The Bath Keepers Volume I Part 36

"And your mother--will she not return soon?"

"I think not. It seems that she is having litigation about her inheritance there in Normandie, where she is; for our kinswoman is dead; but our mother has all the right on her side, so she is not alarmed."

"Litigation--in Normandie! That will take some time!" muttered Ambroisine, shaking her head. Then she kissed her young friend again.

"Adieu! I will come to see you as soon as possible. Courage, my poor Bathilde! Your heart is heavy at this moment; but that will pa.s.s away.

And then, you see, when one is doing one's duty, it gives one strength to endure sorrow."

"Adieu, Ambroisine! I will try to be brave. But take good care of my letter; don't lose it on your way home. I shall never be consoled if you lose it!"

"Never fear, I am no child. Au revoir!"

Ambroisine ran down the staircase; and Bathilde followed her to the foot, whispering to her:

"Remember that you are to give it back to me!"

XXII

THE BALCONY

Bathilde having followed her friend's advice to the letter, Leodgard walked Rue Dauphine in vain on the evening of his meeting with the Sire de Jarnonville. And as Leodgard was very much in love, as he flattered himself that he would win a facile triumph over Landry's daughter, he remained until midnight in front of the barber's house; but the balcony was deserted, the window dark; the girl did not appear.

Thereupon vexation and wrath took possession of our lover. Accustomed as he was to defy and surmount all obstacles, his desires were sharpened by the disdain with which he was treated. He was especially enraged because his note, instead of completing his conquest of Bathilde, had produced just the contrary effect.

He struck the ground impatiently with his spurs and measured with his eye the height of the balcony. If some friend had been there to lend him his shoulders, he would already have tried to scale it. But, instead of a friend, Leodgard spied a patrol coming down the street; and as he was not anxious to fight a patrol single-handed, he decided to decamp. But as he walked away, he said to himself, looking back at the balcony:

"Oh! it is useless for you to conceal yourself, Bathilde; it is useless for you to try to escape from my love; you shall be mine, for I have sworn it--for you are the loveliest, the most fascinating girl whom I know in Paris to-day!"

Early the next morning Leodgard entered the barber's shop; he ordered a bath, and while it was being prepared he looked at all the windows on the yard, and entered into conversation with the attendant who waited on him.

"Is Master Landry married?"

"Yes, seigneur."

"Where is his wife?"

"Travelling at present; she has gone to Normandie to secure an inheritance."

"Master Landry has a daughter?"

"Yes, seigneur."

"Very pretty, I am told?"

"That is true, seigneur."

"Why do we never see her in the shop or about the baths?"

"For the very reason, seigneur, that she is so pretty."

"Is she watched so closely, pray?"

"When Dame Ragonde, her mother, is here, she doesn't leave her daughter for an instant."

"But now that she is away, is there no way of obtaining a word with the girl--a single word? Here--take this piece of gold and just tell me where Bathilde's room is."

But Leodgard had applied in the wrong quarter. Landry was an old soldier who had a keen eye for an honest man; he had selected his attendants with care, and they esteemed him too highly to betray him. The gold piece was declined; Leodgard insisted to no purpose, for the attendant merely replied:

"I don't work on the women's side, seigneur; I don't know where their rooms are. I am too well treated in Master Landry's service to do anything that would cause my discharge."

"Pardieu! I have bad luck!" said Leodgard to himself. "All our valets and esquires are ready to be bribed; and I must come to a bath keeper's to find an incorruptible servant. And people calumniate these houses!

They say that they serve to cloak clandestine love affairs, that the most delicious intrigues are formed and consummated in them.--Gad! that surely is not true of Master Landry's!"

And Leodgard cast his eye over all the windows looking on the yard; but they were closed and supplied with very heavy curtains; it was impossible to discover anything, to guess where Bathilde's room was; for the young man was confident that she did not occupy the front room with the balcony, as there had been no light there throughout the preceding evening.

The young count left the establishment without taking the bath he had ordered; once more he marched up and down the street, but with no better fortune; and at last, weary of the struggle, he left the place, saying to himself:

"I am very sure, none the less, that I did not displease her."

The two following days, Leodgard played sentinel again to no purpose.

Bathilde did not appear. The windows on the balcony remained closed, and she did not even come to tend the poor rosebush, which, however, was sorely in need of being watered, for the buds were beginning to droop on their stems.

"What! she will allow her rosebush to die, for fear of seeing me!" said Leodgard to himself. "She must be terribly afraid of me, then! Ah! when a woman is so afraid of a man, it is a good sign; she does not fear those who are indifferent to her. But I will stake my head that Ambroisine has been to see her, that it was she who urged her not to show herself any more. How do I know that Bathilde, without letting herself be seen, is not hidden somewhere, at some other window, whence she watches what I do, and says to herself: 'He is still thinking of me!'--If I thought that!--However, I will try this method: I will force myself to stay away for several days, to avoid pa.s.sing through this street; she will believe that I have ceased to think of her; and perhaps her vexation, or her confidence, will serve me better than this fruitless watching."

Thereupon our lover wrapped himself in his cloak, pulled his hat over his eyes, and, with the air of a man who has suddenly decided upon a course of action, he walked rapidly away and disappeared, without once turning his head.

Leodgard had read only too well Bathilde's guileless heart, that heart which longed to love, and which found happiness even in the pangs which that sentiment already caused it to feel.

The girl had kept the promise she had made her friend; she had not returned to the room with the balcony; but adjoining that room, and, like it, at the front of the house, there was another, occupied by Master Landry and his wife. Since Dame Ragonde had been away, that room had been deserted throughout the day; for the old soldier went down early to his baths, and did not go up to his room again until bedtime.

On the day following Ambroisine's visit, Bathilde remembered that her father had given her an old jacket to mend; the work was not at all urgent, but Bathilde hastened to do it so that she might have an excuse for going to her parents' bedroom. She went there to return the garment belonging to her father; and once she was in that room, which looked on the street, but had no balcony at the windows--because the architects of those days did not make a point of regularity in their buildings--once there, Bathilde could not resist the temptation to go to one of the windows; and, while she pretended to adjust a curtain which presumably did not fall gracefully, she allowed her glance to wander into the street, where she instantly espied the man she had promised to forget.

This first step once taken, Bathilde found other excuses for going every day to her father's chamber, where, by putting the curtain aside the least bit in the world, she could look into the street--the eye requires such a narrow s.p.a.ce to see so many things!

To excuse herself to her own conscience, Bathilde reasoned thus:

"I promised Ambroisine not to go to the linen closet for a week; and I do not go there. I have business in this room, and I am obliged to come here! It isn't my fault that there are windows here from which I can look into the street."

This reasoning was that of a lawyer rather than of an innocent maiden; wit, you see, comes to the most inexperienced simultaneously with love.

Thus Bathilde knew that Leodgard was there, always there, with his eyes fixed on the balcony; and with every moment that pa.s.sed, she put less faith in what her friend had said to her.

"If he did not love me sincerely," she said to herself, "would he pa.s.s his days like this, trying to see me?"

It is so pleasant to make excuses for those whom we love.