St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England

‘Well,’ she said, ‘and what of Ronald, then? Do you think he is above making a scandal? You must know him very little!’

‘On the other hand, it is my pretension that I know him very well!’ I replied. ‘I must speak to Ronald first – not Ronald to me – that is all!’

‘Then, please, go and speak to him at once!’ she pleaded. He is there – do you see? – at the upper end of the room, talking to that girl in pink.’

‘And so lose this seat before I have told you my good news?’ I exclaimed. ‘Catch me! And, besides, my dear one, think a little of me and my good news! I thought the bearer of good news was always welcome! I hoped he might be a little welcome for himself! Consider! I have but one friend; and let me stay by her! And there is only one thing I care to hear; and let me hear it!’

‘Oh, Anne,’ she sighed, ‘if I did not love you, why should I be so uneasy? I am turned into a coward, dear! Think, if it were the other way round – if you were quite safe and I was in, oh, such danger!’

She had no sooner said it than I was convicted of being a dullard. ‘God forgive me, dear!’ I made haste to reply. ‘I never saw before that there were two sides to this!’ And I told her my tale as briefly as I could, and rose to seek Ronald. ‘You see, my dear, you are obeyed,’ I said.

She gave me a look that was a reward in itself; and as I turned away from her, with a strong sense of turning away from the sun, I carried that look in my bosom like a caress. The girl in pink was an arch, ogling person, with a good deal of eyes and teeth, and a great play of shoulders and rattle of conversation. There could be no doubt, from Mr. Ronald’s attitude, that he worshipped the very chair she sat on. But I was quite ruthless. I laid my hand on his shoulder, as he was stooping over her like a hen over a chicken.

‘Excuse me for one moment, Mr. Gilchrist!’ said I.

He started and span about in answer to my touch, and exhibited a face of inarticulate wonder.

‘Yes!’ I continued, ‘it is even myself! Pardon me for interrupting so agreeable a tête-à-tête, but you know, my good fellow, we owe a first duty to Mr. Robbie. It would never do to risk making a scene in the man’s drawing-room; so the first thing I had to attend to was to have you warned. The name I go by is Ducie, too, in case of accidents.’

‘I – I say, you know!’ cried Ronald. ‘Deuce take it, what are you doing here?’

‘Hush, hush!’ said I. ‘Not the place, my dear fellow – not the place. Come to my rooms, if you like, to-night after the party, or to-morrow in the morning, and we can talk it out over a segar. But here, you know, it really won’t do at all.’

Before he could collect his mind for an answer, I had given him my address in St. James Square, and had again mingled with the crowd. Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie was in the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued to palaver I watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to-night by way of a preparative. This put it into his head to present me to another young lady; but I managed this interview with so much art that, while I was scrupulously polite and even cordial to the fair one, I contrived to keep Robbie beside me all the time and to leave along with him when the ordeal was over. We were just walking away arm in arm, when I spied my friend the Major approaching, stiff as a ramrod and, as usual, obtrusively clean.

‘Oh! there’s a man I want to know,’ said I, taking the bull by the horns. ‘Won’t you introduce me to Major Chevenix?’

‘At a word, my dear fellow,’ said Robbie; and ‘Major!’ he cried, ‘come here and let me present to you my friend Mr. Ducie, who desires the honour of your acquaintance.’

The Major flushed visibly, but otherwise preserved his composure. He bowed very low. ‘I’m not very sure,’ he said: ‘I have an idea we have met before?’

‘Informally,’ I said, returning his bow; ‘and I have long looked forward to the pleasure of regularising our acquaintance.’

‘You are very good, Mr. Ducie,’ he returned. ‘Perhaps you could aid my memory a little? Where was it that I had the pleasure?’

‘Oh, that would be telling tales out of school,’ said I, with a laugh, ‘and before my lawyer, too!’

‘I’ll wager,’ broke in Mr. Robbie, ‘that, when you knew my client, Chevenix – the past of our friend Mr. Ducie is an obscure chapter full of horrid secrets – I’ll wager, now, you knew him as St. Ivey,’ says he, nudging me violently.

‘I think not, sir,’ said the Major, with pinched lips.

‘Well, I wish he may prove all right!’ continued the lawyer, with certainly the worst-inspired jocularity in the world. ‘I know nothing by him! He may be a swell mobsman for me with his aliases. You must put your memory on the rack, Major, and when ye’ve remembered when and where ye met him, be sure ye tell me.’

‘I will not fail, sir,’ said Chevenix.

‘Seek to him!’ cried Robbie, waving his hand as he departed.

The Major, as soon as we were alone, turned upon me his impassive countenance.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you have courage.’

‘It is undoubted as your honour, sir,’ I returned, bowing.

‘Did you expect to meet me, may I ask?’ said he.

‘You saw, at least, that I courted the presentation,’ said I.

‘And you were not afraid?’ said Chevenix.

‘I was perfectly at ease. I knew I was dealing with a gentleman. Be that your epitaph.’

‘Well, there are some other people looking for you,’ he said, ‘who will make no bones about the point of honour. The police, my dear sir, are simply agog about you.’

‘And I think that that was coarse,’ said I.

‘You have seen Miss Gilchrist?’ he inquired, changing the subject.

‘With whom, I am led to understand, we are on a footing of rivalry?’ I asked. ‘Yes, I have seen her.’

‘And I was just seeking her,’ he replied.

I was conscious of a certain thrill of temper; so, I suppose, was he. We looked each other up and down.

‘The situation is original,’ he resumed.

‘Quite,’ said I. ‘But let me tell you frankly you are blowing a cold coal. I owe you so much for your kindness to the prisoner Champdivers.’

‘Meaning that the lady’s affections are more advantageously disposed of?’ he asked, with a sneer. ‘Thank you, I am sure. And, since you have given me a lead, just hear a word of good advice in your turn. Is it fair, is it delicate, is it like a gentleman, to compromise the young lady by attentions which (as you know very well) can come to nothing?’

I was utterly unable to find words in answer.

‘Excuse me if I cut this interview short,’ he went on. ‘It seems to me doomed to come to nothing, and there is more attractive metal.’

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘as you say, it cannot amount to much. You are impotent, bound hand and foot in honour. You know me to be a man falsely accused, and even if you did not know it, from your position as my rival you have only the choice to stand quite still or to be infamous.’

‘I would not say that,’ he returned, with another change of colour. ‘I may hear it once too often.’

With which he moved off straight for where Flora was sitting amidst her court of vapid youths, and I had no choice but to follow him, a bad second, and reading myself, as I went, a sharp lesson on the command of temper.

It is a strange thing how young men in their teens go down at the mere wind of the coming of men of twenty-five and upwards! The vapid ones fled without thought of resistance before the Major and me; a few dallied awhile in the neighbourhood – so to speak, with their fingers in their mouths – but presently these also followed the rout, and we remained face to face before Flora. There was a draught in that corner by the door; she had thrown her pelisse over her bare arms and neck, and the dark fur of the trimming set them off. She shone by contrast; the light played on her smooth skin to admiration, and the colour changed in her excited face. For the least fraction of a second she looked from one to the other of her pair of rival swains, and seemed to hesitate. Then she addressed Chevenix: —

‘You are coming to the Assembly, of course, Major Chevenix?’ said she.

‘I fear not; I fear I shall be otherwise engaged,’ he replied. ‘Even the pleasure of dancing with you, Miss Flora, must give way to duty.’

For awhile the talk ran harmlessly on the weather, and then branched off towards the war. It seemed to be by no one’s fault; it was in the air, and had to come.

‘Good news from the scene of operations,’ said the Major.

‘Good news while it lasts,’ I said. ‘But will Miss Gilchrist tell us her private thought upon the war? In her admiration for the victors, does not there mingle some pity for the vanquished?’

‘Indeed, sir,’ she said, with animation, ‘only too much of it! War is a subject that I do not think should be talked of to a girl. I am, I have to be – what do you call it? – a non-combatant? And to remind me of what others have to do and suffer: no, it is not fair!’

‘Miss Gilchrist has the tender female heart,’ said Chevenix.

‘Do not be too sure of that!’ she cried. ‘I would love to be allowed to fight myself!’

‘On which side?’ I asked.

‘Can you ask?’ she exclaimed. ‘I am a Scottish girl!’

‘She is a Scottish girl!’ repeated the Major, looking at me. ‘And no one grudges you her pity!’

‘And I glory in every grain of it she has to spare,’ said I. ‘Pity is akin to love.’

‘Well, and let us put that question to Miss Gilchrist. It is for her to decide, and for us to bow to the decision. Is pity, Miss Flora, or is admiration, nearest love?’

‘Oh come,’ said I, ‘let us be more concrete. Lay before the lady a complete case: describe your man, then I’ll describe mine, and Miss Flora shall decide.’

‘I think I see your meaning,’ said he, ‘and I’ll try. You think that pity – and the kindred sentiments – have the greatest power upon the heart. I think more nobly of women. To my view, the man they love will first of all command their respect; he will be steadfast – proud, if you please; dry, possibly – but of all things steadfast. They will look at him in doubt; at last they will see that stern face which he presents to all the rest of the world soften to them alone. First, trust, I say. It is so that a woman loves who is worthy of heroes.’

‘Your man is very ambitious, sir,’ said I, ‘and very much of a hero! Mine is a humbler, and, I would fain think, a more human dog. He is one with no particular trust in himself, with no superior steadfastness to be admired for, who sees a lady’s face, who hears her voice, and, without any phrase about the matter, falls in love. What does he ask for, then, but pity? – pity for his weakness, pity for his love, which is his life. You would make women always the inferiors, gaping up at your imaginary lover; he, like a marble statue, with his nose in the air! But God has been wiser than you; and the most steadfast of your heroes may prove human, after all. We appeal to the queen for judgment,’ I added, turning and bowing before Flora.

‘And how shall the queen judge?’ she asked. ‘I must give you an answer that is no answer at all. “The wind bloweth where it listeth”: she goes where her heart goes.’

Her face flushed as she said it; mine also, for I read in it a declaration, and my heart swelled for joy. But Chevenix grew pale.

‘You make of life a very dreadful kind of lottery, ma’am,’ said he. ‘But I will not despair. Honest and unornamental is still my choice.’

And I must say he looked extremely handsome and very amusingly like the marble statue with its nose in the air to which I had compared him.

‘I cannot imagine how we got upon this subject,’ said Flora.

‘Madame, it was through the war,’ replied Chevenix.

‘All roads lead to Rome,’ I commented. ‘What else would you expect Mr. Chevenix and myself to talk of?’

About this time I was conscious of a certain bustle and movement in the room behind me, but did not pay to it that degree of attention which perhaps would have been wise. There came a certain change in Flora’s face; she signalled repeatedly with her fan; her eyes appealed to me obsequiously; there could be no doubt that she wanted something – as well as I could make out, that I should go away and leave the field clear for my rival, which I had not the least idea of doing. At last she rose from her chair with impatience.

‘I think it time you were saying good-night, Mr Ducie!’ she said.

I could not in the least see why, and said so.

Whereupon she gave me this appalling answer, ‘My aunt is coming out of the card-room.’

In less time than it takes to tell, I had made my bow and my escape. Looking back from the doorway, I was privileged to see, for a moment, the august profile and gold eyeglasses of Miss Gilchrist issuing from the card-room; and the sight lent me wings. I stood not on the order of my going; and a moment after, I was on the pavement of Castle Street, and the lighted windows shone down on me, and were crossed by ironical shadows of those who had remained behind.

CHAPTER XXIX – EVENTS OF TUESDAY: THE TOILS CLOSING

This day began with a surprise. I found a letter on my breakfast-table addressed to Edward Ducie, Esquire; and at first I was startled beyond measure. ‘Conscience doth make cowards of us all!’ When I had opened it, it proved to be only a note from the lawyer, enclosing a card for the Assembly Ball on Thursday evening. Shortly after, as I was composing my mind with a segar at one of the windows of the sitting-room, and Rowley, having finished the light share of work that fell to him, sat not far off tootling with great spirit and a marked preference for the upper octave, Ronald was suddenly shown in. I got him a segar, drew in a chair to the side of the fire, and installed him there – I was going to say, at his ease, but no expression could be farther from the truth. He was plainly on pins and needles, did not know whether to take or to refuse the segar, and, after he had taken it, did not know whether to light or to return it. I saw he had something to say; I did not think it was his own something; and I was ready to offer a large bet it was really something of Major Chevenix’s.

‘Well, and so here you are!’ I observed, with pointless cordiality, for I was bound I should do nothing to help him out. If he were, indeed, here running errands for my rival, he might have a fair field, but certainly no favour.

‘The fact is,’ he began, ‘I would rather see you alone.’

‘Why, certainly,’ I replied. ‘Rowley, you can step into the bedroom. My dear fellow,’ I continued, ‘this sounds serious. Nothing wrong, I trust.’

‘Well, I’ll be quite honest,’ said he. ‘I am a good deal bothered.’

‘And I bet I know why!’ I exclaimed. ‘And I bet I can put you to rights, too!’

‘What do you mean!’ he asked.

‘You must be hard up,’ said I, ‘and all I can say is, you’ve come to the right place. If you have the least use for a hundred pounds, or any such trifling sum as that, please mention it. It’s here, quite at your service.’

‘I am sure it is most kind of you,’ said Ronald, ‘and the truth is, though I can’t think how you guessed it, that I really am a little behind board. But I haven’t come to talk about that.’

‘No, I dare say!’ cried I. ‘Not worth talking about! But remember, Ronald, you and I are on different sides of the business. Remember that you did me one of those services that make men friends for ever. And since I have had the fortune to come into a fair share of money, just oblige me, and consider so much of it as your own.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t take it; I couldn’t, really. Besides, the fact is, I’ve come on a very different matter. It’s about my sister, St. Ives,’ and he shook his head menacingly at me.

‘You’re quite sure?’ I persisted. ‘It’s here, at your service – up to five hundred pounds, if you like. Well, all right; only remember where it is, when you do want it.’

‘Oh, please let me alone!’ cried Ronald: ‘I’ve come to say something unpleasant; and how on earth can I do it, if you don’t give a fellow a chance? It’s about my sister, as I said. You can see for yourself that it can’t be allowed to go on. It’s compromising; it don’t lead to anything; and you’re not the kind of man (you must feel it yourself) that I can allow my female relatives to have anything to do with. I hate saying this, St. Ives; it looks like hitting a man when he’s down, you know; and I told the Major I very much disliked it from the first. However, it had to be said; and now it has been, and, between gentlemen, it shouldn’t be necessary to refer to it again.’

‘It’s compromising; it doesn’t lead to anything; not the kind of man,’ I repeated thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I believe I understand, and shall make haste to put myself en règle.’ I stood up, and laid my segar down. ‘Mr. Gilchrist,’ said I, with a bow, ‘in answer to your very natural observations, I beg to offer myself as a suitor for your sister’s hand. I am a man of title, of which we think lightly in France, but of ancient lineage, which is everywhere prized. I can display thirty-two quarterings without a blot. My expectations are certainly above the average: I believe my uncle’s income averages about thirty thousand pounds, though I admit I was not careful to inform myself. Put it anywhere between fifteen and fifty thousand; it is certainly not less.’

‘All this is very easy to say,’ said Ronald, with a pitying smile. ‘Unfortunately, these things are in the air.’

‘Pardon me, – in Buckinghamshire,’ said I, smiling.

‘Well, what I mean is, my dear St. Ives, that you can’t prove them,’ he continued. ‘They might just as well not be: do you follow me? You can’t bring us any third party to back you.’

‘Oh, come!’ cried I, springing up and hurrying to the table. ‘You must excuse me!’ I wrote Romaine’s address. ‘There is my reference, Mr. Gilchrist. Until you have written to him, and received his negative answer, I have a right to be treated, and I shall see that you treat me, as a gentleman.’ He was brought up with a round turn at that.

‘I beg your pardon, St. Ives,’ said he. ‘Believe me, I had no wish to be offensive. But there’s the difficulty of this affair; I can’t make any of my points without offence! You must excuse me, it’s not my fault. But, at any rate, you must see for yourself this proposal of marriage is – is merely impossible, my dear fellow. It’s nonsense! Our countries are at war; you are a prisoner.’

‘My ancestor of the time of the Ligue,’ I replied, ‘married a Huguenot lady out of the Saintonge, riding two hundred miles through an enemy’s country to bring off his bride; and it was a happy marriage.’

‘Well!’ he began; and then looked down into the fire, and became silent.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘Well, there’s this business of – Goguelat,’ said he, still looking at the coals in the grate.

‘What!’ I exclaimed, starting in my chair. ‘What’s that you say?’

‘This business about Goguelat,’ he repeated.

‘Ronald,’ said I, ‘this is not your doing. These are not your own words. I know where they came from: a coward put them in your mouth.’

‘St. Ives!’ he cried, ‘why do you make it so hard for me? and where’s the use of insulting other people? The plain English is, that I can’t hear of any proposal of marriage from a man under a charge like that. You must see it for yourself, man! It’s the most absurd thing I ever heard of! And you go on forcing me to argue with you, too!’

‘Because I have had an affair of honour which terminated unhappily, you – a young soldier, or next-door to it – refuse my offer? Do I understand you aright?’ said I.

‘My dear fellow!’ he wailed, ‘of course you can twist my words, if you like. You say it was an affair of honour. Well, I can’t, of course, tell you that – I can’t – I mean, you must see that that’s just the point! Was it? I don’t know.’

‘I have the honour to inform you,’ said I.

‘Well, other people say the reverse, you see!’

‘They lie, Ronald, and I will prove it in time.’

‘The short and the long of it is, that any man who is so unfortunate as to have such things said about him is not the man to be my brother-in-law!’ he cried.

‘Do you know who will be my first witness at the court? Arthur Chevenix!’ said I.

‘I don’t care!’ he cried, rising from his chair and beginning to pace outrageously about the room. ‘What do you mean, St. Ives? What is this about? It’s like a dream, I declare! You made an offer, and I have refused it. I don’t like it, I don’t want it; and whatever I did, or didn’t, wouldn’t matter – my aunt wouldn’t bear of it anyway! Can’t you take your answer, man?’

‘You must remember, Ronald, that we are playing with edged tools,’ said I. ‘An offer of marriage is a delicate subject to handle. You have refused, and you have justified your refusal by several statements: first, that I was an impostor; second, that our countries were at war; and third – No, I will speak,’ said I; ‘you can answer when I have done, – and third, that I had dishonourably killed – or was said to have done so – the man Goguelat. Now, my dear fellow, these are very awkward grounds to be taking. From any one else’s lips I need scarce tell you how I should resent them; but my hands are tied. I have so much gratitude to you, without talking of the love I bear your sister, that you insult me, when you do so, under the cover of a complete impunity. I must feel the pain – and I do feel it acutely – I can do nothing to protect myself.’ He had been anxious enough to interrupt me in the beginning; but now, and after I had ceased, he stood a long while silent.

‘St. Ives,’ he said at last, ‘I think I had better go away. This has been very irritating. I never at all meant to say anything of the kind, and I apologise to you. I have all the esteem for you that one gentleman should have for another. I only meant to tell you – to show you what had influenced my mind; and that, in short, the thing was impossible. One thing you may be quite sure of: I shall do nothing against you. Will you shake hands before I go away?’ he blurted out.

‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I agree with you – the interview has been irritating. Let bygones be bygones. Good-bye, Ronald.’

‘Good-bye, St. Ives!’ he returned. ‘I’m heartily sorry.’

And with that he was gone.

The windows of my own sitting-room looked towards the north; but the entrance passage drew its light from the direction of the square. Hence I was able to observe Ronald’s departure, his very disheartened gait, and the fact that he was joined, about half-way, by no less a man than Major Chevenix. At this, I could scarce keep from smiling; so unpalatable an interview must be before the pair of them, and I could hear their voices, clashing like crossed swords, in that eternal antiphony of ‘I told you,’ and ‘I told you not.’ Without doubt, they had gained very little by their visit; but then I had gained less than nothing, and had been bitterly dispirited into the bargain. Ronald had stuck to his guns and refused me to the last. It was no news; but, on the other hand, it could not be contorted into good news. I was now certain that during my temporary absence in France, all irons would be put into the fire, and the world turned upside down, to make Flora disown the obtrusive Frenchman and accept Chevenix. Without doubt she would resist these instances: but the thought of them did not please me, and I felt she should be warned and prepared for the battle.

It was no use to try and see her now, but I promised myself early that evening to return to Swanston. In the meantime I had to make all my preparations, and look the coming journey in the face. Here in Edinburgh I was within four miles of the sea, yet the business of approaching random fishermen with my hat in the one hand and a knife in the other, appeared so desperate, that I saw nothing for it but to retrace my steps over the northern counties, and knock a second time at the doors of Birchell Fenn. To do this, money would be necessary; and after leaving my paper in the hands of Flora I had still a balance of about fifteen hundred pounds. Or rather I may say I had them and I had them not; for after my luncheon with Mr. Robbie I had placed the amount, all but thirty pounds of change, in a bank in George Street, on a deposit receipt in the name of Mr. Rowley. This I had designed to be my gift to him, in case I must suddenly depart. But now, thinking better of the arrangement, I despatched my little man, cockade and all, to lift the fifteen hundred.