Doom Castle Part 23

"A dead man and a stupid woman are the only ones who do not. _Jamais beau parler riecorcha le langue!_" said Montaiglon.

"Faith, and that's very true," consented the Chamberlain, laughing softly. "I take it not amiss myself if it's proffered in the right way--which is to say, for the qualities I know I have, and not for the imaginary ones. As I was saying, give me the simple heart and honesty; they're not very rife in our own s.e.x, and--"

"Even there, monsieur, I can be generous enough," said Montaiglon. "I can always retain my regard for human nature, because I have learned never to expect too much from it."

"Well said!" cried the Chamberlain. "Do you know that in your manner of rejoinder you recall one Dumont I met once at the Jesuits' College when I was in France years ago?"

"Ah, you have pa.s.sed some time in my country, then?" said the Count with awakened interest, a little glad of a topic scarce so abstruse as s.e.x.

"I have been in every part of Europe," said the Chamberlain; "and it must have been by the oddest of mischances I have not been at Cammercy itself, for well I knew your uncle's friends, though, as it happened, we were of a different complexion of politics. I lived for months one time in the Hotel de Transylvania, Rue Conde, and kept my _carosse de remise_, and gambled like every other a.s.s of my kind in Paris till I had not a louis to my credit. Lord! the old days, the old days! I should be penitent, I daresay, M. Montaiglon, but I'm putting that off till I find that a sober life has compensations for the entertainment of a life of liberty."

"Did you know Balhaldie?"

"Do I know the inside of my own pocket! I've played piquet wi' the old rogue a score of times in the Sun tavern of Rotterdam. Pardon me speaking that way of one that may be an intimate of your own, but to be quite honest, the Scots gentlemen living on the Scots Fund in France in these days were what I call the scourings of the Hielan's. There were good and bad among them, of course, but I was there in the _entourage_ of one who was no politician, which was just my own case, and I saw but the convivial of my exiled countrymen in their convivial hours.

Politics! In these days I would scunner at the very word, if you know what that means, M. Montaiglon. I was too throng with gaiety to trouble my head about such trifles; my time was too much taken up with buckling my hair, in admiring the cut of my laced _jabot_, and the Mechlin of my wrist-bands."

They were walking close upon the sea-wall with leisurely steps, preoccupied, the head of the little town, it seemed, wholly surrendered to themselves alone. Into the Chamberlain's voice had come an accent of the utmost friendliness and flattering ir-restraint; he seemed to be leaving his heart bare to the Frenchman. Count Victor was by these last words transported to his native city, and his own far-off days of galliard. Why, in the name of Heaven! was he here listening to hackneyed tales of domestic tragedy and a stranger's reminiscences? Why did his mind continually linger round the rock of Doom, so noisy on its promontory, so sad, so stern, so like an ancient saga in its spirit?

Cecile--he was amazed at it, but Cecile, and the Jacobite cause he had come here to avenge with a youth's ardour, had both fallen, as it were, into a dusk of memory!

"By the way, monsieur, you did not happen to have come upon any one remotely suggesting my Drimdarroch in the course of your travels?"

"Oh, come!" cried Sim MacTaggart; "if I did, was I like to mention it here and now?" He laughed at the idea. "You have not grasped the clannishness of us yet if you fancy--"

"But in an affair of strict honour, monsieur," broke in Count Victor eagerly. "Figure you a woman basely betrayed; your admirable sentiments regarding the s.e.x must compel you to admit there is here something more than clannishness can condone. It is true there is the political element--but not much of it--in my quest, still--"

"Not a word of that, M. Montaiglon!" cried the Chamberlain: "there you address yourself to his Grace's faithful servant; but I cannot be denying some sympathy with the other half of your object. If I had known this by-named Drimdarroch you look for, I might have swithered to confess it, but as it is, I have never had the honour. I've seen scores of dubious cattle round the walls of Ludo-vico Rex, but which might be Drimdarroch and which might be decent honest men, I could not at this time guess. We have here among us others who had a closer touch with affairs in France than I."

"So?" said Count Victor. "Our friend the Baron of Doom suggested that for that very reason my search was for the proverbial needle in the haystack. I find myself in pressing need of a judicious friend at court, I see. Have you ever found your resolution quit you--not an oozing courage, I mean, but an indifference that comes purely by the lapse of time and the distractions on the way to its execution? It is my case at the moment. My thirst for the blood of this _inconnu_ has modified considerably in the past few days. I begin to wish myself home again, and might set out incontinent if the object of my coming here at all had not been so well known to those I left behind. You would be doing a brilliant service--and perhaps but little harm to Drimdarroch after all--if you could arrange a meeting at the earliest."

He laughed as he said so.

"Man! I'm touched by the issue," said the Chamberlain; "I must cast an eye about. Drimdarroch, of course, is Doom, or was, if a lawyer's sheep-skins had not been more powerful nowadays than the sword; but"--he paused a moment as if reluctant to give words to the innuendo--"though Doom himself has been in France to some good purpose in nis time, and though, for G.o.d knows what, he is no friend of mine, I would be the first to proclaim him free of any suspicion."

"That, monsieur, goes without saying! I was stupid enough to misunderstand some of his eccentricities myself, but have learned in our brief acquaintances.h.i.+p to respect in him the man of genuine heart."

"Just so, just so!" cried the Chamberlain, and cleared his throat. "I but mentioned his name to make it plain that his claim to the old t.i.tle in no way implicated him. A man of great heart, as you say, though with a reputation for oddity. If I were not the well-wisher of his house, I could make some trouble about his devotion to the dress and arms forbidden here to all but those in the king's service, as I am myself, being major of the local Fencibles. And--by the Lord! here's MacCailen!"

They had by this time entered the policies of the Duke. A figure walked alone in the obscurity, with arms in a characteristic fas.h.i.+on behind its back, going in the direction they themselves were taking. For a second or two the Chamberlain hesitated, then formed his resolution.

"I shall introduce you," he said to Count Victor. "It may be of some service afterwards."

The Duke turned his face in the darkness, and, as they came alongside, recognised his Chamberlain.

"Good evening, good evening!" he cried cheerfully. "'Art a late bird, as usual, and I am at that pestilent task the rehearsal of a speech."

"Your Grace's industry is a reproach to your Grace's Chamberlain," said the latter. "I have been at the speech-making myself, partly to a lady."

"Ah, Mr. MacTaggart!" cried the Duke in a comical expostulation.

"And partly to this unfortunate friend of mine, who must fancy us a singularly garrulous race this side of the German Ocean. May I introduce M. Montaiglon, who is at the inn below, and whom it has been my good fortune to meet for the first time to-night?"

Argyll was most cordial to the stranger, who, however, took the earliest opportunity to plead fatigue and return to his inn. He had no sooner retired than the Duke expressed some natural curiosity.

"It cannot be the person you desired for the furnis.h.i.+ng of our tolbooth the other day, Sim?" said he.

"No less," frankly responded the Chamberlain. "Your Grace saved me a _faux pas_ there, for Montaiglon is not what I fancied at all."

"You were ever the dubious gentleman, Sim," laughed his Grace. "And what--if I may take the liberty--seeks our excellent and impeccable Gaul so far west?"

"He's a wine merchant," said the Chamberlain, and at that the Duke laughed.

"What, man!" he cried at last, shaking with his merriment, "is our ancient Jules from Oporto to be ousted with the aid of Sim MacTaggart from the ducal cellars in favour of one Montaiglon?" He stopped, caught his Chamberlain by the arm, and stood close in an endeavour to perceive his countenance. "Sim," said he, "I wonder what Modene would say to find his cousin hawking vile claret round Argyll. Your friend's incognito is scarcely complete enough even in the dark. Why, the man's Born! I could tell it in his first sentence, and it's a swordsman's hand, not a cellarer's fingers, he gave me a moment ago. That itself would betray him even if I did not happen to know that the Montaiglons have the _particule_."

"It is quite as you say," confessed the Chamberlain with some chagrin at his position, "but I'm giving the man's tale as he desires to have it known here. He's no less than the Count de Montaiglon, and a rather decent specimen of the kind, so far as I can judge."

"But why the _alias_, good Sim?" asked the Duke. "I like not your _aliases_, though they have been, now and then--ahem!--useful."

"Your Grace has travelled before now as Baron Hay," said the Chamberlain.

"True! true! and saved very little either in inn charges or in the pother of State by the device. And if I remember correctly, I made no pretence at wine-selling on these occasions. Honestly now, what the devil does the Comte de Montaiglon do here--and with Sim MacTaggart?"

"The matter is capable of the easiest explanation. He's here on what he is pleased to call an affair of honour, in which there is implicated the usual girl and another gentleman, who, it appears, is some ope, still unknown, about your Grace's castle." And the story in its entirety was speedily his Grace's.

"H'm," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Argyll at last when he had heard all. "And you fancy the quest as hopeless as it is quixotic? Now mark me! Simon; I read our French friend, even in the dark, quite differently. He had little to say there, but little as it was 'twas enough to show by its manner that he's just the one who will find his man even in my crowded corridors."

CHAPTER XXIV -- A BROKEN TRYST

The Chamberlain's quarters were in the eastern turret, and there he went so soon as he could leave his Grace, who quickly forgot the Frenchman and his story, practising upon Simon the speech he had prepared in his evening walk, alternated with praise extravagant--youthfully rapturous almost--of his d.u.c.h.ess, who might, from all his chafing at her absence, have been that night at the other end of the world, instead of merely in the next county on a few days' visit.

"Ah! you are smiling, Sim!" said he. "Old whinstone! You fancy Argyll an imbecile of uxoriousness. Well, well, my friend, you are at liberty; Lord knows, it's not a common disease among dukes! Eh, Sim? But then women like my Jean are not common either or marriages were less fas.h.i.+ons. Upon my word, I could saddle Jock and ride this very night to Luss, just to have the fun of throwing pebbles at her window in the morning, and see her wonder and pleasure at finding me there. Do you know what, cousin? I am going to give a ball when she comes home. We'll have just the neighbours, and I'll ask M. Soi-disant, who'll give us the very latest step. I like the fellow's voice, it rings the sterling metal.... And now, my lords, this action on the part of the Government.... Oh, the devil fly away with politics! I must go to a lonely bed!" And off set Mac-Cailen Mor, the n.o.ble, the august, the man of silk and steel, whom 'twas Simon MacTaggart's one steadfast ambition in life to resemble even in a remote degree.

And then we have the Chamberlain in his turret room, envious of that blissful married man, and warmed to a sympathetic glow with Olivia floating through the images that rose before him.

He drew the curtains of his window and looked in that direction where Doom, of course, was not for material eyes, finding a vague pleasure in building up the picture of the recluse tower, dark upon its promontory.

It was ten o'clock. It had been arranged at their last meeting that without the usual signal he should go to her to-night before twelve.

Already his heart beat quickly; his face was warm and tingling with pleasant excitation, he felt a good man.

"By G.o.d!" he cried. "If it was not for the old glaur! What for does heaven--or h.e.l.l--send the worst of its temptations to the young and ignorant? If I had met her twenty years ago! Twenty years ago! H'm!

'Clack!' goes the weaver's shuttle! Twenty years ago it was her mother, and Sim MacTaggart without a hair on his face trying to kiss the good lady of Doom, and her, perhaps na' half unwilling. I'm glad--I'm glad."

He put on a pair of spurs, his fingers trembling as those of a lad dressing for his first ball, and the girl a fairy in white, with her neck pink and soft and her eyes shy like little fawns in the wood.

"And how near I was to missing it!" he thought. "But for the scheming of a fool I would never have seen her. It's not too late, thank the Lord for that! No more of yon for Sim MacTaggart. I've cut with the last of it, and now my face is to the stars."

His hands were spotless white, but he poured some water in a basin and washed them carefully, shrugging his shoulders with a momentary comprehension of how laughable must that sacrament be in the eyes of the worldly Sim MacTaggart. He splashed the water on his lips, drew on a cloak, blew out the light, and went softly downstairs and out at a side door for which he had a pa.s.s-key. The night was still, except for the melancholy sound of the river running over its cascades and echoing under the two bridges; odours of decaying leaves surrounded him, and the air of the night touched him on his hot face like a benediction. A heavy dew clogged the gra.s.s of Cairnbaan as he made for the stables, where a man stood out in the yard waiting with a black horse saddled. Without a word he mounted and rode, the hoofs thudding dull on the gra.s.s. He left behind him the castle, quite dark and looming in its nest below the sentinel hill; he turned the bay; the town revealed a light or two; a bird screamed on the ebb sh.o.r.e. Something of all he saw and heard touched a fine man in his cloak, touched a decent love in him; his heart was full with wholesome joyous ichor; and he sang softly to the creaking saddle, sang an air of good and clean old Gaelic sentiment that haunted his lips until he came opposite the very walls of Doom.