The Talisman Ring

This speech, which was delivered in a firm and perfectly self-possessed voice, had the effect of making Sir Tristram cast another of his searching glances at the lady. He said with a faint smile: ‘I hope I may be permitted to call you Eustacie, cousin?’

‘Certainly; it will be quite convenable,’ replied Eustacie, bestowing a brilliant smile upon him.

‘She’s eighteen,’ said Sylvester abruptly. ‘How old are y

ou?’

‘Thirty-one,’ answered Sir Tristram uncompromisingly.

‘H’m!’ said Sylvester. ‘A very excellent age.’

‘For what?’ asked Eustacie.

‘For marriage, miss!’

Eustacie gave him a thoughtful look, but volunteered no further remark.

‘You may go down to dinner now,’ said Sylvester. ‘I regret that I am unable to bear you company, but I trust that the Nuits I have instructed Porson to give you will help you to overcome any feeling of gêne which might conceivably attack you.’

‘You are all consideration, sir,’ said Shield. ‘Shall we go, cousin?’

Eustacie, who did not appear to suffer from gêne, assented, curtseyed again to her grandfather, and accompanied Sir Tristram downstairs to the dining-room.

The butler had set their places at opposite ends of the great table, an arrangement in which both tacitly acquiesced, though it made conversation a trifle remote. Dinner, which was served in the grand manner, was well chosen, well cooked, and very long. Sir Tristram noticed that his prospective bride enjoyed a hearty appetite, and discovered after five minutes that she possessed a flow of artless conversation, quite unlike any he had been used to in London drawing-rooms. He was prepared to find her embarrassed by a situation which struck him as being fantastic, and was somewhat startled when she remarked: ‘It is a pity that you are so dark, because I do not like dark men in general. However, one must accustom oneself.’

‘Thank you,’ said Shield.

‘If my grandpapa had left me in France it is probable that I should have married a Duke,’ said Eustacie. ‘My uncle – the present Vidame, you understand – certainly intended it.’

‘You would more probably have gone to the guillotine,’ replied Sir Tristram, depressingly matter of fact.

‘Yes, that is quite true,’ agreed Eustacie. ‘We used to talk of it, my cousin Henriette and I. We made up our minds we should be entirely brave, not crying, of course, but perhaps a little pale, in a proud way. Henriette wished to go to the guillotine en grande tenue, but that was only because she had a court dress of yellow satin which she thought became her much better than it did really. For me, I think one should wear white to the guillotine if one is quite young, and not carry anything except perhaps a handkerchief. Do you not agree?’

‘I don’t think it signifies what you wear if you are on your way to the scaffold,’ replied Sir Tristram, quite unappreciative of the picture his cousin was dwelling on with such evident admiration.

She looked at him in surprise. ‘Don’t you? But consider! You would be very sorry for a young girl in a tumbril, dressed all in white, pale, but quite unafraid, and not attending to the canaille at all, but –’

‘I should be very sorry for anyone in a tumbril, whatever their age or sex or apparel,’ interrupted Sir Tristram.

‘You would be more sorry for a young girl – all alone, and perhaps bound,’ said Eustacie positively.

‘You wouldn’t be all alone. There would be a great many other people in the tumbril with you,’ said Sir Tristram.

Eustacie eyed him with considerable displeasure. ‘In my tumbril there would not have been a great many other people,’ she said.

Perceiving that argument on this point would be fruitless, Sir Tristram merely looked sceptical and refrained from speech.

‘A Frenchman,’ said Eustacie, ‘would understand at once.’

‘I am not a Frenchman,’ replied Sir Tristram.

‘Ça se voit!’ retorted Eustacie.

Sir Tristram served himself from a dish of mutton steaks and cucumber.

‘The people whom I have met in England,’ said Eustacie after a short silence, ‘consider it very romantic that I was rescued from the Terror.’

Her tone suggested strongly that he also ought to consider it romantic, but as he was fully aware that Sylvester had travelled to Paris some time before the start of the Terror, and had removed his granddaughter from France in the most unexciting way possible, he only replied: ‘I dare say.’