Molly Elliot Seawell

“ De Bourmont had been wont to see people of great merit and high birth a little frightened in the presence of very small royalties; but after seeing Lady Betty’s graceful ease and modest composure in the presence of those esteemed to be great, he laughed no more at Scottish pride.
“Faith, she acted as if she were herself only a princess of a lower degree,” he thought, and then he remembered that among all the red heads and hard features and rawboned figures he had seen at Edinburgh, he had not seen one toady—so Lady Betty was not so exceptional after all. ”

“ And as they felt clearly and more clearly every moment, that in those years of self-sacrifice, and of that agony of separation, their newer and better selves had been born and lived and suffered, so did the dazzling happiness of the life they might have lived together reveal itself in all its splendid beauty. Those moments of solemn exaltation seemed like an age to Sister Claire and De Bourmont; but, in truth, it was only long enough to make the gorgeous group of waiting officers wonder at De Bourmont’s strange silence ”

“ Besides the outbreak of that ferocious thirst for freedom called the Revolution, Lady Betty met with a dreadful sorrow and loss. Within a week of the episode of the green fan and Bastien’s nose, Angus Macdonald was found one evening, shortly after dark, lying stark and dead in the forest of Fontainebleau, and he had evidently lost his life in a duel. ”

“ Madame Mirabel did an almost inconceivable amount of eating and talking, and Bastien, with an eye to punishing Lady Betty’s Scotch pride, [Pg 19] began to complain bitterly of Edinburgh and Holyrood.
“An old rat-hole, my dear Madame. And the parties—oh, the parties! Once a week we have levees in an old hall full of nightmares in canvas,—portraits of Scotch kings,—and the great people from the town are invited. Perhaps you thought the old nobility of France proud, but you ought to see these people. Their pedigrees go back to Moses, and their pride is as long as their pedigrees.” ”

“ De Bourmont was not too well pleased that this escapade with the lawyer’s daughter in Castle Street should be dragged forth before the proud Lady Betty Stair; but being a bold fellow, and believing in the policy of rashness, he determined to tell the story on himself.
“Castle Street, you know,” said he, “is in the new town, where the rich lawyers and doctors and the retired tradesmen live; and it is cleaner and brighter than the old town, with its great rookeries belonging to the nobles. But the new town people are not invited to our levees and balls here. ”

“ In the spirit of devotion among the old nobility to their exiled royalties, a request was equivalent to a command, and the Comte d’Artois, having requested De Bourmont’s company, that high-spirited young gentleman, ex-officer of the Queen’s Musketeers, thereupon had to spend several of the best years of his life in laboriously watching and waiting upon a man who did nothing all day long and half the night. ”

“ The noble career of Sister Claire has been watched by the whole French army, and she will become, more than ever, an object of respectful devotion to the soldiers of France, of all ranks. It was unknown to General de Bourmont, though, that in Sister Claire was his friend of former days. He remembers with gratitude Sister Claire’s kindness to him at the long distant period to which she refers; and he begs that she will always consider him her friend and devoted servant during the rest of his life. ”

“ He should be fighting for his country! He could almost see the Austrians and the Prussians advancing upon French armies and trampling Frenchmen under their feet—and he, he here in idleness! He ground his teeth, and walked and walked for hours, he knew not whither. He did not appear at dinner that night, and Lady Betty Stair was sad and distrait. About ten o’clock, when the solemn game of ombre was going on in the grand salon, De Bourmont came in. He looked haggard, and sat down silently in a window seat. Presently, Lady Betty Stair came along and sat down by him. ”

“ She was in attendance upon their Royal Highnesses [Pg 96] at Holyrood, and she was then Lady Betty Stair.”
“Ah, Sister Claire! Well, Monsieur l’Abbé, I can only say that the more of those fine ladies who come to us, the better. They have already served so hard an apprenticeship to the rule of the world, that ours seems simple enough to them. They find the hardest life of a religious easy by comparison with what society exacted of them. They always turn out our bravest sisters; they fear nothing.” ”

“ So Lady Betty smiled [Pg 20] brilliantly at De Bourmont, whose fortune was made from that onward with her, and said: “You are worthy, Monsieur, of the hospitality of the Scotch people.”
“And who is in the suite?” asked Madame Mirabel.
Bastien named several persons, and among others the Abbé de Ronceray,—“the best man and the worst bore! He is always after me about my soul, when I am thinking about my body, and he preaches alms—giving to us when most of us are so devilish poor that we are afraid to meet our washerwomen.” ”

“ He knew women well enough to understand that Lady Betty, in her heart, at once taxed De Bourmont with having got the Mackenzies to the levee. De Bourmont did not know in the least how the old counsellor would take it that a man should introduce himself into another man’s house under an assumed character, but at the moment that Counsellor [Pg 56] Mackenzie caught De Bourmont’s glance, a twinkle came into the old Scotchman’s eye. He had found out that De Bourmont was a gentleman and had charged him with it, and here he was, one of the first gentlemen in the royal suite. ”

“ As for Lady Betty, who was as proud as any Highland chieftain ever was, she would rather have died than uttered one complaint. The old laird was that not uncommon character a hundred years ago, a Highlandman, half [Pg 11] savage and half courtier, who talked more Gaelic and more French than he did English, almost found consolation for the loss of his only son in the charm and tenderness of his only daughter. ”

“ The clouds of dust raised by the multitude of Arab horsemen obscured them so that they were upon the French bayonets before they knew it. The Arabs left scarcely any wounded. As long as an Arab breathes, he can sit in his queer, box-like saddle, and the trained horses knew well enough when to turn and gallop back to their own line. ”

“ Being ignorant of the Scotch law of debtors, De Bourmont listened very attentively when Lady Betty described to their Royal Highnesses in the great salon, one evening, that peculiar institution of Holyrood Palace concerning “abbey lairds.”
“This palace remains still a sanctuary for debtors,” she said, “and any honest debtor, pursued by his creditors, who can reach that place outside the gate called the Strand, is safe from arrest as long as he remains within the demesne of Holyrood; and on Sunday he may walk abroad anywhere he likes, without fear of molestation. ”

“ Bastien, however, placed himself in her way so that she could not pass, and continued speaking:—
“The Abbé de Ronceray’s first penitent was a murderer—and the murderer, [Pg 79] as you would call it, of Angus Macdonald. You are sharp of wit, Lady Betty; you can find out all about this from the Abbé de Ronceray, without his suspecting what you are trying to learn. Trust a woman to ferret out what a man has no mind to tell her!” ”

“ The Abbé looked around blandly—Lady Betty was blushing, and De Bourmont was laughing—it was too bad! Lady Betty, turning her back on De Bourmont, walked on toward the salon and passed through the broad folding doors and the Abbé followed her. It was early yet—not quite nine o’clock—when the royalties usually entered the salon after dinner. No one was there but themselves.
“I am afraid I was a little awkward [Pg 84] just now,” began the Abbé, good-humoredly. “I have spent so much more of my life in camps than in courts, that I cannot altogether learn the soft ways of people about a court. ”

“ The country had quieted down under the rule of the Corsican, and the abbé had no doubt, like all the rest of the Bourbon followers, that, after Napoleon’s day, France would again call for her rightful king, and he pleased himself mightily with the notion. Meanwhile, it was pleasanter living in France, even under the Corsican’s rule, than anywhere on earth,—for exile is hard upon your true Frenchman. ”

“ Lady Betty Stair held up the princess’s great train of flowered satin, while De Bourmont walked next her, after the Comte d’Artois. De Bourmont was secretly wondering how this ball would turn out for him; and no man can be at ease who has two women in his mind. ”

“ What is to become of the conscripts if the older men act like you? I have a great mind to leave the army and go back to teaching young ladies the harp in the convent.” Sister Claire had not the remotest idea of doing this, but the awful threat struck fear to the heart of Jean Baptiste. The other sisters were kind—oh, yes—kindness itself—but Sister Claire was the soldier’s friend. The officers admired and respected her, and found Sister Claire’s influence of substantial benefit in the matter of discipline. But with these men of her own class she was more reserved. ”

“ A loud groan went up,—the crowd thought De Bourmont had lost,—and some one came running down the palace stairs laughing stridently. It was Bastien. The other bailiff had then fallen upon De Bourmont, and all three were [Pg 72] struggling fiercely on the ground. Suddenly Lady Betty Stair advanced a step or two and cried out, in a shrill, sweet voice:—
“Let him go, you wretched bailiffs. Do you not know the law? If the debtor’s head falls over the line, as this gentleman’s did, he is safe, for the head is the noblest part of the body. ”

“ The rule of the Sisters of Mercy is a strict one; nevertheless, they are very wise women, and if one of their order displays a great and singular aptitude for a thing, she is allowed to follow the path so clearly indicated to her. So it was that Sister Claire never more taught polite accomplishments to young ladies, but worked steadily in her chosen field.
Her first duty almost was with the army in Egypt. She had then an ambulance of her own, and the little canvas-covered wagon was pretty sure to be close up to the line of fire. ”

“ The French had established themselves on a ledge of rocks, just rising above the plateau; but they could not remain there,—they must retreat or advance. If they advanced, so small was their force, they were in danger of being surrounded and cut to pieces; [Pg 127] and if they retreated—but they had no thought of retreat. Sister Claire, in the intervals of her work, saw De Bourmont’s figure plainly, when he dismounted and, drawing his sword, headed what the expressive French phrase calls “les enfants perdus” as they made a dash for the hill where the Algerian guns thundered. ”

“ De Bourmont was very restless, and Lady Betty saw plainly enough that the Comte d’Artois would soon have to get a new gentleman-in-waiting. With this she keenly sympathized. Her father had been [Pg 30] “out in the forty-five” and her grandfather in “the fifteen,” and for a man’s country to be at war and that man not in the thick of the fight, seemed to her the most terrible of hardships. ”

“ And presently, when Madame Mirabel and Bastien were deep in recalling the terrible incidents that had [Pg 23] happened to those left behind in France, De Bourmont and Lady Betty began to talk confidentially, and his dissatisfaction was plain.
“We occupy ourselves with trifles here,” he said bitterly, “because else we should go mad. Think,—almost every Frenchman is fighting for France, and here we are, and we can neither fight for her nor against her. ”

“ Our wives and daughters get to be infatuated with the fellows, [Pg 39] and will not look thereafter at honest, plain lawyers and doctors and merchants; and I am too proud a man to wish my daughter to aspire to a rank she can never reach, and so I would have her satisfied with her own class, which is good enough for any woman, or man either.”
At last, though, Lady Betty Stair’s charms having helped to stiffen up his resolution, De Bourmont actually determined that his next visit should be his last. ”

“ The womenkind were plainly bent on going to the great ball, and the counsellor at heart felt a secret satisfaction in the invitation, which was the greater compliment because so absolutely unsolicited. Mistress Mackenzie begged De Bourmont to show her how to approach royalty,—for etiquette was strict at Holyrood and no man, woman, or child was allowed to go out of the presence of the royal princes other than backward. ”

“ The ships in the little harbor were dressed in honor of the occasion, and the French frigate, anchored in the bay, was covered with flags. On the great plain were found ten thousand men, on three sides of a square. The fourth side was left open, and facing it was General de Bourmont and a splendid staff. Upon the surrounding heights were great multitudes of people,—French, Arabs, Jews, Turks, all watching the scene. [Pg 134] A blare of military music smote the morning air, as all the bands in the French-African army crashed out.
Sister Claire’s heart beat ”

“ You are worth the whole medical staff when it comes to actual fighting in the field.”
“Do you think I would have stayed behind?” somewhat indignantly asked Sister Claire.
On a June evening, the French column started for the plateau, where it was well understood that the Algerians meant to give battle. It was a fine sight, and as Sister Claire sat in her little white-covered cart, watching the beautiful precision with which cavalry, infantry, and artillery took their place in line, she felt more excited than she had since 1815. ”

“ And an evil thought came into his mind and straightway left his lips.
“Lady Betty Stair,” he said, “I believe that you and the gentleman who gave me this scratch think to be something more than friends; but you never can.” Lady Betty turned pale with rage at Bastien’s impertinence, and, for once, her nimble tongue and ready wit failed her. Bastien followed up his advantage.
“Do you want to know why? Because [Pg 78] your brother’s blood is on De Bourmont’s hands. Your lover, Mademoiselle, killed your brother.” ”

“ A cheer broke from the doctor and the bearers, and even the poor wounded men joined faintly in the cry. Sister Claire had gone nearly a hundred yards, when she laid the shell down carefully and turned [Pg 130] to run back. She was just half a minute too late. A deafening report was heard, and she was seen to fall to the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds; and at the same moment a shout went up from thousands of throats as De Bourmont, mounting his horse, dashed forward in pursuit of the flying Algerians.
The hospital of the Sisters of Mercy at Algiers was a pleasant place ”

“ My father has told me that in his day it was a common enough thing to claim sanctuary here, and to see a man fleeing toward Holyrood was sure to start a [Pg 68] rabble at his heels, all, however, apt to be partisans of the fugitive,—for the people rather like to have the bailiffs outrun. Sanctuary is sometimes claimed now; but, as my father said, the devil is not so strong as he was forty years ago, and debtors are more honest, or creditors more careful whom they trust. ”