“Ah, Mademoiselle,” said the Comte d’Artois, who knew very well how to pay compliments to Lady Betty, “the dances of your native land are not those of courtiers, but of warriors.”
Then Lady Betty, smiling and blushing, danced flings and reels and strathspeys, with De Bourmont for a partner,—and never was there a handsomer couple, or a more graceful. De Bourmont not only taught his legs to be Scotch, but even his stomach, and he ate unflinchingly of haggis and oatcake and other Scotch delicacies when he could get them, and never failed to tell Lady Betty how much he relished them—which was a lie, but told with a good purpose,—that of making headway with this charming little Highlander.
And yet, he continued on the sly to give lessons in Castle Street. He could scarcely explain why he went there, except that he never could resist a pretty woman; and Flora Mackenzie was as handsome in her cold, stately way, as Lady Betty Stair with her ravishing sprightliness and highbred ease,—for the lawyer’s daughter was much more formal and reserved than the laird’s daughter. De Bourmont wondered often if the Mackenzies knew who he was; but the lines of caste and class were closely drawn in those days, and professional classes, to which the Mackenzies belonged, knew little or nothing of the French colony established at Holyrood, whose association was with the highest nobility only. The weekly levees, held in the long gallery at Holyrood, where Rose Bradwardine and Flora MacIvor had danced with Prince Charlie, were attended by all the great families in Edinburgh, but by none others. They were not gay levees,—there is always something tragic in merrymakings at Holyrood,—but the Scotch people who attended them could trace their ancestry back to the Picts and were of the noblest blood of Scotland.
“Never was there a handsomer couple, or a more graceful.”
The dreary palace, and the dreary Royal Highnesses, and the weary, weary suite undoubtedly became brighter after the advent of Lady Betty Stair at the palace; and the evenings were not so long when she would charm them with her Scotch dancing and touch their hearts with her Scotch ballads, all done with her own sparkling grace. But can any day be short or any night be quiet to exiles in a strange land, as these unfortunate French people were?
II
ALL this time Bastien and Lady Betty maintained an armed neutrality, though by degrees it grew on both that “the other one knew.” And a strange thing happened to Bastien: he began to like Lady Betty a great deal more than was either convenient or agreeable. At first he had hated her, and never looked at her without remembering the blazing wrath that showed in her eyes when she whacked his nose; and then there was that secret uneasiness about something else which he always felt in her company. “Faith,” he thought to himself sometimes, “perhaps it was a good thing she had no more dangerous weapon than a fan, for, sure, she would have used anything on me that came to her hand.” And then he was a little fearful lest she[Pg 35] should tell the story on him, particularly as Bastien’s account of the whack he got from the baker’s wife had passed into the history of the court, and was often alluded to. The first time this happened was soon after Lady Betty’s arrival. They were all assembled for the evening in the drawing-room, drinking tea after the English fashion. Bastien was called upon to tell the story, and he very promptly began the tale, meaning to stick to it if Lady Betty should happen to let the truth out; for he had no great opinion of a woman’s power to keep anything to herself. However, he had but little fear, because the lie would have many years’ start of the truth in any event.
By strange luck, Lady Betty, who was serving tea, sat next Bastien that night. As he told the story for the hundredth time, amid shouts of laughter,—Lady Betty, listening very gravely, apparently minding her business of making the kettle boil over the spirit-lamp,—she could not help blushing; but she blushed so often and so easily that nobody noticed it. Just as Bastien wound up, though, the kettle, which had not yet boiled, got a sudden tilt, and about a gallon of warm water was poured over Bastien’s black silk breeches; and Lady Betty’s voice was heard, in the tone of great meekness and softness which she always used when she meant to be impertinent:—
“Dear me!” she cried; “how unfortunate! A thousand apologies, M. Bastien.”