Джорджетт Хейер - The Masqueraders

“And the bon papa, my children?” cried my lady, holding a hand of each.

“There, madam, we suppose you to have the advantage of us,” Robin said.

She looked a query, with her head tilted birdlike to one side. “Ah? What’s this? You have no news of him?”

“In truth, madam, we’ve mislaid the old gentleman,” Prudence said. “Or he us.”

My lady burst out laughing again. “I would you had brought him! But that was not to be expected. Yes, he wrote to me. I will tell you — ah, but you are tired! You must sit down. Take the couch, Miss Merriot — tiens, that is not a name for my stupid tongue! — Prue, my angel, some chocolate, yes? Marthe shall make it herself: you remember Marthe, no?”

“Egad, is it the same fat Marthe,” Robin said. “I drank her chocolate in Paris, ten years ago!”

“The same, my cabbage, but fatter — oh, of an enormity! you would not believe! To think you should remember, and you a little gamin — not more than fourteen years, no? But the wickedness even then! And again in Rome, not?”

“Oh, but it was my Lady Lowestoft, then, at the Legation. We — what were we? Sure, it must have been the Polish gentleman and his two sons. There had been some little fracas at Munich, as I remember.”

This made my lady laugh again. She was off to the door, and sent her page running with orders to Marthe.

“So the old gentleman wrote to you, madam?” Prudence said. “Did he say he would send us?”

“Say? Robert? Mon Dieu, when did he in all his life say what one might so easily comprehend? Be sure it was all a mystery, and no names writ down.”

Prudence chuckled. “Egad, we may be sure of that. But you knew?”

“ A vrai dire. I might guess — since I too know Robert. Ah, he might count on me, he knew well! It is this rebellion, not?” She sank her voice a little, and her bright eyes were keen as needles.

Robin put a finger to his lips. “To be frank, ma’am, I believe I’m under attainder.”

Her very red lips formed an O, and she wrinkled up her nose. “Chut, chut! He must then put your head in a noose too?”

“Why, madam, to say sooth we were not loth. Prudence lay snug enough at Perth.”

My lady beamed upon Prudence. “I had thought you in the thick of the fight, my child. It is well. But since it ended, where have you been? Voyons, it is many months since it is over, and you are but just come to me!”

There came that bitter look of brooding into Robin’s eyes. It was Prudence who made answer. “Robin was fled to the hills, my lady. I waited snug enough, as he says.”

“To the hills?” My lady leaned a little forward. “With the Prince, no?”

Robin made an impatient movement. The cloud did not lift from his brow. “Some of the time.”

“We heard rumours that he had gone. It is true?”

“He’s safe — in France,” Robin said curtly.

“The poor young man! And the bon papa? Whither went he?”

“Lud, madam, do you ask us that?” laughed Prudence. “In France, maybe, or maybe in Scotland still. Who knows?”

The door opened, and the page let in fat Marthe, a tray in her hands. It was a very colossus of a woman, of startling girth, and with a smile that seemed to spread all over the full moon of her face. Like her mistress, from one to the other she looked, and was of a sudden smitten with laughter that shook all her frame like a jelly. The tray was set down; she clasped her hands and gasped: “Oh, la-la! To see the little monsieur habillé en dame!”

Robin sailed up to her and swept a practised curtsey.

“Your memory fails you, Marthe. Behold me — Prudence!”

She gave his arm a playful slap. “My memory, alors! No, no, m’sieur, you are not yet large enough to be mademoiselle.”

“Oh, unkind!” Robin lamented, and kissed her roundly.

“Marthe, there is need of secrecy, you understand?” My lady spoke urgently.

“Bien, madame; I do not forget.” Marthe put a finger to her lips. “ Tenez, it must be myself to wait always upon the false mademoiselle. I shall see to it.” She nodded in a business-like fashion. “John is with you yet?”

“Be very sure of it,” Robin said.

“All goes well, then. No one need suspect. I go to attend to the bedchambers.” She went off with a rolling gait, and was found later in Robin’s room, twitting the solemn manservant.

From my Lady Lowestoft much might be learned of Society and Politics. She moved in the Polite World, and made something of a figure in it, for she had sufficient wealth, some charm, and a vivacity of manner that was foreign and therefore intriguing. There sat withal a shrewd head on her shoulders.

She was a widow of no very late date; indeed she had interred Sir Roger Lowestoft with all decency little more than a year back, and having for a space mourned him with suitable propriety she had now launched upon a single life again, which promised to be very much more entertaining than had been the married state. It must be admitted Sir Roger was little loss to his lady. She had been heard to say that his English respectability gave her a cramp in the soul. Certainly she had been a volatile creature in the days of her spinsterhood. Then came Sir Roger, and laid his sober person, and all his substantial goods at her feet. She picked them up.

“I am no longer so young as I was, voyez vous,” she had said to her friends. “The time comes for me to range myself.”

Accordingly she married Sir Roger, and as an Ambassador’s lady she conducted herself admirably, and achieved popularity.

She was ensconced now in her house in Arlington Street, with fat Marthe to watch over her, a monkey to sit in the folds of her skirts, as Fashion prescribed, and a black page to run her errands. She entertained on the lavish scale, her acquaintances were many, and she had beside quite a small host of admirers.

“You understand, these English consider me in the light of an original,” she exclaimed to Prudence. “I have an instant success, parole d’honneur!”

She was off without awaiting the reply, on to another subject. Conversationally she fluttered like a butterfly, here, there, and everywhere. She had much to say of the late executions: there were upflung hands of horror, and some pungent exclamations in the French tongue. She spoke of his Grace of Cumberland, not flatteringly; she had a quick ripple of laughter for his ugly nickname, and the instant after a brimming pair of eyes when she thought how he had earned it. Blood! England must needs reek of it! She gave a shudder. But there must be no more executions: that was decided: no, nor risings either. All that was folly; folly the most outrageous. Peste, how came the Merriots in so forlorn a galère?..

They sat alone at the dinner-table; the lackeys had withdrawn, and even the little black page had been sent away. Prudence answered my lady, since Robin sat silent. “Oh, believe me, ma’am, we ask ourselves! The old gentleman had a maggot in his brain belike. A beau geste, I am persuaded; nothing else.”

“But stupid, my child, stupid! There was never a hope. Moreover, we do very well with little fierce George. Bah, why plunge all in disorder for a pretty princeling?”

“He had the right.” Robin spoke sombrely.

“Quant à ça, I know nothing of the matter, my little one. You English, you chose for yourselves a foreigner. Bien! But you must not turn against him now. No, no, that is not reasonable.”

“By your leave, ma’am, not all chose him.”