William Le Queux - Behind the Throne

“Well?” he managed to gasp. “And what is your proposal?”

“Ah, my dear friend, I am glad you are ready to listen to reason,” responded the Sicilian. “We must both face the future unshrinkingly, you know. You have your own schemes; I have mine. By acting in accord we shall succeed, but if we are enemies then we shall commit the very foolish and unpardonable error of exposing each other. I know quite well that there are certain rather unfortunate incidents regarding my own career, those disagreeable little matters of which you have knowledge, and by which you could retaliate. You see, I do not for a single moment intend to deny them. On the contrary, I frankly suggest that by an agreement of silence we can be helpful in each other’s interests. We both desire advancement, and can gain it through the medium of Morini. Are you not agreed?”

Dubard, slowly convinced that without the general’s aid he must be powerless and in peril, nodded in the affirmative. He did not discern the wily man’s ulterior motive, or the secret reason of the proposed compact.

“Your primary object, my dear Jules, is of course money,” the general went on. “Now, by a simple written declaration I shall absolve you from all connection with the Sazarac affair, while you, on your part, will deny my connection with that ugly little matter in Rome two years ago. Both of us will then emerge again honest and upright – models of virtue. Bygones will be bygones. I shall go my way, you will go yours; I to assist you, and you to help me – a perfectly reciprocal arrangement. I shall become Minister, while you – well, you will by a single coup become a rich man, and at the same time gain a very charming wife.”

“And Morini?”

The Under-Secretary elevated his shoulders and exhibited his palms.

“And the Englishman Macbean?”

“He is a mere fly in amber,” declared the Sicilian, with a sinister smile. “Fortune lies before us in Italy, my dear Jules – for you wealth and a wife; for me, office and distinction. By acting in accord we have nothing whatever to fear. Morini dare not disobey us, and Macbean, being a poor man, will easily fall into our power. Leave him entirely to me. I have a scheme by which he will shortly discover that his whole future depends upon his silence, and that a single indiscreet word will mean his ruin.”

“And if that fails?”

“Then there is still that effective method which was adopted towards Sazarac – you understand?”

The Frenchman nodded, darting a swift glance at the thin-featured man before him.

He understood too well.

The Thornby Flower-Show was held a week later in the rectory grounds, the work of arrangement chiefly devolving upon the bluff, good-natured rector and his nephew George.

The little rural fête, encouraged by the richer residents, was, like other village flower-shows, the annual occasion for the cottagers to exhibit their “twelve best varieties of vegetables,” their “six best pot-plants,” the ferns from their windows, and such-like horticultural possessions. Though quite a small show, it was typically English, well managed, and therefore always attended by people from the big houses in the neighbourhood, whose gardeners themselves competed in the open classes.

The judges – three gardeners from a distance – had inspected the exhibits in the marquee, and having made their awards, had, together with the committee, consisting of the local butcher and baker and two or three cottagers, all in their Sunday clothes and wearing blue rosettes, been entertained to luncheon by Mr Sinclair, when just before two o’clock the village band in uniform filed in at the garden-gate and put up their music-stands on the lawn. Then, as the church clock struck two, the villagers were admitted, each exhibitor making a rush for the tent, anxious to ascertain whether his exhibit bore the coloured card indicative of a prize.

At half-past two several smart carriages had driven up, and at last came the Morini landau, containing Mr Morini and his wife and daughter Mary. Basil Sinclair and George having welcomed them at the gate, Mr Morini was conducted to a small platform on the lawn, where, after a few words of introduction from the rector, he made a short speech in fairly good English, declaring the flower-show open.

Afterwards the party were conducted round the show by Sinclair, while George, of course, walked with Mary, who looked cool and sweet in a simple gown of pale grey voile, with a large grey hat to match.

As they walked around the tent, close beneath the noonday sun and heavy with the odour of vegetables and perfume of flowers, she congratulated him upon the success of the show.

Thornby always looked forward to the flower-show, for it was a gala day for the village; its four shops were closed, across the road at the top of the hill the committee stretched a string of gay bunting, and when dusk came the rectory garden was illuminated and there was dancing on the lawn. Thornby made every occasion an excuse for a dance, and the annual al fresco ball on the rector’s lawn was the chief event of the year.

It was His Excellency’s first visit to the rectory, therefore Mr Sinclair showed him the old-fashioned house, the grounds, the quaint old fifteenth-century church with its curious sculptured tombs, old carved oak and monumental brasses, while Mrs Morini, meeting several ladies of her acquaintance on the lawn, left Mary free to walk and talk with George Macbean.

For a whole long week of never-ending days he had been eagerly anticipating that meeting. Never for one moment had he ceased to think of her. The sweet, fair-faced girl was in peril, he knew, and if it were possible he intended to save her. But how? Ah! that was the question.

Although so deeply in love with her, he was judicious enough to save appearances, knowing well that the eyes of the whole countryside were upon him. The rustic is ever on the alert to discover defects in his master, and gossip in a village generally errs on the side of ill-nature. Therefore he was careful to appear gallant, and yet not too pressing in his attentions – a somewhat difficult feat with the strong ardour of love burning within him.

They were strolling together through the quaint old flower-garden sloping gently away towards the placid river, where they found themselves alone, when Mary, turning her beautiful face to him, suddenly said —

“I had no idea, Mr Macbean, that you had met my father in Rome. He was very much interested the other day, and after you had gone made quite a lot of inquiries about you.”

“It was very kind of him,” was the young man’s laughing reply. “I merely went as interpreter to Mr Morgan-Mason, who had business at your Ministry of War.”

Then, as they halted beneath the trees at the water’s edge, where there was a cool, refreshing breeze, she exclaimed suddenly, with a slight sigh, “Ah, how I wish we always lived in dear old England! I always look back upon my schooldays by the sea as the happiest in all my life; but now,” – and she drew a long breath again. “It is so different in Italy.”

Yes. She was sad, he recognised – very sad. But why? Her young heart seemed oppressed by some hidden grief. He saw it in her fine dark eyes at the moments when she was serious. Time after time, as he spoke to her and she answered, he recognised that upon her mind rested some heavy burden which oppressed and crushed her. Her resolute yet gentle spirit, her simple, serious, domestic turn of mind distinguished her from all the other women of his acquaintance. Her reveries, her simplicity, her melancholy, her sensibility, her fortitude, her perfectly feminine bearing, even though that of a cosmopolitan, were the characteristics of a womanly woman – a woman who would struggle unsubdued against the strangest vicissitudes of fortune, meeting with unshaken constancy reverses and disasters such as would break the most masculine spirit.