“Would ye have the pleasure of a company of gentlemen disturbed for such a puir creature as Sandy Macgowan?”
Lady Betty, however, cast a glance of such reproach at her father that the laird actually blushed for the first time in forty years, and left the room. Not long afterward, though, the laird followed Sandy Macgowan, and Lady Betty was indeed alone in the world.
In the same year, ’98, a great event happened to her, however. The Comte d’Artois having taken refuge at Holyrood, it was thought well in order to keep the Edinburgh people satisfied with their visitors, that at least one of the young ladies of the old Jacobite families be asked to attend the Princess Marie Thérèse,—and a shrewd move it was. Lady Betty was their choice, and nothing could have been more judicious; for, in spite of her readiness to wield her green fan on impudent young gentlemen, and the unforgettable sorrow for her father and brother, the sweetness, the charm she carried with her, was irresistible,—and the French colony needed all the consolatory charm that could be had, especially the young De Bourmont.
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. At first De Bourmont bore it with the fine air of a martyr; then he yearned and burned to join the Vendeans, and latterly he had boldly made up his mind to go over to the Corsican at the first decent opportunity. He was thinking about this one autumn night in 1798, as he leaned against the wall in the courtyard of Holyrood, fingering his sword and biting his lips and muttering grimly to himself, when up rattled a huge old travelling chariot, and, the steps being let down, a simpering old French lady descended, and after her the sweetest, freshest, most laughing, coquettish young girl De Bourmont had ever seen,—Lady Betty Stair. Now, De Bourmont had little difficulty in identifying the party. He knew the Scotch girl was expected, and had pictured to himself a tall, rawboned, redhaired girl,—in short, a Highland chief in long petticoats. And Bastien, who was coming around the corner of the stone gateway, recognized them and gave a little start, and changing color turned back, but presently came forward again. Bastien’s claim to being of the old nobility was a little shady; consequently, he highly valued his attendance on royalty, and was willing to stay as long as the Comte d’Artois wanted him.
Lady Betty, with the eye of an eaglet in her own mountains, recognized both men by the light of the flaring flambeaux carried by the running footmen,—Bastien with a thrill of hatred, fear, and disgust, and De Bourmont with a thrill of a very different sort. She remembered seeing him at Versailles years before, and she recalled a certain little girlish, almost childish tenderness she had felt for him, which suddenly came to life when she saw him again. As for Madame Mirabel, forgetting all about etiquette, which had been the passion and study of her lifetime, she rushed up to De Bourmont and fairly embraced him.
“Oh, my dear De Bourmont,” she cried, “such a happiness to see a French face once more!”
De Bourmont gallantly and impudently responded to this by giving her a sounding kiss upon her withered cheek, at which the delighted old lady protested loudly.
“And here,” continued Madame, “here is Miladi Betty—don’t you remember her at Versailles in that dear, sweet, happy time?—oh me, oh me!”
“Ah, yes,” answered De Bourmont, advancing and bowing to the ground as he kissed the tips of Lady Betty’s fingers, “I recollect this young lady well as a little demoiselle. She was so pretty, and so proud—she reminded me of a young peacock in the King’s gardens.”
Lady Betty blushed more than ever at this—and then some one else came forward.