THE BLACK VEIL
Speaking the language fluently, and with unlimited money, there was
nothing to prevent my enjoying all that was enjoyable in the French
capital. You may easily suppose how two days were passed. At the end of
that time, and at about the same hour, Monsieur Droqville called again.
Courtly, good-natured, gay, as usual, he told me that the masquerade
ball was fixed for the next Wednesday, and that he had applied for a
card for me.
How awfully unlucky. I was so afraid I should not be able to go.
He stared at me for a moment with a suspicious and menacing look, which
I did not understand, in silence, and then inquired rather sharply. And
will Monsieur Beckett be good enough to say why not?
I was a little surprised, but answered the simple truth: I had made an
engagement for that evening with two or three English friends, and did
not see how I could.
"Just so! You English, wherever you are, always look out for your
English boors, your beer and _'bifstek'_; and when you come here,
instead of trying to learn something of the people you visit, and
pretend to study, you are guzzling and swearing, and smoking with one
another, and no wiser or more polished at the end of your travels than
if you had been all the time carousing in a booth at Greenwich."
He laughed sarcastically, and looked as if he could have poisoned me.
"There it is," said he, throwing the card on the table. "Take it or
leave it, just as you please. I suppose I shall have my trouble for my
pains; but it is not usual when a man such as I takes trouble, asks a
favor, and secures a privilege for an acquaintance, to treat him so."
This was astonishingly impertinent.
I was shocked, offended, penitent. I had possibly committed unwittingly
a breach of good breeding, according to French ideas, which almost
justified the brusque severity of the Marquis's undignified rebuke.
In a confusion, therefore, of many feelings, I hastened to make my
apologies, and to propitiate the chance friend who had showed me so much
disinterested kindness.
I told him that I would, at any cost, break through the engagement in
which I had unluckily entangled myself; that I had spoken with too
little reflection, and that I certainly had not thanked him at all in
proportion to his kindness, and to my real estimate of it.
"Pray say not a word more; my vexation was entirely on your account; and
I expressed it, I am only too conscious, in terms a great deal too
strong, which, I am sure, your good nature will pardon. Those who know
me a little better are aware that I sometimes say a good deal more than
I intend; and am always sorry when I do. Monsieur Beckett will forget
that his old friend Monsieur Droqville has lost his temper in his cause,
for a moment, and--we are as good friends as before."
He smiled like the Monsieur Droqville of the Belle Étoile, and extended
his hand, which I took very respectfully and cordially.
Our momentary quarrel had left us only better friends.
The Marquis then told me I had better secure a bed in some hotel at
Versailles, as a rush would be made to take them; and advised my going
down next morning for the purpose.
I ordered horses accordingly for eleven o'clock; and, after a little
more conversation, the Marquis d'Harmonville bade me good-night, and ran
down the stairs with his handkerchief to his mouth and nose, and, as I
saw from my window, jumped into his close carriage again and drove away.
Next day I was at Versailles. As I approached the door of the Hotel de
France it was plain that I was not a moment too soon, if, indeed, I were
not already too late.
A crowd of carriages were drawn up about the entrance, so that I had no
chance of approaching except by dismounting and pushing my way among the
horses. The hall was full of servants and gentlemen screaming to the
proprietor, who in a state of polite distraction was assuring them, one
and all, that there was not a room or a closet disengaged in his entire
house.
I slipped out again, leaving the hall to those who were shouting,
expostulating, and wheedling, in the delusion that the host might, if he
pleased, manage something for them. I jumped into my carriage and drove,
at my horses' best pace, to the Hotel du Reservoir. The blockade about
this door was as complete as the other. The result was the same. It was
very provoking, but what was to be done? My postilion had, a little
officiously, while I was in the hall talking with the hotel authorities,
got his horses, bit by bit, as other carriages moved away, to the very
steps of the inn door.
This arrangement was very convenient so far as getting in again was
concerned. But, this accomplished, how were we to get on? There were
carriages in front, and carriages behind, and no less than four rows of
carriages, of all sorts, outside.
I had at this time remarkably long and clear sight, and if I had been
impatient before, guess what my feelings were when I saw an open
carriage pass along the narrow strip of roadway left open at the other
side, a barouche in which I was certain I recognized the veiled Countess
and her husband. This carriage had been brought to a walk by a cart
which occupied the whole breadth of the narrow way, and was moving with
the customary tardiness of such vehicles.
I should have done more wisely if I had jumped down on the
_trottoir_, and run round the block of carriages in front of the
barouche. But, unfortunately, I was more of a Murat than a Moltke, and
preferred a direct charge upon my object to relying on _tactique_.
I dashed across the back seat of a carriage which was next mine, I don't
know how; tumbled through a sort of gig, in which an old gentleman and a
dog were dozing; stepped with an incoherent apology over the side of an
open carriage, in which were four gentlemen engaged in a hot dispute;
tripped at the far side in getting out, and fell flat across the backs
of a pair of horses, who instantly began plunging and threw me head
foremost in the dust.
To those who observed my reckless charge, without being in the secret of
my object, I must have appeared demented. Fortunately, the interesting
barouche had passed before the catastrophe, and covered as I was with
dust, and my hat blocked, you may be sure I did not care to present
myself before the object of my Quixotic devotion.
I stood for a while amid a storm of _sacré_-ing, tempered
disagreeably with laughter; and in the midst of these, while endeavoring
to beat the dust from my clothes with my handkerchief, I heard a voice
with which I was acquainted call, "Monsieur Beckett."
I looked and saw the Marquis peeping from a carriage-window. It was a
welcome sight. In a moment I was at his carriage side.
"You may as well leave Versailles," he said; "you have learned, no
doubt, that there is not a bed to hire in either of the hotels; and I
can add that there is not a room to let in the whole town. But I have
managed something for you that will answer just as well. Tell your
servant to follow us, and get in here and sit beside me."
Fortunately an opening in the closely-packed carriages had just
occurred, and mine was approaching.
I directed the servant to follow us; and the Marquis having said a word
to his driver, we were immediately in motion.
"I will bring you to a comfortable place, the very existence of which is
known to but few Parisians, where, knowing how things were here, I
secured a room for you. It is only a mile away, and an old comfortable
inn, called the Le Dragon Volant. It was fortunate for you that my
tiresome business called me to this place so early."
I think we had driven about a mile-and-a-half to the further side of the
palace when we found ourselves upon a narrow old road, with the woods of
Versailles on one side, and much older trees, of a size seldom seen in
France, on the other.
We pulled up before an antique and solid inn, built of Caen stone, in a
fashion richer and more florid than was ever usual in such houses, and
which indicated that it was originally designed for the private mansion
of some person of wealth, and probably, as the wall bore many carved
shields and supporters, of distinction also. A kind of porch, less
ancient than the rest, projected hospitably with a wide and florid arch,
over which, cut in high relief in stone, and painted and gilded, was the
sign of the inn. This was the Flying Dragon, with wings of brilliant red
and gold, expanded, and its tail, pale green and gold, twisted and
knotted into ever so many rings, and ending in a burnished point barbed
like the dart of death.
"I shan't go in--but you will find it a comfortable place; at all events
better than nothing. I would go in with you, but my incognito forbids.
You will, I daresay, be all the better pleased to learn that the inn is
haunted--I should have been, in my young days, I know. But don't allude
to that awful fact in hearing of your host, for I believe it is a sore
subject. Adieu. If you want to enjoy yourself at the ball, take my
advice and go in a domino. I think I shall look in; and certainly, if I
do, in the same costume. How shall we recognize one another? Let me see,
something held in the fingers--a flower won't do, so many people will
have flowers. Suppose you get a red cross a couple of inches long--you're
an Englishman--stitched or pinned on the breast of your domino,
and I a white one? Yes, that will do very well; and whatever room you go
into keep near the door till we meet. I shall look for you at all the
doors I pass; and you, in the same way, for me; and we _must_ find
each other soon. So that is understood. I can't enjoy a thing of that
kind with any but a young person; a man of my age requires the contagion
of young spirits and the companionship of someone who enjoys everything
spontaneously. Farewell; we meet tonight."
By this time I was standing on the road; I shut the carriage-door; bid
him good-bye; and away he drove.