“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.
V
Lady Crewe
It was some weeks later that Christopher met an old friend, whom he had not seen for some years. He saw him in the Strand one morning, coming out of one of the houses. He caught his arm.
“Sydney Harcourt!”
Harcourt stared for a moment in perplexity. Then his face cleared, and he grasped Christopher’s hand.
“Chris!”
Christopher linked his arm in his. Together they strolled down the Strand.
“I had not thought to meet you today, Sydney!”
“Nor I you. ’Oons, lad, but you’ve changed!” He laughed. “You are a man now!”
“I have need to be!”
“Yes? Roderick is still abroad?”
“With the Prince of Orange,” nodded Christopher. “I have not seen him for two years. I was at the Hague in ’68, and I found him greatly changed.”
“Is that so? He was a very bright youth when I knew him!”
“He’s like a psalm-singing Puritan now,” said Christopher gloomily. “But tell me of yourself, Sydney! What do you do?”
“I am with Russell as his confidential secretary,” replied Harcourt. “And you?”
“I have much the same post, I fancy,” smiled Christopher. “I am Lord Roxhythe his secretary.” He said it with pride, and was gratified by Harcourt’s start of surprise.
“With Roxhythe? You, Chris?”
Christopher nodded.
“I have been with him for nearly two years. Roderick is very angry with me because of it.”
Harcourt compressed his lips quickly.
“I confess, I, too, am—surprised. You are with a strange man, Chris.”
“I am with a very great man,” retaliated Christopher. “If you think to warn me ’gainst my lord, let me tell you that I take such warnings very ill.”
The shrewd grey eyes looked into his.
“Oh?” said Harcourt. “I am to congratulate you, then?”
“If you like,” answered Christopher.
“Then of course I do. Why should I seek to warn you?”
“Heaven knows! Most people have tried to.”
“I shall not, I assure you. You should count yourself fortunate to be with perhaps one of the most influential men of the day.”
Christopher was pleased. After that they spoke no more of Roxhythe. He refused an invitation to dine that night, pleading that he was going to Lady Crewe’s masquerade, but he accepted for Friday. Then they parted.
When Christopher returned to Bevan House he found that Roxhythe had returned unexpectedly from Paris. Overjoyed he hurried into the library where my lord
