Petticoat Rule

Lydie, alone among all those present, had retained her outward serenity. This was her hour, and she meant to press her triumph home to the full. All the pent-up horror and loathing which had well-nigh choked her during the whole of this terrible day, now rose clamouring and persistent in this opportunity for revenge. Though Gaston stood calm and mocking by, though Irène looked defiant and her cheeks flamed with wrath, they would glow with shame anon, for Lydie had deliberately aimed a blow at her vanity, the great and vulnerable spot in the armour of la belle brune de Bordeaux.

Lydie knew Marie Leszcynska well enough to be sure that the very breath of scandal, which she had deliberately blown on Gaston's wife, was enough to cause the rigid, puritanically-minded Queen to refuse all future intercourse with her. Rightly or wrongly, without further judgment or appeal, the Queen would condemn Irène unheard, and ban her and her husband for ever from her intimacy, thus setting the mark of a certain social ostracism upon them, which they could never live down.

Less than three seconds had elapsed whilst these conflicting emotions assailed the various actors of this drawing-room drama. The Queen now turned with a frown half-inquiring, wholly disapproving toward the unfortunate Louvois.

"Monsieur le Chambellan," she said sternly, "how did this occur? We do not allow any error to creep in the list of presentations made to our Royal person."

These few words recalled Irène to the imminence of her peril. She would not allow herself to be humiliated without a protest, nor would she so readily fall a victim to Lydie's obvious desire for revenge. She too was shrewd enough to know that the Queen would never forgive, and certainly never forget, the esclandre of this presentation; but if she herself was destined to fall socially, at least she would drag her enemy down with her, and bury Lydie's influence, power and popularity beneath the ruins of her own ambitions.

"Your Majesty will deign I hope to pause a moment ere you sweep me from before your Royal eyes unheard," she said boldly; "the error is on the part of Madame la Grande Maréchale. My name was put on Monsieur le Chambellan's list by her orders."

But Marie Leszcynska would not at this juncture take any direct notice of Irène; until it was made quite clear that Madame la Comtesse de Stainville was a fit and proper person to be presented to the Queen of France, she absolutely ignored her very existence, lest a word from her be interpreted as implying encouragement, or at least recognition. Therefore she looked beyond Irène, straight at Monsieur de Louvois, and addressed herself directly to him.

"What are the true facts, Monsieur le Chambellan?" she said.

"I certainly.. er.. had the list as usual.. er.. from Madame la Grande Maréchale.. and." poor Monsieur de Louvois stammered in a fit of acute nervousness.

"Then 'tis from you, Madame la Marquise, that we require an explanation for this unseemly disturbance," rejoined Her Majesty turning her cold, gray eyes on Lydie.

"The explanation is quite simple, your Majesty," replied Lydie calmly. "It had been my intention to present Madame la Comtesse de Stainville to your Majesty, but since then events have occurred, which will compel me to ask Madame la Comtesse to find some other lady to perform the office for her."

"The explanation is not quite satisfactory to us," rejoined Her Majesty with all the rigid hauteur of which she possessed the stinging secret, "and it will have to be properly and officially amplified to-morrow. But this is neither the place nor the moment for discussing such matters. Monsieur de Louvois, I pray you to proceed with the other names on your list. The Queen has spoken!"

With these arrogant words culled from the book of etiquette peculiar to her own autocratic house, the daughter of the deposed King of Poland waved the incident aside as if it had never been. A quickly repressed murmur went all round the room. Lydie swept a deep and respectful curtsey before Her Majesty, and indicated by her own manner that, as far as she was concerned, the incident was now closed by royal command.

But Irène de Stainville's nature was not one that would allow the matter to be passed over so lightly. Whichever way the Queen might choose to act, she felt that at any rate the men must be on her side: and though King Louis himself was too indolent and egotistical to interfere actively on her behalf, and her own husband could not do more than pick a quarrel with some wholly innocent person, yet she was quite sure that she detected approval and encouragement to fight her own battles in the looks of undisguised admiration which the masculine element there present freely bestowed upon her. Monsieur le Duc d'Aumont, for one, looked stern disapproval at his daughter, whilst Monsieur de Louvois was visibly embarrassed.

It was, therefore, only a case of two female enemies, one of whom certainly was the Queen of France – a prejudiced and obstinate autocrat if ever there was one, within the narrow confines of her own intimate circle – and the other exceptionally highly placed, both in Court favour and in official status.

Still Irène de Stainville felt that her own beauty was at least as powerful an asset, when fighting for social prestige, as the political influence of her chief adversary.

Therefore when the Queen of France chose to speak as if Madame la Comtesse de Stainville did not even exist, and Monsieur de Louvois diffidently but firmly begged her to stand aside, she boldly refused.

"Nay! the Queen shall hear me," she said in a voice which trembled a little now with suppressed passion; "surely Her Majesty will not allow a jealous woman's caprice."

"Silence, wench," interrupted Marie Leszcynska with all the authority, the pride, the dictatorial will, which she had inherited from her Polish ancestors; "you forget that you are in the presence of your Queen."

"Nay, Madame, I do not forget it," said Irène, nothing daunted, and firmly holding her ground. "I remember it with every word I utter, and remember that the name of our Queen stands for purity and for justice. Your Majesty," she added, being quick to note the slightly yielding look which, at her cleverly chosen words, crept in Marie Leszcynska's eyes, and gracefully dropping on her knees on the steps of the throne, "will you at least deign to hear me? I may not be worthy to kiss your Majesty's hand; we none of us are that, I presume, for you stand infinitely above us by right of your virtues and your dignity, but I swear to the Queen of France that I have done nothing to deserve this public affront."

She paused a moment, to assure herself that she held the attention of the Queen and of every one there present, then she fixed her dark eyes straight on Lydie and said loudly, so that her clear, somewhat shrill young voice rang out triumphantly through the room:

"My husband was made a tool of by Madame la Marquise d'Eglinton, for the purpose of selling the Stuart prince to England."

Once more there was dead silence in the vast reception hall, a few seconds during which the loudly accusing voice died away in an almost imperceptible echo, but in one heart at least those seconds might have been a hundred hours, for the wealth of misery they contained.

Lydie stood as if turned to stone. Though she had realized Gaston's treachery she had not thought that it would mean all this. The utter infamy of it left her paralyzed and helpless. She had delivered her soul, her mind, her honour, her integrity to the vilest traitor that ever darkened the face of the earth. If a year ago she had humiliated him, if to-day she had tried to thwart all his future ambitions, he was fully revenged now.

She did not hear even the loyal Queen's protest:

"It is false!" for Marie Leszcynska, sickened and horrified, was loth to believe the truth of this terrible indictment against the one woman she had always singled out for royal trust and royal friendship.

"It is true, your Majesty," said Irène firmly, as she once more rose to her feet. "Deign to ask Madame la Marquise d'Eglinton if to-day in the loneliness of the Park of Versailles, she did not place in the hands of Monsieur le Comte de Stainville the secret of the Stuart prince's hiding place so that he might be delivered over to the English for a large sum of money. Madame is beautiful and rich and influential, Monsieur de Stainville being a man, dared not refuse to obey her orders, but Monsieur de Stainville is also handsome and young, Madame honoured him with her regard, and I the wife was to be publicly ostracised and swept aside, for I was in the way, and might have an indiscreet tongue in my mouth. That, your Majesty, is the truth," concluded Irène now with triumphant calm; "deign to look into her face and mine and see which is the paler, she or I."

Marie Leszcynska had listened in silence at the awful accusation thus hurled by one woman against the other. At Irène's final words she turned and looked at Lydie, saw the marble-like hue of the face, the rigidity of the young form, the hopeless despair expressed in the half-closed eyes. It is but fair to say that the Queen even now did not altogether believe Madame de Stainville's story: she instinctively was still drawing a comparison between the gaudily apparelled doll with the shrill voice, and the impudently bared shoulders, and the proud, graceful woman in robes of virginal white, of whom, during all these years of public life, unkind tongues were only able to say that she was cold, rigid, dull, uninteresting perhaps, but whose vestal robes the breath of evil scandal had never dared to pollute.

The Queen did not feel that guilt was written now on that straight, pure brow, but she had a perfectly morbid horror of any esclandre occurring in her presence or at one of her Courts. Moreover, Irène had certainly struck one chord, which jarred horribly on the puritanical Queen's nerves, and unfortunately at the very moment when Madame de Stainville made this final poisoned suggestion, Marie Lesczynska's eyes happened to be resting on the King's face. In Louis' expression she caught the leer, the smile, half-mocking, half indulgent which was habitual to him when woman's frailty was discussed, and her whole pride rose in revolt at contact with these perpetual scandals, which disgraced the Court of Versailles, and which she was striving so hard to banish from her own entourage.

Because of this she felt angered now with every one quite indiscriminately. A few years ago her sense of justice would have caused her to sift this matter through, to test for herself the rights or wrongs of an obviously bitter quarrel; but lately this sense of justice had become blunted, through many affronts to her personal dignity as a Queen and as a wife. It had left her with a morbid egotistical regard for the majesty of her Court: this she felt had been attainted; and now she only longed to get away, and leave behind her all this vulgarity, these passions, these petty quarrels, which she so cordially abhorred.

"Enough," she said sternly; "our royal cheeks glow with shame at thought that this indecent brawl should have occurred in our presence. Your Majesty," she added turning haughtily to the King, "your arm, I pray; we cannot endure this noisy bickering, which is more fitting for the slums of Paris than for the throne-room of the Queen of France."

Louis' bewilderment was almost comical. It would have been utterly impossible for him, and quite unseemly in his wife's presence, to interfere in what was obviously a feminine quarrel, even if he had desired to do so; and he had not altogether made up his mind how Madame la Comtesse de Stainville's indiscreet outburst would affect him personally, which was all that really interested him in the matter. On the whole he was inclined to think favourably of the new aspect of affairs. When the fact of the Stuart prince's betrayal into his enemies' hands became known – which it was bound to do sooner or later – it was not unpleasant that the first hint of the treachery should have come in such a form as to implicate Lydie, and that so deeply, that ever afterward the public, clinging to the old proverb that there is no smoke without fire, would look upon her as the prime mover in the nefarious scheme.

Louis the Well-beloved possessed, par excellence, the subtle knack of taking care of his august person, and above all of his august reputation. It would certainly be as well, for the sake of the future, that his over-indulgent subjects should foster the belief that, in this vile treachery, their King had been misled; more sinned against than sinning.

But of course he too was anxious to get away. That the present feminine altercation would lead to a more serious quarrel, he already guessed from the fact that his shrewd eyes had perceived Lord Eglinton standing close to one of the great doors at the further end of the room. Vaguely Louis wondered how much the husband had heard, and what he would do if he had heard everything. Then he mentally shrugged his shoulders, thinking that after all it did not matter what milor's future actions might be. Louis was quite convinced that Madame Lydie had thrown her bonnet over the mills, and that, as a gallant gentleman, milor would above all things have to hold his peace.

His Majesty therefore was not angered against any one. He smiled quite affably at the Comte and Comtesse de Stainville and bestowed a knowing wink on Lydie, who fortunately was too dazed to notice this final insult.

Every one else was silent and awed. The Queen now descended the steps of the daïs on the arm of the King. Irène was a little disappointed that nothing more was going to happen. She opened her lips, ready to speak again but Marie Leszcynska threw her such a haughty, scornful glance that Gaston de Stainville, realizing the futility – nay! the danger – of prolonging this scene, placed a peremptory hand on his wife's arm, forcibly drawing her away.

At the foot of the steps Her Majesty once more turned to Lydie.

"We shall expect an explanation from you, Marquise," she said haughtily, "but not to-night. See that our audience chamber is cleared from all this rabble."

And with this parting shot, hurled recklessly at her faithful adherents, just as much as at those who had offended her, the descendant of a proud line of Kings sailed majestically out of the room, whilst a loud "hush-sh-sh-sh." caused by the swish of brocaded skirts on the parquet floor as every one made a deep obeisance, accompanied the Royal lady in her short progress toward the door and then softly died away.

CHAPTER XXVII
A FALL

Irène de Stainville was quite right when she thought that sympathy would be on her side, in the grave affront which had been put upon her, and for which she had revenged herself somewhat drastically, but under the circumstances quite naturally.

Although in this circle – known as the Queen's set – the young Marchioness of Eglinton had always been looked up to as a leader and an especial favourite, the accusation which Irène had brought against her was so awful, her own attitude of passive acquiescence so incomprehensible, that it was small wonder that after the departure of Their Majesties, when the crowd broke up into isolated groups, most people there present held themselves aloof from her.

The words "a jealous woman's caprice," which at the outset had so angered the Queen, expressed fully the interpretation put upon Lydie's conduct by those who witnessed the scene from beginning to end. That Irène de Stainville had inflicted on her the humiliation of a terrible public indictment, was reckoned only as retributive human justice.

Lydie knew well enough that the crowd which surrounded her – though here usually composed of friends – was only too ready to believe evil, however crying, against a woman placed so highly in Royal and social favour as she herself had been for years. Already she could hear the murmur of condemnation round her, and that from people who should have known that she was quite incapable of committing the base treachery attributed to her.

Of course she had not denied it. She could not have denied it, in the face of the wording of the accusation itself.

And she felt herself hideously and morally guilty, guilty in the facts though not in the spirit. As Irène had put it crudely and simply, she had handed over to Gaston de Stainville in the privacy of the Park of Versailles the secret which would deliver the Stuart prince into the hands of his enemies.

How could she begin to explain to all these people that her motive had been good and pure, her orders to Gaston altogether different from those imputed to her by Irène? No one would have believed her explanation unless Gaston too spoke the truth. And Gaston meant to be an infamous liar to the end.

She had been the tool of that clique, it was they now who were ready to cast her aside, to break her power and ultimately to throw her on the heap of social refuse, where other traitors, liars and cheats mouldered away in obscurity.

Already she knew what the end would be, already she tasted the bitter fruit of waning popularity.

Quite a crowd of obvious sympathizers gathered round the Comte and Comtesse de Stainville. Gaston's avowedly base conduct was – it seems – to be condoned. At best he stood branded by his own wife – unwittingly perhaps – as having betrayed a woman who for right or wrong, had trusted him, but it is strange to record that, in this era of petticoat rule, the men were always more easily forgiven their faults than the women.

Lydie found herself almost alone, only Monsieur de Louvois came and spoke to her on an official matter, and presently Monsieur le Duc d'Aumont joined them.

"Will you let me take you back to your apartments, Lydie?" urged Monsieur le Duc. "I fear the excitement has seriously upset you."

"You think I have been to blame, father dear?" she asked quite gently.

"Oh!." he murmured vaguely.

"You did not speak up for me when that woman accused me."

"My dear child," he said evasively, "you had not taken me into your confidence. I thought."

"You still think," she insisted, "that what Madame de Stainville said was true?"

"Isn't it?" he asked blandly.

He did not understand this mood of hers at all. Was she trying to deny? Impossible surely! She was a clever woman, and with the map and her own letter, sealed and signed with her name, what was the good of denying?

"Your own letter and the map, my child," he added with gentle reproach, thinking that she feared to trust him completely.

"Ah yes! my own letter!" she murmured, "the map.. I had forgotten."

No! she did not mean to deny! She could not deny!.. Her own father believed her guilty.. and all she could have done would have been to urge the purity of her motive. Gaston had of course destroyed her orders to the command of Le Monarque and there was only the map.. and that awful, awful letter.

Monsieur le Duc thought that his daughter had been very unwise. Having trusted Gaston, and placed herself as it were in his hands, she was foolish to anger him. No man – if he have the faintest pretension to being called an honourable gentleman – however smitten he might be with another woman's charms, will allow his wife to be publicly insulted by her rival. No doubt Lydie had been jealous of Irène, whose somewhat indiscreet advances to milor Eglinton had aroused universal comment. But Lydie did not even pretend to care for her own husband and she had yielded her most treasured secret to Gaston de Stainville. There she should have remained content and not have provoked Irène's wrath, and even perhaps a revulsion of feeling in Gaston himself.

Unlike King Louis, Monsieur le Duc d'Aumont did not approve of his daughter's name being associated with the treacherous scheme from which he was ready enough to profit financially himself, although in the innermost depths of his heart he disapproved of it. He knew his Royal master well enough to be fully aware of the fact that, when the whole nefarious transaction came to light, Louis would find means of posing before the public as the unwilling tool of a gang of money-grabbers. When that happened, every scornful finger would of necessity – remembering the events of this night – point at Lydie, and incidentally at her father, as the prime movers of the scheme.

It had been far better to have conciliated Irène and not to have angered Gaston.

But women were strange creatures, and jealousy their most autocratic master. Even his daughter whom he had thought so exceptional, so clever and so clear-headed, was not free from the weaknesses of her sex.

"Methinks, my dear," he said kindly, "you have not acted as wisely as I should have expected. Madame de Stainville, on my honour, hath not wronged you so as to deserve a public affront, and Gaston himself only desired to serve you."

Monsieur le Duc must have raised his voice more than he intended, or else perhaps there had occurred quite suddenly in the crowd of sympathizers, that now stood in a dense group round Madame de Stainville, one of those inevitable moments of complete silence when angels are said to be fluttering round the room. Certain it is that Monsieur le Duc's words sang out somewhat loudly, and were heard by those whose names had been on his lips.

"Nay! I entreat you, Monsieur le Duc," came in light, bantering accents from Gaston de Stainville, "do not chide your fair daughter. Believe me, we who have suffered most are not inclined to be severe. As to me the psychology of Madame la Marquise's mood has been profoundly interesting, since it hath revealed her to the astonished gaze of her many admirers, as endowed with some of the weaknesses of her adorable sex. Why should we complain of these charming weaknesses? For though we might be very hard hit thereby, they are but expressions of flattery soothing to our pride."

The groups had parted somewhat as he spoke, leaving him face to face with Lydie, towards whom he advanced with an affected gait and mincing steps, looking at her with mocking eyes, whilst toying gracefully with the broad black ribbon that held his eyeglass.

But Gaston's were not the only sarcastic glances that were levelled at Lydie. His fatuous innuendoes were unmistakable, and bore out the broader and more shameful accusation hurled by Irène. Lydie's own attitude, her every action to-night, the expression of her face at this moment seemed to prove them true. She retreated a little as he advanced, and, doing so, she raised her head with that proud toss which was habitual to her.

Thus her eyes travelled swiftly across the room, and she saw her husband standing some distance away. She, too, like King Louis, wondered how much he had heard, how much he knew: and knowing all, what he meant to do. Instinctively when she caught sight of him, and then once more saw Gaston de Stainville drawing nearer to her, she remembered that warning which milor had given her that morning, and which she had thought so futile, anent the loathsome reptile that, once touched, would pollute for ever.

"Madame," said Gaston now, as he boldly approached her, "my friends here would tell me no doubt that, by every code of social honour, my duty is to punish you or someone who would represent you in this matter, for the affront done to my wife. But how can I do that since the offender is fair as well as frail? My desire is not to punish, but rather to thank you on my knees for the delicate compliment implied by your actions to-night. I knew that you honoured me by trusting in me," he added with obvious significance, "but I had not hoped to provoke such flattering jealousy in the heart of the most statuesque woman in France."

A titter went round the room. Gaston's attitude seemed suddenly to have eased the tension, as of an impending tragedy, which had hung over the brilliant assembly for the last half hour. Monsieur le Comte was such a dreadful mauvais sujet but so delightful in his ways, so delicately refined in his wickedness! He was quite right to take the matter lightly, and a murmur of approval followed the titter, at the tact with which he had lifted the load of apprehension from the minds of the company.

Madame la Marquise d'Eglinton was something of a fool to take the matter so thoroughly au tragique. No doubt the affairs of the Stuart prince would right themselves presently, and she certainly should have had more regard for her willing and obviously devoted accomplice.

He looked so superlatively elegant and handsome now, the younger women sighed whilst they admired him. He pointed his toe and held out his tricorne in the manner prescribed by fashion for the making of a bow, and it was most unfortunate that he was so suddenly stopped in the very midst of his graceful flourish by a quiet and suave voice which came immediately from behind him.

"I would not do that, were I in your red-heeled shoes, my good Stainville. A slip on this highly-polished floor is certain to be the result."

But even before the gentle echo of these blandly spoken words had penetrated to the further ends of the room, Monsieur le Comte de Stainville had measured his full length face downward on the ground.

His fall was so instantaneous that he had not the time to save himself with his hands, and he was literally sprawling now at Lydie's feet with arms and legs stretched out, his face having come in violent contact with the polished floor. Quite close to him Lord Eglinton was standing, laughing softly and discreetly and looking down on the prostrate and distinctly inelegant figure of the handsome cavalier.

A ripple of merry laughter followed this unexpected turn of events. One or two spectators, who had stood quite close at the very moment that the catastrophe occurred, declared subsequently that milor had with a quick action of his foot thrown Monsieur de Stainville off his balance; the intense slipperiness of the parquet having merely done the rest.

Be that as it may, the laughter of necessity was prudently suppressed, for already Gaston had picked himself up and there was that in his face which warned all those present that the farce – such as it was – would prove the prelude to real and serious tragedy.

"There now," said Lord Eglinton blandly, "did I not warn you, Monsieur le Comte? Graceful flourishes are apt to be treacherous."

"Milor.." said Gaston, who was livid with rage.

"Hush – sh – sh," interrupted milor in the same even and gentle voice, "not in the presence of ladies… An you desire, Monsieur le Comte, I'll be at your service later on."

Then he turned toward his wife, bowing low, but not in the least as Gaston de Stainville would have bowed, for he had inherited from his father all the stiffness of manner peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race.

Thus at this moment he looked distinctly gauche, though not without dignity, as, his back slightly bent, his left arm outstretched, he waited until Lydie chose to place her hand on his sleeve.

"Your seconds, milor," shouted Gaston, who seemed quite unable to control himself, and who had to be distinctly and even determinedly held back by two of his friends from springing then and there at Lord Eglinton's throat.

"They will wait on yours to-night, Monsieur le Comte," replied le petit Anglais affably. "Madame la Marquise, will you honour me?"

And Lydie took his arm and allowed him to lead her out of the room.