Becky laughed, though in rage and fury. "What! assassinate poor little
me?" she said. "How romantic! Does my lord carry bravos for couriers,
and stilettos in the fourgons? Bah! I will stay, if but to plague him.
I have those who will defend me whilst I am here."
It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now. "Defend you," he said, "and
who? The Major, the Captain, any one of those gambling men whom Madame
sees would take her life for a hundred louis. We know things about
Major Loder (he is no more a Major than I am my Lord the Marquis) which
would send him to the galleys or worse. We know everything and have
friends everywhere. We know whom you saw at Paris, and what relations
you found there. Yes, Madame may stare, but we do. How was it that no
minister on the Continent would receive Madame? She has offended
somebody: who never forgives--whose rage redoubled when he saw you.
He was like a madman last night when he came home. Madame de
Belladonna made him a scene about you and fired off in one of her
furies."
"Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?" Becky said, relieved a
little, for the information she had just got had scared her.
"No--she does not matter--she is always jealous. I tell you it was
Monseigneur. You did wrong to show yourself to him. And if you stay
here you will repent it. Mark my words. Go. Here is my lord's
carriage"--and seizing Becky's arm, he rushed down an alley of the
garden as Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic devices, came
whirling along the avenue, borne by the almost priceless horses, and
bearing Madame de Belladonna lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky, and
blooming, a King Charles in her lap, a white parasol swaying over her
head, and old Steyne stretched at her side with a livid face and
ghastly eyes. Hate, or anger, or desire caused them to brighten now
and then still, but ordinarily, they gave no light, and seemed tired of
looking out on a world of which almost all the pleasure and all the
best beauty had palled upon the worn-out wicked old man.
"Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, never,"
Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the carriage flashed by,
and she peeped out at it from behind the shrubs that hid her. "That
was a consolation at any rate," Becky thought.
Whether my lord really had murderous intentions towards Mrs. Becky as
Monsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur's death he has returned to his
native country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased from
his Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum objected to have
to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a commission to
frighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship proposed to pass
the winter, and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable to the
great nobleman, is a point which has never been ascertained: but the
threat had its effect upon the little woman, and she sought no more to
intrude herself upon the presence of her old patron.