Lord Tony's Wife: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel

  CHAPTER IV

  THE FATHER

  I

  It was close on ten o'clock now in the morning on the following day, andM. le duc de Kernogan was at breakfast in his lodgings in Laura Place,when a courier was announced who was the bearer of a letter for M. leduc.

  He thought the man must have been sent by Martin-Roget, who mayhap wassick, seeing that he had not been present at the Assembly Rooms lastnight, and the duc took the letter and opened it without misgivings. Heread the address on the top of the letter: "Combwich Hall"--a placeunknown to him, and the first words of the letter: "Dear father!" Andeven then he had no misgivings.

  In fact he had to read the letter through three times before the fullmeaning of its contents had penetrated into his brain. Whilst he read,he sat quite still, and even the hand which held the paper had not theslightest tremor. When he had finished he spoke quite quietly to hisvalet:

  "Give the courier a glass of ale, Frederick," he said, "and tell him hecan go; there is no answer. And--stay," he added, "I want you to goround at once to M. Martin-Roget's lodgings and ask him to come andspeak with me as early as possible."

  The valet left the room, and M. le duc deliberately read through theletter from end to end for the fourth time. There was no doubt, nopossible misapprehension. His daughter Yvonne de Kernogan had elopedclandestinely with my lord Anthony Dewhurst and had been secretlymarried to him in the small hours of the morning in the Protestantchurch of St. James, and subsequently before a priest of her ownreligion in the Priory Church of St. John the Evangelist.

  She apprised her father of this fact in a few sentences which purportedto be dictated by profound affection and filial respect, but in which M.de Kernogan failed to detect the slightest trace of contrition. Yvonne!his Yvonne! the sole representative now of the old race--eloped like akitchen-wench! Yvonne! his daughter! his asset for the future! histhing! his fortune! that which he meant with perfect egoism to sacrificeon the altar of his own beliefs and his own loyalty to the kingship ofFrance! Yvonne had taken her future in her own hands! She knew that herhand, her person, were the purchase price of so many millions to bepoured into the coffers of the royalist cause, and she had disposed ofboth, in direct defiance of her father's will and of her duty to herKing and to his cause!

  Yvonne de Kernogan was false to her traditions, false to her father!false to her King and country! In the years to come when the chroniclersof the time came to write the histories of the great families that hadrallied round their King in the hour of his deadly peril, the name ofKernogan would be erased from those glorious pages. The Kernogans willhave failed in their duty, failed in their loyalty! Oh! the shame of itall! The shame!!

  The duc was far too proud a gentleman to allow his valet to see himunder the stress of violent emotion, but now that he was alone his thin,hard face--with that air of gravity which he had transmitted to hisdaughter--became distorted with the passion of unbridled fury; he torethe letter up into a thousand little pieces and threw the fragments intothe fire. On the bureau beside him there stood a miniature of Yvonne deKernogan painted by Hall three years ago, and framed in a circlet ofbrilliants. M. le duc's eyes casually fell upon it; he picked it up andwith a violent gesture of rage threw it on the floor and stamped upon itwith his heel, destroying in this paroxysm of silent fury a work of artworth many hundred pounds.

  His daughter had deceived him. She had also upset all his plans wherebythe army of M. le Prince de Conde would have been enriched by a coupleof million francs. In addition to the shame upon her father, she hadalso brought disgrace upon herself and her good name, for she was aminor and this clandestine marriage, contracted without her father'sconsent, was illegal in France, illegal everywhere: save perhaps inEngland--of this M. de Kernogan was not quite sure, but he certainlydidn't care. And in this solemn moment he registered a vow that never aslong as he lived would he be reconciled to that English nincompoop whohad dared to filch his daughter from him, and never--as long as helived--would he by his consent render the marriage legal, and thechildren born of that wedlock legitimate in the eyes of his country'slaws.

  A calm akin to apathy had followed his first outbreak of fury. He satdown in front of the fire, and buried his chin in his hand. Something ofcourse must be done to get his daughter back. If only Martin-Roget werehere, he would know better how to act. Would Martin-Roget stick to hisbargain and accept the girl for wife, now that her fame and honour hadbeen irretrievably tarnished? There was the question which the nexthalf-hour would decide. M. de Kernogan cast a feverish, anxious look onthe clock. Half an hour had gone by since Frederick went to seekMartin-Roget, and the latter had not yet appeared.

  Until he had seen Martin-Roget and spoken with Martin-Roget M. deKernogan could decide nothing. For one brief, mad moment, the projecthad formed itself in his disordered brain to rush down to Combwich Halland provoke that impudent Englishman who had stolen his daughter: tokill him or be killed by him; in either case Yvonne would then be partedfrom him for ever. But even then, the thought of Martin-Roget broughtmore sober reflection. Martin-Roget would see to it. Martin-Roget wouldknow what to do. After all, the outrage had hit the accredited loverjust as hard as the father.

  But why in the name of ---- did Martin-Roget not come?

  II

  It was past midday when at last Martin-Roget knocked at the door of M.le duc's lodgings in Laura Place. The older man had in the meanwhilegone through every phase of overwhelming emotions. The outbreak ofunreasoning fury--when like a maddened beast that bites and tears he hadbroken his daughter's miniature and trampled it under foot--had beenfollowed by a kind of dull apathy, when for close upon an hour he hadsat staring into the flames, trying to grapple with an awful realitywhich seemed to elude him all the time. He could not believe that thisthing had really happened: that Yvonne, his well-bred dutiful daughter,who had shown such marvellous courage and presence of mind when thenecessity of flight and of exile had first presented itself in the wakeof the awful massacres and wholesale executions of her own friends andkindred, that she should have eloped--like some flirtatious wench--andoutraged her father in this monstrous fashion, by a clandestine marriagewith a man of alien race and of a heretical religion! M. de Kernogancould not realise it. It passed the bounds of possibility. The veryflames in the hearth seemed to dance and to mock the bare suggestion ofsuch an atrocious transgression.

  To this gloomy numbing of the senses had succeeded the inevitable morbidrestlessness: the pacing up and down the narrow room, the furtiveglances at the clock, the frequent orders to Frederick to go out and seeif M. Martin-Roget was not yet home. For Frederick had come back afterhis first errand with the astounding news that M. Martin-Roget had lefthis lodgings the previous day at about four o'clock, and had not beenseen or heard of since. In fact his landlady was very anxious about himand was sorely tempted to see the town-crier on the subject.

  Four times did Frederick have to go from Laura Place to the Bear Inn inUnion Street, where M. Martin-Roget lodged, and three times he returnedwith the news that nothing had been heard of Mounzeer yet. The fourthtime--it was then close on midday--he came back running--thankful tobring back the good tidings, since he was tired of that walk from LauraPlace to the Bear Inn. M. Martin-Roget had come home. He appeared verytired and in rare ill-humour: but Frederick had delivered the messagefrom M. le duc, whereupon M. Martin-Roget had become most affable andpromised that he would come round immediately. In fact he was even thentreading hard on Frederick's heels.

  III

  "My daughter has gone! She left the ball clandestinely last night, andwas married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst in the small hours of the morning.She is now at a place called Combwich Hall--with him!"

  M. le duc de Kernogan literally threw these words in Martin-Roget'sface, the moment the latter had entered the room, and Frederick haddiscreetly closed the door.

  "What? What?" stammered the other vaguely. "I don't understand. What doyou mean?" he added, bewildered at the duc's violence, tired after hisnight's
adventure and the long ride in the early morning, irritable withwant of sleep and decent food. He stared, uncomprehending, at the duc,who had once more started pacing up and down the room, like a cagedbeast, with hands tightly clenched behind his back, his eyes gloweringboth at the new-comer and at the imaginary presence of his most bitterenemy--the man who had dared to come between him and his projects forhis daughter.

  Martin-Roget passed his hand across his brow like a man who is not yetfully awake.

  "What do you mean?" he reiterated hazily.

  "Just what I say," retorted the other roughly. "Yvonne has eloped withthat nincompoop Lord Anthony Dewhurst. They have gone through some sortof marriage ceremony together. And she writes me a letter this morningto tell me that she is quite happy and contented and spending herhoneymoon at a place called Combwich Hall. Honeymoon!" he repeatedsavagely, as if to lash his fury up anew, "Tsha!"

  Martin-Roget on the other hand was not the man to allow himself to fallinto a state of frenzy, which would necessarily interfere with calmconsideration.

  He had taken the fact in now. Yvonne's elopement with his English rival,the clandestine marriage, everything. But he was not going to allow hisinward rage to obscure his vision of the future. He did not spend thenext precious seconds--as men of his race are wont to do--in smashingthings around him, in raving and fuming and gesticulating. No. That wasnot the temper M. Martin-Roget was in at this moment when Fate and agirl's folly were ranging themselves against his plans. His friend,citizen Chauvelin, would have envied him his calm in the face of thisdisaster.

  Whilst M. le duc still stormed and raved, Martin-Roget sat down quietlyin front of the fire, rested his chin in his hand and waited for a lullin the other man's paroxysm ere he spoke.

  "From your attitude, M. le duc," he then said quietly, hiding obvioussarcasm behind a veil of studied deference, "from your attitude I gatherthat your wishes with regard to Mlle. de Kernogan have undergone nomodification. You would still honour me by desiring that she shouldbecome my wife?"

  "I am not in the habit of changing my mind," said M. le duc gruffly. Hedesired the marriage, he coveted Martin-Roget's millions for theroyalist cause, but he had no love for the man. All the pride of theKernogans, their long line of ancestry, rebelled against the thought ofa fair descendant of this glorious race being allied to a _roturier_--a_bourgeois_--a tradesman, what? and the cause of King and countrycounted few greater martyrdoms than that of the duc de Kernogan wheneverhe met the banker Martin-Roget on an equal social footing.

  "Then there is not much harm done," rejoined the latter coolly; "themarriage is not a legal one. It need not even be dissolved--Mademoisellede Kernogan is still Mademoiselle de Kernogan and I her humble andfaithful adorer."

  M. le duc paused in his restless walk.

  "You would ..." he stammered, then checked himself, turning abruptlyaway. He had some difficulty in hiding the scorn wherewith he regardedthe other's coolness. Bourgeois blood was not to be gainsaid. Thetradesman--or banker, whatever he was--who hankered after an alliancewith Mademoiselle de Kernogan, and was ready to lay down a couple ofmillions for the privilege--was not to be deterred from his purpose byany considerations of pride or of honour. M. le duc was satisfied andre-assured, but he despised the man for his leniency for all that.

  "The marriage is no marriage at all according to the laws of France,"reiterated Martin-Roget calmly.

  "No, it is not," assented the Duke roughly.

  For a while there was silence: Martin-Roget seemed immersed in his ownthoughts and not to notice the febrile comings and goings of the otherman.

  "What we have to do, M. le duc," he said after a while, "is to induceMlle. de Kernogan to return here immediately."

  "How are you going to accomplish that?" sneered the Duke.

  "Oh! I was not suggesting that I should appear in the matter at all,"rejoined Martin-Roget with a shrug of the shoulders.

  "Then how can I ...?"

  "Surely ..." argued the younger man tentatively.

  "You mean ...?"

  Martin-Roget nodded. Despite these ambiguous half-spoken sentences thetwo men had understood one another.

  "We must get her back, of course," assented the Duke, who had suddenlybecome as calm as the other man.

  "There is no harm done," reiterated Martin-Roget with slow and earnestemphasis.

  Whereupon the Duke, completely pacified, drew a chair close to thehearth and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees and holding hisfine, aristocratic hands to the blaze.

  Frederick came in half an hour later to ask if M. le duc would have hisluncheon. He found the two gentlemen sitting quite close together overthe dying embers of a fire that had not been fed for close upon an hour:and that prince of valets was glad to note that M. le duc's temper hadquite cooled down and that he was talking calmly and very affably to M.Martin-Roget.