Petticoat Rule Part 16

Then as her father made no comment, she continued more eagerly:

"Lord Eglinton will not deny me, as you know; he is rich and Charles Edward Stuart is his friend. What _Le Monarque_ has cost for provisioning, that we will immediately replace. For the moment we will borrow this ship from His Majesty's navy. _That_ he _cannot_ refuse! and I give you and His Majesty my word of honour that _Le Monarque_ shall not cost the Treasury one single sou--even the pay of her crew shall be defrayed by us from the moment that she sails out of Le Havre until the happy moment when she returns home with Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his friends safe and sound aboard."

There was silence between them for awhile. The Duc d'Aumont's eyes were fixed steadily on a distant point on the horizon, but Lydie's eyes never for a second strayed away from her father's face.

"Will _Le Monarque_ have a long journey to make?" asked the Duke lightly.

"Yes!" she replied.

"To the coast of Scotland?"

"Yes."

"The west coast, of course?"

"Why should you ask, dear?"

She asked him this question quite casually, then, as he did not reply, she asked it again, this time with a terrible tightening of her heart-strings. Suddenly she remembered her suspicions, when first she caught the glance of intelligence which pa.s.sed swiftly from him to miladi.

With a quick gesture of intense agitation she placed a hand on his wrist.

"Father!" she said in a scarce audible murmur.

"Yes, my dear. What is it?"

"I don't know. I--I have been much troubled of late. I do not think that my perceptions are perhaps as keen as they were--and as you say, this matter of the Stuart Prince has weighed heavily on my mind.

Therefore, will you forgive me, dear, if--if I ask you a question which may sound undutiful, disloyal to you?"

"Of course I will forgive you, dear," he said, after a slight moment of hesitation. "What is it?"

He had pulled himself together, and now met his daughter's glance with sufficient firmness, apparently to rea.s.sure her somewhat, for she said more quietly:

"Will you give me your word of honour that you personally know of no act of treachery which may be in contemplation against the man who trusts in the honour of France?"

Her glowing eyes rested upon his; they seemed desirous of penetrating to the innermost recesses of his soul. M. le Duc d'Aumont tried to bear the scrutiny without flinching but he was no great actor, nor was he in the main a dishonourable man, but he thought his daughter unduly chivalrous, and he held that political considerations were outside the ordinary standards of honour and morality.

Anyway he could not bring himself to give her a definite reply; her hand still grasped his wrist--he took it in his own and raised it to his lips.

"My father!" she pleaded, her voice trembling, her eyes still fixed upon him, "will you not answer my question?"

"It is answered, my dear," he replied evasively. "Do you think it worthy of me--your father--to protest mine honesty before my own child?"

She looked at him no longer, and gently withdrew her hand from his grasp. She understood that, indeed, he had answered her question.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WEIGHT OF ETIQUETTE

Perhaps certain characteristics which milor the Marquis of Eglinton had inherited from his English grandfather caused him to a.s.sume a more elaborate costume for his _pet.i.t lever_ than the rigid court etiquette of the time had prescribed.

According to every mandate of usage and fashion, when, at exactly half-past ten o'clock, he had asked M. Achille so peremptorily for his shoes and then sat on the edge of his bed, with legs dangling over its sides, he should have been attired in a flowered dressing gown over a lace-ruffled _chemise de nuit_, and a high-peaked _bonnet-de-coton_ with the regulation ta.s.sel should have taken the place of the still absent perruque.

Then all the distinguished gentlemen who stood nearest to him would have known what to do. They had all attended _pet.i.ts levers_ of kings, courtisanes, and Ministers, ever since their rank and dignities ent.i.tled them so to do. Mme. la Comtesse de Stainville, for instance, would have stepped aside at this precise juncture with a deep curtsey and mayhap a giggle or a smirk--since she was privileged to be frivolous--whereupon M. Achille would with the proper decorum due to so solemn a function have handed M. le Controleur's day shirt to the visitor of highest rank there present, who was privileged to pa.s.s it over milor's head.

That important formality accomplished, the great man's toilet could be completed by _M. le valet-de-chambre_ himself. But who had ever heard of a Minister's _pet.i.t-lever_ being brought to a close without the ceremony of his being helped on with his shirt by a prince of the blood, or at least a marshal of France?

However, _le pet.i.t Anglais_ had apparently some funny notions of his own--heirlooms, no doubt, from that fog-ridden land beyond the seas, the home of his ancestors--and vainly had Monsieur Achille, that paragon among flunkeys, tried to persuade his Marquis not to set the hitherto inviolate etiquette of the Court of France quite so flagrantly at defiance.

All his efforts had been in vain.

Monsieur d'Argenson, who was present on this 13th of August, 1746, tells us that when milor did call for his shoes at least ten minutes too soon, and was thereupon tenderly reproached by Madame la Comtesse de Stainville for this ungallant haste, he was already more than half dressed.

True, the flowered _robe-de-chambre_ was there--and vastly becoming, too, with its braided motifs and downy lining of a contrasting hue--but when milor threw off the coverlet with a boyish gesture of impatience, he appeared clad in a daintily frilled day-shirt, breeches of fine faced cloth, whilst a pair of white silk stockings covered his well-shaped calves.

True, the perruque was still absent, but so was the regulation cotton night-cap; instead of these, milor, with that eccentricity peculiar to the entire British race, wore his own hair slightly powdered and tied at the nape of the neck with a wide black silk bow.

Monsieur Achille looked extremely perturbed, and, had his rigorous features ventured to show any expression at all, they would undoubtedly have displayed one of respectful apology to all the high-born gentlemen who witnessed this unedifying spectacle. As it was, the face of _Monsieur le valet-de-chambre_ was set in marble-like rigidity; perhaps only the slightest suspicion of a sigh escaped his lips as he noted milor's complete unconsciousness of the enormity of his offense.

Monsieur le Controleur had been in the very midst of an animated argument with Madame de Stainville anent the respective merits of rose red and turquoise blue as a foil to a mellow complexion. This argument he had broken off abruptly by calling for his shoes. No wonder Irene pouted, her pout being singularly becoming.

"Had I been fortunate enough in pleasing your lordship with my poor wit," she said, "you had not been in so great a hurry to rid yourself of my company."

"Nay, madame, permit me to explain," he protested gently. "I pray you try and remember that for the last half-hour I have been the happy yet feeble target for the shafts aimed at me by your beauty and your wit.

Now I always feel singularly helpless without my waistcoat and my shoes. I feel like a miserable combatant who, when brought face to face with a powerful enemy, hath been prevented from arming himself for the fray."

"But etiquette----" she protested.

"Etiquette is a jade, madame," he retorted; "shall not you and I turn our backs on her?"

In the meantime M. Achille had, with becoming reverence, taken M. le Controleur's coat and waistcoat in his august hands, and stood there holding them with just that awed expression of countenance which a village cure would wear when handling a reliquary.

With that same disregard for ceremony which had characterized him all along, Lord Eglinton rescued his waistcoat from those insistent hands, and, heedless of Achille's look of horror, he slipped it on and b.u.t.toned it himself with quick, dexterous fingers, as if he had never done anything else in all his life.

For a moment Achille was speechless. For the first time perhaps in the history of France a Minister of Finance had put his waistcoat on himself, and this under his--Achille's--administration. The very foundations of his belief were tottering before his eyes; desperately now he clung to the coat, ready to fight for its possession and shed his blood if need be for the upkeep of the ancient traditions of the land.

"Will milor take his coat from the hands of Monseigneur le Prince de Courtenai--prince of the blood?" he asked, with a final supreme effort for the reestablishment of those traditions, which were being so wantonly flouted.

"His Majesty will be here directly," interposed Irene hastily.

"His Majesty never comes later than half-past ten," protested milor feebly, "and he has not the vaguest idea how to help a man on with his coat. He has had no experience and I feel that mine would become a heap of crumpled misery if his gracious hands were to insinuate it over my unworthy shoulders."

He made a desperate effort to gain possession of his coat, but this time M. Achille was obdurate. It seemed as if he would not yield that coat to any one save at the cost of his own life.

"Then it is the privilege of Monseigneur le Prince de Courtenai," he said firmly.