IV
Her Ladyship’s Perplexity
“That nice child has been here today,” remarked Lady Frances, suddenly. “I am at a loss.”
Her husband looked up, smiling.
“A novel experience for you, my dear. What child?”
“Christopher Dart. David’s secretary.”
“Oh? Why are you at a loss?”
Lady Frances frowned uncertainly.
“I cannot understand how he should be in Roxhythe’s service.”
Montgomery laid down his quill.
“Proceed!”
“Now, do not laugh!” begged her ladyship. “I am in earnest.”
“Did I laugh?”
“You looked as though you might. That boy is honest.”
“Yes?”
“I wish you were more intelligent,” sighed her ladyship. “Though Roxhythe assures me we should quarrel an you were.”
“I did not know I had been the subject of your conversation that evening last month.”
“Oh, you were not! Please don’t sound so offended! We congratulated ourselves that we had not married one another. It was very quaint.”
“Highly diverting,” agreed Montgomery, drily.
“Indeed, it was! And we nearly did, you know. But never mind that; it’s not what I wanted to tell you. It is about Christopher. He has been with Roxhythe for nearly two years, and he worships him!”
“Well?” asked her husband. “What of it?”
“That is not all. He—he respects him! And he is such an upright boy! So very honourable!”
“You seem to have observed him closely.”
“Pho!” said Lady Frances. “He is as transparent as air! He knows naught of plots and plotters. He is a very babe in affairs, and is seemingly blind to what goes on around him. And he is with Roxhythe!”
“I cannot see why you marvel at it, Fanny. Roxhythe is no plotter.”
Lady Frances leant both elbows on the table. She rested her chin in her hands, and looked steadily across at her husband.
“Do you really think that, Jasper?”
“Of course I think it!” he answered, surprised. “Roxhythe a plotter? My dear, you have some maggot in your head! The man has no mind for aught save clothes, and women, and witticisms!”
“You think he is a fool?”
“A typical courtier,” he amended.
A curious smile curved her ladyship’s mouth.
“Do you think the King a fool?”
Montgomery fingered his quill.
“No. Alas!”
“What use then do you suppose he has for fools?”
“None. Save when he uses them as dupes.”
“Would he keep a fool ever at his side, think you?”
Montgomery perceived whither this led.
“Roxhythe amuses him.”
“So have other men. Yet they have faded away. Roxhythe remains.”
“He is a man of some parts, of course,” admitted Montgomery.
“More than that. He is as clever as sin.”
“Oh, my dear Fanny, you overrate him!”
“I do not. I would wager my reputation that David’s inanities are but a mask.”
“Your woman’s imagination runs away with you, my dear. If he were the clever man you say he is, why should he wish to hide his qualities?”
“So he might serve the King better.”
Montgomery twisted one of the curls of his periwig round his finger.
“Oh. Then you infer … ?”
Lady Frances dropped her eyelids.
“Nothing,” she said smoothly. “I only know that I would not trust Roxhythe.”
“Trust him! No, nor I. But not because I think him clever.”
“Roxhythe acts a part,” said Frances slowly. “Of that I am assured. In his position a man sees many things about Whitehall. Yet he is ever ignorant. He is always indifferent, cynical; he knows nothing. If one speaks of intrigue, he fences, and is flippant. He would have the world believe him the idle court-gallant you think him. The world does believe it. But not Lady Frances!”
“Lady Frances is very deep,” said Montgomery, sarcastically.
“Lady Frances knows Whitehall and its ways!” she flashed back at him. “I have lived all my life in courts! I know what use have Kings for fools. Why, Jasper, Jasper, where are your wits? Do you forget that Roxhythe has never been away from Charles his side since they fled the country? Charles had no room for any but the most astute during those years. It was plot, plot, plot, all the time!”
“Through Roxhythe?”
“Roxhythe and others. But certainly Roxhythe.”
Montgomery sat silent for a while.
“I have a great respect for your wisdom, my dear, as you know. Yet I think in this you are wrong. If Charles had need of plotters, he had also need of men to divert him. Such is Roxhvthe.”
Lady Frances shut her lips firmly. After a moment she spoke again.
“One day you’ll know I was right, Jasper. And you will marvel, even as I do, that Christopher Dart was ever in his service.”
“Mayhap,” shrugged Montgomery. He went on writing.
Lady Frances left the room. She went up to her own boudoir, and, from her escritoire, took a letter from her very dear friend, Aimée de St. Morny, Lady-in-waiting to Madame, Duchesse d’Orléans.
“… I was Interested Yesterday, my dear Fanny, to Meet a Kinsman of Yrs. I mean le Marquis de Roxhythe, who is perhaps épris de Madame, who is sans doute éprise de lui. He is ever in Attendance on her, and Shows himself très beau cavalier. …”
“Oh!” said my lady. “Oh! … Well, it may be so. It is even probable. And yet … I think I shall watch my good Roxhythe.” She nodded briskly and locked the letter away in her desk.