Foreign Exchange (Tarkington and Wilson, Ainslee's)/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
Figuratively speaking, there was a cloud, thick and apparently impenetrable, hanging over the Château De Savergne the next morning after the unfortunate, or, perhaps, from another point of view, fortunate exposé of the night before. In the first place, the young Countess De Savergne remained fixed in her resolve to take her son and leave the family into which she had married; on the other hand, the Prince De Savergne, while he no longer opposed the departure of his niece-in-law, was equally resolved that the youngest scion of the De Savergnes should not accompany her,
The dinner had, perforce, taken place, because of the invited guests, and Nancy, by a great effort, had kept her promise and appeared at the head of the table; though she had excused herself immediately afterward on the plea of a headache. Later, in her boudoir, a long discussion had followed between herself and her father and mother. Baxter, thoroughly awake to the situation, was now heart and soul with his daughter; and his wife, after many tears and protestations, was forced to yield.
All through the conference, vital as it was to her, Nancy found one image constantly obtruding upon her mental vision, which caused her a strange commingling of pleasure and irritation. She had discovered the young artist's secret and was close to the discovery of her own. She had never really loved before—her feeling for the count had been but a passing fancy—but at last, at the call of the master, Galatea was waking into life!
And now, after breakfast, at the courteous request of the prince, his niece-in-law and the Baxters were with him in the library. He first informed them that the Marquise De Montfort—“our unfortunate Renée,” as he called her—the Vicomte De Raimbault, and Victor had all left the château. What he did not tell them, however, was of the arrival, very early in the morning, of two gentlemen who bore an urgent summons for Victor from the Marquis De Montfort. It was the sort of appointment that no French gentleman of honor could refuse to keep; and that was the reason of Victor's departure. De Raimbault had gone with him.
The prince proceeded to submit a proposition from the husband's side.
“First of all,” he said, addressing himself to Nancy, “we feel that something is owing to you. We regret that certain things have happened. Victor regrets extremely.” At this Nancy smiled with faint, cold amusement. “We admit he has a certain responsibility for the distressing scene of last evening. Through me he apologizes. We mean to be in every way respectful of your position as Comtesse De Savergne. It may be in your mind to attempt a legal proceeding. Any lawyer in Paris will tell you that in cases like this where the mother is a foreigner, our judges are especially strict in enforcing the control of the child by the father. You should understand, too, that our influence is not small. If we chose to exert our power, I think we could entirely exclude you from the society of my grandnephew, from this moment. But this is not our desire. We wish only to be assured of some tranquillity for ourselves. My nephew asks nothing for himself except that you will assume the manners of a woman of the world at the head of his table. If you will give us the assurance that you can maintain that attitude toward us, everything shall be as before; we obliterate the past, we overlook it. You shall be with the little boy at all times free.”
He paused for a moment, and smiled benevolently upon them all.
“Now, think it over and see if you would wish to plunge into a mêlée of scandal, which could only end in the bitterest disappointment to yourselves. I think you will see that it would not be wise.”
“Let's get down to business,” said Baxter-brusquely. “All Nancy wants is to take her boy and clear out. Now, if it's a question of money fixing anything”
“My dear sir, my nephew is not indigent,” protested the prince, quite well aware of the satire of his own statement.
“He ought not to be,” rejoined Baxter, with scant courtesy; “but I thought he might have spent most of it by this time.”
The prince rose with dignity. “The case is as I have said,” he stated, with an air of finality. “It only remains for you to reflect.”
For the first time since coming into the room Nancy spoke. “Suppose I do not accept, what is the alternative?”
“There is no alternative,” replied the prince suavely, and, bowing courteously, he turned and left the room.
“Well, Nancy?” demanded Baxter in a crisp, businesslike tone.
Nancy's face hardened. “We'll try the alternative he overlooked,” she announced with decision.
“Right!”
An hour later Baxter descended to the terrace. He glanced for a moment toward the artist's tower, and then his eyes fell upon the garden. The Swiss maid was there with little Edouard. But what especially attracted Baxter's attention was the presence of Chabrol, the prince's secretary, and two servants in livery. Evidently the child was being watched.
Baxter gulped with anger, and something very like dismay as well. This rendered the undertaking he had in view far more difficult than he had imagined. His indignation, however, was suddenly diverted.
“Hullo, there!” a voice cried cheerily. And Hardy appeared in the opening of the parapet.
Baxter turned quickly, a look of relief upon his face. Here was possible help, and American help at that.
“Hullo!” he returned briskly, advancing with outstretched hand. “By George, that's good! I was afraid my note wouldn't reach you before you left your studio.”
Hardy looked grave. “I came as soon as I got it. This seems to be a pretty bad sort of mess.”
“I guess the good Lord saw my misery here and sent one American into the wilderness that I could turn to,” said Baxter, with emphasis.
“I'm glad He sent me, Mr. Baxter,” returned Hardy, with a heartiness that evidenced his sincerity. “Have you formed any plan?”
“If you're willing to take the risk of getting your head broken in company with mine” began the elder gentleman, with some hesitation.
“I'll let my head be broken any place yours is!”
Baxter smiled. “Then I think we'll pull out.”
“Who's going to break our heads for us?” asked Hardy.
Baxter pointed to the garden below them. “Look yonder. See Nancy with little Eddie and the nurse?”
Hardy craned his neck to look over the parapet. “Yes, I see her.”
“See that undertaker's assistant standing a little back of them?”
Hardy nodded.
“He's the watchdog. Then about thirty feet back of him, those two huskies in red velvet pants? That's the guard.”
“I see them.”
“There's a train for Brussels in an hour,” continued Baxter, involuntarily lowering his voice. “The nurse will do what Nancy tells her, and Nancy is going to have her walk down to the château gates the other side of the garden, just before time for that train. If it wasn't for the watchdog, the two women and the boy could make a run for the cars and be in Brussels three hours later. It's an express fron? here on, and they'd be in another country before anybody could stop them.”
“So those three men have got to be stopped?” mused Hardy interrogatively. “That's where we get our heads broken?”
“I know I'm good enough to look after the undertaker,” snapped Baxter. 'He'll never get away from me unless his whiskers come out. But I don't know as I could help much with the other two. I haven't been taking any regular exercise for a long time, and I” He stopped with a plaintive gesture.
“I'll do all I can with the other two,” said Hardy grimly. “I hope”
“What is it you hope, Mr. Hardy?” broke in a low, musical voice.
Unseen by the others, so absorbed were they in the project under discussion, Nancy had come up from the garden and was now at their side. Hardy caught his breath, and his heart struck like a hammer against his side as he noticed the pallor of her cheeks and the purple circles beneath the eyes. She must and should be saved from all the ghastly horror that surrounded her. Never did knight of old vow such fealty to any imprisoned ladylove as did now this young American for the harassed lady of his dreams.
“I don't hope,” he cried in a ringing tone. “I know I can do it.”
“He's going to take care of those two generals when you make your run,” explained Baxter. “I wrote him a note and got him over on purpose. Nancy, I think you are going to get that train.”
Nancy turned to Hardy.
“You think our plan to get out of the country to Brussels is a good one, Mr. Hardy?” she asked rather doubtfully.
Hardy was about to acquiesce, but suddenly changed his mind, and spoke briskly the thought that had come to him.
“Why shouldn't you go to Boulogne? It's only two hours away, and I noticed by the paper this morning that the Amsterdam sails from there at three this afternoon for New York. There's no train for Boulogne, but your automobile's in shape, isn't it, Mr. Baxter?”
“In bully order,” excitedly. “By the Lord, if we could make that”
Nancy's eyes were dancing, and the color had stolen again into her cheeks. “Oh, if we could!” Her voice was vibrant with hope. “But,” with quick change of manner, “I thought of that, and I saw no way of accomplishing it. It would be the first thing they'd guess. The prince would telegraph the authorities at Boulogne, and we wouldn't be allowed to take Edouard on the boat.” She smiled hopelessly. “If you could only wall up the prince and his secretary in one of his own towers until after the boat had sailed! But as long as they're free to telegraph”
“Then it's Brussels or nothing,” broke in Hardy disconsolately.
“Yep!” decided Mr. Baxter. “They're keeping awful close to him. Well, if I, Ira J. Baxter, am left lying on the field of honor, they'll find some whiskers in my cold, clenched fingers.”
He walked over to the parapet to note the exact position of the child and his guardians. Jack Hardy and the young countess were left, to all intents and purposes, alone.
She looked at him shyly, and said, half seriously, half mischievously:
“This time you're helping me—to elope—Mr. Hardy.”
“This time it's planned right,” he laughed, vainly striving to still his quickened pulse. “I'm very particular about elopements. They have to be just so!”
“You Americans do cling so absurdly to old-fashioned prejudices,” she quoted, with an odd tremor in her voice.
“I had a half-brother who was caught playing croquet on Sunday,” he pleaded in whimsical self-defense. “That's all I can say for myself.”
She shot him a swift look from beneath her long lashes, a look surcharged with significance.
“I don't think you quite know what you've said for yourself, Mr. Hardy,” she murmured a little breathlessly.
Before he could grasp her meaning, she had gone. He gazed after her, as she disappeared through the door of the château, a smoldering fire in his eyes, his whole soul up in arms, his whole heart crying out for the possession of this one woman in all the world.
Baxter came back from the parapet.
“Where's Nancy? Oh, gone to make preparations, I suppose. And I must do the same. I'll be back shortly.” He held out his hand to Hardy. “I guess there ain't any need of saying thank you.”
“No,” said Hardy simply.
As Baxter turned to enter the château, he came face to face with the Prince De Savergne.
“Ah, my good Bax-tair!” exclaimed the prince, with an ironical smile.
Baxter straightened up as if meditating violence, but controlled himself, and responded with ominous resignation: “All right!”
The prince watched him off, still with that sardonic smile, and then turned to Hardy, who had seated himself on the edge of the parapet.
“Ah, Monsieur Hardy,” he remarked, with a shrug of his shoulders, “I fear some of your compatriots will never learn the art of taking life with grace.”
“Mr. Baxter does seem to be rather worried,” acknowledged Hardy carelessly.
The prince laughed, and, pulling a chair up beside his companion, seated himself. Hardy wondered, with considerable curiosity, what was to come next.
“My dear sir,” began the prince, fixing his ferretlike, beady eyes upon the other's face, “there need be no more little lost dogs between us two. I know that you are acquainted with all these disagreeable absurdities which have taken place here. I comprehend how you regard them. By your action the other night, when you prevented a very foolish woman from doing a very foolish thing, I saw that you understood our point of view and sympathized with it. It is a relief to meet an intelligent man to whom one can speak freely. This poor Bax-tair is troubled about the Comtesse De Savergne. What nonsense! We wish her to be quite happy. But she must be happy in our way. She is only one; there are many of us, and centuries of us. Our little new person cannot upset all that. And yet we might have known beforehand that a little new person would try. After all—forgive me saying it—one goes to your country only to contract a suitable mésalliance.”
With all the happiness in the world, Hardy could have struck the lean, saturnine face before him. But he determined above all things to be diplomatic. So he answered calmly:
“Yes; if they will come to Rome, they must live by the Roman law—so long as they stay.”
“If my nephew's wife had had no child, she might have flown away—flown away.” The prince waved his hand airily. “It would have made no difference, but now she is bound to us. Of course, it is in that foolish little head of hers to steal the boy. That is droll. We shall not prevent her.”
Hardy could not repress a violent start of amazement.
“You'd let her take him away?” he gasped incredulously.
“As far as she could get,” agreed the prince complacently. “To Italy, Switzerland, Belgium—it is all the same. A mere appeal to the authorities, and the child is at once restored to the custody of its father. It will be the same in any other country as in France.”
Hardy waved his hand toward the garden below. “Then why are you having him watched so closely?” he demanded.
“Merely to be certain that I am informed when she starts. Once knowing that, this poor old uncle, accompanied by his trustworthy Chabrol, would make his way hastily but without ostentation to the train she had chosen; would hurriedly and discreetly seclude himself in the rear compartment of that same train, so that, when she reached her destination, she would find this weary and devoted head of the house with the honest Chabrol waiting to greet her on the platform.”
“But why go to all that trouble?” asked Hardy, still puzzled.
“Ah, my very dear Hardy,” was the bland rejoinder, “that would be important, would it not, if she is ever so ill-advised as to make an appeal to the law? It would be very compromising to her case that she had made an attempt to take the child from its father's custody.”
Hardy nodded. He saw the point. Much as he detested the selfish old man, he could not but admire his shrewdness.
“An advantage we would be foolish to forego, and all so simple,” went on the prince. “The good old uncle of this fairy story has merely to slip himself into an unnoticed compartment of the train—a bizarre but amusing outing!”
“And the law is the same in all the countries over here, is it?”
“Your own is virtually the only exception. America is too young, I fear, to have learned wisdom in such a matter. But to America, of course, she cannot go. Her journey, if she tried, would end at the port of sailing; even if I fail to be on the same train, we stop her by the very useful telegraph. It is all very simple—she can do nothing. There it is, you see.”
“Yes, I see.” And he saw far more than the prince had the faintest suspicion of. New possibilities were opening up before him. His brain was working with lightninglike rapidity.
“It is refreshing to be frank,” said the prince beamingly. “I know, of course, you would never speak.”
“Certainly; you may be sure I shall not repeat what you have said to any one,” lied the American; and his mendacity did not cause him the slightest qualm of conscience.
The prince rose. “But I must not monopolize your time. Has your card been sent to the comtesse?”
“I saw her.”
“Then she means to rejoin you?”
“Yes,”
“Till later, then.”
Left alone, Hardy leaped down from the parapet, and, with furrowed brow and compressed lips, began to pace slowly up and down the terrace. Suddenly he paused in his aimless ramble. His face cleared, his expression of perplexity gave way to one of satisfaction. He had solved the problem. Andromeda must be rescued from the dragon, and he felt himself the Perseus to do it! He struck his hands together, and a low exclamation of gratification escaped from his lips. Without an instant's hesitation, he ran down the flight of stone steps that led to the garden where Menga was sitting under the trees, with the little boy playing a short distance away. Chabrol and the guards lounged about where they could see everything, though they were out of earshot. Menga rose as Hardy came toward her.
“Meester Hardy,” she said glancing nervously over her shoulder at Chabrol and his aids, “I am happy you come; to have the chance, yes, to say good-by. I so hope I get the chance to see you again some time.”
“Menga, has Madame De Savergne told you exactly what to do?” Hardy demanded with brusque irrelevancy.
“Oh, but yes, monsieur. I am to walk with Monsieur Edouard by the château gates. When the train comes in the station, so close by, Madame De Savergne must run down around the path. She and me, we take the little boy by his each hand and run and jump on that train. Such time when Meester Baxter he must choke Monsieur Chabrol, and you those two mans. Oh, Meester Hardy, I remember how in Chamonix you did with that guide that did not help when Conrad was in the ice, and it makes me afraid.”
“Don't you be afraid”
“Ach! No, not for you, Meester Hardy,” she interrupted eagerly. “It is for those mans. They do not know what soon happens to them. Oh, Meester Hardy, please be very careful with those poor mans. The law it is so strict about killing anybody. Just so they cannot speak till the train is gone, yes? Madame De Savergne, Monsieur Edouard, and me, we never stop before Brussels. I got it right, yes, Meester Hardy?”
Hardy laid his hand kindly upon her shoulder, and spoke very earnestly and distinctly:
“Menga, I want you to do absolutely nothing to-day that I don't tell you to do. Will you remember that—not one thing?”
“Oh, yes, monsieur,” she agreed promptly.
“And whatever I tell you to do, do it without asking any questions.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
He paused a moment, and then proceeded impressively: “Very well, then. Go in and tell the prince that Madame De Savergne intends to take that train to Brussels, and that you and Edouard are going with her.”
Menga started back and gazed at him as if she could not believe her ears.
“Tell the prince!” she faltered. “I am to tell him?”
“Tell him she's told you to be ready at the château gates. Tell him nothing else. Don't speak of me, but ask him what you shall do.”
“Ach?” cried the woman, horrified and rebellious. “Meester Hardy—you ask me to tell that to the Prince De Savergne—I am to be ingrate, false to my lady!”
“Now, see here, Menga,” he answered somewhat impatiently, “I haven't got time to”
“I thought you like to help her!” she broke out indignantly. “I thought you was sorry for her!”
“Go and do as I say,” he commanded sternly.
But the loyal creature demurred; treachery—and what was this but treachery of the blackest kind?—was not in her make-up.
“I got too much feelings for that poor lady,” she wailed. “I cannot! You do not know her so many troubles—servants know. I cannot do it!'
Again Hardy laid his hand upon her shoulder, but this time roughly.
“Yes, you will, and mighty quick, too.
“No, I cannot. Ach, Meester Hardy!”
“Oh, Lord!” he cried. “I suppose it's a good thing I did pull your brother Conrad out of the ice, after all.”
Her face softened, but she held out her hands supplicatingly.
“Meester Hardy, do not, please, yes, do not make me think of that!”
“Yes, I will, too,” doggedly. “Just this once in your life, remember that you do owe me something.”
He hated himself for this appeal to her gratitude, but the situation was desperate, valuable time was flying, and there seemed no other way out of it.
“Ach! Ach!” she moaned. But he knew she was yielding.
“Go and get it over.” This time there was a note of entreaty in his command.
“Ach! The poor lady! She had such hopes!”
“Do you think I'd act against her? Tell him exactly what I told you, and no more.”
“Yes,” she agreed despairingly. “I tell him.”
“Quick, then—on the jump!”
Hardy breathed a sigh of satisfaction as he saw her disappear into the château. The first step toward the freeing of his lady was taken. Diplomacy and audacity, and again diplomacy and audacity, and always diplomacy and audacity! That must be the watchword now.