Lord Tony’s Wife Baroness Orczy (story read aloud .TXT) 📖

of the duc de Kernogan whenever he met the banker Martin-Roget on an equal social footing.

“Then there is not much harm done,” rejoined the latter coolly; “the marriage is not a legal one. It need not even be dissolved⁠—Mademoiselle de Kernogan is still Mademoiselle de Kernogan and I her humble and faithful adorer.”

M. le duc paused in his restless walk.

“You would⁠ ⁠…” he stammered, then checked himself, turning abruptly away. He had some difficulty in hiding the scorn wherewith he regarded the other’s coolness. Bourgeois blood was not to be gainsaid. The tradesman⁠—or banker, whatever he was⁠—who hankered after an alliance with Mademoiselle de Kernogan, and was ready to lay down a couple of millions for the privilege⁠—was not to be deterred from his purpose by any considerations of pride or of honour. M. le duc was satisfied and reassured, 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 own thoughts and not to notice the febrile comings and goings of the other man.

“What we have to do, M. le duc,” he said after a while, “is to induce Mlle. 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 the two men had understood one another.

“We must get her back, of course,” assented the Duke, who had suddenly become as calm as the other man.

“There is no harm done,” reiterated Martin-Roget with slow and earnest emphasis.

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

Frédérick came in half an hour later to ask if M. le duc would have his luncheon. He found the two gentlemen sitting quite close together over the 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 had quite cooled down and that he was talking calmly and very affably to M. Martin-Roget.

V The Nest I

There are lovely days in England sometimes in November or December, days when the departing year strives to make us forget that winter is nigh, and autumn smiles, gentle and benignant, caressing with a still tender kiss the last leaves of the scarlet oak which linger on the boughs, and touching up with a vivid brush the evergreen verdure of bay trees, of ilex and of yew. The sky is of that pale, translucent blue which dwellers in the South never see, with the soft transparency of an aquamarine as it fades into the misty horizon at midday. And at dusk the thrushes sing: “Kiss me quick! kiss me quick! kiss me quick” in the naked branches of old acacias and chestnuts, and the robins don their crimson waistcoats and dart in and out among the coppice and through the feathery arms of larch and pine. And the sun which tips the prickly points of holly leaves with gold, joins in this merry make-believe that winter is still a very, very long way off, and that mayhap he has lost his way altogether, and is never coming to this balmy beautiful land again.

Just such a day was the penultimate one of November, 1793, when Lady Anthony Dewhurst sat at a desk in the wide bay window of the drawing-room in Combwich Hall, trying to put into a letter to Lady Blakeney all that her heart would have wished to express of love and gratitude and happiness.

Three whole days had gone by since that exciting night, when before break of day in the dimly-lighted old church, in the presence of two or three faithful friends, she had plighted her troth to Lord Anthony: even whilst other kind friends⁠—including His Royal Highness⁠—formed part of the little conspiracy which kept her father occupied and, if necessary, would have kept M. Martin-Roget out of the way. Since then her life had been one continuous dream of perfect bliss. From the moment when after the second religious ceremony in the Roman Catholic church she found herself alone in the carriage with milor, and felt his arms⁠—so strong and yet so tender⁠—closing round her and his lips pressed to hers in the first masterful kiss of complete possession, until this hour when she saw his tall, elegant figure hurrying across the garden toward the gate and suddenly turning toward the window whence he knew that she was watching him, every hour and every minute had been nothing but unalloyed happiness.

Even there where she had looked for sorrow and difficulty her path had been made smooth for her. Her father, who she had feared would prove hard and irreconcilable, had been tender and forgiving to such an extent that tears almost of shame would gather in her eyes whenever she thought of him.

As soon as she arrived at Combwich Hall she had written a long and deeply affectionate letter to her father, imploring his forgiveness for the deception and unfilial conduct which on her part must so deeply have grieved him. She pleaded for her right to happiness in words of impassioned eloquence, she pleaded for her right to love and to be loved, for her right to a home, which a husband’s devotion would make a paradise for her.

This letter she had sent by special courier to her father and the very next day she had his reply. She had opened the letter with trembling fingers, fearful lest her father’s harshness should mar the perfect serenity of her life. She was afraid of what he would