Chapter V (1)
Both Horatia and the stranger whom she had befriended looked after the small vanishing figure with an amused relief; then the young man turned, and, clasping his hat to his breast (for he was still bareheaded), made her a graceful, formal bow.
“Mademoiselle, I am your debtor to my dying day! Conceive how I am alarmed by that so evil boy! Ma foi, I began to see myself in an English prison for attempted murder.”
“Mr. Hungerford would soon have effected your release, Monsieur,” said Horatia, laughing. “May I ask, indeed, why he has left you to these adventures?” For she would no longer pretend ignorance of his identity.
The young man showed a marked surprise. “Is it possible that I have the good fortune to be known to you?” he exclaimed. “But yes; I am the guest of Mr. Hungerford, and, to make a clean breast of my sins, Mademoiselle, I have lost him. He was taking me to pay a call upon M. le Recteur of Compton Regis, and his daughter—cousins of Mr. Hungerford, I believe—we parted half an hour ago, and I was to meet him at some place whose name I have forgotten; then I have the contretemps with the infant and have lost the way also. I am in despair, because I have it in my mind that the cousine of Mr. Hungerford is une très belle personne, and her father very instructed; and who knows now whether I shall ever see them?”
His air of regret and helplessness was rather attractive; but the suspicion that he really had more than half an inkling who she was restored to Miss Grenville’s voice and manner something of the decorum proper to the chance meeting of a young lady with a strange gentleman on the road—a decorum already a good deal impaired by the feeling of complicity in the business of Tommy Wilson.
“I have no doubt,” she said, “that you will find Mr. Hungerford already at the Rectory, and I will direct you the shortest way thither. I am myself Miss Grenville.”
M. le Comte de la Roche-Guyon smote himself lightly on the breast. “I might have guessed it!” he said in an aside to Tristram’s horse. “Mademoiselle, I am more than ever your devoted servant... Permit me!” He kissed her gloved hand with a singular mixture of reverence and fervour. “But... if we are going the same way... might I not have the great honour of accompanying you, or would it not be considered convenable, in England?”
His tone, his innocent, pleading glance suggested that in his own less conventional native land such a proceeding would be perfectly proper; whereas Horatia knew the exact contrary to be the case. However, she always thought that she despised convention; there was the chance that he might get lost again, and meanwhile poor Tristram would be waiting about Heaven knew where. So she said, with sufficient dignity, that she should be very pleased, and they started homewards, conversing with great propriety on such banal subjects as the weather, and with Tristram’s horse pacing beside them for chaperon. Yet the shade of Tommy Wilson, hovering cherub-like above them, linked them in a half-guilty alliance.
And thus they came round by Five-Acres into Compton Regis, and at the cross-roads by the farm found Tristram Hungerford, on his old horse, looking for his missing guest.
“My dear La Roche-Guyon, where have you been?” he demanded, as he dismounted and saluted Horatia.
“In Paradise,” responded the young man audaciously. “Eh quoi, you were anxious about me, mon ami? I found a guardian angel in the person of Miss Grenville herself.”
“So I see,” answered his host a trifle drily. “I rode back to Risley to look for you.”
The Comte protested that he was desolated, at the same time managing to convey to the girl beside him, without either speech or look, that, for obvious reasons, he was nothing of the sort. But Miss Grenville, with a heightened colour, walked on in silence between them. She had no taste for exaggerated compliments; that foolish utterance about Paradise would not have been at all in good taste for an Englishman. But, of course, M. de la Roche-Guyon was a foreigner.
She had yet to learn that M. de la Roche-Guyon, born and partially educated as he had been in England, had a much less incomplete knowledge of English usage than he found convenient, at times, to publish abroad.
(2)
Armand-Maurice de la Roche-Guyon achieved, in the Rectory drawing-room, the impression which he never failed to make in any society. Man or woman, you wanted instinctively to be friends with him; he had so engaging an air of expecting it. And Horatia noticed afresh how intensely he was alive, and how little he tried to conceal the fact. She thought of the wooden, controlled visages of some of her male acquaintances, and contrasted them with his changing, vivid face, in which every feature, from the clear eyebrows to the rather mocking mouth, could express any shade of feeling from derision to adoration. Such foreign accent as he retained lent a charm to his fluent English, which, though apt to desert him at moments of crisis, carried him gallantly in ordinary conversation, and only required occasional help from a gesture or a French word. But, as he explained, he had been born in England, and therefore the English “th,” the shibboleth of his countrymen, troubled him but little.
“M. l’Abbé Dubayet, who taught my daughter, never learnt our language properly, though he had been in England for a quarter of a century,” remarked the Rector, commenting on his visitor’s proficiency.
“So much the better for Mademoiselle, who speaks, I will wager, like a Tourangelle,” responded the young Frenchman, with a little bow in Horatia’s direction.
“Yes, she does speak well,” said the Rector.
“Her friends complain, I believe, that they cannot follow her on that account,” murmured Tristram.
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Horatia. “Do not think to flatter me into talking French with M. de la Roche-Guyon. I shall ask him the inevitable question in English: How do you like England, Monsieur?”
“Mais, mon Dieu!” exclaimed the guest, “how am I to reply to that? If you mean the country, Mademoiselle, it is not new to me; if you mean John Bull, it would not be polite of me to tell you how much he sometimes amuses me; if you mean the English ladies, you would think what I should say too polite, and you would not believe me.”
“We had better let you off, La Roche-Guyon,” said Tristram. “Far be it from us to ask why John Bull amuses you.”
“You have seen Oxford, I suppose, Monsieur?” inquired the Rector.
“Already twice,” responded M. de la Roche-Guyon. “I find it beautiful—but of a beauty! We have nothing like it; it must be the wonder of the world, your University. Fortunate young men, to live in those magnificent colleges, and disport themselves on those lawns! I saw there—what did I not see? all the colleges, I think, certainly that of Oriel, the nurse of Mr. Hungerford—and the theatre, with those heads of Roman Emperors (but, indeed, I hope they were not really like that), and the great library, superb, and a museum—I have forgotten its name, where there was a jewel of Alfred, and the sword sent by the Pope to your Henry VIII—he would not send one, I think, to William IV?—and a horn which grew upon the head of a woman (but that I do not believe, naturally) and a picture of the Christ carrying the cross made in the feathers of the humming-bird. Yes, and I also saw in the library, I think, a model of our Maison Carrée at Nîmes. But it is the whole city, with its towers and gardens, which has most ravished me.”
“Ah, do you take an interest in Roman remains?” queried the Rector, brightening. “We can’t show you another Maison Carrée of course, but there is a very fair Roman villa between here and Oxford, with a Roman cemetery near it. Then there is Cherbury Camp, not far from us—though that is probably pre-Roman, if not pre-British; it is egg-shaped, and has three valla, with fosses outside each—very interesting. I should have great pleasure in showing it to you, Monsieur, if you cared to see it.”
“I am sure that M. le Comte will not care for that, Papa,” interposed Horatia. “I assure you, Monsieur, it is nothing but a few grassy banks, all ploughed away except in one place. Imagination supplies the rest.”
“And what, Miss, supplies the Roman coins in my study, from Augustus to Honorius, all found in this county?” demanded her father. “And the cameo of Hermes with a cornucopia, and the very Anglo-Saxon fibula you are wearing at this moment, ungrateful girl!”
“You have found these things!” exclaimed the young Frenchman eagerly, and his quick glance went to Horatia’s neck. “De grace, Monsieur, permit me to avail myself of your so kind offer! I have always desired to behold the traces of our conquerors and yours. What a people, the Romans!”
The Rector, delighted at this responsive enthusiasm, said that he would certainly conduct the visitor to Cherbury Camp next morning, and was warmly thanked for his offer. Tristram, though a little surprised at his guest’s unexpected antiquarian zeal, was not ill-pleased at the arrangement, for he had an article to finish. Miss Grenville, however, continued to oppose her father’s selection.
“I have a much better idea than that,” she announced. “Take M. de la Roche-Guyon to see the White Horse, Papa.”
“The White Horse, what is that?” inquired the young man. “An old inn?”
“It is a horse cut in the hillside by the Anglo-Saxons,” Horatia informed him. “It is said to have been made by command of Alfred to commemorate his victory over the Danes. Papa does not believe that theory, as everyone else does. But he will no doubt explain his heretical ideas to you if you go with him to-morrow. At any rate, you will get a magnificent view, and see something you have not the like of, I suppose, in France.”
“But pardon,” retorted the Frenchman, “in France we have the white horse of M. de Lafayette, and that is already an animal—how do you say, légendaire; and some day perhaps he will be laid out as a bed in the gardens of the Tuileries. Oh, la belle idée!”
Horatia laughed. But the mention of Lafayette reminded her of recent events.
“You were in the revolution, perhaps, Monsieur?”
The young man’s face darkened. “How do you mean, ‘in it,’ Mademoiselle? You do not think that I am one of those scoundrelly revolutionaries?”
“No, indeed! But you saw it—you fought in it, perhaps?”
The Comte de la Roche-Guyon shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, I fought a little. But I had bad luck.”
What this misfortune was he did not specify. He did not seem to wish to talk about the Days of July, and Horatia liked him for it, feeling sure that the long white seam which she suddenly espied on the back of his right hand was an honourable memento of the occasion, and not realising that the age of so well-healed a wound must be nearer two years than two months.
“Ah, a sad business,” said Mr. Grenville sympathetically. “And you have just come from Lulworth, I understand. How did you find the King?”
“His Majesty is lodged tant bien que mal,” responded their visitor. “The Castle is out of repair and there is little state. The day before I left I saw Madame la Dauphine and her lady driving out in the rain in a shabby little open carriage drawn by a rough pony. They both had old straw bonnets and Madame la Duchesse d’Angoulême a light brown shawl. I believe that they were one day taken for servants, for housekeepers, at a neighbouring château which they went to visit.”
“What unparalleled misfortunes have been hers!” said the Rector. “And the Duchesse de Berry?”
“Ah, she finds it too dull there; she goes visiting. Madame la Duchesse de Berry will not stop at anything; she has the spirit of an Amazon. My father tells me that on the way from Paris to Cherbourg she went armed with pistols, and fired them off once, too, in the King’s presence. His Majesty was much annoyed.”
“It is her little son, is it not, who is the heir to the crown?” asked Horatia. “How old is he?”
“Henry V is this month ten years old,” responded the Comte.
“Britwell-Prior in Oxfordshire belongs to the Welds of Lulworth,” said the Rector musingly. “Oh, are you going, Tristram? Well, mind that you spare me M. de la Roche-Guyon to-morrow morning. I will be... let me see—yes, I will be at the cross-roads at half-past ten, if he will join me there, and we will go to the White Horse, if Robin, who is really getting very fat, will carry me up the hill. And when shall I see you again?”
“At the Squire’s on Saturday, I expect,” said Tristram, adding that he hoped himself to get up a little dinner-party next week, if he could persuade M. de la Roche-Guyon to stay. He was beginning to take his leave when Horatia interrupted him.
“Before you go, Tristram, I want to show you this book which I picked up in Oxford before I went away. Excuse me, M. le Comte.”
It is to be presumed that M. le Comte excused her, no other course being open to him, but he bent interested eyes upon her as she and Tristram stooped over the book together, eyes which had already opened wider than their wont when he first heard the mutual use of the Christian name.
“Pardon,” he observed in a low voice to the Rector, “but Mademoiselle your daughter and Mr. Hungerford are par—relations, I should say?”
“A sort of cousins,” replied Mr. Grenville. “Moreover Tristram Hungerford is almost a son to me—an old pupil whom I have known since he was a child.” And wishing further to disarm possible foreign criticism, he added, “Our English girls have much more liberty than yours in France, you know.”
“For that reason I have always wished to be an Englishman,” was M. de la Roche-Guyon’s reply to this.
“Your Miss Grenville is very pretty, to my mind,” he observed to his host as they rode homewards some twenty minutes later. “Has she many admirers?”
Mr. Hungerford thought this question decidedly impertinent—especially as he could not answer it in the affirmative—but remembering, like Horatia, that the speaker was a foreigner, abstained from an attempt to snub him. He answered a little stiffly:
“Miss Grenville is not concerned to see every man at her feet.”
“So I supposed,” returned the young Frenchman.
“She is docte, instruite. Nevertheless——” he broke off and shot a long, keen and rather malicious glance at Tristram’s profile—“nevertheless, some day she will find it quite an amusing game. They all do, in the end.”
Tristram pulled out his watch. “Shall we trot a little?” he suggested pleasantly. “It is later than I thought.”