The History of the Lady Betty Stair

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Bastien had more than a suspicion that it was not wholly an accident, but he was much too astute to show his suspicion. He bowed and smiled, and, professing to have an engagement with the chaplain, went off with a very good air. De Bourmont, who remained behind, laughed in Lady Betty’s demure face. He was not sorry to see Bastien discomfited.

This should have made Bastien hate Lady Betty the more; but so full of contrariety is the human heart that it made him look at her more and think of her oftener,—and Lady Betty was so charming that no man was safe who came within the circle of her spell. Moreover, Bastien could have dashed his brains out at his own folly when he thought of it. Lady Betty was as poor as poverty,—for the dowry of a Scotch laird’s daughter with a castle in the Highlands was likely to consist of heather-bells, romantic rocks, and a large stock of family pride. If there was anything on earth that Bastien loved more than his ease and comfort, it was the money to buy that ease and comfort. And, as if no element of contrariness should be lacking, Bastien felt that Lady Betty hated him. But there is a fire that warms itself at ice, and a fancy that loves contradictions,—and such was Bastien’s.

As for De Bourmont, Lady Betty daily grew more charming to him, and, likewise, he continued to go to Castle Street, telling himself quite seriously that each time would be the last. He sometimes wondered if Mistress Flora, or her father the counsellor, suspected his real rank. In those days, émigrés were found all over England and Scotland, earning their living by all sorts of trades. The counsellor had said to him in Castle Street the first time they had met, “Sir, are you a man of title?”

Now, if he had asked whether De Bourmont were a man of rank, it might have been hard to answer; but De Bourmont could truthfully say he had no title, in the sense the counsellor understood titles.

“For, look you, sir,” continued the counsellor, “although I respect the French counts and marquises who work for their living, yet it has ever been found that it is not well to introduce them into the houses of plain citizens like me. Our wives and daughters get to be infatuated with the fellows, 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. He felt some natural masculine interest in knowing how the lawyer’s beautiful daughter would take the news, and he had enough masculine vanity to feel very sorry for her in having to resign his company. Flora Mackenzie was an unread riddle to him still. There was a sort of magnetic current between them, although they never exchanged a word except upon the subject of the French language and the weather. At every lesson there sat, in a high-backed chair, Mistress Mackenzie, a simple, handsome creature, who was quite happy in her fine husband, her fine daughter, her fine house, and money in the bank.

On this day, therefore, when De Bourmont meant to make this announcement, as he was ushered into the grim drawing-room there sat the counsellor,—a tall, burly man, with the darkest, deepest, truest eyes De Bourmont had ever seen. Boys sometimes have such eyes in the white innocence of their youth; but when a man keeps it through the storms of his manhood, he must be, as was this Scotch lawyer, needlessly and superfluously honest.

The counsellor held a great big card of invitation in his hand, while over him stood his wife and daughter, and even the gentle and stately Flora was in a flutter; and as De Bourmont was ushered in the counsellor roared out, in his big, rich voice:—

“Well, M. de Bourmont, you see my womankind all set by the ears over a trumpery invitation to the castle.”

At this De Bourmont involuntarily straightened himself up. Although he had managed to bear himself heretofore so that his rank and station were only suspected, not ascertained, he could not conceal the pride of a noble altogether.