Petticoat Rule Part 4

And there were others! The friends of the Queen and her clique, of course; they were not here to-night; at least not in great numbers; still, even the present brilliant company, though smiling and obsequious in the presence of the King, was not by any means a close phalanx of friends.

M. d'Argenson, for instance--he was an avowed enemy; and Marshal de Noailles, too--oh! and there were others.

One of them, fortunately, was going away; Charles Edward Stuart, aspiring King of England; he had been no friend of Pompadour. Even now, as he stood close by, lending an obviously inattentive ear to M.

le Duc d'Aumont, she could see that he still looked gloomy and out of humour, and that whenever his eyes rested upon her and the King he frowned with wrathful impatience.

"You are distraite, ma mie!" said Louis, with a yawn.

"I was thinking, sire," she replied, smiling into his drowsy eyes.

"For G.o.d's sake, I entreat, do not think!" exclaimed the King, with mock alarm. "Thought produces wrinkles, and your perfect mouth was only fas.h.i.+oned for smiles."

"May I frame a suggestion?" she queried archly.

"No, only a command."

"This Comptroller of Finance, your future master, Louis, and mine----"

"Your slave," he interrupted lazily, "and he values his life."

"Why not milor Eglinton?"

"Le pet.i.t Anglais?" and Louis's fat body was shaken with sudden immoderate laughter. "Par Dieu, ma mie! Of all your witty sallies this one hath pleased us most."

"Why?" she asked seriously.

"Le pet.i.t Anglais!" again laughed the King. "I'd as soon give the appointment to your lapdog, Marquise. Fido would have as much capacity for the post as the ornamental cypher that hangs on his mother's skirts."

"Milor Eglinton is very rich," she mused.

"Inordinately so, curse him! I could do with half his revenue and be a satisfied man."

"Being a cypher he would not trouble us much; being very rich he would need no bribe for doing as we wish."

"His lady mother would trouble us, ma mie."

"Bah! we would find him a wife."

"Nay! I entreat you do not worry your dainty head with these matters,"

said the King, somewhat irritably. "The appointment rests with D'Aumont; an you desire the post for your protege, turn your bright eyes on the Duke."

Pompadour would have wished to pursue the subject, to get something of a promise from Louis, to turn his inveterate weakness then and there to her own account, but Louis the Well-beloved yawned, a calamity which the fair lady dared not risk again. Witty and brilliant, forever gay and unfatigued, she knew that her power over the monarch would only last whilst she could amuse him.

Therefore now with swift transition she turned the conversation to more piquant channels. An anecdote at the expense of the old d.u.c.h.esse de Pontchartrain brought life once more into the eyes of the King. She was once more untiring in her efforts, her cheeks glowed even through the powder and the rouge, her lips smiled without intermission, but her thoughts drifted back to the root idea, the burden of that control to be imposed on her caprices.

She would not have minded Milor Eglinton, the courteous, amiable gentleman, who had no will save that expressed by any woman who happened to catch his ear. She felt that she could, with but very little trouble, twist him round her little finger. His dictatorial mamma would either have to be got out of the way, or won over to Mme.

la Marquise's own views of life, whilst Milor could remain a bachelor, lest another feminine influence prove antagonistic.

Pompadour's bright eyes, whilst she chatted to the King, sought amidst the glittering throng the slim figure of "le pet.i.t Anglais."

Yes, he would suit her purpose admirably! She could see his handsome profile clearly outlined against the delicate tones of the wall; handsome, yes! clear-cut and firm, with straight nose and the low, square brow of the Anglo-Saxon race, but obviously weak and yielding; a perfect tool in the hands of a clever woman.

Elegant too, always immaculately, nay daintily dressed, he wore with that somewhat stiff grace peculiar to the English gentleman the showy and effeminate costume of the time. But there was weakness expressed in his very att.i.tude as he stood now talking to Charles Edward Stuart: the kindly, pleasant expression of his good-looking face in strange contrast to the glowering moodiness of his princely friend.

One Lord Eglinton had followed the deposed James II into exile. His son had risked life and fortune for the restoration of the old Pretender, and having managed by sheer good luck to save both, he felt that he had done more than enough for a cause which he knew was doomed to disaster. But he hated the thought of a German monarch in England, and in his turn preferred exile to serving a foreigner for whom he had scant sympathy.

Immensely wealthy, a brilliant conversationalist, a perfect gentleman, he soon won the heart of one of the daughters of France. Mlle. de Maille brought him, in addition to her own elaborate trousseau and a dowry of three thousand francs yearly pin-money, the historic and gorgeous chateau of Beaufort which Lord Eglinton's fortune rescued from the hands of the bailiffs.

Vaguely he thought that some day he would return to his own ancestral home in Suss.e.x, when England would have become English once again; in the meanwhile he was content to drift on the placid waters of life, his luxurious craft guided by the domineering hand of his wife.

Independent owing to his nationality and his wealth, a friend alike of the King of France and the Stuart Pretender, he neither took up arms in any cause, nor sides in any political intrigue.

Lady Eglinton brought up her son in affluence and luxury, but detached from all partisans.h.i.+p. Her strong personality imposed something of her own national characteristics on the boy, but she could not break the friends.h.i.+p that existed between the royal Stuarts and her husband's family. Although Charles Edward was her son's playmate in the gardens and castle of Beaufort, she nevertheless succeeded in instilling into the latter a slight measure of disdain for the hazardous attempts at s.n.a.t.c.hing the English crown which invariably resulted in the betrayal of friends, the wholesale slaughter of adherents, and the ignominious flight of the Pretender.

No doubt it was this dual nationality in the present Lord Eglinton, this detachment from political conflicts, that was the real cause of that inherent weakness of character which Mme. de Pompadour now wished to use for her own ends. She was glad, therefore, to note that whilst Charles Edward talked earnestly to him, the eyes of "le pet.i.t Anglais"

roamed restlessly about the room, as if seeking for support in an argument, or help from a personality stronger than his own.

Lady Eglinton's voice, harsh and domineering, often rose above the general hum of talk. Just now she had succeeded in engaging the Prime Minister in serious conversation.

The King in the meanwhile had quietly dropped asleep, lulled by the even ripple of talk of the beautiful Marquise and the heavily scented atmosphere of the room. Pompadour rose from her chair as noiselessly as her stiff brocaded skirt would allow; she crossed the room and joined Lady Eglinton and M. le Duc d'Aumont.

She was going to take King Louis's advice and add the weighty influence of her own bright eyes to that of my lady's voluble talk in favour of the appointment of Lord Eglinton to the newly created Ministry of Finance.

CHAPTER IV

A WOMAN'S SURRENDER

In a small alcove, which was raised above the level of the rest of the floor by a couple of steps and divided from the main banqueting hall by a heavy damask curtain now partially drawn aside, Mlle. d'Aumont sat in close conversation with M. le Comte de Stainville.

From this secluded spot these two dominated the entire length and breadth of the room; the dazzling scene was displayed before them in a gorgeous kaleidoscope of moving figures, in an ever-developing panorama of vividly coloured groups, that came and went, divided and reunited; now forming soft harmonies of delicate tones that suggested the subtle blending on the palette of a master, anon throwing on to the canvas daring patches of rich magentas or deep purples, that set off with cunning artfulness the ma.s.ses of pale primrose and gold.

Gaston de Stainville, however, did not seem impressed with the picturesqueness of the scene. He sat with his broad back turned toward the brilliant company, one elbow propped on a small table beside him, his hand s.h.i.+elding his face against the glare of the candles. But Lydie d'Aumont's searching eyes roamed ceaselessly over the gaily plumaged birds that fluttered uninterruptedly before her gaze.

With one delicate hand holding back the rich damask curtain, the other lying idly in her lap, her white brocaded gown standing out in stiff folds round her girlish figure, she was a picture well worth looking at.

Lydie was scarcely twenty-one then, but already there was a certain something in the poise of her head, in every movement of her graceful body, that suggested the woman accustomed to dominate, the woman of thought and action, rather than of sentiment and tender emotions.

Those of her own s.e.x said at that time that in Lydie's haughty eyes there was the look of the girl who has been deprived early in life of a mother's gentle influence, and who has never felt the gentle yet firm curb of a mother's authority on her childish whims and caprices.

M. le Duc d'Aumont, who had lost his young wife after five years of an exceptionally happy married life, had lavished all the affection of his mature years on the girl, who was the sole representative of his name. The child had always been headstrong and self-willed from the cradle; her nurses could not cope with her babyish tempers; her governesses dreaded her domineering ways. M. le Duc was deaf to all complaints; he would not have the child thwarted, and as she grew up lovable in the main, she found her father's subordinates ready enough to bend to her yoke.

From the age of ten she had been the acknowledged queen of all her playmates, and the autocrat of her father's house. Little by little she obtained an extraordinary ascendancy over the fond parent, who admired almost as much as he loved her.

He was deeply touched when, scarce out of the school room, she tried to help him in the composition of his letters, and more than astonished to see how quick was her intelligence and how sharp her intuition. Instinctively, at first he took to explaining to her the various political questions of the day, listening with paternal good-humour, to her acute and sensitive remarks on several important questions.