"Most people have strange ideas about politics and diplomacy,"
continued the King. "Just as if those complicated arts could be conducted on lines of antiquated mediaeval codes: therefore the whole business must be kept between our three selves now present, M. le Comte, and of course M. le Duc d"Aumont, who has helped us throughout, and without whom we could not now proceed."
"I quite understand, Sire," a.s.sented Gaston.
"We are of course presuming that your happy influence over Madame Lydie will not cease with her giving you those papers," said Louis with another of his unpleasant leers.
"I think not your Majesty."
"She will hold her tongue, I should imagine . . . for very obvious reasons," said Madame with a malicious sneer.
"Anyhow you had best make our recommendations known to Monsieur le Duc d"Aumont. Tell him that we suggest not relying on _Le Monarque_ even though she be ready to put to sea, as her commander may be, for aught we know a secret adherent of the Stuart. We should not care to trust him, since the Eglintons seem to have been already to do so. A delay of five or six days while _Le Levantin_ is being commissioned is better than the taking of any risk. Though we are doing nothing that we are ashamed of," added Louis the Well-beloved airily, "we have no wish that the matter be bruited abroad, lest we be misunderstood."
We must suppose that Monsieur le Comte de Stainville had been denied at his birth the saving gift of a sense of humour, for in reply to this long tirade from the King, he said quite seriously and emphatically:
"Your Majesty need not be under the slightest apprehension. Neither M.
le Duc d"Aumont, I feel sure, nor I myself will in any way endanger the absolute secrecy of the transaction, lest we be misunderstood. As for Madame Lydie . . ." He paused a moment, whilst carefully examining his well-trimmed nails: a smile, wherein evil intent now fought with fatuity, played round the corners of his lips. "Madame Lydie will also hold her tongue," he concluded quietly.
"That is well!" a.s.sented the King. "M. le Duc d"Aumont will see to the rest. In five or six days, _Le Levantin_ should be ready. Her secret orders have been drafted and already bear our royal signature. Now with this map and directions, and the private note for the Stuart, all so kindly furnished by Madame Lydie, the expedition should be easy, and above all quite swift. The sooner the affair is concluded and the money paid over, the less likelihood there is of our subjects getting wind thereof. We must stipulate, M. le Comte, since you are the youngest partner in this undertaking and the least prominent in the public eye, that you take the secret orders yourself to _Le Levantin_.
We should not feel safe if they were in any one else"s hands."
"I thank your Majesty for this trust."
"For this special task, and for your work this afternoon, you shall be rewarded with two out of the fifteen millions promised by His Grace of c.u.mberland. M. le Duc d"Aumont will receive three, whilst we shall have the honour and pleasure of laying the remainder at the feet of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour."
He cast an amorous glance at Madame, who promptly rewarded him with a gracious smile.
"I think that is all which we need say for the present M. le Comte,"
concluded His Majesty; "within six days from now you should be on your way to Brest where _Le Levantin_ should by then be waiting her orders and ready to put to sea. A month later, if wind, weather and circ.u.mstances favour us, that young adventurer will have been handed over to the English authorities and we, who had worked out the difficult diplomatic problems so carefully, will have shared between us the English millions."
With his habitual airy gesture, Louis now intimated that the audience was at an end. He was obviously more highly elated than he cared to show before Gaston, and was longing to talk over plans and projects for future pleasures and extravagances with the fair Marquise. Madame, who had the knack of conveying a great deal by a look, succeeded in intimating to Gaston that she would gladly have availed herself a little longer of his pleasant company, but that royal commands must prevail.
Gaston therefore rose and kissed each hand, as it was graciously extended to him.
"We are pleased with what you have done, Monsieur le Comte," said the King as M. de Stainville finally took his leave, "but tell me," he whispered slily, "did the unapproachable Lydie yield with the first kiss, or did she struggle much? . . . eh? . . . B-r-r . . . my dear Comte, are your lips not frozen by contact with such an icicle?"
"Nay, your Majesty! all icicles are bound to melt sooner or later!"
said Gaston de Stainville with a smile which--had Lydie seen it--would have half killed her with shame.
And with that same smile of fatuity still lurking round his lips, he bowed himself out of the room.
CHAPTER XXII
PATERNAL ANXIETY
M. le Duc d"Aumont, Prime Minister of His Majesty King Louis XV of France, was exceedingly perturbed. He had just had two separate interviews, each of half an hour"s duration, and he was now busy trying to dissociate what his daughter had told him in the first interview, from that which M. de Stainville had imparted to him in the second. And he was not succeeding.
The two sets of statements seemed inextricably linked together.
Lydie, certainly had been very strange and agitated in her manner, totally unlike herself: but this mood of course, though so very unusual in her, did not astonish M. le Duc so much, once he realized its cause.
It was the cause which was so singularly upsetting.
Milor Eglinton, his son-in-law, had sent in his resignation as Comptroller-General of Finance, and this without giving any reason for so sudden and decisive a step. At any rate Lydie herself professed to be ignorant of milor"s motives for this extraordinary line of action as she was of his future purpose. All she knew--or all that she cared to tell her father--was that her husband had avowedly the intention of deserting her: he meant to quit Versailles immediately, thus vacating his post without a moment"s notice, and leaving his wife, whom he had allowed to conduct all State affairs for him for over a year, to extricate herself, out of a tangle of work and an anomalous position, as best she might.
The only suggestion which milor had cared to put forward, with regard to her future, was that he was about to make her a free gift of his chateau and lands of Vincennes, the yearly revenues of which were close upon a million livres. This gift she desired not to accept.
In spite of strenuous and diplomatic efforts on his part, M. le Duc d"Aumont had been unable to obtain any further explanation of these extraordinary events from his daughter. Lydie had no intention whatever of deceiving her father and she had given him what she believed to be a perfectly faithful _expose_ of the situation. All that she had kept back from him was the immediate cause of the grave misunderstanding between herself and her husband, and we must do her the justice to state that she did not think that this was relevant to the ultimate issue.
Moreover, she was more than loath to mention the Stuart prince and his affairs again before M. le Duc. She knew that he was not in sympathy with her over this matter and she dreaded to know with absolute certainty that there was projected treachery afoot, and that he perhaps would have a hand in it. What Gaston de Stainville had conjectured, had seen and overheard, what she herself had guessed, was not to her mind quite conclusive as far as her father"s share in the scheme was concerned.
She was deeply attached to her father, and her heart found readily enough a sufficiency of arguments which exonerated him from actual partic.i.p.ation in such wanton perfidy. At any rate in this instance she chose ignorance rather than heartrending certainty, and as by her quick action and Gaston"s timely and unexpected help, the actual treachery would be averted, she preferred to dismiss her father"s problematical partic.i.p.ation in it entirely from her mind.
Thus she told him nothing of milor"s att.i.tude with regard to the Duke of c.u.mberland"s letter; in fact, she never once referred to the letter or to the Young Pretender; she merely gave M. le Duc to understand that her husband seemed desirous of living his future life altogether apart from hers.
M. le Duc d"Aumont was sorely disquieted: two eventualities presented themselves before him, and both were equally distasteful. One was the scandal which would of necessity spread around his daughter"s name the moment her matrimonial differences with her husband became generally known. M. le Duc d"Aumont was too well acquainted with this Court of Versailles not to realize that Lydie"s position, as a neglected wife, would subject her to a series of systematic attentions, which she could but regard in the light of insults.
On the other hand M. le Duc could not even begin to think of having to forego his daughter"s help in the various matters relating to his own administration. He had been accustomed for some years now to consult her in all moments of grave crises, to rely on her judgment, on her able guidance, worth ten thousand times more to him than an army of masculine advisers.
In spite of the repeated sneers hurled at this era of "petticoat government," Lydie had been of immense service to him, and if she were suddenly to be withdrawn from his official life, he would feel very like Louis XIII had done on that memorable Journee des Dupes, when Richelieu left him for twenty-four hours to conduct the affairs of State alone. He would not have known where to begin.
But Lydie told him that her decision was irrevocable, or what was more to the point, milor had left her no alternative: his resignation was by now in His Majesty"s hands, and he had not even suggested that Lydie should accompany him, when he quitted Versailles, in order to take up life as a private gentleman.
It was all very puzzling and very difficult. M. le Duc d"Aumont strongly deprecated the idea of his daughter vacating her official post, because of this sudden caprice of milor. He had need of her, and so had France, and the threads of national business could not be snapped in a moment. The post of Comptroller-General of Finance could remain in abeyance for awhile. After that one would see.
Then with regard to the proposed gifts of the chateau and revenues of Vincennes, M. le Duc d"Aumont would not hear of a refusal. Madame la Marquise d"Eglinton must have a private establishment worthy of her rank, and an occasional visit from milor would help to keep up an outward appearance of decorum, and to throw dust in the eyes of the scandal-mongers.
The interview with his daughter had upset M. le Duc d"Aumont very considerably. The whole thing had been so unexpected: it was difficult to imagine his usually so impa.s.sive and yielding son-in-law displaying any initiative of his own. M. le Duc was still puzzling over the situation when M. le Comte de Stainville, specially recommended by His Majesty himself, asked for a private audience.
And the next half-hour plunged M. le Duc into a perfect labyrinth of surmises, conjectures, doubts and fears. That Gaston de Stainville was possessed not only of full knowledge with regard to the Stuart prince"s hiding-place, but also of a letter in Lydie"s handwriting, addressed to the prince and sealed with her private seal, was sufficiently astonishing in itself, but the young man"s thinly veiled innuendoes, his fatuous smiles, his obvious triumph, literally staggered M. le Duc, even though his palm itched with longing for contact with the insolent braggart"s cheek. Every one of his beliefs was being forcibly uprooted; his daughter whom he had thought so unapproachable, so pure and so loyal! who had this very morning shamed him by her indignation at the very thought of this treachery, which she now so completely condoned! that she should have renounced her opinions, her enthusiasm for the sake of a man who had already betrayed her once, was more than M. le Duc could and would believe at first.
Yet the proofs were before him at this very moment. They had been placed in his hand by Gaston de Stainville: the map with the marginal notes, which Lydie had so often refused to show even to her own father, and the letter in her handwriting with the bold signature right across the contents, bidding the unfortunate young prince trust the traitor who would deliver him into the hands of his foes.
But M. le Duc would have had to be more than human not to be satisfied in a measure at the result of Gaston de Stainville"s diplomacy; he stood in for a goodly share of the millions promised by England. But it was the diplomacy itself which horrified him. He had vainly tried to dissuade Lydie from chivalrous and misguided efforts on behalf of the young prince, or at any rate from active interference, if His Majesty had plans other than her own; but whilst she had rejected his merest suggestions on that subject with unutterable contempt, she had not only listened to Gaston de Stainville, but actually yielded her will and her enthusiasms to his pleadings.
M. le Duc sighed when he thought it all out. Though Lydie had done exactly what he himself wanted her to do, he hated the idea that she should have done it because Gaston de Stainville had persuaded her.
Later on in the afternoon when an excellently cooked dinner had softened his mood, he tried to put together the various pieces of the mental puzzle which confronted him.
Gaston de Stainville had obtained a certain ascendancy over Lydie, and Lydie had irretrievably quarrelled with her husband. Milor was determined to quit Versailles immediately; Lydie was equally bent on not relinquishing her position yet. Gaston de Stainville was obviously triumphant and somewhat openly bragged of his success, whilst milor kept to his own private apartments, and steadily forbade his door to every one.
It was indeed a very difficult problem for an indulgent father to solve. Fortunately for his own peace of mind, M. le Duc d"Aumont was not only indulgent to his own daughter whom he adored, but also to every one of her s.e.x. He was above all a _preux chevalier_, who held that women were beings of exceptional temperament, not to be judged by the same standards as the coa.r.s.er fibred male creatures; their beauty, their charm, the pleasure they afforded to the rest of mankind, placed them above criticism or even comment.
And of course Lydie was very beautiful . . . and milor a fool . . .
and . . . Gaston. . . . Well! who could blame Gaston?