The Confusion

Upnor, of course, was telling the story in French. He gave the ruffian the most vulgar rural accent he could manage. He devoted a minute or two to dilating on the pathetic condition of the knave’s horse, which was one step away from the knacker and exhausted to boot.

Upnor was rated one of the finest swordsmen of the Anglo-French nobility. He had slain many men in duels when he had been younger. He did not fight so much any more, as his style was one that relied upon speed and acute vision. Nevertheless, the very notion that such a rustic fellow would challenge Upnor to a duel practically had the French nobles falling down onto the path with tears running down their cheeks.

Upnor was clever enough to tell the story in a deadpan style. “I was…more…befuddled than anything else. I answered: ‘You have me at a disadvantage, sirrah-perhaps if you tell me who you are, I’ll at least know why you want to kill me.’

“ ‘I am Bob Shaftoe,’ he answered.”

This, as it always did, caused a hush to descend over Upnor’s listeners.

“ ‘Any relation to Jacques?’ I asked him.” (For the same question was on the minds of those who were gathered around Upnor listening.)

“He answered, ‘His brother.’ To which I said, ‘Come away with me to France, Bob Shaftoe, and I shall put you on a galley in the sunny Mediterranean-perhaps you may cross paths with your brother there!’ ”

Upnor’s audience loved to hear this. For they all knew of Jacques Shaftoe, or L’Emmerdeur as he was called in these parts. The name did not come up in conversation as frequently as it had a couple of years ago, for nothing had been heard from L’Emmerdeur since he had crashed a party at the Hotel Arcachon and made a disgraceful scene there, in the presence of the King, in the spring of 1685. Precisely what had taken place there on that night was rarely spoken of, at least when members of the de Lavardac family were within earshot. From this, Eliza gathered that it was dreadfully embarrassing to them all. Because Eliza was now linked, in most people’s minds, to the family de Lavardac, they extended her the same courtesy of never talking about the events of that evening. Eliza had given up on ever finding out what had really happened there. Jack Shaftoe, who for a time had been a sort of hobgoblin of the French Court, a name to make people jump out of their skins, had dwindled to quasi-legendary status and was rapidly being forgotten altogether. From time to time he would appear as a figure in a picaresque roman.

Nevertheless, for Upnor even to mention the name of Shaftoe around La Dunette was more than daring. It was probably a faux pas. This might have explained why the Duke had suddenly terminated his conversation with Eliza, and gone off in the opposite direction. It was the sort of thing that led to duels. Some of Upnor’s listeners were conspicuously nervous. It was, therefore, quite deft of Upnor to have turned the story around in this manner, by implying that Jack Shaftoe, if he was indeed still alive, was a slave on one of the duc d’Arcachon’s galleys. Eliza now risked a glance over at the duc, and saw him red-faced, but grinning at Upnor; he favored Upnor with the tiniest suggestion of a nod (anything more would have undermined the Admiral-hat) and Upnor responded with a deeper bow. The listeners who, a few seconds earlier, had worried about a duel, laughed all the louder.

Upnor continued with the narration. “This Robert Shaftoe said, ‘Jack and I have long been estranged, and my errand has naught to do with him.’

“I asked him, ‘Why do you bar my progress, then?’

“He said, ‘I say that you are about to take out of this country something that does not rightfully belong to you.’

“I said, ‘Are you accusing me of being a thief, sirrah?’

“He said, ‘Worse. I say you pretend to own a slave: an English girl named Abigail Frome.’

“I said, ‘There’s no pretense in that, Bob Shaftoe. I own her as absolutely as you own that wretched pair of boots on your feet, and I’ve the papers to prove it, signed and sealed by my lord Jeffreys.’

“He said, ‘Jeffreys is in Tower. Your King is in flight. And if you do not give me Abigail, you shall be in the grave.’

Now Upnor had his audience rapt; not only because it was a good story, but because he had managed to connect the half-forgotten, but still powerful name of Jack Shaftoe to the late upheavals in England. Of course the French nobility were fascinated by the recent tendency of the English to chop off their kings’ heads and chase them out of the country. They were helpless in their fascination at the thought that William of Orange and his English allies must somehow be in conspiracy with all the world’s Vagabonds.