The Indiscretion of the Duchess Part 31

"But they will not let me go."

"Go you must. Marie, here is a pistol. Take it; and if anyone stops you, use it. But I think none will; for the duke will be with me, and I do not think Bontet will interfere."

"But my mother?"

"You are as strong as she."

"Yes, yes, I'll come. You'll be on the sands; I'll come!" The help she had found in me made her brave now.

"You will get there as we are fighting or soon after. Do not look for me or for the duke, but look for two gentlemen whom you do not know, they will be there--French officers--and to their honor you must trust."

"But why not to you?"

"If I am alive and well, I shall not fail you; but if I come not, go to them and demand their protection from the duke, telling them how he has snared you here. And they will not suffer him to carry you off against your will. Do you see? Do you understand?"

"Yes, I see. But must you fight?"

"Yes, dear, I must fight. The duke will not trouble you again, I think, before the evening; and if you remember what I have told you, all will be well."

So I tried to comfort her, believing as I did that no two French gentlemen would desire or dare to refuse her their protection against the duke. But she was clinging to me now, in great distress that I must fight--and indeed I had rather have fought at another time myself--and in fresh terror of her mother's anger, seeing that I should not be there to bear it for her.

"For," she said, "we have had a terrible quarrel just before you came. I told her that unless I saw you within an hour nothing but force should keep me here, and that if they kept me here by force, I would find means to kill myself; and that I would not see nor speak to the duke unless he brought me to you, according to his promise; and that if he sent his necklace again--for he sent it here half an hour ago--I would not send it back as I did then, but would fling it out of the window yonder into the cattle pond, where he could go and fetch it out himself."

And my dearest Marie, finding increased courage from reciting her courageous speech, and from my friendly hearing of it, raised her voice, and her eyes flashed, so that she looked yet more beautiful; and again did I forget inexorable time. But it struck me that there was small wonder that Mme. Delha.s.se's temper had not been of the best nor calculated to endure patiently such a vexatious encounter as befell her when she ran against me on the landing outside her door.

Yet Marie's courage failed again; and I told her that before we fought I would tell my second of her state, so that if she came not and I were wounded (of worse I did not speak), he would come to the inn and bring her to me. And this comforted her more, so that she grew calmer, and, pa.s.sing from our present difficulties, she gave herself to persuading me (nor would the poor girl believe that I needed no persuading) that in no case would she have yielded to the duke, and that her mother had left her in wrath born of an utter despair that Marie's will in the matter could ever be broken down.

"For I told her," Marie repeated, "that I would sooner die!"

She paused, and raising her eyes to mine, said to me (and here I think courage was not lacking in her):

"Yes, although once I had hesitated, now I had rather die. For when I hesitated, G.o.d sent you to my door, that in love I might find salvation."

Well, I do not know that a man does well to describe all that pa.s.ses at times like this. There are things rather meet to be left dwelling in his own heart, sweetening all his life, and causing him to marvel that sinners have such joys conceded to them this side of Heaven; so that in their recollection he may find, mingling with his delight, an occasion for humility such as it little harms any of us to light on now and then.

Enough then--for the telling of it; but enough in the pa.s.sing of it there was not nor could be. Yet at last, because needs must when the devil--or a son--aye, or an elderly daughter of his--drives, I found myself outside the door of Mme. Delha.s.se's room. With the turning of the lock Marie whispered a last word to me, and full of hope I turned to descend the stairs. For I had upon me the feeling which, oftener perhaps than we think, gave to the righteous cause a victory against odds when ordeal of battle held sway. Now, such a feeling is, I take it, of small use in a court of law.

But Fortune lost no time in checking my presumption by an accident which at first gave me great concern. For, even as I turned away from the door of the room, there was Mme. Delha.s.se coming up the stairs. I was fairly caught, there was no doubt about it; and for Marie's sake I was deeply grieved, for I feared that my discovery would mean another stormy scene for her. Nevertheless, to make the best of it, I a.s.sumed a jaunty air as I said to Mlle. Delha.s.se:

"The duke will be witness that you were not in your room, madame. You will not be compromised."

I fully expected that an outburst of anger would follow on this pleasantry of mine--which was, I confess, rather in the taste best suited to Mme.

Delha.s.se than in the best as judged by an abstract standard--but to my surprise the old creature did nothing worse than bestow on me a sour grin.

Apparently, if I were well-pleased with the last half-hour, she had found time pa.s.s no less pleasantly. All traces of her exasperation and ill humor had gone, and she looked as pleased and contented as though she had been an exemplary mother, rewarded (as such deserve to be) by complete love and peace in her family circle.

"You've been slinking in behind my back, have you?" she asked, but still with a grin.

"It would have been rude to force an entrance to your face," I observed.

"And I suppose you've been making love to the girl?"

"At the proper time, madame," said I, with much courtesy, "I shall no doubt ask you for an interview with regard to that matter. I shall omit no respect that you deserve."

As I spoke, I stood on one side to let her pa.s.s. I cannot make up my mind whether her recent fury or her present good humor repelled me more.

"You'd have a fine fool for a wife," said she, with a jerk of her thumb toward the room where the daughter was.

"I should be compensated by a very clever mother-in-law," said I.

The old woman paused for an instant at the top of the stairs, and looked me up and down.

"Aye," said she, "you men think yourselves mighty clever, but a woman gets the better of you all now and then."

I was utterly puzzled by her evident exultation. The duke could not have consented to accept her society in place of her daughter's; but I risked the impropriety and hazarded the suggestion to Mme. Delha.s.se. Her face curled in cunning wrinkles. She seemed to be about to speak, but then she shut her lips with a snap, and suspicion betrayed itself again in her eyes. She had a secret--a fresh secret--I could have sworn, and in her triumph she had come near to saying something that might have cast light on it.

"By the way," I said, "your daughter did not expect my coming." It was perhaps a vain hope, but I thought that I might save Marie from a tirade.

The old woman shrugged her shoulders, and observed carelessly:

"The fool may do what she likes;" and with this she knocked at the door.

I did not wait to see it opened--to confess the truth, I felt not sure of my temper were I forced to see her and Marie together--but went downstairs and into my own room. There I sat down in a chair by the window close to a small table, for I meant to write a letter or two to friends at home, in case the duke's left hand should prove more skillful than mine when we met that evening. But, finding that I could hardly write with my right hand and couldn't write at all with the other, I contented myself with scrawling laboriously a short note to Gustave de Berensac, which I put in my pocket, having indorsed on it a direction for its delivery in case I should meet with an accident. Then I lay back in my chair, regretting, I recollect, that, as my luggage was left at Avranches, I had not a clean shirt to fight in; and then, becoming drowsy, I began to stare idly along the road in front of the window, rehearsing the events of the last few days in my mind, but coming back to Marie Delha.s.se.

So an hour pa.s.sed away. Then I rose and stretched myself, and gave a glance out of the window to see if we were likely to have a fine evening for our sport, for clouds had been gathering up all day. And when I had made up my mind that the rain would hold off long enough for our purpose, I looked down at the road again, and there I saw two figures which I knew.

From the direction of Pontorson came Jacques Bontet the inn-keeper, slouching along and smoking a thin black cigar.

"Ah! he has been to deliver the note to our friends the officers," said I to myself.

And then I looked at the other familiar figure, which was that of Mme.

Delha.s.se. She wore the bonnet and cloak which had been lying on the bed in her room at the time of my intrusion. She was just leaving the premises of the inn strolling, nay dawdling, along. She met Bontet and stopped for a moment in conversation with him. Then she pursued her leisurely walk in the direction of Pontorson, and I watched her till she was about three hundred yards off. But her form had no charms, and, growing tired of the prospect, I turned away remarking to myself:

"I suppose the old lady wants just a little stroll before dinner."

Nor did I see any reason to be dissatisfied with either of my inferences--at the moment. So I disturbed myself no more, but rang the bell and ordered some coffee and a little gla.s.s of the least bad brandy in the inn. For it could not be long before I was presented with the Duke of Saint-Maclou's compliments and an intimation that he would be glad to have my company on a walk in the cool of the evening.

CHAPTER XIX.

Unsummoned Witnesses.

Slowly the afternoon wore away. My content had given place to urgent impatience, and I longed every moment for the summons to action. None came; and a quarter to five I went downstairs, hoping to find some means of whiling away the interval of time. Pushing open the door of the little _salle-a-manger_, I was presented with a back view of my host M. Bontet, who was leaning out of the window. Just as I entered, he shouted "Ready at six!" Then he turned swiftly round, having, I suppose, heard my entrance; at the same moment, the sound of a door violently slammed struck on my ear across the yard. I moved quickly up to the window. The stable door was shut; and Bontet faced me with a surly frown on his brow.

"What is to be ready at six?" I asked.

"Some refreshments for Mme. Delha.s.se," he answered readily.