face that had so disgusted her when Louis stood beside her.

The last of that senseless, indifferent crowd had gone. The vast room was empty. Milor had accompanied Mme. de Stainville as far as the door. The murmur of talk and laughter came now only as a faint and lingering echo. Anon it died away in the distant corridors.

Lydie shivered as if with cold.

CHAPTER XVI

STRANGERS

And now she was alone.

Torpor had left her; even that intensity of loathing had gone, which for the past half-hour had numbed her very senses and caused her to move and speak like an irresponsible automaton. She felt as if she had indeed seen and touched a filthy, evil reptile, but that for the moment it had gone out of her sight. Presently it would creep out of its lair again, but by that time she would be prepared.

She must be prepared; therefore she no longer shuddered at the horror of it, but called her wits to her aid, her cool judgment and habitual quick mode of action, to combat the monster and render it powerless.

She knew of course that the King would not allow himself to be put off with vague promises. Within the two days' delay which she had asked of him he would begin to realize that she had only meant to temporise, and never had any intention of helping him in his nefarious schemes. Then he would begin to act for himself.

Having understood that she meant to circumvent him if she could, he was quite shrewd enough to devise some means of preventing those tempting millions from eluding his grasp. Though he did not know at the present moment where or how to lay his hands on Prince Charles Edward and his friends, he knew that they would of necessity seek the loneliness of the west coast of Scotland.

Vaguely that particular shore had always been spoken of in connection with any expedition for the succour of the unfortunate prince, and although the commissioning of ships was under the direct administration of the Comptrôlleur-Général of Finance, Louis, with the prospective millions dangling before him, could easily enough equip Le Levantin, and send her on a searching expedition without having recourse to State funds; whilst it was more than likely that Charles Edward, wearied of waiting, and in hourly fear of detection and capture, would be quite ready to trust himself and his friends to any French ship that happened to come on his track, whether her captain brought him a token from his friend or not.

All this and more would occur to King Louis, of course, in the event of her finally refusing him coöperation, or trying to put him off longer than a few days. Just as she had thought it all out, visualized his mind, as it were, so these various plans would present themselves to him sooner of later. It was a great thing to have gained two days. Forty-eight hours' start of that ignoble scheme would, she hoped, enable her to counteract it yet.

So much for King Louis and his probable schemes! Now her own plans.

To circumvent this awful treachery, to forestall it, that of course had become her task, and it should not be so difficult, given that two days' start and some one whom she could trust.

Plans now became a little clearer in her head; they seemed gradually to disentangle themselves from a maze of irrelevant thoughts.

Le Monarque was ready to start at any moment. Captain Barre, her commander, was the soul of honour. A messenger swift and sure and trustworthy must ride to Le Havre forthwith with orders to the captain to set sail at once, to reach that lonely spot on the west coast of Scotland known only to herself and to her husband, where Charles Edward Stuart and his friends were even now waiting for succour.

The signet-ring – Lord Eglinton's – entrusted to Captain Barre should ensure the fugitives' immediate confidence. There need be no delay, and with favourable wind and weather Le Monarque should have the Prince and his friends on board her before Le Levantin had been got ready to start.

Then Le Monarque should not return home direct; she should skirt the Irish coast and make for Brittany by a circuitous route; a grave delay perhaps, but still the risks of being intercepted must be minimised at all costs.

A lonely village inland would afford shelter to the Young Pretender and his adherents for a while, until arrangements could be made for the final stage of their journey into safety – Austria, Spain, or any country in fact where Louis' treachery could not overtake them.

It was a big comprehensive scheme, of course; one which must be carried to its completion in defiance of King Louis. It was never good to incur the wrath of a Bourbon, and, unless the nation and the parliaments ranged themselves unequivocally on her side, it would probably mean the sudden ending of her own and her husband's career, the finality of all her dreams. But to this she hardly gave a thought.

The project itself was not difficult of execution, provided she had the coöperation of a man whom she could absolutely trust. This was the most important detail in connection with her plans, and it alone could ensure their success.

Her ally, whoever he might be, would have to start this very afternoon for Le Havre, taking with him the orders for Captain Barre and the signet ring which she would give him.

There were one hundred and fifty leagues between Versailles and Le Havre as the crow flies, and Lydie was fully aware of the measure of strength and endurance which a forced ride across country and without drawing rein would entail.

It would mean long gallops at breakneck speed, whilst slowly the summer's day yielded to the embrace of evening, and anon the glowing dusk paled and swooned into the arms of night. It would mean a swift and secret start at the hour when the scorching afternoon sun had not yet lifted its numbing weight from the journeyman's limbs and still lulled the brain of the student to drowsiness and the siesta; the hour when the luxurious idler was just waking from sleep, and the labourer out in the field stretched himself after the noonday rest.

It would mean above all youth and enthusiasm; for Le Havre must be reached ere the rising sun brought the first blush of dawn on cliffs, and crags, and sea; Le Monarque must set sail for Scotland ere France woke from her sleep.

Twelve hours in the saddle, a good mount, the strength of a young bullock, and the astuteness of a fox!

Lydie still sat in the window embrasure, her eyes closed, her graceful head with its wealth of chestnut hair resting against the delicate coloured cushions of her chair, her perfectly modelled arms bared to the elbow lying listlessly in her lap, one hand holding the infamous letter, written by the Duke of Cumberland to King Louis. She herself a picture of thoughtful repose, statuesque and cool.

It was characteristic of her whole personality that she sat thus quite calmly, thinking out the details of her plan, apparently neither flustered nor excited. The excitement was within, the desire to be up and doing, but she would have despised herself if she had been unable to conquer the outward expressions of her agitation, the longing to walk up and down, to tear up that ignoble letter, or to smash some inoffensive article that happened to be lying by.

Her thoughts then could not have been so clear. She could not have visualized the immediate future; the departure of Le Monarque at dawn – Captain Barre receiving the signet-ring – that breakneck ride to Le Havre.

Then gradually from out the rest of the picture one figure detached itself from her mind – her husband.

"Le petit Anglais," the friend of Charles Edward Stuart; weak, luxurious, tactless, but surely loyal.

Lydie half smiled when the thought first took shape. She knew so little of her husband. Just now, when she heard him condemn the King's treacherous proposals with such unequivocal words of contempt, she had half despised him for this blundering want of diplomatic art. Manlike he had been unable to disguise his loathing for Louis' perfidy, and by trying to proclaim his loyalty to his friend, all but precipitated the catastrophe that would have delivered Charles Edward Stuart into the hands of the English. But for Lydie's timely interference the King, angered and huffed, would have departed then and there and matured his own schemes before anything could be done to foil them.

But with her feeling of good-natured disdain, there had even then mingled a sensation of trust; this she recalled now when her mind went in search of the man in whom she could confide. She would in any case have to ask her husband for the token agreed on between him and the Stuart Prince, and also for final directions as to the exact spot where the fugitives would be most surely found by Captain Barre.

Then why should he not himself take both to Le Havre?

Again she smiled at the thought. The idea had occurred to her that she did not even know if milor could ride. And if perchance he did sit a horse well, had he the physical strength, the necessary endurance, for that flight across country, without a halt, with scarce a morsel of food on the way?

She knew so little about him. Their lives had been spent apart. One brief year of wedded life, and they were more strange to one another than even they had been before their marriage. He no doubt thought her hard and unfeminine, she of a truth deemed him weak and unmanly.

Still there was no one else, and with her usual determination she forced her well-schooled mind to dismiss all those thoughts of her husband which were disparaging to him. She tried not to see him as she had done a little while ago, giving himself over so readily to the artificial life of this Court of Versailles and its enervating etiquette, yielding to the whispered flatteries of Irène de Stainville, pandering to her vanity, admiring her femininity no doubt in direct contrast to his wife's more robust individuality.

Afterward, whenever she thought the whole matter over, she never could describe accurately the succession of events just as they occurred on that morning. She seemed after a while to have roused herself from her meditations, having fully made up her mind to carry her project through from beginning to end, and with that infamous letter still in her hand she rose from her chair and walked across the vast audience chamber, with the intention of going to her own study, there to think out quietly the final details of her plans.

Her mind was of course intent on the Stuart Prince and his friends: on Le Monarque and Captain Barre, and also very much now on her husband; but she could never recollect subsequently at what precise moment the actual voice of Lord Eglinton became mingled with her thoughts of him.

Certain it is that, when in crossing the room she passed close to the thronelike bedstead, whereupon her strangely perturbed imagination wilfully conjured up the picture of milor holding his court, with la belle Irène in a brilliant rose-coloured gown complacently receiving his marked attentions, she suddenly heard him speak:

"One second, I entreat you, Madame, if you can spare it!"

Her own hand at the moment was on that gilded knob of the door, through which she had been about to pass. His voice came from somewhere close behind her.

She turned slightly toward him, and saw him standing there, looking very fixedly at her, with a gaze which had something of entreaty in it, and also an unexplainable subtle something which at first she could not quite understand.

"I was going to my study, milor," she said, a little taken aback, for she certainly had not thought him in the room.

"Therefore I must crave your indulgence if I intrude," he said simply.

"Can I serve you in any way?"

"Your ladyship is pleased to be gracious – "

"Yes?"

She was accustomed to his diffident manner and to his halting speech, which usually had the knack of irritating her. But just now she seemed inclined to be kind. She felt distinctly pleased that he was here. To her keenly sensitive nature it seemed as if it had been her thoughts which had called to him, and that something in him responded to her wish that he should be the man to take her confidential message to the commander of Le Monarque.

Now his eyes dropped from her face and fixed themselves on the hand which had fallen loosely to her side.

"That paper which you hold, Madame – "

"Yes?"

"I pray you give it to me."

"To you? Why?" she asked, as the encouraging smile suddenly vanished from her face.

"Because I cannot bear the sight of Mme. la Marquise d'Eglinton, my wife, sullying her fingers one second longer by contact with this infamy."

He spoke very quietly, in that even, gentle, diffident voice of his, whilst his eyes once more riveted themselves on her face.

Instinctively she clutched the letter tighter, and her whole figure seemed to stiffen as she looked at him full now, a deep frown between her eyes, her whole attitude suggestive of haughty surprise and of lofty contempt. There was dead silence in the vast room save for the crackling of that paper, which to a keenly sensitive ear would have suggested the idea that the dainty hand which held it was not as steady as its owner would have wished.

It seemed suddenly as if with the speaking of a few words these two people, who had been almost strangers, had by a subtle process become antagonists, and were unconsciously measuring one another's strength, mistrustful of one another's hidden weapons. But already the woman was prepared for a conflict of will, a contest for that hitherto undisputed mastery, which she vaguely feared was being attacked, and which she would not give up, be the cost of defence what it may, whilst the man was still diffident, still vaguely hopeful that she would not fight, for his armour was vulnerable where hers was not, and she owned certain weapons which he knew himself too weak to combat.

"Therefore I proffer my request again, Madame," he said after a pause. "That paper – "

"A strong request, milor," said Lydie coldly.

"It is more than a request, Madame."

"A command perhaps?"

He did not reply; obviously he had noted the sneer, for a very slight blush rose to his pale cheeks. Lydie, satisfied that the shaft had gone home, paused awhile, just long enough to let the subtle poison of her last words sink well in, then she resumed with calm indifference:

"You will forgive me, milor, when I venture to call your attention to the fact that hitherto I have considered myself to be the sole judge and mentor of my own conduct."

"Possibly this has worked very well in all matters, Madame," he replied, quite unruffled by her sarcasm, "but in this instance you see me compelled to ask you – reluctantly I admit – to give me that letter and then to vouchsafe me an explanation as to what you mean to do."

"You will receive it in due course, milor," she said haughtily; "for the moment I must ask you to excuse me. I am busy, and – "

She was conscious of an overwhelming feeling of irritation at his interference and, fearing to betray it beyond the bounds of courtesy, she wished to go away. But now he deliberately placed his hand on the knob, and stood between her and the door.

"Milor!" she protested.

"Yes, I am afraid I am very clumsy, Madame," he said quite gently. "Let us suppose that French good manners have never quite succeeded in getting the best of my English boorishness. I know it is against every rule of etiquette that I should stand between you and the door through which you desire to pass, but I have humbly asked for an explanation and also for that letter, and I cannot allow your ladyship to go until I have had it."

"Allow?" she said, with a short mocking laugh. "Surely, milor, you will not force me to refer to the compact to which you willingly subscribed when you asked me to be your wife?"

"'Tis not necessary, Madame, for I well remember it. I gave you a promise not to interfere with your life, such as you had chosen to organize it. I promised to leave you free in thought, action, and conduct, just as you had been before you honoured me by consenting to bear my name."

"Well, then, milor?" she asked.

"This is a different matter, Mme. la Marquise," he replied calmly, "since it concerns mine own honour and that of my name. Of that honour I claim to be the principal guardian."

Then as she seemed disinclined to vouchsafe a rejoinder he continued, with just a shade more vehemence in his tone:

"The proposal which His Majesty placed before me awhile ago, that same letter which you still hold in your hand, are such vile and noisome things that actual contact with them is pollution. As I see you now with that infamous document between those fingers which I have had the honour to kiss, it seems to me as if you were clutching a hideous and venomous reptile, the very sight of which should have been loathsome to you, and from which I should have wished to see you turn as you would from a slimy toad."