THE DUEL IN THE AUBERGE GARDEN
Whoever it was that moved at the instigation of Madame on my behalf,
he put speed into the business, for the very next day I was told my
sous-lieutenancy was waiting at the headquarters of the regiment. A
severance that seemed almost impossible to me before I learned from the
lady's own lips that her heart was elsewhere engaged was now a thing to
long for eagerly, and I felt that the sooner I was out of Dunkerque and
employed about something more important than the tying of my hair and
the teasing of my heart with thinking, the better for myself. Teasing my
heart, I say, because Miss Walkinshaw had her own reasons for refusing
to see me any more, and do what I might I could never manage to come
face to face with her. Perhaps on the whole it was as well, for what
in the world I was to say to the lady, supposing I were privileged,
it beats me now to fancy. Anyhow, the opportunity never came my way,
though, for the few days that elapsed before I departed from Dunkerque,
I spent hours in the Rue de la Boucherie sipping sirops on the terrace
of the Café Coignet opposite her lodging, or at night on the old game of
humming ancient love-songs to her high and distant window. All I got
for my pains were brief and tantalising glimpses of her shadow on the
curtains; an attenuate kind of bliss it must be owned, and yet counted
by Master Red-Shoes (who suffered from nostalgia, not from love, if he
had had the sense to know it) a very delirium of delight.
One night there was an odd thing came to pass. But, first of all, I must
tell that more than once of an evening, as I would be in the street and
staring across at Miss Walkinshaw's windows, I saw his Royal Highness in
the neighbourhood. His cloak might be voluminous, his hat dragged down
upon the very nose of him, but still the step was unmistakable. If there
had been the smallest doubt of it, there came one evening when he passed
me so close in the light of an oil lamp that I saw the very blotches
on his countenance. What was more, he saw and recognised me, though he
passed without any other sign than the flash of an eye and a halfstep of
hesitation.
[Illustration: 304]
“H'm,” thinks I, “here's Monsieur Albany looking as if he might, like
myself, be trying to content himself with the mere shadows of things.”
He saw me more than once, and at last there came a night when a fellow
in drink came staving down the street on the side I was on and jostled
me in the by-going without a word of apology.
“_Pardonnez, Monsieur!_” said I in irony, with my hat off to give him a
hint at his manners.
He lurched a second time against me and put up his hand to catch my
chin, as if I were a wench, “_Mon Dieu! Monsieur Blanc-bec_, 'tis time
you were home,” said he in French, and stuttered some ribaldry that made
me smack his face with an open hand.
“I saw his Royal Highness in the neighbourhood--”
At once he sobered with suspicious suddenness if I had had the sense
to reflect upon it, and gave me his name and direction as one George
Bonnat, of the Marine. “Monsieur will do me the honour of a meeting
behind the Auberge Cassard after _petit dejeuner_ to-morrow,” said he,
and named a friend. It was the first time I was ever challenged. It
should have rung in the skull of me like an alarm, but I cannot recall
at this date that my heart beat a stroke the faster, or that the
invitation vexed me more than if it had been one to the share of a
bottle of wine. “It seems a pretty ceremony about a cursed impertinence
on the part of a man in liquor,” I said, “but I'm ready to meet you
either before or after petit déjeuner, as it best suits you, and my
name's Greig, by your leave.”
“Very well, Monsieur Greig,” said he; “except that you stupidly impede
the pavement and talk French like a Spanish cow (_comme une vache
espagnole_), you seem a gentleman of much accommodation. Eight o'clock
then, behind the _auberge_,” and off went Sir Ruffler, singularly
straight and business-like, with a profound _congé_ for the unfortunate
wretch he planned to thrust a spit through in the morning.
I went home at once, to find Thurot and Clancarty at lansquenet. They
were as elate at my story as if I had been asked to dine with Louis.
“Gad, 'tis an Occasion!” cried my lord, and helped himself, as usual,
with a charming sentiment: “_A demain les affaires sérieuses_; to-night
we'll pledge our friend!”
Thurot evinced a flattering certainty of my ability to break down M.
Bonnat's guard in little or no time. “A crab, this Bonnat,” said he.
“Why he should pick a quarrel with you I cannot conceive, for 'tis well
known the man is M. Albany's creature. But, no matter, we shall tickle
his ribs, M. Paul. _Ma foi!_ here's better gaming than your pestilent
cards. I'd have every man in the kingdom find an affair for himself once
a month to keep his spleen in order.”
“This one's like to put mine very much out of order with his iron,” I
said, a little ruefully recalling my last affair.
“What!” cried Thurot, “after all my lessons! And this Bonnat a crab too!
Fie! M. Paul. And what an he pricks a little? a man's the better for
some iron in his system now and then. Come, come, pass down these foils,
my lord, and I shall supple the arms of our Paul.”
We had a little exercise, and then I went to bed. The two sat in my
room, and smoked and talked till late in the night, while I pretended
to be fast asleep. But so far from sleep was I, that I could hear their
watches ticking in their fobs. Some savagery, some fearful want of soul
in them, as evidenced by their conversation, horrified me. It was no
great matter that I was to risk my life upon a drunkard's folly, but
for the first time since I had come into the port of Dunkerque, and knew
these men beside my bed, there intruded a fiery sense of alienation. It
seemed a dream--a dreadful dream, that I should be lying in a foreign
land, upon the eve, perhaps, of my own death or of another manslaughter,
and in a correspondence with two such worldly men as those that sat
there recalling combats innumerable with never a thought of the ultimate
fearful retribution. Compared with this close room, where fumed the wine
and weed, and men with never a tie domestic were paying away their lives
in the small change of trivial pleasures, how noble and august seemed
our old life upon the moors!
When they were gone I fell asleep and slept without a break till
Thurot's fingers drummed reveille on my door. I jumped into the sunshine
of a lovely day that streamed into the room, soused my head in water and
in a little stood upon the street with my companion.
“_Bon matin_, Paul!” he cried cheerfully. “Faith, you sleep sur _les
deux oreilles_, and we must be marching briskly to be at M. Bonnat's
rendezvous at eight o'clock.”
We went through the town and out upon its edge at the Calais road. The
sky was blue like another sea; the sea itself was all unvexed by wave; a
sweeter day for slaughtering would pass the wit of man to fancy. Thurot
hummed an air as he walked along the street, but I was busy thinking
of another morning in Scotland, when I got a bitter lesson I now seemed
scandalously soon to have forgotten. By-and-by we came to the inn. It
stood by itself upon the roadside, with a couple of workmen sitting on
a bench in front dipping their morning crusts in a common jug of wine.
Thurot entered and made some inquiry; came out radiant. “Monsieur is not
going to disappoint us, as I feared,” said he; and led me quickly behind
the _auberge_. We passed through the yard, where a servant-girl scoured
pots and pans and sang the while as if the world were wholly pleasant in
that sunshine; we crossed a tiny rivulet upon a rotten plank and found
ourselves in an orchard. Great old trees stood silent in the finest
foggy grass, their boughs all bursting out into blossom, and the air
scent-thick-ened; everywhere the birds were busy; it seemed a world
of piping song. I thought to myself there could be no more incongruous
place nor season for our duelling, and it was with half a gladness I
looked around the orchard, finding no one there.
“Bah! our good Bonnat's gone!” cried Thurot, vastly chagrined and
tugging at his watch. “That comes of being five minutes too late, and I
cannot, by my faith, compliment the gentleman upon his eagerness to meet
you.”
I was mistaken but for a second; then I spied my fiery friend of the
previous evening lying on his back beneath the oldest of the trees, his
hat tilted over his eyes, as if he had meant to snatch a little sleep
in spite of the dazzling sunshine. He rose to his feet on our approach,
swept off his hat courteously, and hailed Thurot by name.
“What, you, Antoine! I am ravished! For, look you, the devil's in all my
friends that I can get none of them to move a step at this hour of the
morning, and I have had to come to M. Greig without a second. Had I
known his friend was Captain Thurot I should not have vexed myself.
Doubtless M. Greig has no objection to my entrusting my interests as
well as his own in the hands of M. le Capitaine?”
I bowed my assent. Captain Thurot cast a somewhat cold and unsatisfied
eye upon the ruffler, protesting the thing was unusual.
Bonnat smiled and shrugged his shoulders, put off his coat with much
deliberation, and took up his place upon the sward, where I soon
followed him.
“Remember, it is no fool, this crab,” whispered Captain Thurot as he
took my coat from me. “And 'tis two to one on him who prefers the parry
to the attack.”
I had been reading Molière's “Bourgeois Gentilhomme” the previous
morning, and as I faced my assailant I had the fencing-master's words as
well as Captain Thurot's running in my ears: “To give and not receive
is the secret of the sword.” It may appear incredible, but it seemed
physically a trivial affair I was engaged upon until I saw the man
Bonnat's eye. He wore a smile, but his eye had the steely glint of
murder! It was as unmistakable as if his tongue confessed it, and for
a second I trembled at the possibilities of the situation. He looked an
unhealthy dog; sallow exceedingly on the neck, which had the sinews
so tight they might have twanged like wire, and on his cheeks, that he
seemed to suck in with a gluttonous exultation such as a gross man shows
in front of a fine meal.
“Are you ready, gentlemen?” said Thurot; and we nodded. “Then in guard!”
said he.
We saluted, fell into position and thrust simultaneously in tierce,
parrying alike, then opened more seriously.
In Thurot's teaching of me there was one lesson he most unweariedly
insisted on, whose object was to keep my point in a straight line and
parry in the smallest possible circles. I had every mind of it now, but
the cursed thing was that this Bonnat knew it too. He fenced, like an
Italian, wholly from the wrist, and, crouched upon his knees, husbanded
every ounce of energy by the infrequency and the brevity of his thrusts.
His lips drew back from his teeth, giving him a most villainous aspect,
and he began to press in the lower lines.
In a side-glance hazarded I saw the anxiety of Thurot's eye and realised
his apprehension. I broke ground, and still, I think, was the bravo's
match but for the alarm of Thurot's eye. It confused me so much that I
parried widely and gave an opening for a thrust that caught me slightly
on the arm, and dyed my shirt-sleeve crimson in a moment.
“Halt!” cried Thurot, and put up his arm.
I lowered my weapon, thinking the bout over, and again saw murder in
Bonnat's eye. He lunged furiously at my chest, missing by a miracle.
“_Scélérat!_” cried Thurot, and, in an uncontrollable fury at the
action, threw himself upon Bonnat and disarmed him.
They glared at each other for a minute, and Thurot finally cast the
other's weapon over a hedge. “So much for M. Bonnat!” said he. “This is
our valiant gentleman, is it? To stab like an assassin!”
“_Oh, malédiction!_” said the other, little abashed, and shrugging his
shoulders as he lifted his coat to put it on. “Talking of assassination,
I but did the duty of the executioner in his absence, and proposed to
kill the man who meditated the same upon the Prince.”
“The Prince!” cried Thurot. “Why 'tis the Prince's friend, and saved his
life!”
“I know nothing about that,” said Bonnat; “but do you think I'd be out
here at such a cursed early hour fencing if any other than M. Albany
had sent me? _Pardieu!_ the whole of you are in the farce, but I always
counted you the Prince's friend, and here you must meddle when I do as
I am told to do!”
“And you tell me, Jean Bonnat, that you take out my friend to murder him
by M. Albany's command?” cried Thurot incredulous.
“What the devil else?” replied the bravo. “'Tis true M. Albany only
mentioned that M. des Souliers Rouges was an obstruction in the Rue de
la Boucherie and asked me to clear him out of Dunkerque, but 'twere a
tidier job to clear him altogether. And here is a great pother about an
English hog!”
I was too busily stanching my wound, that was scarce so serious as it
appeared, to join in this dispute, but the allusion to the Prince and
the Rue de la Boucherie extremely puzzled me. I turned to Bonnat with a
cry for an explanation.
“What!” I says, “does his Royal Highness claim any prerogative to the
Rue de la Boucherie? I'm unconscious that I ever did either you or him
the smallest harm, and if my service--innocent enough as it was--with
the priest Hamilton was something to resent, his Highness has already
condoned the offence.”
“For the sake of my old friend M. le Capitaine here I shall give you
one word of advice,” said Bonnat, “and that is, to evacuate Dunkerque as
sharply as you may. M. Albany may owe you some obligement, as I've heard
him hint himself, but nevertheless your steps will be safer elsewhere
than in the Rue de la Boucherie.”
“There is far too much of the Rue de la Boucherie about this,” I said,
“and I hope no insult is intended to certain friends I have or had
there.”
At this they looked at one another. The bravo (for so I think I may at
this time call him) whistled curiously and winked at the other, and, in
spite of himself, Captain Thurot was bound to laugh.
“And has M. Paul been haunting the Rue de la Boucherie, too?” said he.
“That, indeed, is to put another face on the business. 'Tis, _ma foi!_
to expect too much of M. Albany's complaisance. After that there is
nothing for us but to go home. And, harkee! M. Bonnat, no more Venetian
work, or, by St. Denys, I shall throw you into the harbour.”
“You must ever have your joke, my noble M. le Capitaine,” said Bonnat
brazenly, and tucked his hat on the side of the head. “M. Blanc-bec
there handles _arme blanche_ rather prettily, thanks, no doubt, to the
gallant commander of the _Roi Rouge_, but if he has a mother let me
suggest the wisdom of his going back to her.” And with that and a
_congé_ he left us to enter the _auberge_.
Thurot and I went into the town. He was silent most of the way,
ruminating upon this affair, which it was plain he could unravel better
than I could, yet he refused to give me a hint at the cause of it. I
pled with him vainly for an explanation of the Prince's objection to
my person. “I thought he had quite forgiven my innocent part in the
Hamilton affair,” I said.
“And so he had,” said Thurot. “I have his own assurances.”
“'Tis scarcely like it when he sets a hired assassin on my track to lure
me into a duel.”
“My dear boy,” said Thurot, “you owe him all--your escape from Bicêtre,
which could easily have been frustrated; and the very prospect of the
lieutenancy in the Regiment d'Auvergne.”
“What! he has a hand in this?” I cried.
“Who else?” said he. “'Tis not the fashion in France to throw unschooled
Scots into such positions out of hand, and only princes may manage it.
It seems, then, that we have our Prince in two moods, which is not
uncommon with the same gentleman. He would favour you for the one
reason, and for the other he would cut your throat. M. Tête-de-fer is my
eternal puzzle. And the deuce is that he has, unless I am much mistaken,
the same reason for favouring and hating you.”
“And what might that be?” said I.
“Who, rather?” said Thurot, and we were walking down the Rue de la
Boucherie. “Why, then, if you must have pointed out to you what is under
your very nose, 'tis the lady who lives here. She is the god from the
machine in half a hundred affairs no less mysterious, and I wish she
were anywhere else than in Dunkerque. But, anyway, she sent you with
Hamilton, and she has secured the favour of the Prince for you, and
now--though she may not have attempted it--she has gained you the same
person's enmity.”
I stopped in the street and turned to him. “All this is confused enough
to madden me,” I said, “and rather than be longer in the mist I shall
brave her displeasure, compel an audience, and ask her for an
explanation.”
“Please yourself,” said Thurot, and seeing I meant what I said he left
me.